Universal Basic Income in YN

[Technoscience Leftwing]

* In our state there is a universal basic income.
* We believe that heavy, dangerous and routine types of labor should be automated. At the same time, the creative work of people cannot be forced by the threat of hunger or punishment. Therefore, work in our society is a voluntary choice of the creative part of the population, they pay a high salary for it in addition to the basic income. The rest chose idleness, they receive only universal basic income.
* Universal basic income is paid mainly in kind, that is, things and products. It includes:
** Groats - at the choice of the recipient (rice, buckwheat, peas). Pasta. Canned seafood or synthetic meat (at the choice of the recipient). Synthetic vitamins in the form of pills. Chocolate. Sugar. Salt.
** Medical package with medicines for first aid for injuries, colds, poisoning.
** Once a quarter - 10 sets of underwear (socks, tank top, pants), 2 cotton overalls, 2 pairs of cargo pants, a cap or a hat. Color of clothes - at the choice of the recipient.
** Free electronic library: encyclopedia, dictionaries, textbooks, cookbook, classical literature and music, freeware dance music and entertainment literature.
** Card for free internet access.
** Card for free use of a small residential unit in a sleeping house, if necessary.
** Card for use of a monorail (public transport).
** A small cash benefit for unforeseen needs.

As our economy develops and new technologies are introduced, the free range of benefits will grow. The goal is an abundant free distribution of benefits, "to each according to his needs!"



/ In the photo: real monthly coupons for goods and food, which were issued to every citizen in the USSR /

[Drongonia]

Drongonia's National Treasury as well as Ministry of Social Services have been investigating the possibility of using a UBI system. However, its failure in Finland we are not too optimistic.

[Strahcoin]

There is no universal basic income in the Republic of Strahcoin. He who does not work shall not eat.

Private charities do exist, however.

[Zhouran]

However, its failure in Finland we are not too optimistic.

To only test the unemployed is to therefore miss out on how most of the population would be impacted by UBI.

To be fair to the researchers, they knew this. They are scientists trained in science. Politicians however are not, and politicians are the ones who ultimately made the decisions. As a result, the experiment as implemented was extremely limited in design, and given the opportunity to expand the experiment from only looking at the unemployed to looking at the employed as well, Finland’s politicians, the same ones who claim to want an evidence-based Finland, chose to keep the experiment limited in scope.

It was that decision which was misreported around the world as Finland’s decision to cancel their basic income experiment.

Finland of course never canceled their experiment, despite all the headlines written to the contrary. It was a two-year experiment that took place over 2017 and 2018. Because of the way data is available for research in Finland, there is a year gap, so the employment data from 2017 is available in 2019, and the data from 2018 will not be available until 2020. Thus the evaluation phase of the experiment will not be fully completed until next year.

It is within this context, that we need to understand Finland’s experiment, and how it really wasn’t a test of UBI. It was a test of slightly reducing the marginal tax rates experienced by the unemployed, and also slightly reducing the amount of bureaucracy they experience. Both of course are elements of UBI, and so there is still information to learn from such an experiment, but we must be careful with what conclusions can and should not be drawn, and it requires some knowledge of scientific methodology to fully appreciate why.

...In Finland’s experiment, the control group was 173,222 unemployed Finns. The treatment group was a randomly selected group of 2,000 also unemployed Finns. You may think how the experiment was run, was to give them basic income instead of unemployment benefits, but you would be mostly wrong, and only partially right. The single greatest problem with the design of the basic income experiment, aside from the exclusion of employed Finns, and the lack of using a saturation site to test everyone in an entire town or city, is that the treatment group continued receiving 83.3% of the conditional benefits as the control group.

...We do however already know something about UBI’s effects on part-time and full-time employment from a statewide implementation of a small UBI elsewhere — Alaska. Since 1982, Alaska has been distributing around one-fifth of what Finland tested, to all residents of Alaska, regardless of employment. A study evaluating its effects on employment determined a neutral effect on full-time employment, just as in Finland, but with a 17% boost in part-time employment. The boost is a result of a stimulated economy which created more part-time jobs, and that’s with a fraction of the amount Finland tested, which is itself a fraction of a full basic income. If Alaska had first tested its dividend on 2,000 people, I don’t expect they’d have observed a boost in part-time employment either.

...In all of the headlines about the negligible effects on employment observed in Finland’s basic income experiment, one thing goes entirely assumed, that employment is the only way of measuring one’s contribution to society.
No where in the report is the word “volunteering” or “unpaid work” even mentioned. For all we know, hours spent volunteering were increased by 50% and hours spent caring for others increased by 35%. Those are outcomes of more work, not more employment, but is the goal of work to be paid for it? Or is the goal of work to accomplish the work, paid or not?

The experiment showed a small bump in self-employment, where the self-employed actually earned a bit less. That seems to me like a very positive result, to see that people are willing to earn less, to take a risk. Think about the possibilities. What if five years from now, something just one person among Finland’s 2,000 basic income recipients did in 2017 grew into a new billion dollar industry? What if that industry improved the lives of billions of people all over the world? Innovation takes time, often many years, and it only takes one huge success to make many investments well worth it, regardless of how many other investments yielded no fruit. Paul Graham of Y-Combinator refers to this as black swan farming. All it takes is one, just one.

Another popular assumption about employment is that all employment is better than no employment. Finland’s experiment did not break employment down to the granularity of the nature of the work itself. If they had done so, and the results showed that 50 basic income recipients quit their jobs as telemarketers to pursue their doctoral degrees in biotechnology and quantum computing, would that loss of employment reveal a failure of basic income, or its success? Existing research also shows that going from unemployment into a bad job is worse for your mental health than staying unemployed.

We need to start asking some important questions about employment. How much employment actively hurts society? How many people have jobs that are the opposite of contributing to society, and instead drag society down? How many people have entirely unnecessary jobs that don’t need to exist at all? How many people have jobs that could already be done more cheaply and with higher quality and dependability by existing technologies? How many hours are we clocking that could be reduced without accomplishing less?

None of the above questions were investigated in this experiment, because for the most part, these questions aren’t being asked by society in general because of a mass delusion that all employment is good. That assumption is not only wrong, but dangerously wrong with exponential technological advancement.

So again, we need to ask the question, what is the goal of unconditional basic income? The answer is not job creation. Yes, UBI will likely create jobs due to the economic impact of increasing demand requiring increasing supply, but that’s not it’s purpose. It’s just one of many effects.

To answer the purpose of UBI requires asking another question, and that question is “What is our purpose?” What is our purpose as individuals? What is our purpose as a society? I can only speak for myself, but I believe our purpose is to make life better for everyone. Better is of course subjective, but I think Finland’s experiment did show that compared to the existing system built on distrust, partial basic income made life better for its recipients, by simply trusting them with the agency of making their own decisions. It was a test of freedom, dignity, security, and more, and it adds to the growing pile of evidence that human beings simply thrive more in systems based upon such core principles.

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Source

...It carries no cost. If 1,000 people fit the exact same example, the cost is 1,000 x 0, and that’s still zero. Multiplying 1 million by 0 is still 0. That’s how zero works.

The true cost of basic income is thus the amount of money provided to net receivers, not net payers (who all cost nothing), minus the amount net receivers put into the hat.

I calculate this as around $900 billion in the U.S. (based on $12,000 per adult citizen and $4,000 per child) , and this is true for both a negative income tax (with a 40% clawback rate) and a universal basic income (with a 40% flat tax).

However, for a cost estimate to be even more accurate, we then need to subtract out all the programs replaced by basic income, and also all the tax credits replaced by basic income. That total is in the hundreds of billions of dollars range depending on the choices we make, certainly not the $3 trillion gross range or even the $900 billion net transfer range.

Meanwhile the full costs of people not having basic income, aka the costs of not eliminating poverty…?

Yeah, that’s well over $3 trillion. Like a vaccine, universal basic income is an ounce of prevention instead of a pound of cure.

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So even though basic income would not be printing new money for everyone, even if it were, inflation would not be a guaranteed result.

With that understood, to then understand how much we should actually fear rising prices as a result of redistributing existing money from one place to another instead of printing new money requires some studying, but the short answer is that capitalism not only still exists with basic income, it is enhanced.

By enhanced, I mean there is growing evidence from where basic incomes have been actually tried that it increases entrepreneurship.

...In 1982, Alaska began providing a partial basic income annually to all its residents. Until the first dividend, Alaska had a higher rate of inflation than the rest of the United States. But ever since the dividend was introduced, Alaska has had a lower rate of inflation than the rest of the United States.

A partial basic income was also provided in Kuwait in 2011, when every citizen was given $4,000. Fears of increasing inflation were rampant, as Kuwait already had high inflation. Instead of bad inflation getting worse, it actually got better, decreasing from record highs to under 4 percent.

Elsewhere, where basic income experiments have been actually tried and studied, the result in each case is increased entrepreneurship. People use their basic incomes to invest in themselves and their futures, creating new businesses and helping to drive the economy beyond what would be possible without it. This means more people competing for basic income dollars, with better goods and services and lower costs.

All of this represents real evidence to counter any fear of inflation.

To further inform inflationary fears on a more academic basis, it’s also important to understand the basic variability of supply and demand and how it applies to various goods and services.

Where demand already exists and supply is already paid for, demand is unlikely to change as basic income simply replaces one method of payment with another. E.g., replacing food stamps with basic income is unlikely to make people buy more milk. It just means people will likely buy the same amount of milk with cash instead of SNAP.

Where demand is actually increased, depending on the good or service, supply can also easily be increased, be increased with some investment in capacity, or not be increased. It is this third case where prices can rise, and points more to increases in prices for luxuries, and not basic goods and services.

All of this represents academic evidence to counter any fear of inflation.

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He who does not work shall not eat.

The purpose of UBI (or even welfare in general) isn't to make people "lazy and jobless" as echoed in mainstream media or from the misinformed, but instead to act as a financial safety net for people including those who are employed. For able-bodied working-age people, one must have to pay for rent, taxes, utilities, food, and other basic needs, and thus can sometimes become a source of stress for them. The amount of income from UBI or social security isn't enough to cover the basic needs for living for one individual, but again acts as a financial safety net.

[Fostoria]

Fostoria does not use a Universal Basic Income (UBI) system. The government, consisting entirely of the Nationalist Imperial Worker's Party, has stated that the current Fostorian economy is strong enough to give people a sense of financial security through seemingly unlimited opportunity and because of this there is no reason to set up extra safety nets that could damage Fostoria's fantastic unemployment rate (1.5%).
Grand Emperor Geronimo XIII has stated that Fostoria's current system to deal with unemployment and poverty, the Fostoriaye Naszionane Vorkekorps (Fostorian National Labor Corps) established in 2017, is perfectly sufficient. It allows people to voluntarily sign up to a work corps that does public works projects and the like in exchange for state housing, food, a uniform, and a small allowance of F$M 500 per month.

[Kombinita Socialisma Demokratio]

Everyone is entitled to just enough to survive, regardless.
This includes (at a minimum) a few changes of clothes, medical care, a certain degree of education, shelter (not necessarily good, it may be just a shack with a hammock), access to clean water and hygiene, and food that would usually be considered bland (about 80 % of their caloric needs if mostly sedentary, but also all vitamins and minerals needed; in the form of a mix of legume(s) and grain(s) and/or root vegetable(s), all with little to no spices).

Different provinces can and do increase this minimum entitlement, but it cannot be lowered unless there is not enough to go around (or if the person is living off of donations in a mendicant/ascetic/religious leader lifestyle, then their entitlement for food can be lowered unless malnourished, and their entitlement for clothing can be lowered to one outfit).

Basically we want to provide the very basics which we can while also allowing provinces to lower the entitlements to a survivable, albeit uncomfortable, level. Provinces choose to implement the lowest legal amount when there is a shortage of labour (which is rare thanks to automation and scale). People are not necessarily required to use their minimum entitlement, however, and can and often do make up the difference with some of their income (people almost always furnish their own food through the income, and most do upgrade from the basic shelter, but housing is still distributed based on who wants to live where, and who needs to live there most; location does not affect price (other than travel, which can sometimes affect price)).

[Zhouran]

Fostoria does not use a Universal Basic Income (UBI) system. The government, consisting entirely of the Nationalist Imperial Worker's Party, has stated that the current Fostorian economy is strong enough to give people a sense of financial security through seemingly unlimited opportunity and because of this there is no reason to set up extra safety nets that could damage Fostoria's fantastic unemployment rate (1.5%).

Technically even if a nation has a "strong-enough" economy (plus it's a bit of a vague ambiguous statement), financial insecurity for each individual can still happen due to personal and family matters more so than socio-economic matters. Plus there can never be such as thing as an "extra safety net" since a safety net is a safety net while one of the sources I linked says the following: another popular assumption about employment is that all employment is better than no employment.

Grand Emperor Geronimo XIII has stated that Fostoria's current system to deal with unemployment and poverty, the Fostoriaye Naszionane Vorkekorps (Fostorian National Labor Corps) established in 2017, is perfectly sufficient. It allows people to voluntarily sign up to a work corps that does public works projects and the like in exchange for state housing, food, a uniform, and a small allowance of F$M 500 per month.

Unlike UBI, the FNLC would be described as an "extra safety net" since not only does it feature monthly financial income but also housing, food, and uniform, which would actually add-in extra cost for the three thus making it less-sustainable than UBI, which is basically just the monthly financial income paid-for through taxes. FNLC can work in practice but the government would have to not only use the money paid for taxes but also the government budget to pay for the housing, food, and uniform for the FNLC, which also means having to reduce the budget of a particularly field such as defense-spending or infrastructure-spending in order to pay for all expenses of the FNLC.

[Drongonia]

This thread should be called "Zhouran argues with you and tries to convince you UBI is a good idea"

[The Liamese Empire]

The Liamese Empire has no such programs seeing as the involuntary redistribution of wealth is seen as immoral by the majority of people in the empire. Instead, the empire focuses on having low taxes. All forms of wealth redistribution exist in the private sphere in the forms of charity.

[Zhouran]

This thread should be called "Zhouran argues with you and tries to convince you UBI is a good idea"

It's called criticism, don't see the harm of needing to point out a flaw. Don't take it personally. And plus I didn't criticize everyone's nation's way of implementing safety nets, just pointed out any incorrect notions of UBI.

[Yuyencia]

Are reward laziness not hard work technology am NOT allow

[East Ustya]

About 1100 Euros per month for a farmer or fishermen.

[The Realm of Platinum]

Us in Hahnvyr has a UBI-ish system where everyone is entitled to a safe living space, safe access to food and proper hygiene. The bare minimum, basically. If you are a claustrophobe or if you hate vegetables, then GO WORK! Hahnvyr keeps them alive so they could work later on. But, labor regulations suffice so unemployment isn't really a choice except for masochists ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Romanian-Slavia]

3 Legionary Leus per week ( 3,6$ )
Free healthcare only in case of real emergency
A sleeping place at a homeless house (20 AM - 8 AM)
0.4 Legionary LEUs per day (~0,5 $) in meal tickets avalible only at the social lunch homes
1 bath per week at a social bathroom

[Strahcoin]

He who does not work shall not eat.

The purpose of UBI (or even welfare in general) isn't to make people "lazy and jobless" as echoed in mainstream media or from the misinformed, but instead to act as a financial safety net for people including those who are employed. For able-bodied working-age people, one must have to pay for rent, taxes, utilities, food, and other basic needs, and thus can sometimes become a source of stress for them. The amount of income from UBI or social security isn't enough to cover the basic needs for living for one individual, but again acts as a financial safety net.

Well, that money has to come from somewhere. Why should the government forcibly take away an honest citizen's hard-earned money to give it to a complete stranger? Wouldn't it be better to lower taxes to a flat, simple one?

The benefit of private charities is that in this situation, the people have the choice to help the poor. Moreover, private charities are much less wasteful than bureaucratic welfare programs.

[Zhouran]

Well, that money has to come from somewhere.

From taxes, especially from taxes such as value-added tax and corporate tax. Money is no doubt a concern, but the money from taxes can be enough to fund something like UBI, the US for example spends billions of USD per year to fund existing social security programs. UBI is more straightforward than existing social security programs and in theory can also be used to abolish all other forms of welfare so that the taxes allocated for social security can be allocated towards funding a UBI instead, thus decreasing "bureaucracy" from a western-conservative perspective.

Why should the government forcibly take away an honest citizen's hard-earned money to give it to a complete stranger?

Because the purpose of taxes is for citizens to pay a percentage of their income and corporations a percentage of their profit towards state revenue which can be spent on numerous fields ranging from defense to R&D to infrastructure and etc. Spending tax-payers' money on defense is essentially giving hard-earned money to "strangers" aka soldiers who are tasked with defending the nation, plus military personnel are also on benefits too.

The benefit of private charities is that in this situation, the people have the choice to help the poor. Moreover, private charities are much less wasteful than bureaucratic welfare programs.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against private charities and no doubt they can do good for communities, and strong emphasis on communities as in local communities. Private charities cannot replace welfare programs though since they're inefficient and unsustainable. Safety net built from state programs gives every individual the security necessary to take risks and not to mention that private charities cannot respond to something like a modern Great Depression as they'll just disappear due to the amount of stress having to tend to large numbers of people in hardship such as the recently unemployed. Plus private charities don't always have the same priorities as public policy, not to mention that a government itself is bureaucracy and bureaucracy isn't bad as long as it's implemented properly (in the case of US social welfare programs, isn't done properly compared to Australian social welfare programs for example).

I can understand why some people are concerned on the idea of social security, but many can mistake misinformation for facts. I appreciate your OOC input so don't take this reply as a personal attack on your right-wing beliefs.

[Fostoria]

This thread should be called "Zhouran argues with you and tries to convince you UBI is a good idea"

[Fostoria]

Fostoria does not use a Universal Basic Income (UBI) system. The government, consisting entirely of the Nationalist Imperial Worker's Party, has stated that the current Fostorian economy is strong enough to give people a sense of financial security through seemingly unlimited opportunity and because of this there is no reason to set up extra safety nets that could damage Fostoria's fantastic unemployment rate (1.5%).

Technically even if a nation has a "strong-enough" economy (plus it's a bit of a vague ambiguous statement), financial insecurity for each individual can still happen due to personal and family matters more so than socio-economic matters. Plus there can never be such as thing as an "extra safety net" since a safety net is a safety net while one of the sources I linked says the following: another popular assumption about employment is that all employment is better than no employment.

Grand Emperor Geronimo XIII has stated that Fostoria's current system to deal with unemployment and poverty, the Fostoriaye Naszionane Vorkekorps (Fostorian National Labor Corps) established in 2017, is perfectly sufficient. It allows people to voluntarily sign up to a work corps that does public works projects and the like in exchange for state housing, food, a uniform, and a small allowance of F$M 500 per month.

Unlike UBI, the FNLC would be described as an "extra safety net" since not only does it feature monthly financial income but also housing, food, and uniform, which would actually add-in extra cost for the three thus making it less-sustainable than UBI, which is basically just the monthly financial income paid-for through taxes. FNLC can work in practice but the government would have to not only use the money paid for taxes but also the government budget to pay for the housing, food, and uniform for the FNLC, which also means having to reduce the budget of a particularly field such as defense-spending or infrastructure-spending in order to pay for all expenses of the FNLC.

FNLC is essentially a "Labor Army," it's purpose is to give people employment while doing public works, contract work for private companies (which helps to pay for itself), and aiding the military- it has more use than serving as a welfare program. "UBI" by definition goes out to all citizens, while the FNLC is just a fraction of a percent.
Also, both realistically and IC the best way to "prevent" financial insecurity is to personally save up money and spend less on non-necessities if need-be. And don't make the argument that UBI gives everyone more disposable cash to be "risk-takers" and consumers, someone has to be taxed...
Finally, it's unrealistic to expect that you can make the vast majority of the population wealthy enough to have the opportunity to easily become an entrepreneur on a whim without taxing the rich so much that it takes away the entire reason to become one.

Edit: By "extra safety nets" I'm referring to ones in addition to those already in place

[Zhouran]

FNLC is essentially a "Labor Army," it's purpose is to give people employment while doing public works, contract work for private companies (which helps to pay for itself), and aiding the military- it has more use than serving as a welfare program. "UBI" by definition goes out to all citizens, while the FNLC is just a fraction of a percent.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of a labor army (a worker force that can be mobilized) since that basically promotes social mobility, however abolishing social security rather than having both a labor army and a social security system isn't good since not everyone is able to work, eg. the disabled, women on maternity leave, stay-at-home mothers, etc...

Also, both realistically and IC the best way to "prevent" financial insecurity is to personally save up money and spend less on non-necessities if need-be.

>realistically

Also, just saving up can only cover a bit of financial security but cannot bring about financial independence, which is another value that tends to be forgotten.

You may have a job you love, but if you’re feeling financially insecure, you need to take more control of what you’re earning. Or you might be struggling to make ends meet and need more income to refresh your bank account. Create multiple income streams using the skills and interests you already have. Offering services as a virtual assistant on a site like UpWork, tutoring kids after school, delivering packages for Amazon, or consulting on the side can all help put more money in your pocket

Source

As a result, people out there who are in need of money end up having multiple jobs in order to have multiple income streams, thus increasing their level of stress and for parents out there it also means less time to spend with children and even less time to spend on themselves. Having multiple jobs and saving up money can give a minimum financial security but not financial independence, thus the insecurity still lingers.

Psychological Benefits

• Improved recognition of civic rights and participation in larger society (self-confidence)
• Alleviate financial stress leading to improved mental health
• Social safety net and motivate citizens to ‘give back’ to society (civic participation)
• Improved subjective-well-being
• Moral and financial support for job displacement due to automation and disruption caused by technology
• Increase trust in Government and community overall leading to greater personal meaning in finding ways to give back

Economic Benefits

• Stimulate the U.S. economy overall improving consumer sentiment and impacting consumer spending over the long-term in a sustainable way
• Improve labor pool participation rates
• Stimulate entrepreneurial activities
• Increase education and training for new skill acquisition
• Greater ability to combat personal debt
• Increase levels of social mobility
• Empower citizens to move to cities where better jobs exist

Source

And don't make the argument that UBI gives everyone more disposable cash to be "risk-takers" and consumers, someone has to be taxed...

Nothing wrong with being taxed. The only people who hate taxes are those with irrational hatred towards governments and those who are too lazy to contribute to society. Plus the money from UBI along with some of the personal income can be used to pay for basic necessities such as utility, housing, food, car fuel, etc., while the remaining personal income can be used to buy non-necessities goods aka consumer goods, thus circulating money around. Not rocket science.

Also, "don't make the argument that..." is what someone would say when they have no facts to back them up. Nice try though.

Finally, it's unrealistic to expect that you can make the vast majority of the population wealthy enough to have the opportunity to easily become an entrepreneur on a whim without taxing the rich so much that it takes away the entire reason to become one.

Doesn't say anything on UBI about making everyone wealthy, you just made that up. The purpose of UBI is equality of opportunity not equality of outcome. Plus rich people should pay taxes like anyone else, they don't deserve special privilege just because they make more money than the average hard-working joe. Cutting taxes for the rich and letting big corporations not pay taxes is essentially crony capitalism and not efficient capitalism, not to mention that this makes bigger corporations gain more monopoly on their respective industries and thus smaller businesses and venture capitalist entrepreneurs can't even compete with the monopolies in the first place, thus going against the whole notion of "free-market equals competition" since competition can't even happen in the very beginning. This is the problem with trickle-down economics as bigger corporations get special privilege from the government while smaller businesses and start-ups can't even gain a foothold in their respective industries without going bankrupt. UBI is more than just giving financial security to people. It's about trickle-up economy and UBI in itself basically fits both the concepts of ideal free-market competition and corporatist social-security.

The transformation from a coercive market to a free market means that employers must attract employees with better pay and more flexible hours. It also means a more productive work force that potentially obviates the need for market-distorting minimum wage laws. Friction might even be reduced, so that people can move more easily from job to job, or from job to education/retraining to job, or even from job to entrepreneur, all thanks to more individual liquidity and the elimination of counter-productive bureaucracy and conditions.

Perhaps best of all, the automation of low-demand jobs becomes further incentivized through the rising of wages. The work that people refuse to do for less than a machine would cost to do it becomes a job for machines. And thanks to those replaced workers having a basic income, they aren’t just left standing in the cold in the job market’s ongoing game of musical chairs. They are instead better enabled to find new work, paid or unpaid, full-time or part-time, that works best for them.

Source

The reasons? Careful analysis reveals a number of excellent arguments for the implementation of a Universal Basic Income (UBI).

1. Our Jobs are Disappearing

2. Half of America is Stressed Out or Sick

3. Children Need Our Help

4. We Need More Entrepreneurs

5. We Need the Arts & Sciences

The usual uninformed and condescending opposing argument is that UBI recipients will waste the money, spending it on alcohol and drugs and other 'temptation' goods. Not true. Studies from the World Bankand the Brooks World Poverty Institute found that money going to poor families is used primarily for essential needs, and that the recipients experience greater physical and mental well-being as a result of their increased incomes. Other arguments against the workability of the UBI are countered by the many successful experiments conducted in the present and recent past: Finland, Canada, Netherlands, Kenya, India, Great Britain, Uganda, Namibia, and in the U.S. in Alaska and California.

Largely because of the stock market, U.S. financial wealth has surged to $77 trillion, with the richest 10% owning over three-quarters of it. Just a 2 percent tax on total financial wealth would generate enough revenue to provide a $12,000 annual stipend to every American household (including those of the richest families).

It's easy to justify a wealth tax. Over half of all basic research is paid for by our tax dollars. All the technology in our phones and computers started with government research and funding. Pharmaceutical companies wouldn't exist without decades of support from the National Institutes of Health. Yet the tech and pharmaceutical companies claim patents on the products paid for and developed by the American people.

The collection of a wealth tax would not be simple, since only about half of U.S. financial wealth is held directly in equities and liquid assets (Table 5-2). But it's doable. As Thomas Piketty notes, "A progressive tax on net wealth is better than a progressive tax on consumption because first, net wealth is better defined for very wealthy individuals."

And certainly a financial industry that knows how to package worthless loans into A-rated mortgage-backed securities should be able to figure out how to tax the investment companies that manage the rest of our ever-increasing national wealth.

Source

This thread should be called "Zhouran argues with you and tries to convince you UBI is a good idea"

I get it that people hate having their beliefs challenged with something new and radical, but such backwards thinking isn't a very healthy mindset. Just because facts don't agree with your worldview doesn't mean your alternative facts are correct and valid. But hey it's NationStates so what do I know. You're more than free to leave the thread, just don't let the door hit your asses on the way out.

[Great Aletia]

Citizens who are unemployed, studying, or disabled receive welfare automatically. Those who can work, however, and choose not to, receive nothing. The department of welfare checks up on people to make sure they are seeking employment. Those who are not are given six months to change their ways. If, after this time period, an individual has made no effort to seek employment, they will be cut off. What happens after this point is not the department's concern. It is worth noting, however, that being cut off from welfare does not affect an individual's right to access state healthcare, education, or accommodation. Food stamps will also continue to be issued, should they be required. While the department is not going to fund those who will not work, Imperial citizens are guaranteed access to healthcare, education, accommodation, and sustenance, regardless of their personal circumstances.

[Pavonistade]

There is currently no UBI or negative income tax in place in Pavonistade.

Some discussion has taken place about the viability of UBI. The current President, Calvin Elmore, has referred to it as an interesting idea, though he also believes it is too early to implement such a system. The Minister of Fourth Wall Affairs, Josef Hammock, has also recommended that any discussion about whether UBI works or not be taken to a faraway magical location.

[Raider Clans]

Not a thing. Do you really think violent savages would have something like that?

[Lillorainen]

As of currently, there is no Universal Basic Income in the Federation of Lillorainen, but there are numerous welfare programs, minimum wage laws. as well as public and private charities. However, the Meritocratic Council has been debating on an introduction of a UBI for some time, and with the current administrative and structural reforms in the Federation, which are supposed to reduce bureaucracy and make the state apparatus more efficient, the chances of an introduction of a UBI for a test (and, in case of success, permanent implementation) can be considered more good than bad, especially considering the obvious success of this model in Zhouran.

[Soviet Tankistan]

There is no universal income, although labor laws and employment rates quite literally leave people living and with enough or out of the country.

[Gandoor]

There is currently no UBI system in place in the Democratic Republic, however some members of the Communist Party have proposed that Prime Minister-designate Park Sang-Hee's proposed plan to adjust the current unemployment allowance to a flat monthly allowance of 1100 GDY (~US$2022) should instead be granted to all Gandoorese citizens aged 20 and older, not just the unemployed.