[transreal]

This is why I really like Andrew Yang for 2020. He wants to give everyone in the US $1000/month so people don't constantly have "the economic boot on their neck". You can't worry about climate change when you are worried about paying bills and feeding your kids.

[caconym_]

Basic income also means citizens can't be held as economic hostages by obsolete "too big to fail" industry players who've achieved significant regulatory capture. The labor market can't efficiently shift supply around when workers are trapped in crushing poverty and stressed to the breaking point.

[14]

When I think about basic income I see everyone suddenly being able to afford a lot more which is good and I like that. But what I do worry is that as soon as the stores realize people have more cash to spend they start to increase the prices to match that. So how do we prevent that if we implement a basic income? I think what would be better then a basic income is some sort of basic housing, health and food rights. I don't want 1000$ a month. I want to know every month I will have enough funds to feed my kids and house them and treat them when they are not well. I think this can be achieved by a number of means. I am Canadian so we have the health care mostly figured out though I would make changes to the cost of prescriptions for low income families. I have struggled at times to afford antibiotics for my kids and I make a lot more then minimum wage. The housing could be tackled as well. We have a lot of rules which I feel are restrictive for no reason in this day and age. For example the minimum square footage I can build a place for a person to live here is 700 square feet. My dad built a 2 level tiny home that was 100 square feet I would die to own. He had to put it on a trailer to avoid the 700 square foot rule. Why? My property could fit 20 tiny homes and have room left over to play. But the city would never allow it so I truly do think housing shortage is a political issue not a logistics issue. As for food, I would like to basically see a government funded/run food kitchen with basic foods offered to low income families where they can access nutritious food. I am thank full my kids school has a breakfast program, also thankful I do not need it, but come Christmas break, summer break, any break, my heart hurts a little knowing there are several kids that 100% rely on that program for getting food. One kid was caught stealing food and the teacher asked why are you trying to hide it you can eat as much as you like, his reply was his little brother at home who was too young to be in school was hungry so he was trying to take him something to eat. That is soul crushing to me. We live in such a damn rich county no kid should be left to go hungry at home. I don't have all the answers. I don't know how it would all be paid for but I do know something needs to change.

[kaybe]

700 square feet? That's 65 square meters, who even wants that much space for one person? A good-sized flat for a person here has around 40 square meters, so 430 square feet. Insane.

[14]

My dads tiny home is 10x10 feet and has a second level which is really only 4 feet tall mainly for sleeping a tv and a dresser. The place is perfect for a single person. He went with closed cell spray foam and the place can be heated on a candle practically. It has a toilet and shower, mini fridge and sink. I will admit storage is a little tight but as for living space perfect for a single person. It was made to be extremely energy efficient and with climate change I think we should aim to be more like it not have some minimum.

[AJ007]

Increasing consumer wealth is precisely why we have climate change. One would need to also implement large taxes/bans on co2 and other non-renewables and pollutants. At best this would be a net-zero situation. More likely it would reduce the lower to middle class’s wealth in real terms. Less airline flights, leisure cruises, manufactured goods, imported foods, not more.

[anigbrowl]

Why not just go after the much smaller number of boot-wearers?

[simonh]

Wow. That’s not going to cause massive, crippling hyper inflation at all, is it.

[Jeff_Brown]

Inflation comes from an increase in the money supply. If we printed the money for it, it would cause inflation, but he plans to tax it.

But even if we printed it, it would by no stretch of the imagination cause hyperinflation, just inflation. The M2 money supply -- still an incomplete measure, as there are lots of kinds of money -- in the US is 14 trillion and change, per Investopedia[1]. 12K per year * 350M people in the US = 4.2 trillion more dollars a year. Hyperinflation happens when a regime does something like double the money supply every week.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/moneysupply.asp

[simonh]

The economy isn't an undifferentiated lump of money, stuff and people. It is a complex structure. If most people have a lot more money, they will be able to afford a lot more of the stuff most people buy most of the time. So the inflation will be concentrated in staples and consumer goods simply due to greater demand versus supply.

If prices stayed as is, it's hard to see why anyone would do a lot of the low paid to medium income jobs many people currently do. But those jobs would still need to be done, which would drive up wages, but where is the money for the increased wages going to come from? Well, businesses would have to charge more. That's inflation again.

These effects would still happen, but might be mitigated by easing in a policy like this over time.

I'm not convinced about taxing it to make it fiscally neutral. A wealth of evidence shows that increasing taxes on the wealthy doesn't significantly increase tax revenue. They just progressively take more and more of their wealth out of the economy off shore, or move off shore themselves, along with their businesses. Many governments across the world have tried this and it just doesn't work.

[Jeff_Brown]

I somewhat agree.

> inflation will be concentrated in staples and consumer goods

It would indeed raise prices unequally. That it would be in staples is not so clear; the US is not a place where many outside of childhood starve due to poverty. But whatever the next-most-urgent class of goods or services are -- home or car repairs, investments in health or education -- there would certainly be more demand for them. With greater demand comes initially an increase in prices. In the long term, in a competitive industry, an increase in supply that eliminates those excess profits. In oligopolistic sectors like education and healthcare, those rises in prices can somewhat persist.

In the long term, money are neutral while inequality is real. If you doubled the amount of money everyone had, prices would (eventually) double and nobody would be any better off. But if you give a fixed amount to everybody, you're muliplying the wealth of the poor by a much bigger factor than that of the rich. Prices will not adjust by enough to make the benefits to the poor outweigh the costs.

> If prices stayed as is, it's hard to see why anyone > would do a lot of the low paid to medium income jobs

Median income in the US is just shy of $60K today. US households routinely have both parents working multiple jobs. Almost nobody aspires to live on so little as $12K a year

Labor market outcomes would surely improve. A giant fraction of Americans currently don't have time to search as long as they would like between jobs; they've got to take an offer fast. The freedom to take, say, two months off to find a good match would not only help workers, it would make industry more productive.

> increasing taxes on the wealthy doesn't > significantly increase tax revenue

If that were true why would they be lobbying so hard against it?

There are, yes, a lot of loopholes in most tax codes. A rise in the tax rate that merely complicates it further will probably disappoint. But there are simple solutions. Equalizing tax rates across different kinds of income, for example, or imposing a wealth tax.

[ryacko]

After numerous natural disasters, wars, etc, the one long-term constant for prosperity seems to be human capital.

If you have society that attracts the smartest individuals for the most productive professions (which is right now anything involving information technology), your society wins.

Your society will develop new concepts first, will be the first to sell it, and the first to reap revenues from it.

Besides, it is very easy to tax the megacorps.

Tariffs on intellectual property. Or reduce tax deductions on licensing fees. Bermuda is the center of intellectual property ownership.

[simonh]

The smartest people in the most productive professions are above average earners. How is taxing them into the ground going to attract them?

[Jeff_Brown]

Taxing them into the ground would indeed be a bad idea. It's a question of levels. Tax rates in the 20th century for 55 years were above 50%, and for 45 of those were above 70%[1]. You get a lot more for being in the US than a certain tax rate.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marginal_...

[nitrogen]

If people being able to feed themselves would cause unsustainable inflation, then we have bigger problems.

[luckydata]

That's such a myopic, small way to see the world. Human dignity is the priority, if our economy doesn't work for that then we change the economy, we don't give up on dignity.

[simonh]

I agree completely. Nobody should go hungry, without basic health care or without a roof over their heads in a modern advanced economy. But $1,000 a month for everybody is insane. It would require a massive tax on corporations and the wealthy, and it’s just an objective fact that raising taxes that way does not significantly increase tax income. It just doesn’t. It’s been tried over and over in many countries and it never works.

I live in the UK. We have universal health care, a robust social care model, my kids are getting a decent free education and we have a decent benefits system. I’m proud of all of those and don’t resent a single penny I pay in taxes towards it.

But plonking big wadges of cash on everybody, funded by hammering anybody that looks even moderately successful, is a recipe for economic mayhem.