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Is the solution to poverty is simply to provide all citizens a basic income?

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Texashiker said:
The solution to poverty is to abolish greed.
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Do you send 90% of your income to the developing world? Because no matter how little you think you make, you're still light years ahead of the truly poor.

Or does your sympathy for the downtrodden stop at your front door?
 
berzerker60 said:
Yes, I'm using the data we have available, which isn't a perfect fit but at least eliminates some universalist counterarguments. Would a minimum income necessarily work in the US, based on those examples? Of course not - that would be too broad of a claim. But is it plausible that it would work? I think so. Would a minimum income necessarily generate laziness and dependency? Absolutely not. That runs counter to the evidence, unless you see a compelling reason that the poorest subsistence-level workers in the US are so different from subsistence-level workers elsewhere. The basic principles are the same - give people more freedom to go to school, care for their children, and take some risks in entrepreneurship and trying new jobs instead of being terrified of losing their second full-time dead-end job they need to put food on the table, and you see benefits.
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I'd just argue here that the US and it's culture is not like these examples. The people on this, by far, do not have cultural disincentive like in this other cultures. I understand the principles are the same, the cultures however are not.

It wouldn't be a cure-all, nor would I want to see us leap right into a national system like that without maybe trying it out at the state level first. I think it would potentially be a great way to do things, though, and would be fine with getting rid of welfare, food stamps, etc. if it were a livably high basic income, a la Friedman.
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Now that would be an idea. Remove all assistance and subsidies (except charity), and then provide this basic income. If you could actually do that, and show that it indeed worked in a present day US city/county/state, I'd be far more apt to support it on a Fed level.

Basically, my ideal is an economy where people can take risks (start a business, more education instead of immediately working, run the health risks of being a human being) without risking cyclical poverty and death.
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And my problem with this is it can easily lead to people constantly milking the system so they can remain lazy/greedy, along with fostering a sense of 'Eh, I'll be OK F'ing off with my life, Gov pays me anyways' when kids are young. Especially kids seeing their two parents doing the same thing.

In a culture where it is known you have no one to save you, in a culture that has a strong work ethic in the people taking advantage of a social perk such as this, in a culture that has a social shame structure that is effective against lazy freeloaders, I think this could be a great thing. In a culture that has none of that, and even laughs at even having those cultural values, this would IMO be a fiscal disaster.
 
This is a topic I've given some thought to, and considered starting a thread about it.

How does the wage get determined? Presumably it should be enough money to provide one with a lifestyle of X in area Y. Is it adjusted regionally?

How do you determine what lifestyle one should be able to live on just a basic income? Is it an efficiency in the city? A house in the suburbs? Does that include a car? Is the bus acceptable or is public transporation just for poor people in economies run by "greed".

If someone foolishly blows their basic income on frivolous things (gambling, drugs, booze) and then cannot afford their basic necessities, are there further safety nets? If so, why provide them with basic income to begin with? Just provide food and shelter.

Personally, I'm a very lazy person. If I didn't have to work, I wouldn't. I need very little to make me happy. I make a very good income (~$95K/yr at the moment) right now but that's only because my attitude is that if I'm going to have to work anyway, I might as well make as much money as possible for the time I am required to trade for it. But with a basic income, my income per hour reaches infinity and I would simply choose not to work any harder. Working for even an hour or two decreases my hourly wage; diminishing returns kick in immediately. I wonder how many Americans would take that same easy route? Given the welfare dependent culture we've seen arise, I have to imagine a lot of people think like me.
 
berzerker60 said:
Basically, my ideal is an economy where people can take risks (start a business, more education instead of immediately working, run the health risks of being a human being) without risking cyclical poverty and death.
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Except those things you mention aren't really things that lead to cyclical poverty. Those are caused by social liberal values
MiddleClassFig3.jpg


The point of basic income is to make liberal values "viable".
 
The solution is to fix the economy and also to redistribute unearned wealth from the top percentage of the populace to the working lower percentages.

Shipping millions of formerly middle class and working class jobs overseas, importing foreigners on H-1B and L-1 visas (and other visas) to displace Americans domestically while driving down wages, and importing tens of millions of impoverished people to drive down wages while also leading to population explosion and an increase cost for resources does not help.
 
WhipperSnapper said:
The solution is to fix the economy and also to redistribute unearned wealth from the top percentage of the populace to the working lower percentages.
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The people receiving this distribution of funds would blow it on things they don't need and the money will trickle upward to the hands of those it was taken from in the first place.
 
Londo_Jowo said:
The people receiving this distribution of funds would blow it on things they don't need and the money will trickle upward to the hands of those it was taken from in the first place.
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i think he just means upping wage/capital balance back to where it was a couple decades ago. the economy is paying out more and more as profits to capitalists while wages to workers have stagnated.
 
ElFenix said:
i think he just means upping wage/capital balance back to where it was a couple decades ago. the economy is paying out more and more as profits to capitalists while wages to workers have stagnated.
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Global arbitrage. If your factory must be located in Detroit, then the worker's competition is everyone who is in the Detroit area or can be persuaded to (and is allowed to) relocate to the Detroit area. Expand that to all America and your competition widens to include people whose cost of living is significantly lower, because their region is less affluent. Let in illegal aliens and your competition includes people who are willing to live in conditions most Americans would not tolerate. Widen the possible areas to the whole world and your competition includes people for whom a dollar a day would represent relative affluence. At every step the value of your labor drops. Then throw in lax or non-existent environmental, building and labor laws to further drop the cost of your competition's labor. It's a race to the bottom.

There's no way to defeat this that will not lower our standard of living, but by increasing the value of American labor, wages would go up and probably the mean standard of living (but not the average) would go up. If on the other hand we simply empower government to seize wealth and redistribute it, we establish the principle that all wealth belongs to government. Thus our labor (which earns the wealth) belongs to government. Thus we belong to government. At that point we are no different than the formerly free people of Europe who in the Dark Age presented themselves to strong men, nooses around their necks and pennies in hand, to place themselves and their descendents into slavery for near a millenia in return for security and a full belly. Given that we have relative security and prosperity, that seems to me to be a steep price to pay for the hope of a little extra in our pockets. But then, freedom is not a commodity much valued today.
 
werepossum said:
At that point we are no different than the formerly free people of Europe who in the Dark Age presented themselves to strong men, nooses around their necks and pennies in hand, to place themselves and their descendents into slavery for near a millenia in return for security and a full belly.
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Formerly free people of Europe?

Interestingly, the United States (which is held up as a model of "current freedom") has the one of the highest percentages of incarcerated people in the world, often for drug crimes. That's freedom for you!
 
Moonbeam said:
We do not value what we do not earn. The only thing we have of value is capacity. Capacity is fostered by faith in the self and that is built by achievement and by deprogramming negative feelings. The tunnel can be dug via these two ends, self understanding and self expression via the application of skill. Folk who are self confident via attitude and ability can usually make their own way.

Let us direct our efforts therefore first to provide life sustenance to those who do not have it, and then from there to work towards these two other things.

Gifts must be given to those who can't gift themselves by disguising them as rewards for personal achievement, it doesn't much matter what the effort is. Employ the poor at something that makes the world better to live in. Help them heal damage that was done to them.
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We do value what we earn, what we do not value is what we are given which is not earned. Hence why welfare breeds resentment. This also explains why limousine liberals are so full of guilt (which they then redirect on the rest of us).
 
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QuantumPion said:
We do value what we earn, what we do not value is what we are given which is not earned. Hence why welfare breeds resentment. This also explains why limousine liberals are so full of guilt (which they then redirect on the rest of us).
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That is why the inheritance tax must be confiscatory after 5 million dollars. We need to break these dynasties of rich spoiled RESENTFUL kids who are getting untold wealth after not earning it. Let them earn their money like everybody else.
 
bshole said:
That is why the inheritance tax must be confiscatory after 5 million dollars. We need to break these dynasties of rich spoiled RESENTFUL kids who are getting untold wealth after not earning it. Let them earn their money like everybody else.
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Why stop there? Let's start confiscating all the extra homes people have too, you only need one. Amirite?
 
Ummm..... the person is DEAD. You aren't taking anything from him.... he is just a pile of decaying flesh.

You are just keeping his free-loading relatives who have EARNED nothing from getting a welfare mentality. Giving people unearned things makes them resentful (according to you guys), we are actually doing them a favor. They should have the chance to earn something for themselves, just like the rest of us.
 
Why stop there. When a person dies their family is allowed to keep enough money to cover 6 months of living expenses and all the rest is confiscated by the government. Life insurance is no longer allowed, only funeral expense insurance can be purchased.
 
I think at the beginning of every year, the government should tell us all how much we will make for that year. It shouldn't matter if we go to work, what kind of work we do, how much skill we have or how much education. The government should just tell us all how much we will make.

And they damn well better not dock me for sick time!
 
bshole said:
Ummm..... the person is DEAD. You aren't taking anything from him.... he is just a pile of decaying flesh.

You are just keeping his free-loading relatives who have EARNED nothing from getting a welfare mentality. Giving people unearned things makes them resentful (according to you guys), we are actually doing them a favor. They should have the chance to earn something for themselves, just like the rest of us.
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Have you considered running for office? The Castro brothers aren't going to live forever.
 
bshole said:
That is why the inheritance tax must be confiscatory after 5 million dollars. We need to break these dynasties of rich spoiled RESENTFUL kids who are getting untold wealth after not earning it. Let them earn their money like everybody else.
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Why 5 million? It's not fair that some kids' parents are wealthy while others do not. I say ban all inheritance. Make parents waste all of their money on high living, saving money to give to their kids is stealing from the poor. Not only that, but all spending on kids > 18 should be made illegal. It should be illegal for parents to pay for their kids college tuition or buy their kids a car or iphone because its unfair to kids whose parents didn't save up for them.
 
Pray To Jesus said:
Basic income is low ($5-8k/yr). There will be incentive for people to seek extra income through work.
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Just enough to enable someone's addictions and just falling short of paying for rent anywhere. Maybe this idea is brilliant because it will kill off anyone who takes advantage of it.
 
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