In Finland, there's a new program that will pay everyone $900 a month (but it won't begin until 2017). But that program cuts all other government benefits, saving the government the costs of administration and means-testing. It's a safety net for everyone, and it eliminates gaming the system. You can then make whatever income you want on top of that.
And Germany already pays $200 per month "for all children and young adults up to the age of 25 as long as they are in school or at college, which are also free of charge." But what about adults of working age?
"A basic income paid out to everyone could unleash enormous amounts of creativity," said [Michael Bohmeyer, 31, who runs the "My Basic Income" project].... "Machines are going to be taking care of just about everything for us over time.... So to be able to work creatively, people need some security, they need to feel free. And they can get that with a basic income."What are the participants in the project doing? There's...
... a woman who said she wanted to use the income to "spend more time with her children and do volunteer work"; another woman who said she wanted "to be able to live my dreams and give something back"; a third woman who said she wanted "to develop a theater production"; a man who said he would use the money "to hire a new employee to help my ecological vegetable garden business grow"; and a fourth woman who wrote she "wants to wake up happy every day, to travel more and support other artists."...If you know you're being studied in an experiment, doesn't it ruin the experiment? You've got an extra incentive to do admirable things and help prove the theory of Unleashing Enormous amounts of Creativity. If it became routine and everyone got it and no one was monitored, there would be a lot of lazing about, eating and drinking, and watching TV, and not even the really high-quality shows you're proud to say you watch, I bet.
This reminds me of the famous Nancy Pelosi remark about Obamacare: "We see it as an entrepreneurial bill. A bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care. You won’t have to be job locked."
The kooky old dream of more artists.
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74 comments:
So they're trying out Charles Murray's idea:
Guaranteed Income as a Replacement for the Welfare State
Book.
Earlier LA Times article.
The government of Canada gives parents of children up to 18 years a monthly stipend of roughly $200 per child, more when they are over 6. Its purpose to help cover the cost of raising children.
I would support a "mincome" if it were available to all citizens and eliminated all other benefits. I'd love if it were like a lifetime bond given at birth that could be drawn on at a certain percentage per year (or passed on to your heirs if you did not sue it). It'd be an improvement over the current system, where you have a byzantine dispersal system, marginal tax rates over 100%, and a large bureaucracy to oversee it.
I also think this would tend to increase wealth inequality,as strivers and savers would not draw on it, while spendthrifts would take their max payout monthly.
The kooky old dream of more artists.
Freizeit Macht Arbeit
So who here thinks fr a second that when the grand, or $900, or whatever arbitrary amount is wasted and runs out that the left will say "Sorry, no more for you."
"wreck the incentive to work". On both ends. Obviously for the people who are being paid not to work, but why should the payors continue working just to have their labor used to finance this ridiculous scheme?
Social Security checks for the young. Now we understand why migration this way cometh.
The quality curve of artistic output is already extraordinarily steep with the crap produced by those witty enough to survive without the income backstop. It is difficult to imagine were losing quality because of the current system.
Otoh, it's a strong subsidy for weed production.
Good Christ, they have a refugee problem now. What the hell are they thinking?
Isaac Asimov wrote lots on these subjects.
I don't think those programs will work long term. Too much faking and cheating will kill them. Search on "Uber for Welfare" or use the link below. It has the incentives set up in a way that may be sustainable.
GUARANTEED INCOME & CHOOSE YOUR BOSS Uber for Welfare at
https://medium.com/@morganwarstler/guaranteed-income-choose-your-boss-1d068ac5a205#.jjlbsbhgd
Jim
Go into your local guitar store to discover the pathos of artistry. Artists are everywhere. Almost none of their art will outlive youthful ambition.
But I'm not bitter.
That would be the end of the problem of heroin addicts.
I remember a time when the children of wealthy people did something useful with their lives. I knew a number of professors of medicine or other scientific fields who did not have to earn a living and who spent their lives doing really useful things that required hard work.
One example is the man about whom the novel "Magnificent Obsession" was written. He was the son of a wealthy architect in Michigan and he became the first chief of Neurosurgery at the University of Michigan. In addition to tackling a terribly difficult and discouraging profession at that time (The 1920s), he was also involved in many philanthropic in the Ann Arbor area.
The author, Lloyd C Douglas, was the pastor of a church in Ann Arbor and wrote a number of famous novels about religion. The neurosurgeon he write about was Jewish, not Christian. Few know his name now.
the identity of the surgeon on whose life it is based, is mentioned in articles in the American Association of Neurosurgeons' journal AANS Neurosurgeon,
Today, the children of wealth seem mostly involved in hedonistic pleasures, including lots of drug addiction. I expect a similar development in any guaranteed income scheme.
Even Milton Friedman considered the Demo-grant idea, along with open immigration.
But here's the problem, especially for Europe right now, in a short video.
I expect this is coming to America in the not-to-distant future. What with the rise of the AI robots which will be replacing all manner of blue collar and many lower level white collar workers. And another reason to stop letting in so many immigrants who will get their cut as well.
"If you know you're being studied in an experiment, doesn't it ruin the experiment? You've got an extra incentive to do admirable things and help prove the theory of Unleashing Enormous amounts of Creativity."
Yes, it does distort things, but you might be able to establish a maximum effect.
I think more important than being studied is the fact that this stipend will end - this people have a reason to look to the future.
This idea might be very goiod, if it was combined with a lowering of the minimum wage.
Is this another in the continuing series of "How (insert Republican name here) lost me" or not?
"Michael Bohmeyer, 31, who runs the "My Basic Income" project].... "Machines are going to be taking care of just about everything for us over time...."
It might make sense to give Michael Bohmeyer a stipend if it keeps him away from dangerous things like fire and power tools.
The best argument for replacing the government's spiderweb of welfare/"refundable tax credits"/whatever with a mincome is of course the same reason it won't happen in the U.S.: it would eliminate thousands of expensive government jobs
We should have a mincome and it should be funded by a tax on all government employees and companies that are funded by government or receive government subsidies.
People in Alaska used to get up to about $2,000 but it didn't stop them from working. If this s less than what most people want, it wouldn't discourage work, but might encourage tjem to work for less.
http://www.apfc.org/home/Content/dividend/dividend.cfm
http://www.apfc.org/home/Content/dividend/dividendamounts.cfm
If having basic needs taken care of prevented working, why do teenage girls work as babysitters? Obviously, some at least are not discouraged.
After retirement I was able to spend a lot more time looking at Internet porn, but the really big advantage of early retirement is sleeping in every morning. There's no greater pleasure on earth than laying in bed and deciding that there is no pressing reason to get out of bed.. There's a downside to too much bed time, however. In order to keep your weight under 400 lbs, you have to ruthlessly cut your calorie intake. BBQ no more than three times a week, and absolutely no Hagen Daaz ice dream for desert after such a meal........But by and large the tactile pleasures of not working far outweigh the spiritual gains of having a productive job.
At our house, art gets done because it pays the bills. Has there ever been a more productive motivator of art than poverty?
(I will, however, be interested to see how these programs work out.)
Consider what this would do to the value of money. The same goes for the minimum wage. If you establish a floor for income or continually increase the minimum wage then the value of money is diminished proportionally. If we raise the minimum wage, then inflation sets in and readjust the amount necessary to buy any given object. Thus, people who get the immediate benefit from the minimum wage then see an increase in goods in about 5 years. In the meantime, the elderly living on savings or structured income find it harder to compensate. The same would occur with a guaranteed income of $900 per month with the cost of goods rising and the value of money decreasing. Besides, I just got back from Europe and you can't live 2 weeks on $900 euros.
"If you know you're being studied in an experiment, doesn't it ruin the experiment? "
Absolutely. It's axiomatic, especially with such small groups. Even subatomic particles change behavior when being watched.
There is some sort of insight on raising children in your statement, but I can quite work out the summary.
It'll turn into pink hair, drugs, and tattoos.
If you know you're being studied in an experiment, doesn't it ruin the experiment?
So much so that the phenomenon even has a name: the Hawthorne Effect.
You've got an extra incentive to do admirable things and help prove the theory of Unleashing Enormous amounts of Creativity.
Maybe, maybe not. There are a lot more people who think they're creative than are truly creative. Watch out for a great deal of schlock masquerading as creativity.
If it became routine and everyone got it and no one was monitored, there would be a lot of lazing about, eating and drinking, and watching TV, and not even the really high-quality shows you're proud to say you watch, I bet.
Hey! I'd be proud to say that I watch "Duck Dynasty" and reruns of "Sex in the City."
How do you say "free stuff" in German?
"If you know you're being studied in an experiment, doesn't it ruin the experiment?" Not if you've studied the history of experiments and know about the Hawthorne effect.
In some European countries, the basic income might work: even the poor pay taxes and have skin in the game, bureaucracies are relatively honest, and the left has real responsibility for economic outcomes. But open "immigration" will wreck it: too much demand and too much diversity will bust solidarity. In the U.S., it can't work (beyond half-way measures like the EITC). The left is systemically dishonest and will game the system, bureaucracies inevitably devolve into rackets, the poor don't and won't pay their fair share so don't have skin in the game, and together they will always whine "never enough." Plus access by Dreamers and Unaccompanied Minors will make the current debate over illegal immigration seem like a pleasant conversation.
I don't know about Germans, but here in the United States the sad reality is that for a significant fraction of the poor people, if you gave them one or two thousand dollars on Monday, they'd be flat broke before Friday. The reason many people are poor has to do with never learning the benefits of impulse control and delayed gratification.
This is wonderful, I really like it. The world sorely needs more creativity and innovation.
A good way to spoil my day--reading some hallucinatory nonsense from Nancy Pelosi.
I agree with sunsong. Never thought I'd say that.
If the benefit conferred upon birth, might cut down on all those pregnancies terminated because "muh convenience."
From my point of view, the real source of US creativity was the almost universal access to tools and the lack of social stigma against manual labor.
In modern environments dominated by the left - comment directed at you, sunsong - the rules of the localities involved absolutely prevent home machine shops, home auto-shops, use of welding equipment, and the general ability to fool around. This sort of environment would have stifled the Wright brothers before they even thought of trying to start on their obsession. The pathetic attempts to create a safe space for this through communal shop facilities is a useless gesture.
Creativity in the US, outside the "red" areas, is dead. Even its funeral and accompanying lamentation is uncreative. Creativity will not return until the left, the people of the left along with their ideas, die out.
Am I missing something? Neither your post nor any of the comments mentions that there are millions of people working hard every day who would love to sit back and do something creative but they have to work and pay their taxes so that the government can give this money away to other people who just want to do something creative ? Am I missing something ?
You could have a "carbon tax", which is one form of a consumption tax, and rebate about $5,000 to cover the tax on essentials and maybe that could allow a replacement of most means tested government benefits (health care would ahev to be treated separately) and a reduction in the minimum wage, reducing barriers to hiring.
But how does the math work?
I did like Milton Friedman's negative income tax idea. And they are right that we need less and less labor as we, as a society get richer and more sutomated. And, ultimately, useful work ay become the most important asset you can have. That said, what they all seem to ignore is that giving people money without working for it has a number of negative consequences. One big one that we have seen is the tendency of young women to have children out of wedlock because they no longer need a male in their lives to support their families. Which is a good part of why we have so much crime in the inner cities - the males are never domesticated, first by marriage, then by fatherhood. Instead, they run in juvenile packs, until they are killed or end up in prison. And their sisters have the next generation of children outside wedlock, locking in the cycle for another generation. And, yes, it is the same people who push this sort of feckless behavior are the same ones making excuses for the violent thugs who were the putative justification for the BLM movement, and asking for more, which would, of course, just make the problem worse. So, I would suggest that we not move to this sort of system until we can figure out the single parenting incentive issues first.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: 'The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.'
~2 Thessalions 3:10
Freeman Hunt asked: Has there ever been a more productive motivator of art than poverty?
Necessity is the mother of invention is an English proverb, not a German one.
About Charles Murray's 2006 book:
One review says it is overlooking things.
He gets rid of both Medicare and Social Security ($3,000 is supposed to oay for health iunsurance)
This would dramatically reduce the incomes of some seniors. He doesn't even list them as losers, with his main losers being single women with many children (since the stipend is per adult not per person)
He also does not discuss the effects of his plan on revenue.
He also hasa no privision for immigrants to get anything before they become citizens. The reviewer would like to ahve something more graduated.
Another review notes that Murray's plan (as proposed) requires a constututional amendment to end all local and state welfare programs.
but here in the United States the sad reality is that for a significant fraction of the poor people, if you gave them one or two thousand dollars on Monday, they'd be flat broke before Friday.
So make it $40 per business day.
Damn Heisenberg!
Big Mike said...
I don't know about Germans, but here in the United States the sad reality is that for a significant fraction of the poor people, if you gave them one or two thousand dollars on Monday, they'd be flat broke before Friday.
Murray:
But under a guaranteed basic income, he can no longer portray himself as a victim who’s helpless to do anything about it. And you’ve got to set up feedback loops where people say, “Okay, we’re not going to let you starve on the streets, but it’s time for you to get your act together. And don’t tell us that you can’t do it because we know you’ve got another check coming in in a couple of days.”
I'm sure the typical kraut taxpayer just loves the idea of the kraut government doing him or her a favor with their tax euros and also being sporty and sharing their wealth with Mohamed, Fatima and Spiros.
A better idea is to require welfare recipients who are physically able to work to do so by being assigned a net taxpayer whose house they will clean, laundry they will do or lawn they will care for. They might decide to quit mooching and get a job.
I like the idea of a guaranteed minimum income replacing all current social safety nets. (Social Security, disability, welfare, WIC, food stamps, etc....)
However, my leftist friends then tell me that we COULDN'T do that, because children would starve.
Now, in my experience, even parents who aren't GOOD parents still want to feed their kids--if not out of empathy than out of "hungry kids are annoying."
So what they're saying is that we have a class of people in this country who are too dumb to be able to figure out "You should buy food" and who will instead spend it all on booze and drugs. Yet they also think these same people should have the right to vote.
I don't understand how my leftist friends think.... except...the level of their racism seem to be....much higher....than that of those who lean more libertarian/rightword.....
I like the Finnish program of getting rid of bureaucrats who jack up the costs of administration and means-testing of welfare payments.
Treat the payment as income and let the taxman deal with collecting it back.
David7134 has it right. Guaranteed income is pointless in a free market, because prices will rise to reflect the additional available money. Before too long, the extra buying power of the guaranteed income will approach zero.
The problem is that the key word is "replace." If a Value Added Tax (or some other form of consumption tax) REPLACED the income tax, I'd be in favor. If a guaranteed income REPLACED the welfare state,... As long as the purpose of our government is to preserve and expand our government it ain't gonna happen.
@SeanF and David7134 - One of the standard standard arguments for these schemes is that they can be coupled with an elimination of the minimum wage. (I don't know about the details of the German scheme (aren't the Swiss doing something like this.)) Anyway, since the government is redistributing a "living wage," employers are free to offer whatever they want and employees can supplement their income in whatever way they wish. What happens in real life...well, we can sit back and watch.
And to SeanF - the argument is that there is not more money in total, and there is not a whole lot more money at the bottom of the income scale (i.e. the new money basically replaces current benefits.) Some restricted things like smoke and booze would see more demand. But the theory is that it would not be that big a distortion since people are doing a lot of workarounds today.
"The left is systemically dishonest and will game the system, bureaucracies inevitably devolve into rackets,"
Many years ago, Alex Comfort physician and author said that the British civil service was an honest if dull witted service. American civl service was "a rogue form of private enterprise."
"A better idea is to require welfare recipients who are physically able to work to do so by being assigned a net taxpayer whose house they will clean, laundry they will do or lawn they will care for. "
I've always thought that able-bodied welfare recipients should have to work for their check even if it was a net cost to the government; the negative incentives of handouts are that bad (IMO). But I've never really had a practical method to implement this. What can most of these people actually do? I think cubanbob has a capital idea!
How about we eliminate ALL welfare to personal and corporate? No more agricultural subsidies. No more energy subsidies. Nada, nothing. Let the free market rule. Poor people will starve to death, it's the way of the universe.
Doesn't the success of such a scheme depend upon the culture? Perhaps it's just a scheme to keep the little people from rioting.
Then there is Alaska.
Original Mike said...
"A better idea is to require welfare recipients who are physically able to work to do so by being assigned a net taxpayer whose house they will clean, laundry they will do or lawn they will care for. "
I've always thought that able-bodied welfare recipients should have to work for their check even if it was a net cost to the government; the negative incentives of handouts are that bad (IMO). But I've never really had a practical method to implement this. What can most of these people actually do? I think cubanbob has a capital idea!
12/27/15, 3:18 PM"
Thanks! What I said in partial jest does have one underlying truth; the fee for service aspect is creation of actual value albeit in a form that isn't truly voluntary. Straight out income redistribution is a zero sum game since their is no corresponding value created by the recipient. My scheme is really no different than the labor market. Also as noted by others above thread a minimum guaranteed income is guaranteed to inflate itself into nothingness. Another aspect of my scheme is that those who actually are net taxpayers are probably already paying someone to do the services I mentioned.
Yeah, having a welfare recipients clean taxpayers homes is welfare for lawyers. Just what I want, a lawsuit from a rent-seeker whose back was thrown out while cleaning my tub.
Alex said...
How about we eliminate ALL welfare to personal and corporate? No more agricultural subsidies. No more energy subsidies. Nada, nothing. Let the free market rule. Poor people will starve to death, it's the way of the universe.
12/27/15, 3:39 PM"
I'm all in favor of getting rid of corporate welfare like farm subsidies and green energy subsidies, student loans and subsidies to charities through the tax exempt and charitable gifting provisions of the tax code and the amelioration of capital misallocation by allowing tax exempt government bonds and the tax deductibility of taxes. As for the able bodied poor, they can work like the rest of us and support themselves. Otherwise you and I are indentured servants.
"Consider what this would do to the value of money. The same goes for the minimum wage. If you establish a floor for income or continually increase the minimum wage then the value of money is diminished proportionally."
This.
When the military raises the housing allowance for military members, all the rents go up by the same amount near a military base. The same thing will happen if you give someone a guaranteed income. Everything they buy will go up by an amount that will consume all their resources and they will be no netter off.
To the many people who think this is a fine idea, but want to tweak it just a bit,
I think you missed an important point;
"The privately operated project, financed by crowdfunding donations, has injected new life into an old debate in Germany about utopian ideals."
So, I think your ideas are all excellent, and I look forward to receiving immediate cash infusions from all of you. Put your money where your mouth is, or, more exactly, where my pocket is. And please don't quit your job. I'm going to need your income to support my creativity.
"A better idea is to require welfare recipients who are physically able to work to do so by being assigned a net taxpayer whose house they will clean, laundry they will do or lawn they will care for.
I have an idea...we can call these people serfs, and make the service hereditary.....and of course, since they aren't paying taxes, they haven't really earned all of their rights....
What?! This will never work! Only a grand? For this to work, it needs to be at least 3 grand.
What?! That will never work. Only 3 grand? For it to have worked, it needs at least 5 grand.
Ha! Five grand? Everyone knew it'd never work at only five grand. For this to have worked, everyone needs 10 grand.
There, I've predicted the results and the subsequent arguments you're going to hear when it doesn't work.
Guaranteed income for each person + open borders and unlimited immigration.
Gee, what could go wrong?
Yet these same people worry about the potential effects of three squares a day without effort on zoo animals.
Titus: "Then there is Alaska."
I see Titus is up to the "A-L's" in Wiki.
Titus, just wait until you get to the "B's". Lots of interesting stuff there!
Wie sagen Sie "TANSTAAFL" auf Deutsch?
People in Alaska used to get up to about $2,000 but it didn't stop them from working.
Try living in Alaska on $2,000/mon.
The Swiss will vote next year on a guaranteed minimum income. The basic income (30,000 Swiss francs, I believe) would replace all forms of welfare. I would guess that people who refused a $15 minimum wage would not favor this particular referendum, but the idea seems to be gathering some serious steam.
There are arguments even a conservative can make in favor of such a scheme. But human nature being what it is, we all know what will happen (or at least we should). In due time, as prices adjust to the new normal, the basic income will become the poverty level. It will be argued that people with special needs require more while those of us quite capable of earning our own way require less or, perhaps, none. Eventually, basic income will become like a progressive tax in reverse, redistribution on a massive scale. Supplements for "necessities" will creep back in. The welfare state will gradually be returned to it's former glory. And the number one reason the scheme won't work? Our ruling class would never, ever relinquish the power of the directed purse and it's absolute folly to believe otherwise.
I'd consider a universal income, if it was paid out at the beginning of each year. At that time, a person could choose to give up their check in exchange for the right to vote, sit on juries, hold public office, etc.
Basically narrow down the people who get a say in our government to those who can demonstrate that they are capable of supporting themselves without the public teat.
Much of the underclass doesn't work anyway. They might as well be artists.
Gahrie said...
"A better idea is to require welfare recipients who are physically able to work to do so by being assigned a net taxpayer whose house they will clean, laundry they will do or lawn they will care for.
I have an idea...we can call these people serfs, and make the service hereditary.....and of course, since they aren't paying taxes, they haven't really earned all of their rights....
12/27/15, 4:43 PM"
Yes indeed. The net taxpayer is without question the serf. And if my kids become net taxpayers they also will be hereditary serfs. Like I said support yourself if abled bodied and healthy or earn your subsidy that imposed on others.
Talk about economic illiteracy. Do people who promote these batshit insane ideas really not understand the relationship between what is genuinely valuable (to the people who are tasked with putting a value to it, i.e. the buyers) and money? Do these people really not understand that "society" (taxpayers) do not owe anyone the opportunity to do whatever they want, whether or not it can earn them a "living wage" (in Greenwich Village, or Seattle, or San Francisco, or Santa Monica... i.e. some of the most expensive places to live in the world)?
No work, no eat. It's not complicated.
I mentioned earlier Friedman's negative income tax. Everyone would get a fixed amount every year as a refundable tax credit of maybe $20k for adults. This would replace all welfare. Then, every dollar earned would be taxed at a fixed rate of maybe 20%. No one would starve and there would be a first dollar incentive to work. It would also eliminate the local maxima that incentivize people to not increase their work due to losing income through somewhat abrupt phaseouts. Instead, the reward function would be smooth at, say, 80% (assuming a 20% flat tax). I think that you would probably need to provide different base amounts for different classes of people, since children, and esp multiple children, don't cost as much as adults, and esp single adults. Otherwise you incentivize the less energetic and less ambitious to have a lot of kids (which we have today, despite Clinton's Welfare Reform).
None of this is going very far right now until these countries get control of their borders. Much of the vaunted European social welfare system is exploding right now with tens of millions of mostly Muslim undereducated immigrants flicking into those systems, said immigrants having large families and refusing to assimilate, which includes a disincentive to work. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions more would likely want to follow if they could.
I don't see a lot of discussion on how they plan to pay for all of this. Are they going to go after the ever-evil "1%" to pay for their economic wet dream? Are they going to fire millions of social services workers and use their salaries? Are they going to harvest unicorn farts to power money-making rainbow machines?
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