Bitcoin Forum

Imagine all the world united to end poverty and decided that they would abolish all fiat currencies in the world and use a cryptocurrency as legal tender.
For that matter, such United world government would tax a small percentage of every legit transaction to pay for a Basic Income of $1000 USD per month to every citizen in the world. Everyone would be free to live where they wanted as there would be no frontiers.
Let's assume the world would have by then 8 billion people.
8 billion citizens * $12k = $96,000,000,000,000. Aproximately $100 trillion USD.

How much percent do you think transactions would have to be taxed to get such $100 trillion a year?

Note: There would still be taxes as usual. This tax would be only to pay for everyone's #basicincome

fail.. you had me going at crypto currency... and then slap! with a facepalm as soon as you mentioned dollar values. so let me translate


but then lets pretend that there are 8billion people (5billion of working age.)
now if every single person was giving a 'living income' no one would want to work. thus who the hell will want to grow/pick food, package it and load it into trucks, who in hell would want to drive the truck to deliver food to shops, who will be in shops to distribute the food. etc

now also if everyone has a wage. there is no need to earn = no need to spend. = no point of currency at all (which sounds like the utopian dream of startrek where there is no currency)

but lets pretend that currency was needed in your scenario
and last flaw. 5 billion people getting a working age income. lets say there was 20mill bitcoins in 3 decades time. that makes each person have 0.004btc to cover their entire life savings. making a yearly wage alot less than that

What gives anyone the right to take from me in order to give it away to other people? How much is enough? How do you avoid huge price increases on basic goods and services when you artificially add that much demand to the world economy? How do you keep governments or organizations from using that money to kill other people?  

This gives no incentive for people to be inventive or try to make successful businesses. If we all were to be given the same amount, I would probably never leave my couch, lol. Why work? Socialism or communism.. They just don't work.. Now, find one that gives everyone a nice house, nice car, great vacations, etc, then ill look at it..

your completely right
i got a car, a house with a balcony, freedom to go on vacations when i like, oh and i dont have to work (no incentive to work, but i do it just for the fun/love of it)...... THANK YOU BITCOIN :D

A #basicincome wouldn't stop people from working.

We've already run that experiment, and the results have been tabulated. An overwhelming percentage of the people who are awarded enough resources to live on, without working, will not work. In face of the evidence, the point really can't even be seriously argued.

Where does cryptocurrency come into the picture in this argument?
You can do all this with respective fiat currencies.

i would have been more interested if the OP stuck with a world currency. that was not based on valuing it against the dollar. but instead valuing it against "cost of living index"

so that bitcoin right now is worth 2 weeks of "cost of living index" meaning that right now each bitcoin can buy rent, food and a bit of social spending for 2 weeks. and a loaf of bread was 0.3% of a weeks cost of living. meaning ~ 0.0015btc

..... simple........ end of story, goodbye FIAT

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the total production of the entire world in 2012 was only $72 trillion (or $84 trillion, depending on how you measure it). There is no way to give everyone in the world $1000 per month.

Those who want more than the basic income available to them. When less people produce food, food will become more expensive and so it's worth it to start to produce food because you now get more for it.

Besides... if it gets more expensive because there is less supply, the basic income will barely be enough and everyone who wants a little extra to do whatever will work. It's just that ppl wont need multiple jobs just to pay their monthly bills.

Basic income could be a good solution to the increased automation due to exponential progress of technology. More and more jobs will be lost to automation. With basic income people will be able to have a decent living without a job. And those who have a low paid job will earn salary from the job PLUS the basic income. That will be a lot for that person. For a person with a high paid job the basic income will only contribute to a lesser percentage.

Entrepreneurs can have the basic income as a foundation and would then be free to focus more on inventions than when having to earn a living through an ordinary job.

in that scenario you are correct. but then the person buying the food will have to earn more so lets say he is a gardener. that will mean the price to mow someones lawn and remove weeds, etc would go up in price. now the house owner see's his house mainenantce costs go up, meaning he has to earn more. so lets imagine he was a fireman. now the wages of emergency services would rise, meaning tax rise..

so in your scenario of funds being used.. its just the same as fiat.

giving people money for free de-incentivises people from working and causes prices to escalate which in itself defeats the purpose. which is where i was saying in a world of equal lifestyle, where everyone was on the same level would only be achieved in the star trek utopia of no currency at all.

but if you want to get rid of FIAT, the simple solution.. and you have no idea how simple it is, would be to stop measuring bitcoin against FIAT, measure it against "cost of living" and really push for businesses to accept bitcoin to buy the bread, baked beans, and toilet paper. etc.

The world's GWP is about $85 trillion USD.  Your plan is calling for $100 trillion USD.

Might be a bit tough to achieve that one.

OP was basing it on a future scenario of 8 billion people and 100 trillion. so although i knit picked his theory atleast i knew that the numbers were not set in stone factual numbers of today, so relax

Well, I was just saying...  didn't mean to be mean.

For example, you tell someone like Mark Cuban to get taxed at a 99.98% rate, so everyone else in the world can have $12k/year.  That's, just...  you know...

Indeed. I think we will have to wait for a world's GWP of $1 000 trillion.
I was just using USD to make it easy to picture my utopia.
But it will come. I am sure that in a few decades we will all be living in a world of utter abundance.
And I think taxing 10% - or so - of all transactions would't be that bad idea, if it radically solved the poverty problem.
It seems ending world poverty doesn't appeal much to you. It's ok. Eventually you will be convinced of how sound and important #basicincome gets.
Or maybe not, you won't. And we will keep disagreeing.

This belongs in Fantasy.

1 Quadrillion?

Yeah, I can see that happening.
"#basicincome" shouldn't be given without someone at least attempting to work for it. Even if it's just advertising on a forum, or teaching someone, or growing a certain amount of plants in a garden to sell into the market, then they should be gifted basic income.

Even homeless people working as garbage collectors (Similar system to bottle collectors, ideally) would qualify them.

As long as they do something for the betterment of society, they should be eligible. If they don't, they shouldn't. It would be unfair for those who work, and would end up with everyone sitting on their butts getting paid for doing nothing, which would end up with everyone sitting on their butts, etc.

The reason we have currencies is that we live in conditions of scarcity. A basic income 1) reduces the incentive for work thus reducing the supply of goods and services, and 2) increases demand for many of those same products that now have lower supply!

Plus, the taxes that pay for said income also cause dead-weight economic loss.

I support welfare, but it must be done in a way to encourage work, not in a way that discourages it. A basic income takes money from hard workers and actually pays lazy people *not* to work.

Finally, a world government is a horrible idea. Governments today are already famous for their abuse of power. Even governments in relatively free countries like the US interfere in our lives far more than is reasonable and hurt our economies by introducing massive amounts of waste and perverse incentives.

Government is a necessary evil. While it is necessary, it is important to keep it as weak as possible. A worldwide government would very likely grow out of control, especially since many of the different cultures involved in it may not value freedom and limited government to even the limited extent that people in the western world do.

The problem with this is that a free market helps to allocate people to where they are best suited, and where they can provide the most benefit possible to society.

If they can do anything, they are free to do things that are a waste of their efforts. The government is not suited to decide who should work where, or what work is worth how much.

Advertising on forums for example, is very likely much less valuable to society than growing food or programming. That being said, neither of us are suited to decide that because we don't have all the information.

Any economic system that interferes with the free market--even if it helps distribute the pie more evenly--is likely to shrink the pie, and perhaps distribute the pie less fairly (there is a difference between even and fair).

The well-intentioned effort to eliminate poverty ends up making everyone less better off.