Regarding a UBI

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Regarding a UBI

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2021 Mar 5, 12:54pm 3,754 views 63 comments

"Some people will take the money and sit around and do nothing, but so what?"

I was thinking about this, and came up with the following. Tldr : eliminate income tax, and create a prosperity dividend instead of a UBI
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For UBI, the money doesn't magically come from nowhere. You have to take it from someone to give it to someone else. If you "print" it, then you take it from everyone equally, but it then gets spent and redistributed into the hands of business owners who benefit from the spending. This therefore hurts people who are not in the capitalist class through inflation. You can see this is true, because of our current minimum/living wage fight. If increasing GDP over time with inflation is supposed to help everyone, then the minimum wage shouldn't continue to be an issue, as more economic output distributed equally would tend to create additional higher paying jobs. Instead what we see is a reversion to a low paying service economy with more and more people bouncing off the minimum wage floor. At the same time, the wealth disparity is increasing, and the richest 1% have gained substantially more than the 99% below them over the previous 40 years. This can't be blamed on republicans, or democrats, or taxes, as taxes only take further from incomes, and don't ADD to people's incomes. Additionally, the trend has been consistent over both republican and democrat led presidencies and congresses.

So again, currently with a UBI, you will get inflation, which hurts savers, and benefits the 1%, as they get the money. So the bottom 10% will be marginally better off, the middle 89% will be markedly WORSE off, and the 1% will consolidate further wealth (as always). So what's the answer?

In my very humble opinion, a start to the answer is to eliminate the w-2 income tax, and instead gather that tax from income and wages paid by corporations. With the middle class no longer worried that every tax proposed will fiscally damage them, they will be willing to vote for social programs that come from tax revenues instead of from inflation. The tax code will be more fair, as corporations with actual lobbying power will fight amongst themselves to equalize taxes paid. Corporations will be the first to rat each other out from these double irish sandwich tax loops if it means they can lower their own tax burden, instead of jus relying on income taxes to fuel the government, and weasleing their way out of their fair share.

Then, we can do a UBI, but instead of a fixed base income, it can be a prosperity dividend. If the country does well, and GDP goes up, you get a bigger payout. If we have a bad year, your payout won't be as big, but we won't create inflation to erode your savings. Additionally, we eliminate 90% of the IRS having to focus on individual tax returns, and they can focus on corporate compliance. This also saves billions of dollars in paperwork and tax return costs each year.

A side benefit, all the government conspiracy theorist/haters will have a massive reduction in anti-government sentiment, as they are no longer under the gun from the IRS. And instead of people being against corporations (big AND small), we will be cheering for them to earn massive profits, and earn us a higher prosperity dividend.

Additionally, I could see the rich actually lobbying for HIGHER capital gains taxes, and lower wage taxes, as wage taxes would need to be paid every year, but capital gains can occur much less frequently.

What do you guys think?

Comments 1 - 40 of 63 Next » Last » Search these comments

zzyzzx 2021 Mar 5, 1:21pm

Fuck UBI and income taxes. People too fucking lazy to work should starve, as nature intended. Tax imports not income (as the founding fathers intended).

Ceffer 2021 Mar 5, 1:24pm

We already have UBI. They are called grocery store dempsey dumpsters.

3 Zak 2021 Mar 5, 1:36pm

@zzyzzx .. Since it doesn't seem like we are getting away from the federal reserve inflating away our currency, a direct refund of 10% of federal spending divided evenly among each citizen over the age of say 14 (I think this is age you can get first work permit) seems like it could combat this effect of inflation on the general population.

at 4.4 trillion, this would be $440 billion per year refunded to each citizen. That would be about $1200 per year I think. Again, this would need to be coupled to the elimination of the income tax.

Hircus 2021 Mar 5, 1:55pm

But why must UBI be introduced? Instead of spreading that money out equally to all breathing people, why not instead spread the money out to only those who work?

Seems to me it would encourage people to work more than giving some people money for nothing.

For example, Alaska gives everyone a dividend. But, I think they should instead take that money, and instead of giving it equally to everyone, they should use that money to lower taxes, or maybe even to boost earnings (for every dollar you earn in AK, they give you an extra X cents). Doing it this way would reward behavior which is beneficial to society and the economy.

WookieMan 2021 Mar 5, 2:16pm

Hircus says

But why must UBI be introduced?

Exactly. It gets introduced because they're pandering to a class that doesn't have to pay for it. Fuck that. It's super simple... vote buying.

I'll support it if voter ID is introduced and a flat tax regardless of income is introduced federally. Let's see how popular it is then... god damn cock suckers.

Hircus 2021 Mar 5, 2:28pm

Some of the commies in the dem party are pushing hard for UBI lately. I watched this vid the other day, where they said the results of the $500/mo Stockton CA UBI experiment was a huge success. At least the woke commie yahoo finance bitch running the interview interpreted it that way.

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/full-time-employment-rate-jumps-183605190.html

But, I don't believe their results. Commies wanted this study, and they know how important it is to have a good result that their commie journalists can use to write dishonest headlines with. It doesn't matter if the study was low quality or downright rigged when you have empty hands willing to cheerlead in exchange for freebies.

1) they said less than 1% of the payments were spent on drugs. Bullshit. Most people are smart enough not to create official documentation saying they buy drugs.
2) they said the UBI actually increased employment, which "flies in the face of the ultra mean bad conservatives" who say it will make people work less. It may be true that employment increased over the course of their study (I didn't investigate), but if it did, I guarantee it was in spite of the UBI, not in credit to it. Plus, people will behave different when they know the UBI is temporary, and would be less likely to quit their jobs, or forgo new job opportunities when they know the money will soon end.

Rin 2021 Mar 5, 3:12pm

Zak says

eliminate the w-2 income tax

You do realize that the heads of corporations, LLCs, etc, will simply pay themselves a hefty paycheck, than in stock which will incur the long term cap gains?

I used to be a junior partner at a hedge fund and if there were no federal income taxes, then ALL of our earnings would be in put on the W-2.

zzyzzx 2021 Mar 5, 3:52pm

Zak says

@zzyzzx .. Since it doesn't seem like we are getting away from the federal reserve inflating away our currency, a direct refund of 10% of federal spending divided evenly among each citizen over the age of say 14 (I think this is age you can get first work permit) seems like it could combat this effect of inflation on the general population.

at 4.4 trillion, this would be $440 billion per year refunded to each citizen. That would be about $1200 per year I think. Again, this would need to be coupled to the elimination of the income tax.

Again, tax imports enough so that there is no deficit. No deficit, no printing money. No printing money no inflation.

9 Zak 2021 Mar 5, 4:10pm

@rin, I pointed out that if the income tax goes away, you could tax wages paid. This means executives can give a big paycheck, but the company still pays the tax on it.

Rin 2021 Mar 5, 4:52pm

Zak says

@rin, I pointed out that if the income tax goes away, you could tax wages paid. This means executives can give a big paycheck, but the company still pays the tax on it.

So this would be akin to Alaska's dividend fund?

Patrick 2021 Mar 5, 5:18pm

I'm still in love with Georgism, the idea of zero income tax and zero sales tax.

The only tax should be on land values (including radio spectrum, which is a kind of land).

There would be no tax on the building itself, just the value of the land.

- income taxes discourage work, so you don't want that
- sales taxes discourage commerce, so you don't want that
- no one created the land, so taxing it does not discourage land production
- land ownership and taxes paid are all public record (in theory, but the counties fight against open access to that info)
- the elderly could defer their land tax as increasing debt until their death if they wish, so no one would be kicked out
- renters would pay via their rent, because the landlord would have to pay it
- farmers would not go out of business, because all farmers would have the tax, and people have to eat
- taxes correspond exactly to national or state territory
- there would be vast savings on eliminating all income tax and sales tax paperwork. the price would just be the price

It has a zillion advantages, and Winston Churchill was a big fan of the idea until his wealthy landowning relatives told him to shut up about it.

One problem is that it's politically difficult because there is no evading everyone paying the tax one way or another. And people like to evade taxes.

SoTex 2021 Mar 6, 12:29am

@Zak I think you have some interesting ideas but overall it's a shitty idea.

Despite what Bernie says Scandinavian countries are actually quite capitalist. They just tax the hell out of everyone (non-progressive) for social services which isn't socialism. The corporations pay a low tax rate. If we go jacking taxes up on corporations they just go elsewhere and we lose jobs and corporations.

Giving out 'free money' is a shit idea overall as well. You just get lazy people who suck from the system and shit goes downhill from there. There's actually a smallish number of people who need that sort of help and I'm not against that. Needs to be a high bar though.

I realize, all of that doesn't matter. We're either going full commie or the country will break up and only part of it will go full commie.

SoTex 2021 Mar 6, 12:31am

zzyzzx says

Again, tax imports enough so that there is no deficit. No deficit, no printing money. No printing money no inflation.

Maybe throw in full reserve lending as well! (instead of fractional reserve)

WookieMan 2021 Mar 6, 4:04am

HunterTits says

fund where all the gas tax receipts go for upkeep on the roads.

MFT (Motor Fuel Tax) costs my family a ton. Not in purchasing fuel, but business. The system is rife with fraud here in IL. Could literally start making $200k extra a year, maybe more. Municipalities and government bodies in charge of roads cannot use the MFT on products not on the states approved list.

There are literally hundreds of products that would benefit citizens for road infrastructure, but it has to come from general funds and not MFT funds if you're not approved. If you get a product approved by the state, then municipalities can just green light the use of it with no presentation to a board. This may be different state to state, but I'm pretty most have a similar system in place.

Basically if you're not on that list and you have a competitor with a similar, not exactly same, you can't sell to communities that don't want to pull it from their general funds. They'll pick MFT products first because it's much easier and HAS to be used on road infrastructure. You start taking away from parks and rec and people get pissed.

Patrick 2021 Mar 6, 9:59pm

HunterTits says

People in West Virginia paying a LVT at a rate five times higher than the folks in Connecticut

Why would they be paying a different rate?

I don't see what the apportionment clause has to do with it:

Amdt14.S2.1.1 Apportionment Clause
Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Patrick 2021 Mar 6, 10:04pm

Understanding the 16th Amendment
To counteract the defeat, the government drafted the 16th Amendment, which states, "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."4

The amendment was ratified in 1913, clearing the legal hurdles to an income tax.

Kinda creepy that the Federal Reserve and US income tax came in the same year.

Patrick 2021 Mar 8, 1:02pm

I see.

But states could still have Georgism.

Hircus 2021 Mar 12, 12:34pm

Yahoo finance at it again, giving publicity to commie bitches.
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/shah-foundation-helps-run-guaranteed-200633256.html

Last time was in Stockton CA, but this one is in Chelsea MA at $400 per mo. City Data says Chelsea MA is ~68% hispanic, and low income.

She said the funding was a mix of city, state, philantropic, United Way, and Massachusetts General Hospital. I'm not surprised hospitals support this - they know they can sponge some of the money up by just offering less bill forgiveness to the poor.

It looks like this is their strategy. Both yahoo interviews mentioned that people think UBI will cause people to work less, and both times the commies replie and said "thats just not true and not what we observed". But they lie, because people will act differently when they know the UBI is temporary, especially when the payments are too small to replace a job, and especially during this covid era where people struggle to find low skill jobs more than usual.

I pray we regain control of our media, especially social media, soon. The commies are using it to rapidly advance.

Patrick 2021 Mar 12, 6:01pm

I know from when I was on unemployment after getting laid off that I was not particularly motivated to get a new job. I wanted to max out the benefits first.

I think it's just human nature.

UBI sounds like a disaster.

Patrick 2021 Mar 12, 6:03pm

HunterTits says

Lot of dumbass 23 year olds are now 'reporting' and all that means is taking what people say at face value and getting it published before the deadline. Anything that requires actual critical thinking and research so that they can be at least familiar to wtf UBI or any other policy actually is off the table.

You can see the degradation of the news in the bad spelling, bad grammar, and bad reasoning. It's kind of depressing. They used to have editors to check those things.

HeadSet 2021 Mar 13, 5:45am

Patrick says

You can see the degradation of the news in the bad spelling, bad grammar, and bad reasoning. It's kind of depressing. They used to have editors to check those things.

Worse than you think. One reason for so many grammar errors in the print news is the offshoring of the writing to places where English is not the main language.

WookieMan 2021 Mar 13, 6:06am

HeadSet says

Worse than you think. One reason for so many grammar errors in the print news is the offshoring of the writing to places where English is not the main language.

Isn't the writer in charge of that at this point though? If you need someone to look over your spelling you shouldn't be reporting "news." Grammar and punctuation are a different thing as there is some nuance there as things change and evolve. Spelling errors are not acceptable in news or simple errors like your and you're. Or advice and advise. Grammatically those too;) piss me off the most.

PeopleUnited 2021 Mar 13, 7:52am

So the idea is that if you “level the playing field” by giving everyone the amount of money equal to the minimum needed for food and shelter then everyone will have food and shelter.

Sounds logical on the surface. But the devil is in the details.

1. First of all where does the money come from that they are “giving” away to everyone?
2. When you give one person $30,000 the effect on the economy is negligible, when you give everyone $30,000 prices go up as supply becomes a limiting factor. So the extra money does not benefit the benefactors, rather it creates even more wealth for those who already are wealthy. UBI therefore guarantees increased wealth disparity.
3. If by magic prices could be controlled, the UBI would still create a class of people dependent on the free money and unwilling to work to produce goods or provide services. The UBI system would collapse under its own weight as the workers would quickly be outnumbered by takers to the point where the availability of goods and services would dry up completely except for the Uber wealthy who could still afford to pay exorbitant prices for what they want and need.
4. Finally, if by magic somehow you could control prices and motivate people to work to produce goods and services despite the fact that they don’t need to work to have their needs met, then you still have a system where the government can tell you what to do, threaten to take away your income if you don’t comply, the wealthy still have their power and privilege, and wealth disparity has not changed a bit. The UBI is a recipe for instant dystopia.

It’s been tried before folks, it is called communism, socialism, or the great reset. It always goes the same way, some elite people have everything they want and most everyone else who escape the genocide and gulags can not even get their basic needs met on a reliable basis. But those who forget history are destined to repeat it. Welcome to 2021 and the great reset new world order. See you in the death camps?

24 mell 2021 Mar 13, 7:55am

PeopleUnited says

So the idea is that if you “level the playing field” by giving everyone the amount of money equal to the minimum needed for food and shelter then everyone will have food and shelter.

Sounds logical on the surface. But the devil is in the details.

1. First of all where does the money come from that they are “giving” away to everyone?
2. When you give one person $30,000 the effect on the economy is negligible, when you give everyone $30,000 prices go up as supply becomes a limiting factor. So the extra money does not benefit the benefactors, rather it creates even more wealth for those who already are wealthy. UBI therefore guarantees increased wealth disparity.
3. If by magic prices could be controlled, the UBI would still create a class of people dependent on the free money and unwilling to work to produce goods or provide services. The UBI system would collapse under its own weight as the workers would quickly be outnumbered by takers to the point where the availab...

Valid points but the money is given away anyways, without UBI it's the status quo where it's given to special interests. If you can take some of the special interest racket money off and distribute it equally instead it would be better than the status quo. If you just add it on, then not.

25 Zak 2021 Mar 13, 11:17am

To be clear, I am NOT in favor of doing this in general. However, since it doesn't seem like we can do the right thing (getting rid of the FIAT currency) then it seems that what we must do is mitigate the damage as the poor are literally getting decimated by inflationary monetary policy. I hate it, because it makes the centralization of money and control back into the federal government seem not quite so terrible, and even makes poor people think the government is giving them money, but it's less bad than allowing fiat currency WITHOUT a public dividend. The reality is, the money would be those peoples in the first place if we had a sound currency.

To be clear, this isn't about workers vs takers. That is a mislabeling in the first place. The takers are those in the banking and government, inflating away the value of wages and saved money. Even someone not working likely has a family member that IS working, who is less and less able to take care of the non-worker as their wages are inflated away. And it's not the person on public assistance that is taking the money in taxes is it? It's the police state. If you're against something, it should be against mandatory income taxes. Argue for taxes to be voluntary. We seem to collect plenty of money with voluntarily paid sales and energy taxes. Don't want to pay the tax? Don't buy that thing, or don't buy gas, or don't use public utilities. There are alternative options for each of those, it's just massively more convenient to voluntarily pay the tax. And we don't even need police(IRS) to enforce the paying of those taxes (only that merchants actually submit them). On that note though, we should also eliminate taxes on water and sewer, as you literally cannot live without them. Not that they should be free, but we shouldn't tax them at least.

HeadSet 2021 Mar 13, 11:49am

PeopleUnited says

The UBI system would collapse under its own weight as the workers would quickly be outnumbered by takers to the point where the availability of goods and services would dry up completely except for the Uber wealthy who could still afford to pay exorbitant prices for what they want and need.

Actually, that is where cheap Chinese imports an illegals come in. The idle mob created by the UBI would spend their money on goods created by essentially slaves. Rents, however, would rise and somewhat blunt this effect.

An example of "UBI style affect on rents is shown at military bases near small towns. Whenever the Basic Quarters Allowance is increased thus putting extra money into the pockets of all the local servicemembers, rents all over town immediately go up. That stinks for the locals who have to compete with that.

PeopleUnited 2021 Mar 13, 6:23pm

Zak says

against mandatory income taxes

Are taxes the problem or is the way they are spent the real issue? The government should not need to collect income taxes, this is true. In fact the government has no right to even know the assets of any person.

But what we really need is to stop spending other people’s money to pad the pockets of (fill in the blank) government should be small and local and accountable to the people. Not large and federal and oppressive to the people.

28 SunnyvaleCA 2021 Mar 13, 6:51pm

HeadSet says

One reason for so many grammar errors in the print news is the offshoring of the writing to places where English is not the main language

Yeah, the United States!

29 SunnyvaleCA 2021 Mar 13, 6:55pm

PeopleUnited says

[UBI] Sounds logical on the surface. But the devil is in the details.

We're now an open-borders non-country, so:
5. Cannot afford UBI for 1 billion or more extra people.

HeadSet 2021 Mar 13, 7:11pm

SunnyvaleCA says

HeadSet says
One reason for so many grammar errors in the print news is the offshoring of the writing to places where English is not the main language

Yeah, the United States!

¿Que?

PeopleUnited 2021 Mar 13, 9:13pm

SunnyvaleCA says

PeopleUnited says
[UBI] Sounds logical on the surface. But the devil is in the details.
We're now an open-borders non-country, so:
5. Cannot afford UBI for 1 billion or more extra people.

But it’s the birthright of all foreign born persons to suckle off the American teat!

Patrick 2021 Mar 13, 9:36pm

HeadSet says

One reason for so many grammar errors in the print news is the offshoring of the writing to places where English is not the main language.

I've also become convinced that most of the articles written about stocks on Yahoo finance are not even written by humans at all. They are just AI generated tripe, no real content, no human reporter.

But at least they get the spelling right! :-)

WookieMan 2021 Mar 14, 12:02pm

A family of four, married filing jointly, making under $150k is going to get $5,600. Just given to them. Read an article where 89% of the population will get full stimulus payments, while a small fraction of that 89% will get a reduced amount capping at $160k. This is so fucked. Because of the flu?

I'm astonished that 2 working adults cannot make more than $150k combined. Maybe I'm naive, but I really can't comprehend how if you're over 35-60, that you can't pull in $150k combined. Only 11% of the population does that? And yes I know some people own businesses and have lower income but can theoretically make more.

But for a family making $100k they're going to get 5.6% of their annual income just handed to them tax free. That's insane.

HeadSet 2021 Mar 14, 12:46pm

WookieMan says

I'm astonished that 2 working adults cannot make more than $150k combined. Maybe I'm naive, but I really can't comprehend how if you're over 35-60, that you can't pull in $150k combined.

Many "married filing jointly" are single income earners. Especially with school age children.

35 mell 2021 Mar 15, 9:39am

WookieMan says

A family of four, married filing jointly, making under $150k is going to get $5,600. Just given to them. Read an article where 89% of the population will get full stimulus payments, while a small fraction of that 89% will get a reduced amount capping at $160k. This is so fucked. Because of the flu?

I'm astonished that 2 working adults cannot make more than $150k combined. Maybe I'm naive, but I really can't comprehend how if you're over 35-60, that you can't pull in $150k combined. Only 11% of the population does that? And yes I know some people own businesses and have lower income but can theoretically make more.

But for a family making $100k they're going to get 5.6% of their annual income just handed to them tax free. That's insane.

Gender studies doesn't pay much. But at least you can go off on a crazed tangent once in a while and make someone's life miserable and sticking it to the white patriarchic heteronormative supremacists!