I’m a big fan of the concept of an universal basic income. Where everyone gets ~1000€ every month from the government. For children, the parents get the money.
And I mean everyone. Every legal resident. Including billionaires.
To finance it I would tax both income and capital gains at ~50%. From the very first € you earn.
The net tax load on most people would not actually change much. But it completely gets rid of situations where if people work more, loose their benefits and end up with less.
1000€ should be just about enough to life a frugal lifestyle. A flat with a partner or flatmate in a small town. Produce to cook a flexitarian diet. A public transport pass and a bicycle. A Samsung Galaxy A17 with an internet plan. And all those other real necessities of life.
If people want luxuries, they will still have to work.
Someone still has to produce those consumables after all. But everyone should be able to get all of their basic necessities covered.
I’m a big fan of it in concept, but TBH the pandemic made me think twice about it. By that I mean, I watched quite a lot of people get put on furlough, so essentially having their needs met while not having to work, and they went fucking crazy, like screaming fights in the shared hallway over literally nothing at 6am crazy. And it happened really fast too. I think a lot of people are so indoctrinated into the concept of having to show up to work and be told what to do that they kind of short-circuit when left to work it out for themselves.
Not that I think we shouldn’t do it necessarily, and I’d hope over time it would even out as people got used to it, but it would need to be done very carefully I think. Even if the math and the politics of it make sense, you also have to sort of account for the irrationality of people as well, which I don’t often hear a lot of discussion about.
Many people also go crazy like that right after they retire. At least for a while. Structure is important for humans, and many find it difficult to create structure themselves.
But an UBI wouldn’t mean that people would suddenly be out of work. They 'd still have to work to keep their lifestyle
Just to put my 2 cents on the plate, it seems like a lot of people are stuck in living arrangements they don’t actually want to be in, purely for economic reasons. Lots of personality mismatch in close quarters, work is an escape. UBI would probably break apart lots of lives, but hopefully people will build back better.
In respect to being paid to work on hobbies, a lot of the tech sector was furloughed as well. FOSS projects massively improved, seemingly overnight. I’ve dabbled with Linux on and off during the 2010s, 2021 felt like the year where everything finally clicked together, now I run Linux and FOSS on everything where possible. I’m not sure how to find data to dispute or support that link tho, might just be me.
People need cars to live where I am. There is no public transportation and cycling is far too dangerous, no one even tries. They give up their homes before their cars. Tons of people living on UBI would be living in their cars.
Now, im all for banning bro trucks and crossovers over 3500 lbs. If you cant get by with a miata or a wagon, you have to get a special license for a bigger vehicle and pay more because youre damaging the road and endangering others 10x more in your 10,000lb f350 diesel.
Yeah e bikes aren’t even allowed on the roads for now. The walkability problem is a matter of the billions and billions of dollars it would take to essentially redo every road in the county. Some zoning changes could help a little but we’re generations of work away from being walkable
it’s a good idea but it requires that costs don’t adapt. that 800€ apartment you wanted? well since you’re already getting a subsidy it’s now 1600€. after all, if you discount the subsidy it’s cheaper!
Exactly. What’s to keep the sellers from just jacking everything up?
College was expensive, but affordable, until the government made it easier to get student loans. Colleges responded by wildly jacking up their prices, and now you literally have to voluntarily take on a lifetime of debt to get a college degree for a job that probably won’t cover the cost of your loan. And what did the government do? They went right along with it, and demand repayment before anything else.
They recently started a benefit program with Medicare that gives you some money each month to buy health related items in drugstores and such, and they responded by jacking up the prices in Walgreens and CVS.
I’m all for UBI as well, but it has to comes with price controls so the corporate parasites don’t just take it all. UBI Gouging has to be a harshly enforced crime.
What we need is to jail people who do exploitive shit like this. Just like any other harmful acticity we jail people for.
Or maybe jusr, OP’s 50% tax deal ramps up the more acxumulated wealth and property you have. Tonstrongly discourage that practice. Like sure, you exploited your rent holdings and you are a ten millionaire. But now we are taxing you at 100% so we can bump people’s UBI subsidy up enough to account for your exploitation.
We can’t jail them without a law that makes it illegal.
And if we introduce rent control, we need to replace it with other incentives to build new apartment buildings. Ideally ones that create a slight oversupply of housing. Otherwise, in a decade or so, you get cheap rent but tons of homeless people because the supply is insufficient.
Building apartments currently cost about a quarter million per unit. Plus interest on the mortgage. Most potential landlords don’t just have millions in liquid funds.
Nobody will be taking out loans like that if they
won’t even earn their investment back if everything goes to plan.
Yes, it definitely has to be recalculated frequently. If it doesn’t, it will be about as useful as the US minimum wage after some time.
But as I said, most people wouldn’t have significantly more or less money than they do today. At least I carefully calculated those numbers so that most people would have pretty much the same, for Germany in 2019. So I don’t really expect prices to go up drastically.
It’s not that people suddenly have 1000€ extra. Either their unemployment benefits get replaced by that UBI, or they now have to pay an extra 1000€ in taxes.
it’s not even supposed to be an “extra 1000€ in taxes”, it would just be gradually eaten up by taxes the more you make.
the big problem is, a lot of people on long-term sick pay who are not allowed to work would get less from this system. there needs to be something to deal with that.
Currently the tax rate is progressive. In the future it wouldn’t be anymore. But because those progressive taxes only apply to income over a certain threshold, people with lower incomes would profit more.
This system would not replace social security. If you get a pension due to age or sickness or in your first year of unemployment, you would still be covered by your mandatory insurance. Same with your mandatory health insurance. And you’d still have to pay for it on top of your taxes. The employee and the employer pay 20% of the gross income each.
it’s my understanding that the system would replace social security. the savings from slimming down the systems responsible for payout would be part of what made the entire thing possible.
Which is why UBI should be coupled with UBS (universal basic services). In this context, at the very least there would exist also a rental board (like Quebec’s existing Regie du Logement). If you’re more ambitious, housing would be a universal service and taken out of the market altogether. And don’t forget that that 1600E income of the landlord would be also taxed.
If UBI is financed through measures that inject new money into the economy, such as deficit spending or monetary expansion, the risk of inflation may be heightened. This is because the increase in the money supply outpaces the economy’s capacity to produce goods and services, leading to a general rise in prices.
Conversely, if UBI is funded through redistributive measures, such as progressive taxation or cuts in inefficient spending, the inflationary pressures can be mitigated. By targeting resources from high-income individuals or unproductive sectors of the economy, such funding mechanisms redistribute existing wealth rather than injecting new money into circulation.
This ensures that the overall level of demand remains relatively stable, thereby limiting the potential for inflationary spirals.
UBI is a billionaire slop ideology to defuse political tension with gifts, accelerating capital accumulation in the process. It places the 99% as clients of a power-holding elite. It’ll produce a few generations of hapless losers, who’ll be utterly incapable of defending their rights when they eventually roll a cruel patron that decides to take it away.
Statistically, university students, part-time employees and non working people in single income households are the most active in protests. They have the time, the means and the education to do so.
Wage slaves don’t have time. And if they unionize they might get fired and not have anything anymore. So they don’t.
A UBI means everyone is capable of protesting. Why would that produce hapless loosers?
Exactly. UBI is a reactionary socialist concept. It is a bandage for a bigger issue, meant to appease so as not to incite revolt. However the real issue is a commodity economy / money. Its really hard to get the masses on board with abolishing that without global revolution.
I’m a big fan of the concept of an universal basic income. Where everyone gets ~1000€ every month from the government. For children, the parents get the money.
And I mean everyone. Every legal resident. Including billionaires.
To finance it I would tax both income and capital gains at ~50%. From the very first € you earn.
The net tax load on most people would not actually change much. But it completely gets rid of situations where if people work more, loose their benefits and end up with less.
1000€ should be just about enough to life a frugal lifestyle. A flat with a partner or flatmate in a small town. Produce to cook a flexitarian diet. A public transport pass and a bicycle. A Samsung Galaxy A17 with an internet plan. And all those other real necessities of life.
If people want luxuries, they will still have to work. Someone still has to produce those consumables after all. But everyone should be able to get all of their basic necessities covered.
Im already taxed like 20% in the US and see nothing for it. May as well do 50 and actualy get something of value for society
Billionaires should not exist and their existence should not be tolerated.
Yes. If someone has a million times the median wealth, there’s something wrong with the system.
But how is that relevant here?
I’m a big fan of it in concept, but TBH the pandemic made me think twice about it. By that I mean, I watched quite a lot of people get put on furlough, so essentially having their needs met while not having to work, and they went fucking crazy, like screaming fights in the shared hallway over literally nothing at 6am crazy. And it happened really fast too. I think a lot of people are so indoctrinated into the concept of having to show up to work and be told what to do that they kind of short-circuit when left to work it out for themselves.
Not that I think we shouldn’t do it necessarily, and I’d hope over time it would even out as people got used to it, but it would need to be done very carefully I think. Even if the math and the politics of it make sense, you also have to sort of account for the irrationality of people as well, which I don’t often hear a lot of discussion about.
Many people also go crazy like that right after they retire. At least for a while. Structure is important for humans, and many find it difficult to create structure themselves.
But an UBI wouldn’t mean that people would suddenly be out of work. They 'd still have to work to keep their lifestyle
Just to put my 2 cents on the plate, it seems like a lot of people are stuck in living arrangements they don’t actually want to be in, purely for economic reasons. Lots of personality mismatch in close quarters, work is an escape. UBI would probably break apart lots of lives, but hopefully people will build back better.
In respect to being paid to work on hobbies, a lot of the tech sector was furloughed as well. FOSS projects massively improved, seemingly overnight. I’ve dabbled with Linux on and off during the 2010s, 2021 felt like the year where everything finally clicked together, now I run Linux and FOSS on everything where possible. I’m not sure how to find data to dispute or support that link tho, might just be me.
People need cars to live where I am. There is no public transportation and cycling is far too dangerous, no one even tries. They give up their homes before their cars. Tons of people living on UBI would be living in their cars.
In a political climate where you could actually implement UBI, you would also be able to implement walkability policies.
Also, e-bikes. E-bikes is where it’s at.
Yeah not in rural areas, we need cars.
Now, im all for banning bro trucks and crossovers over 3500 lbs. If you cant get by with a miata or a wagon, you have to get a special license for a bigger vehicle and pay more because youre damaging the road and endangering others 10x more in your 10,000lb f350 diesel.
Rural areas, sure. Suburban and urban where the majority of humans live, no.
Yeah e bikes aren’t even allowed on the roads for now. The walkability problem is a matter of the billions and billions of dollars it would take to essentially redo every road in the county. Some zoning changes could help a little but we’re generations of work away from being walkable
I’m being speculative, right?
it’s a good idea but it requires that costs don’t adapt. that 800€ apartment you wanted? well since you’re already getting a subsidy it’s now 1600€. after all, if you discount the subsidy it’s cheaper!
Exactly. What’s to keep the sellers from just jacking everything up?
College was expensive, but affordable, until the government made it easier to get student loans. Colleges responded by wildly jacking up their prices, and now you literally have to voluntarily take on a lifetime of debt to get a college degree for a job that probably won’t cover the cost of your loan. And what did the government do? They went right along with it, and demand repayment before anything else.
They recently started a benefit program with Medicare that gives you some money each month to buy health related items in drugstores and such, and they responded by jacking up the prices in Walgreens and CVS.
I’m all for UBI as well, but it has to comes with price controls so the corporate parasites don’t just take it all. UBI Gouging has to be a harshly enforced crime.
What we need is to jail people who do exploitive shit like this. Just like any other harmful acticity we jail people for.
Or maybe jusr, OP’s 50% tax deal ramps up the more acxumulated wealth and property you have. Tonstrongly discourage that practice. Like sure, you exploited your rent holdings and you are a ten millionaire. But now we are taxing you at 100% so we can bump people’s UBI subsidy up enough to account for your exploitation.
Good job, you accomplished nothing in the end.
We can’t jail them without a law that makes it illegal.
And if we introduce rent control, we need to replace it with other incentives to build new apartment buildings. Ideally ones that create a slight oversupply of housing. Otherwise, in a decade or so, you get cheap rent but tons of homeless people because the supply is insufficient.
The incentive is that its what is good for society and good for everyone. The ince tive is doing good. Because people need places to live.
Needs of the many vs needs of the few and all that.
Laws can be made. Laws are all made in the first place.
Building apartments currently cost about a quarter million per unit. Plus interest on the mortgage. Most potential landlords don’t just have millions in liquid funds.
Nobody will be taking out loans like that if they won’t even earn their investment back if everything goes to plan.
well that’s a uniquely us problem which doesn’t really apply to the rest of the world.
I don’t doubt that. In America, our government encourages the Sociopathic Oligarchs to exploit us. That’s why they love it so much here.
Yes, it definitely has to be recalculated frequently. If it doesn’t, it will be about as useful as the US minimum wage after some time.
But as I said, most people wouldn’t have significantly more or less money than they do today. At least I carefully calculated those numbers so that most people would have pretty much the same, for Germany in 2019. So I don’t really expect prices to go up drastically.
It’s not that people suddenly have 1000€ extra. Either their unemployment benefits get replaced by that UBI, or they now have to pay an extra 1000€ in taxes.
it’s not even supposed to be an “extra 1000€ in taxes”, it would just be gradually eaten up by taxes the more you make.
the big problem is, a lot of people on long-term sick pay who are not allowed to work would get less from this system. there needs to be something to deal with that.
Currently the tax rate is progressive. In the future it wouldn’t be anymore. But because those progressive taxes only apply to income over a certain threshold, people with lower incomes would profit more.
This system would not replace social security. If you get a pension due to age or sickness or in your first year of unemployment, you would still be covered by your mandatory insurance. Same with your mandatory health insurance. And you’d still have to pay for it on top of your taxes. The employee and the employer pay 20% of the gross income each.
it’s my understanding that the system would replace social security. the savings from slimming down the systems responsible for payout would be part of what made the entire thing possible.
It would replace long term unemployment benefits. And minimum pension. The benefits that are paid directly by the government, not mandatory insurance.
It would be mostly financed through getting rid of progressive taxes.
isn’t a progressive taxation system meant to ramp up as you earn more, not down? that would lose you money by getting rid of it.
What do you mean?
For example if you earn 277k that’s currently taxed 42%. Getting rid of the progressive tax, it would be taxed 45%.
It’s not enough, to finance a sufficiently high UBI but it’s definitely an increase.
Which is why UBI should be coupled with UBS (universal basic services). In this context, at the very least there would exist also a rental board (like Quebec’s existing Regie du Logement). If you’re more ambitious, housing would be a universal service and taken out of the market altogether. And don’t forget that that 1600E income of the landlord would be also taxed.
More generally: https://ubiadvocates.org/inflation-and-ubi-separating-fact-from-fiction/
UBI is a billionaire slop ideology to defuse political tension with gifts, accelerating capital accumulation in the process. It places the 99% as clients of a power-holding elite. It’ll produce a few generations of hapless losers, who’ll be utterly incapable of defending their rights when they eventually roll a cruel patron that decides to take it away.
Statistically, university students, part-time employees and non working people in single income households are the most active in protests. They have the time, the means and the education to do so.
Wage slaves don’t have time. And if they unionize they might get fired and not have anything anymore. So they don’t.
A UBI means everyone is capable of protesting. Why would that produce hapless loosers?
Exactly. UBI is a reactionary socialist concept. It is a bandage for a bigger issue, meant to appease so as not to incite revolt. However the real issue is a commodity economy / money. Its really hard to get the masses on board with abolishing that without global revolution.
deleted by creator
Then buy a different 200€ phone?
Iphone SE3 is like $130 refurbished, if you’re into iPhones. My partner has it and they have no complaints.