America can afford a universal basic income

[McDonalds5]

If the super-rich actually paid what they owe in taxes, the US would have loads more money available for public services

"The Tax Justice Network estimates the global elite are sitting on $21–32tn of untaxed assets. Clearly, only a portion of that is owed to the US or any other nation in taxes – the highest tax bracket in the US is 39.6% of income. But consider that a small universal income of $2,000 a year to every adult in the US – enough to keep some people from missing a mortgage payment or skimping on food or medicine – would cost only around $563bn each year.

A larger income, to ensure that no American fell into absolute abject poverty – say, $12,000 a year – would cost around $3.6tn. That is a big number, but one that once again seems far more reasonable when considered through the lens of the Panama Papers and the scandal of global tax evasion. Because the truth is that we have all been robbed, systematically, by the world’s wealthiest people, for decades. They have used those stolen dollars to build yet more wealth for themselves, and all the while we have been arguing with ourselves over what to do with the leftover pennies."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/07/panama-papers-taxes-universal-basic-income-public-services

What's your opinion?

[1715174133]

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[Moloch]

The panama papers is only the tip of the iceberg... there are hundreds of law firms which set up shell corporations exactly like them

Even without these shell corporations, US tax laws have enough loopholes where rich people typically pay 5-7% in taxes without even cheating

The 39% tax rate only gets enforced on people with jobs (payroll tax)... rich people, who make money via capital gains, pay very little in taxes

The problem with rich people paying 5% is that poor people must pay 35% to pick up the slack!

If everyone paid their fair share, it would be under 20% for everyone

[TECSHARE]

socialism = death

Don't trade your freedom for some trinkets and scraps of paper. History shows socialism leads to state dependence, which leads to increasing state control. When the government runs out of money to hand out then it starts eating the population like a cancer, which almost certainly leads to massive amounts of death and violence. Earning your money is easier.

[bitbunnny]

socialism = death

Don't trade your freedom for some trinkets and scraps of paper. History shows socialism leads to state dependence, which leads to increasing state control. When the government runs out of money to hand out then it starts eating the population like a cancer, which almost certainly leads to massive amounts of death and violence. Earning your money is easier.

Maybe. But to my opinion every state shoud have that social component and take care of most valnurable members, be a "welfare" state. The good example are nordic countries.

[TECSHARE]

socialism = death

Don't trade your freedom for some trinkets and scraps of paper. History shows socialism leads to state dependence, which leads to increasing state control. When the government runs out of money to hand out then it starts eating the population like a cancer, which almost certainly leads to massive amounts of death and violence. Earning your money is easier.

Maybe. But to my opinion every state shoud have that social component and take care of most valnurable members, be a "welfare" state. The good example are nordic countries.

I am not saying these services should not exist at all, but they need to have a strict cap and controls on them along with immigration controls. After all there are more people in need on this Earth than any country can support financially. Immigration patterns clearly show that out of control welfare programs give the majority of incentive for illegal immigration, for example Nordic countries

[bryant.coleman]

This might work for two or three years, at the most. After that the money will be finished and the government will be forced to issue more and more treasury notes and bonds, thereby increasing the federal debt. A better option would be to manage the spending better, rather than increasing the tax rate. For example, if the defense spending can be brought down by 50%, then another $300 billion could be made available to the poor and middle class Americans.

[Spendulus]

If the super-rich actually paid what they owe in taxes, the US would have loads more money available for public services

"The Tax Justice Network estimates the global elite are sitting on $21–32tn of untaxed assets. Clearly, only a portion of that is owed to the US or any other nation in taxes – the highest tax bracket in the US is 39.6% of income. But consider that a small universal income of $2,000 a year to every adult in the US – enough to keep some people from missing a mortgage payment or skimping on food or medicine – would cost only around $563bn each year.

A larger income, to ensure that no American fell into absolute abject poverty – say, $12,000 a year – would cost around $3.6tn. ....

What's your opinion?

Bah.

Ridiculous.

Illegal immigrants would simply expand the "lower classes" and absorb any amount of money thrown in that direction.

[Daniel91]

Yes, it's true, America can afford a universal basic income but US government will never do this.
Why?
It's very simple.
If they do this, people from all over the world will try to come and stay in America, with hope to manage official papers somehow and get right for a universal basic income.It will be like paradise on the Earth, to receive money for no work and enjoy life
Such experiment may have chance for success only in some isolated and close country, but surely not in USA.
Ask Trump what he thinks about it?

[Slowturtleinc]

I like the idea of guaranteed income but I do agree that government tends to set up rules and hoops to jump through in these situations.
Seems to be the nature of the beast,so what do we do as more people get replaced by robots?

Pensions are becoming a thing of the past and the global job market is lowering wages in areas that where more developed. Can not argue it raises wages in worse off areas of the world but at what cost! If we all balance out the rich will be richer off that fact alone.

[Palinanv]

I personally just see public services as something that only the right people who actually wanna work are the people that actually deserve public services...


People I think deserve rights to use it: people who wanna work/ looking for work.

People who don't deserve it: people who sit at home hoping they can make up some messed up lie that they have cancer and can't work.

This just isn't how it should work. As for the comment about the super rich paying taxes, I'm pretty sure they do. The government knows about them so I'm sure they're making note of them paying their taxes...

[CoinCube]

Socialism cannot be stopped for the reasons briefly touched on in Understand Everything Fundamentally. Attempts at education will also fail in the short term because the fundamental economic forces favor socialism. Socialism is pushing us towards centralized global government which while inefficient is decisively more efficient then multiple feuding centralized nations.

The evolution of the social contract appears to be a progressive climb to higher potential energy systems with increased degrees of freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. I suspect that in the future republics will be consumed by world government, world government will evolve into decentralized government, and decentralized government will finally mature into a shared consensus among individuals with limited or no government.

Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increases the number of individuals able to engage in cooperative activity.

In my multiple debates with Anonymint I recall one instance when he decisively got the better of me. It was a discussion regarding socialism and I was arguing it should be opposed. His handle was iamback at the time.

In what way are these mutually exclusive? Provided one does not neglect personal decentralized self-sufficiency why shouldn't a rational actor in our current environment also participate in the local collective and attempt to restrain said collective. To do otherwise is to yield the floor to those who will make decentralized self-sufficiency more difficult to achieve.

Because you will waste time and effort that could have been used to actually achieve it without being slave (dependent) on what the State does. And you will not stop the State from spiraling into the abyss, because the majority is going to demand expropriation. You can't suddenly change the situation of the majority. The majority has no other option and all the (political or even violent) fighting you do can't give them another option.

The economic reality and trajectory was written into stone decades ago. It can't be altered. The economic reality is what it is.

My advice to everyone is pay off all your debt because in a deflationary collapse that is underway (see oil under $50 today!) the government can take your assets and leave you with debt to pay but no assets to pay with. And debtor's prisons are returning. Even though I was reduced to near pauper, I prioritized paying off my credit card debts in 2014 and did pay $20,000 of it off for less than $10,000 by accepting best offers for negotiated settlement. I only have about $2000 of debt remaining (except that my ex took out a $25,000 student loan recently and I don't know if the USA will try to pin that on me).

Also radically reduce the risk to unjust IRS audits and assessments, because these will become more common.

Also radically reduce the risk to lawsuits, because these will become more common as westerners get desperate.

Then the next priority is to align your vocation with the Knowledge Age and so you have income even during global economic collapse and your skills are transportable to any location you might choose to move to as the chaos takes form.

Anonymint's advice was correct but incomplete. When you couple a mechanism of progressive and increasing dependency (socialism) with a fundamentally unsustainable financial system (fractional reserve fiat) the probable result is a system who's declared role is helping the poor but who's insolvency dictates policies geared towards sterilization. Such a result requires a certain degree of cognitive dissonance and a government who believes it is helping you while it works to ensure you do not reproduce.

Toxicity of the Modern World

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley envisioned a future where the masses were rendered infertile and controlled with pleasure and drugs. Is that the world we live in now? Anyone over that age of 25 may not realize how far traditional courtship and dating has been undermined by modernity. The tinder generation is being conditioned to swipe right on their onscreen app and meet up later for random sexual gratification. This phenomena has been described by Vanity Fair as nothing less than a dating apocalypse.

In Colorado long acting implantable contraceptives which a render women infertile for up to 10 years and require a doctor’s visit to remove have been implanted in 26% of young women age 15-24 as of 2013.

In 2015 an advisory body to the US Department of Health and Human Services recommended that Medicaid examine how often doctors are using “most effective” or “moderately effective” contraception. Only contraception deemed “highly effective” or “moderately effective” (Long acting implantable or long acting injections) would be included in the proposed measurement. Doctor’s with a low percentage of young patients using such contraception would presumably be rated as giving lower quality care.

We appear to be living in a “Utopia” of declining fitness and capability. An age of existential exhaustion manifested by an ageing, hedonistic society characterized by declining marriage, and near zero children.

Add to this data the very real possibility of more direct government action. The Catholic church in Kenya has accused the government of secretly injecting young women with an anti-fertility vaccine disguised as a tetanus vaccine. Either the Catholic bishops are lying or the Kenyan government is.  
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/01/19/kenyan-bishops-call-for-no-more-tetanus-vaccines-until-further-tests/

The situation can be looked at abstractly as the sudden and dramatic restoration of extreme selective pressure on mankind. Unlike our ancient history when we were subjected to violence, starvation, and disease the new pressure comes in the form of dependence, hedonism, and sterilization. As a species we have never been subjected to this kind of pressure before and are likely to be highly susceptible. Halting the reimposition of selective pressure is economically impossible and perhaps even inadvisable for it is the restoration of selective pressure that will ultimately prevent 'mouse utopia'. Astute individuals can avoid 'government help' by actively working to avoid dependency a task that will become increasingly difficult with time. Intellectual adaptability alone is not enough. It is also necessary to resist the decadence, hedonism, and social decay peddled by modernity. In Atheism and Health I argued that faith provides the best chance of success but other strategies may also be viable. Socialism will burn itself out gradually over time. Until it does the best course of action is avoidance of the inferno. It is the ashes of socialism that will pave the way for the knowledge age outlined in The Rise of Knowledge. When dealing with the proponents of socialism the proper emotion is not anger but pity.

[TECSHARE]

I like the idea of guaranteed income but I do agree that government tends to set up rules and hoops to jump through in these situations.
Seems to be the nature of the beast,so what do we do as more people get replaced by robots?

Pensions are becoming a thing of the past and the global job market is lowering wages in areas that where more developed. Can not argue it raises wages in worse off areas of the world but at what cost! If we all balance out the rich will be richer off that fact alone.

Nope, the plan is we die.

[countryfree]

How about universal death penalty to those who can't support themselves?
I suggest to open all borders, to delete all regulations against free movement of people anywhere on Earth, but with instant death, as the government will be fully entitled to shot dead anyone of working age unable to make a living? I could live in a world like this, but this is only a stupid idea, like the one of a universal basic income.

[Spendulus]

... this is only a stupid idea, like the one of a universal basic income.

Perhaps not in all future societies.  Say if robots did all the work or something like that.

But today in the sense of take away from some and give to others, yeah it's incredibly stupid.

[criptix]

Germany has unrestricted social welfare since 1960 i think.
It is not completely different - if you dont find work or cant work you get social welfare.

And germany still exist today like other countries with similar systems.

[Slowturtleinc]

This may seem stupid but I do not see other ideas other than letting people die from lack of medication, food or shelter. One thing to be cold hearted on the internet but another in actual practice.
More people will be working part time as full time will become to costly due to benefits. Then people will be forced to fight over these part time jobs, grinding worker value down even more. The numbers are manipulated currently through part time job creation.
So we can pretend that we will be protected from this through education or money but that is short term. As more people join the rank , the more disruptive society will become.
If it is not the answer, what is?

[Snail2]

This may seem stupid but I do not see other ideas other than letting people die from lack of medication, food or shelter. One thing to be cold hearted on the internet but another in actual practice.
More people will be working part time as full time will become to costly due to benefits. Then people will be forced to fight over these part time jobs, grinding worker value down even more. The numbers are manipulated currently through part time job creation.
So we can pretend that we will be protected from this through education or money but that is short term. As more people join the rank , the more disruptive society will become.
If it is not the answer, what is?

Community work paid by the state is an other option and in that case the state can get lots of things done with some relative cheap workforce, plus otherwise unemployed people will not get unused to the idea of working.

[Palinanv]

This may seem stupid but I do not see other ideas other than letting people die from lack of medication, food or shelter. One thing to be cold hearted on the internet but another in actual practice.
More people will be working part time as full time will become to costly due to benefits. Then people will be forced to fight over these part time jobs, grinding worker value down even more. The numbers are manipulated currently through part time job creation.
So we can pretend that we will be protected from this through education or money but that is short term. As more people join the rank , the more disruptive society will become.
If it is not the answer, what is?

Community work paid by the state is an other option and in that case the state can get lots of things done with some relative cheap workforce, plus otherwise unemployed people will not get unused to the idea of working.

Unemployment is really not too avoidable. In some cases it'll happen to you no matter how hard you work, so let's also keep that in mind.

[vero]

There's also  Americans don't need to go abroad to direct their money into illegal activities or they think is better to invest instead of having it sit there while you pay hefty bank fees to keep it there.

[Snail2]

Unemployment is really not too avoidable. In some cases it'll happen to you no matter how hard you work, so let's also keep that in mind.

The New Deal (1933-38) in the States is a good example for state sponsored infrastructure projects what used public work, in the same time in Germany they did the same to get things back on track. Unemployment must be avoided in the future. Many jobs out there today can be done faster an better by machines in the near future. According to some forecasts in a few decades only 15-20%ot the currently needed jobs will be still available for humans, everything else going to be automated. But 80-85% unemployment would kill not just the economy but the society as well, so most of these people must be employed in some sort of real or Mickey mouse jobs, just to keep things going.