It's only a matter of time...
Universal Basic Income
- Thread starter esmufc07
- Start date
It’s been the obvious solution for a long time. Get people doing jobs because the are a benefit for society rather than economic benefit for themselves and the state.
I’m actually worried that stupid humans will almost go the opposite way and bring about another Hitler.
Not particularly surprising given that Yang has been speaking to Obama for years about this.
Well erm.... Yeah...
Amazing how UBI has suddenly becomes possible overnight when the stock market is in trouble.
So yeah...this has suddenly become much more interesting now, hasn't it? 
I imagine this will be a widespread policy in my lifetime, next 20-40 years.
It will have to become a thing eventually. Most of those basic jobs are not really needed anymore, for now it may not be time and cost efficient to eliminate them but at some point it will. People are also not as productive as they should be because their jobs don't really require that, UBI will partly contribute towards eliminating that issue too. Top specialists will still be useful for companies but lower tier jobs can be totally scrapped as long as people get enough basic income to cover their needs.
Will never happen. It's an idea of scholars and academics who think majority of people would act like them. If majority of people were educated folks who would work regardless because sitting at home is boring and they are capable of doing exciting and useful projects with the education they've had, then it might work of course.
Majority of people are lazy and dumb though whose first reaction to a pandemic is to hoard toilet paper.
My mother in law is basically jobless her entire life. She came to Germany, hasn't learned much of the language in 15 years and is living from welfare. She got an education as a librarian in Eastern Europe but that's completely useless as she hasn't even reached B2 level in German so she obviously has no business having anything to do with libraries. She barely understands when I talk to her.
She could offer nothing useful to society. She sleeps until 12 PM, spends her time watching series and harasses her daughter on the phone everyday as she is bored.
Majority of people are really simple folks like that except some are less lazy and do simple jobs instead of living from welfare. All the cashiers, hairdressers, cleaners etc. ain't gonna self-fulfill with other useful stuff once they receive the same paycheck while staying at home.
Also it's a myth that simple jobs aren't needed anymore. 2 construction workers needed 2 days just to do plaster work on 1 single wall in our bedroom. While doing that they must have inhaled tons of dust. No one is gonna do that sort of dirty work if he doesn't have to.
All we would achieve with UBI is that everyone who does simple jobs would quit and many wives would go back to the kitchen and raising children.
Only for academics working can be a fun way to waste boring time and self-fulfill, for majority of simple folks it's just a necessary burden to earn money.
On top of that we already have de facto UBI in some countries like Germany or Scandinavia. My mother in law receives a little more than 1,000 Euros total (free healthcare not counted in which she also gets while people with a job have to pay for it from their earnings, basically she is getting more than 1,200 Euros). 550 Euros for rent + cash for everything else. A few times a year she has to talk to social workers or write an application (which no employer will ever accept obviously) so officially it's not "unconditional" but in reality she is getting that money for doing nothing for over a decade despite not even being a German citizen.
Societies like the US would never accept that, they can hardly regulate use of weapons after dozens of kindergarten children get massacred or provide healthcare to everyone.
Majority of people are lazy and dumb though whose first reaction to a pandemic is to hoard toilet paper.
My mother in law is basically jobless her entire life. She came to Germany, hasn't learned much of the language in 15 years and is living from welfare. She got an education as a librarian in Eastern Europe but that's completely useless as she hasn't even reached B2 level in German so she obviously has no business having anything to do with libraries. She barely understands when I talk to her.
She could offer nothing useful to society. She sleeps until 12 PM, spends her time watching series and harasses her daughter on the phone everyday as she is bored.
Majority of people are really simple folks like that except some are less lazy and do simple jobs instead of living from welfare. All the cashiers, hairdressers, cleaners etc. ain't gonna self-fulfill with other useful stuff once they receive the same paycheck while staying at home.
Also it's a myth that simple jobs aren't needed anymore. 2 construction workers needed 2 days just to do plaster work on 1 single wall in our bedroom. While doing that they must have inhaled tons of dust. No one is gonna do that sort of dirty work if he doesn't have to.
All we would achieve with UBI is that everyone who does simple jobs would quit and many wives would go back to the kitchen and raising children.
Only for academics working can be a fun way to waste boring time and self-fulfill, for majority of simple folks it's just a necessary burden to earn money.
On top of that we already have de facto UBI in some countries like Germany or Scandinavia. My mother in law receives a little more than 1,000 Euros total (free healthcare not counted in which she also gets while people with a job have to pay for it from their earnings, basically she is getting more than 1,200 Euros). 550 Euros for rent + cash for everything else. A few times a year she has to talk to social workers or write an application (which no employer will ever accept obviously) so officially it's not "unconditional" but in reality she is getting that money for doing nothing for over a decade despite not even being a German citizen.
Societies like the US would never accept that, they can hardly regulate use of weapons after dozens of kindergarten children get massacred or provide healthcare to everyone.
Capitalise profits, socialise losses. They're running out of mechanisms to save the markets with deregulation already implemented and tax and interest rates as low as they can go. The markets rely on consumerism so the only tool left to get corporations making profit again is to put money directly into the hands of the consumers. Time for a bit of trickle up economics.
@Cait Sith
As you are also from Germany, OECD numbers show that we are paying more than 50% of our income in taxes. And that's an optimistic estimate by the OECD. And of all that tax revenue more than 60% are paid into social services - letting aspects such as infrastructure fall apart due to lackluster financing (and corruption, but that's a different story).
There are other interesting numbers such as about half of people living in Germany working, but only 1/4 of them actually paying income taxes. Meaning the rest is barely scraping by at best and at worst also need additional welfare, because their payments aren't enough.
And let's not talk about the cost of mass-immigration - or else the nazi-accusations are flowing in.
And you have two options to achieve that.
1. You tax the "rich" even more in order to attempt transfering money from the top to the bottom (which is why almost all western countries already have progressive taxes). But you people never think of the consequences. Many business already do not want or simply financially can't be run in western countries due to the high taxation (look at the OECD numbers about that). Not to mention that many wealthy people will simply just get the feck out - like they already do - to pay taxes in countries that demand less. As a result from "top to bottom" will become "from upper middle-class to bottom".
The alternative then is to force people to stay inside the country and be unable to leave it. We had that already in the DDR and other socialist countries. That didn't quite work out, either.
2. The second option is to simply print more money without any worth to it, causing inflation and thus the increased money you have in your wallet will still have the same amount of total worth. Meaningless approach.
As you are also from Germany, OECD numbers show that we are paying more than 50% of our income in taxes. And that's an optimistic estimate by the OECD. And of all that tax revenue more than 60% are paid into social services - letting aspects such as infrastructure fall apart due to lackluster financing (and corruption, but that's a different story).
There are other interesting numbers such as about half of people living in Germany working, but only 1/4 of them actually paying income taxes. Meaning the rest is barely scraping by at best and at worst also need additional welfare, because their payments aren't enough.
And let's not talk about the cost of mass-immigration - or else the nazi-accusations are flowing in.
And you have two options to achieve that.
1. You tax the "rich" even more in order to attempt transfering money from the top to the bottom (which is why almost all western countries already have progressive taxes). But you people never think of the consequences. Many business already do not want or simply financially can't be run in western countries due to the high taxation (look at the OECD numbers about that). Not to mention that many wealthy people will simply just get the feck out - like they already do - to pay taxes in countries that demand less. As a result from "top to bottom" will become "from upper middle-class to bottom".
The alternative then is to force people to stay inside the country and be unable to leave it. We had that already in the DDR and other socialist countries. That didn't quite work out, either.
2. The second option is to simply print more money without any worth to it, causing inflation and thus the increased money you have in your wallet will still have the same amount of total worth. Meaningless approach.
We will stay in Germany only as long as my wife is still studying. When she is finished with her Masters we will move away. Paying 1,500 Euros in rent for an acceptable (not amazing) 3-room-flat while earning 2.200 after tax in Northern Germany as an engineer is a joke. Situation of my friend right now. If the wife wasn't working also he would barely be able to feed a family of 3 now that they have a newborn.
I remember times when my father was earning about 3000 Deutsche Mark (with no University degree) while paying 500 DM for rent with interest rates around 4 % for the money on the bank account.
At this moment Germany is only a paradise for the less fortunate. Social security is there for all. Free healthcare, free University, free or subsidised everything. I'm not advocating for a US-style get rich or die tryin mentality but there has to be a middle ground. This country did not extend the Bafög (federal loans) of my wife for stretching her Bachelor by 1 semester yet is feeding her mother for a decade now and will probably continue to do so until she dies. Absurd (not gonna happen with my tax money though).
I'm fully aware. I remember years ago reading about how bureaucracy is a self-sustaining and permanently increasing system. If I remember the exact numbers correctly it doubles every ~15 years. Essentially we would need a way to decrease bureaucracy and remove laws every now and then.
Furthermore it is sort of a vicious cycle. Create more people on the lower end of the spectrum = political parties will try to appeal more and more to them rather than the working population who keeps the system running. Not to mention most politicians are not competent for their roles (why would a accountant be in the position of dealing with the countries health ministry or a doctor dealing with the military).
Additionally we have bred at least a full generation of useless people. Studies in things such as linguistics, history, sociology have skyrocketed beyond any optimistic demand - costing a shitton of money as we don't have an upper limit on our universities. Yet, we are missing tons of useful people in construction and other fields, because they simply aren't worth it anymore. I know plenty of self-employed people who still make decent money saying "if I were young again nowadays, I would have never started my own business". Then the idea arised "why not import people who will do the same work for lesser money sicne their living standard from their home country was lower so them working here for lower than the average native person, but still getting more than in their native country is a fantastic idea". That's essentially modern human trafficking at place and delaying the issues coming out longer than it should be. Globalisation was always meant to benefit the top and the ideologies and do-gooders bought into it, thinking they will be virtuous by supporting it.
Meanwhile the middle-class by average income in Germany starts at the same rate where we consider people living in poverty, lost most of our homemade businesses and the last few we have we are now actively destroying (car-industry mostly). Essentially we have created a state where a few people are working their ass off to finance everyone else, because they are at best not sustainable with their work and at worst just not working to begin with. Worst part is as someone from eastern Germany - we've been there before. It's also why especially the east of Germany is sick of this, because a lot of people still remember what happened. Just that this time around it's not just the UDSSR falling apart, but pretty much the entire worlds economy since all western countries did the same stupid mistakes - together with the expensive bunch of bureaucracy called the EU - and all non-western countries are essentially dependant on western countries doing well or else their economic system collapses along as it is built on cheap labour and/or ressources for us (China, oil-states, etc.). I only see Russia being in a reasonable position by themselves.
Anyhow, this is sorta off-topic and I could rant for hours about all the shit that's being pulled. So let's leave it at that or go to PM.
P.S. Healthcare isn't really free anymore anyway, if you still have to pay important things yourself like monthly medicaments, glasses, your teeth, etc. I probably would be better off saving the insurance fee monthly to be honest.
I think you are misunderstanding how a real UBI (not the bail out income measures we see around the world due to Covid).
And you are demonstrating why idiots like Trump, BoJo and Scotty from marketing get elected. They have promoted the idea that powerless poor people are to blame for slightly better off people's less than perfect life and that has amazingly been believed by many people. While large companies pay no tax, the top end of town gets richer and richer and social mobility gets worse and worse. The greatest con trick in history.
And you are demonstrating why idiots like Trump, BoJo and Scotty from marketing get elected. They have promoted the idea that powerless poor people are to blame for slightly better off people's less than perfect life and that has amazingly been believed by many people. While large companies pay no tax, the top end of town gets richer and richer and social mobility gets worse and worse. The greatest con trick in history.
If that's what passes for paradise now, I want Christianity back.
Bashing the study of liberal arts doesn't make you sound smart. Guy with technical degrees who is thankful for their existence.
I appreciate this strong stand against sustenance.
I presume if the state wasn't providing her with food and shelter you would be. Or maybe leaving her to starve on the streets would be preferable, i dunno
I think you've been duped tbh. It just doesn't cost that much to feed and house people. There's others taking far more significant sums out of the system.
I think you've been duped tbh. It just doesn't cost that much to feed and house people. There's others taking far more significant sums out of the system.
She doesn't have any business being in Germany in the first place, whether she has food or shelter should not be the problem of the German taxpayer. She literally entered a taxi and drove to Germany through Poland. Since then she is living from the welfare state while having worked a total of maybe 6 months in more than 10 years.
You say it doesn't cost much to house people. Try finding a proper flat in a big city these days. My friend and her wife are both engineers. When they had to find a bigger flat once she got pregnant it took them a year to get a positive response. Germany has many people like my mother-in-law and on top of that took in more than 1 million refugees recently. Where do these people live?
The richest countries like Switzerland or Norway have a system in place where you only receive money from the state if you paid taxes long enough (about 10 years total in Switzerland). That's how it should be. Food stamps otherwise so no one can make himself comfortable for decades receiving money for nothing like my mother-in-law.
Big companies cheating the tax system is another issue irrespective of the ones I mentioned.
But yeah, this is all a bit off topic by now.
That's really not true at all. In pretty much any country you choose welfare and pensions will be in the top 2 or 3 items of budgetary spending.
I think if we could perpetually reduce spending on the poor services operated by government whilst introducing and increasing a Universal Basic Income that allowed citizens to spend their taxes in a way that they decided to, rather than how their government overlords tell them they have to then it would be far better than the current system (it still wouldn't be my preferred option but would be an improvement).
For the first year it might only be a £500 payment for 50 million adults paid for with a £25b freeze in all departmental expenditure. However over a 20 year period the majority of social protections would be replaced by a £10k (today's money) annual payment for every adult via the UBI system, with the NHS being replaced with a Swiss style health insurance system paid for out of the £10k UBI payment (so no-one would be without healthcare).
Any thought of introducing a proper UBI system without abolishing universal credit, social housing, housing benefit, pensions, child benefit, NHS etc is for the birds in my view.
For the first year it might only be a £500 payment for 50 million adults paid for with a £25b freeze in all departmental expenditure. However over a 20 year period the majority of social protections would be replaced by a £10k (today's money) annual payment for every adult via the UBI system, with the NHS being replaced with a Swiss style health insurance system paid for out of the £10k UBI payment (so no-one would be without healthcare).
Any thought of introducing a proper UBI system without abolishing universal credit, social housing, housing benefit, pensions, child benefit, NHS etc is for the birds in my view.
Swiss people spend about 10,000 francs (8000 pounds) per person on healthcare, while the UK spends 3000 pounds per person.
Before you start with Singapore, which will be your next go-to after Switzerland has failed, I am always skeptical of comparing a finance-heavy city-state on the other side of the world to a much bigger and more populated country with diverse regions and workforces. Japan, with a much more ageing population and with a more pubic model of forcing hospitals to provide falt rates (no market competition and no benefits of shopping for the best providers), spent (n 2008, the last date I can easily find data) about $3000 per person. As %age GDP, the worldwide ordering is US>Switzerland>Japan.
They also lead the world in the Big Mac index.
It's also impossible to compare better health systems with much worse ones as it's much cheaper to provide mediocre healthcare than it is to provide very good care; likewise you can't really compare health systems where you can specifically pay for a better service all round (not limited like UK private healthcare coverage) as wealthy paying tens of thousands for an all encompassing package that is tailored to their individual needs would naturally drag up the average in comparison to a country that doesn't allow this facility. Let alone comparing a country like Switzerland who have one of the world's largest average salaries in a sector that is massively labour intensive.
I'd also say that having the liberty to choose your own healthcare spend and on average live longer is worth a great deal in my opinion. The ability to be able to pa more to have a better life expectancy (Switzerland has the longest in the world). How do you put a price on the average person living an extra 1.5 - 2 years (as per Switzerland and Singapore).
We can disregard Singapore as a financial comparative as long as we can disregard every other system that would be a worse financial comparative (like Switzerland).
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Most things in Switzerland are a similar magnitude more expensive. You can't compare like for like.
I'd be totally in favour of a co-pay system and privatization of non core services. The NHS is a world leader in inpatient and essential care. Let it focus on that and outsource the rest that it's frankly not very good at.
You may wish to revise those figures. A low rent value for a 1 room property in somewhere like Watford is £8606 (based on the LHA). The cost of the NHS per person is £3000. £10K obviously isn't going to work.
So then what is the advantage? They're expensive generally, yes, and so is their healthcre. There is no price benefit to the privatisation. Same applies when measuring as %age GDP, where US and Switzerland are top of the world.
Japan has a longer lifespan than both Switzerland and Singapore, and they are followed by Spain and Italy (ironic). I'm going to go ahead and suggest that there are factors otehr than the health system itself in determining lifespan, but even if you take that view you can't make your case. 3 of the top 5 have heavy govt intervention and curtailing of private initiative in their health systems.
I think the fact they live longer is because they have better eating habits, my friend from Taiwan when he's here if eats pizza he eats only 1 slice and I eat .... (too many slices), we are about the same size and 2 years difference, not forgetting he's drinking all the time green tea. He will live longer
Universal basic jncome would the best solution to the UK's current issues - not creating a myriad of schemes for each sector.
However, the concept of universal basic income is so opposed by the tory idealogy they won't do it.
One day they'll see it's the only way to sustain capitalism and their wealth.
However, the concept of universal basic income is so opposed by the tory idealogy they won't do it.
One day they'll see it's the only way to sustain capitalism and their wealth.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...bob-weighton-world-oldest-man-guinness-recordI think the fact they live longer is because they have better eating habits, my friend from Taiwan when he's here if eats pizza he eats only 1 slice and I eat .... (too many slices), we are about the same size and 2 years difference, not forgetting he's drinking all the time green tea. He will live longer
I know one case proves nothing, but he's the current winner. Good luck to him.
People would still be employed though? It's not like the majority of people would rely solely on UBI (this in fact would be undesirable as you'd be incentivising fecklessness) . Also note I imagine you'd often have a couple sharing that flat in Watford so it'd be twice the £10k.
People who did not wish to work and wanted to solely rely on UBI would find less expensive places to live (you can rent a one bedroom house share in Leigh for less than £3500 per annum).
The benefit isn't in achieving the lowest possible cost for a mediocre service. It's about offering a variety of healthcare options to suit what people wanted. If a third of the population wanted the same healthcare for the same £3k, another third wanted better healthcare for £6k and the last third wanted great healthcare for £9k; our average health spend would have doubled, but that wouldn't be a bad thing... It would be a good thing.
The same is true of education. I'd offer a voucher scheme allowing parents to send their children to whichever school they wanted to. If they wanted to top up the government voucher with their own money and send them private? Great.
I believe ultimately that people know how to spend their money far better than any government so any mechanism that can take power out of the hands of government and put it back into the hands of the general public is a step in the right direction.
In bold is what it's all about. Swedish school privatisation has led to increased costs for equal outcomes, while public schools in Finland lead the world on outcomes.
What you are advocating in the first paragraph is life expectancy based on income and it would be obvious if you thoguht about it for 5 seconds. Of course for many libertarians that's fine, but I don't think many people think like that. Even "there is no society" Thatcher could not break that last barrier.
Also, there is already private healthcare in England. If you want the private care, you can pay for it. If you can't pay for it, you can get a better job or start a company. There is choice. Your system exists.
Your proposal included pensioners, who obviously can't work. And not all people who are unemployed wish to be so. For basically everyone south of Birmingham your proposal wouldn't even cover rent and healthcare. They'd have to choose between somewhere to live and food. I dont think you have to be a bleeding heart liberal to consider that a pretty crap idea.
Your point about the cost of housing in Leigh is so bad its a a strong argument against the idea all by itself.
I think the fact they live longer is because they have better eating habits, my friend from Taiwan when he's here if eats pizza he eats only 1 slice and I eat .... (too many slices), we are about the same size and 2 years difference, not forgetting he's drinking all the time green tea. He will live longer
If I had to drink green tea in order to live longer then I would prefer to die young.
Plenty of better things to do.
I tried green tea but couldn't keep it up. I tried a few fruit teas and you can feel the acid dissolving your tooth enamel at speed. I tried decaff tea, it's tasteless and doing without proper tea didn't help me sleep any better, so back to PG tips it was. One pint, every hour.We already have life expectancy based on income. A simple look at life expectancy per decile of wealth shows that (I believe the wealthy generally live around a decade longer than the poor).
However as is often the case with socialist endeavours the result (not generally the intention) is always bringing everyone down to the lower level. Would you prefer a country where a third had identical healthcare than we currently receive, a third have better healthcare and a third have much better... Or a country where everyone receives the lower level?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...tipledeprivationimd/englandandwales2014to2016
Again most people don't live alone. You're also acting like the current system isn't hugely flawed... Food costs more in London for example, as does any form of entertainment and home improvement costs. Why isn't that taken into account in pension/UC payments? Where does it end? If the limited public funds should pay for people living in the most expensive areas of the country, why not the most expensive cars and the most expensive restaurants?
On the flip side why should the exact same family in London be given a few dozen times the rent support compared with another family (subsiding rent of a seven figure house compared with a £50k house)? Personally I don't think that's fair. The couple in Leigh are being punished for saving the taxpayer tens of thousands in either actual costs or opportunity cost.
You also assume people wouldn't change their habits of their social protections changed. I imagine you'd find hundreds of thousands of people moving away from London to cheaper, more deprived areas of the country which in turn would rejuvenate their local economies and rebalance the over-reliance we have on London. Wouldn't it be great to see people recognising how far their £10k goes in these regions and money shifting across the country?
Giving everyone the exact same payment is far more equitable than any other system I've seen, including the current one (and £10k per adult would cost over £500b or around 60% of the public purse, a larger payment would start to encroach on extra support for the disabled, education, military, policing and the judiciary).
Also consider the other unequivocal benefits rather than just the possible drawbacks. You can guarantee it would almost completely solve the homelessness crises overnight. I imagine it's alleviate the pressure on food banks also.
You're also looking at it in a vacuum as it would be invaluable in getting young people onto the housing ladder in the form of a deposit, which would reduce their reliance on social housing (either for their young families or in retirement) and reduce the need for it going forward.
If living on £10k would be such a struggle what're people doing at the moment on statutory sick pay,state pensions and UC which is a fraction of this. For most it would be a massive improvement.
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1. Lower income produces bad outcomes that impact health but are not necessarily to do with healthcare. Poor diet, amount of rest, stress, lack of adequate nutrition, wasting away due to the social stigma and less activity caused by lack of work, etc.
2. Again, as I said, 3 of the top 5 life expectancy countries have socialised healthcare.
3. Cuba, a dirt poor country has the same life expectancy as the US, with privatised care and GOAT spending.
4. The UK has private care. You are free to pay to get healthcare. Apart from factors mentioed in (1), this might also contribute to income-mediated lifespans.
Also, you're saying disparities already happen. Do you support spreadin that disparity?
So, to summarise:
UK spends 250% less per capita, and 16% less as %GDP on healthcare than Switzerland and produces marginally worse healthcare outcomes. Other countries with public systems produce better outcomes comparable to Swtizerland's, while spending *less* than the UK. Your measurement of healthcare efficacy is based on the single stat of life expectancy with no regard for other causes. Your solution is not to increase funding to even median European levels, like France or Germany, but to switch to an overall more expensive system which will ration care based on income rather than medical triage.
Where does it end? Well for me personally, I would be prepared to go so far as to ensure people can afford food.
Yeah the unemployed, poor and disabled would all be forced to move up north and the well off can stay in the South. Delightful idea.
Per adult? You wouldn't include kids? How on earth does a single parent raise a child on £10K?
I'm a CEO of a homeless charity, and no it would not solve homelessness overnight, that's just rubbish. It would in fact slash the amount of support homeless people can get through existing support systems.
There would be some people who would benefit for sure. Just not the people at the bottom.
You obviously don't know the benefits system very well. It would be a significant reduction for many people. The system is complex, but as an example, a single adult with no other income can get up to £13,400 outside London. A single parent living in London can get £23,000.
Also, I'm not sure how I missed this earlier in regards to school choice. You have school choice in Britain, with the most famous private schools in the world. If you want your child to acheive a bright future, simply get them admitted to Eton, if not, you have signalled with your choices that you don't.