Earlier in the thread, someone mentioned that $10k annually in GBI would require about 80% of the current federal budget. Can you make a compelling argument that 80% of the federal budget is waste and bureaucracy, or do you have an argument that the figure is incorrect? I don’t see a reasonable way that this would save money.
What do we do about the people who can’t live on $10k a year and aren’t capable of earning more?
This seems like a cultural issue rather than a fiscal one. How would implementing a GBI affect this? It’s already possible to live very cheaply and simply rather than chasing consumerism. Very few people choose to do so.
I can’t (and won’t) try to make others’ arguments stand up.
As for making it work, it’s very much a phase-2 or -3 change, not an initial one and not in any way within our current economic structure. So any attempt to answer would be as much nonsense as most other discussion that tries to play a new game with the old pieces.
As I said, basic Income is a secondary interest for me, along with climate change. They’re all linked, but the solution doesn’t come from any moves on this tired chessboard.
Those people are already not in the cable laying labor market. I’m talking specifically about people who currently work in or are actively looking for employment in the cable-laying field.
I’m sorry - do you not understand that there are people who are currently unemployed who are, in fact, looking for work? Some of them are no doubt *capable *of laying capable, they just have not found an opening in that field (yet).
Or do you subscribed to the notion that everyone who wants to work already has a job and the only reason someone doesn’t have a job is laziness? Have you never been laid off, fired, or otherwise “between jobs”?
I was not counting kitchen and bath toward the 8x4. Figure they’d be about 2x4 each, making the total footprint 8x6. Bed would be a futon or fold into the wall. A folding chair and folding desk (a board attached on a hinge to the wall) would be all the other furniture you need. If folding fixtures could be made economical enough, maybe incorporate the kitchen and bath into the single space.
Couples, or even just friends could pool their housing credits for an 8x8 or adjoining 4x8’s. Same for families.
A non-zero number of people would like to do work laying cable that currently cannot, as the job is filled by someone who does not want to work laying cable, but only does so out of fear of impoverishment. Unless involuntary unemployment is zero, I contend that there will be plenty of labor to continue laying cable. I have worked for a utility company doing exactly that (though most of it was strung, not laid), and there was more than a two to one ratio of productivity between the top quartile of techs and the bottom. One of the main reasons I ended up quitting that job was because of the demotivating and demoralizing effects of working with people who hate their job. Getting rid of the bottom workers, while replacing them with motivated top workers will not lower your productivity. If enough people drop out of the labor force, you may end up having to pay employees a bit more to attract their labor, but they will also be more productive. If you pay fifty percent more, but get twice the productivity, everyone wins. This is what was not covered in the Wikipedia article on economics you used for your cite.
Also, a non-zero number of the people who quit their job laying cable to take the GBI would find other ways to contribute. Whether they reenter the workforce after learning a new trade that they do enjoy, or if they write a book or a song or poem, they will likely find a way to contribute more than they were while working in a job they despised. For the rest, well, just staying out of the way is enough of a contribution.
I don’t understand this response as anything other than evasion. I’m not suggesting that you make anyone else’s argument work. I’m asking you to respond to it in a reasonable way. You just waved your hands at it.
Does not seem evasive to me. Seems you are asking him to support someone else’s argument that he may not agree with or share. He could have just ignored it, but was polite enough to acknowledge your post as it was directed towards him, rather than those you should be asking.
I will answer though, in that the figure is incorrect by around an order of magnitude. With a straight payout system (which while may be a proposal, would not be one that I would get behind) your numbers are right. Sure you can do the math, and say that cutting everyone a check for a certain amount will cost a certain amount, and then compare it to another amount, and say “Wow, that’s huge!” But that would be a foolish and incorrect way of implementing a guaranteed safety net and tallying the costs associated.
Providing food, clothing and housing vouchers for anyone who asks for one (no means testing) would only cost a few thousand a year per person, and would only go towards a smaller percentage of the population than is currently on welfare. (I argue that with the incentives against work that welfare creates, more would work at least part time with a GBI system.) Reducing costs per recipient, reducing the number of recipients, and reducing the overhead of implementing welfare would end up costing less than is currently paid out. That is where your figure is incorrect.
The smallest living space I ever occupied was 9x12 with three people in it. Granted, there were only supposed to be two people in that space but I needed a place to crash for a couple weeks and I’m grateful to my friends for putting up with me. It was 3’ on each side for a bed that was essentially on top of a dresser/drawer arrangement, with a 3 foot center aisle (at night, that was occupied by me in a sleeping bad). Pretty frickin’ tight. You’re only allowing 4’ for bed AND “walkway” and I’m not sure that’s viable for anyone but a beanpole, which not everyone is. Again, this is not going to work for the elderly and/or disabled.
I’d argue for a 7’x5’ minimum space - I made a quick sketch of how that might work, link here. Assume the table and chair can fold up, there’s space at the foot of the bed to put the folded chair, you could have some coat hooks on that wall, too (cut away so you can see inside the room). Yeah, it’s tight but it’s workable. It’s basically a dorm room for one person. I threw in some shelves and under-bed storage because it’s needed for clothes, toiletries, person possessions, etc. You’d be looking at communal bathrooms and eating space, maybe an additional communal space for people to gather/meet with friends/etc. although a nearby coffee house or bar would work for that.
You’ll have to change some housing codes that mandate more square footage per person (some of which were passed to get rid of SRO’s, which sort of served this purpose in the past - minimal housing for the lower socio-economic rungs).
And here is a link to another sketch of an 8x8 space for one incorporating a minimal bathroom/shower (like units for small boats and the like) and kitchenette. Some walls cut-away so you can see most things. The sink in the bath stall is a fold-away, allowing a little more room for the shower (the toilet just gets rained on when you shower). The kitchenette has a small refrigerator/freezer unit, small microwave, sink, and some counterspace where you could have something like a hot plate, single burner, or George Foreman grill. I reconfigured the shelving over the fold-up desk so there is more room to maneuver by the “kitchen”, and there’s a bit more space at the foot of the bed.
I suppose you could reconfigure the bed area for bunks, allowing two people to live in this space, but boy would that be tight quarters.
As I said, it’s 8x8 feet, or 64 square feet which is about as small a unit as you’re going to get. There are already people in 100 square foot apartments and a few “tiny houses” even smaller than that. By putting mirror image units together you can save money on having a common “water wall” to cut down on plumbing materials required. I do think having a window is necessary for psychological health, this is supposed to be a small home, not a prison cell.
I’ve made a number of comments about Basic Income in this thread, and you’re welcome to go back and read them and ask any relevant question you like.
Other posters have made comments about $X amount per year, mini-homes, tax issues etc. - and you’re welcome to ask them about those.
Asking me what I think about someone else’s proposition that a $10k stipend or a 4x8 living space or whatever is nonsensical, because those aren’t even collateral ideas to mine. If you reread my posts, what I’ve said all along is that BI/GBI/CommieBux/Whatever is something that cannot be implemented in our current situation; that it’s something that would have to follow other changes; that to try and discuss how it might work with the present situation is an exercise in economic masturbation.
Then the debate comes to a screeching halt at this point, doesn’t it? You have interlocutors who doubt that a guaranteed basic income is even possible to implement; your response is to wave your hands and say meh. If you wish to be the slightest bit convincing then you owe at least a bare-bones sketch of what your ideal implementation may look like.
Otherwise I don’t even see why you’d bother arguing about a guaranteed basic income at all.
Because I believe it’s an excellent, worthwhile option - so much so that I am not sure there are any others worth considering, in the medium to long run. But it’s a goal, not a presently workable option.
I’m sorry if it bothers you that I refuse to get bogged down in EXACTLY what I would pay someone today, or on what terms, or what parts of the tax code I’d change to accommodate it, or whether 6x8 domiciles are enough or we need to issue 8x10 ones, or other issues that are not only completely secondary to the proposition, but raised by others from entirely different viewpoints. I’m not the one raising those issues and I don’t have any useful comment on any of them.
The US that would tolerate, support and thrive on a Basic Income program is not the one of 2015. It would be one on the far side of other socioeconomic changes that are in much the same category of “choose or die” - and if we don’t survive those changes, things like Basic Income vs. “welfare” vs. “job programs” will be largely irrelevant.
“Respond to” is not remotely the same as “support”. He could have easily said that $10k was not a reasonable amount, or that the other poster did the math wrong, or that there was some other reason that his plan would work better or be cheaper.
I’m undecided on the general idea of GBI. I think it might have merit, but as others have said, the devil is in the details. If we can’t talk about specifics, then we’re not talking about plans, just about wishes.
So, if I understand correctly, this wouldn’t be a basic income in terms of a check cut to each person, it would be, basically, minimum services provided to anyone who requested them with no means test. Anyone and everyone can get enough government-issued gruel and poor-smocks to feed and clothe themselves? That’s an interesting idea, and I agree that it would cost less than $10k/citizen to implement. I’m not sure why you think it would go to fewer recipients than welfare currently does. Could you expand on that logic?
Here is a comment you made, which I directed my original question to.
“Has the potential to cost less than” is a claim about costs. The costs of our current system have been documented. So, if you have a plan that might cost less than the current one, I’m asking you to support that claim with an explanation of the costs of your plan. Which will probably have to start with a definition of your plan.
Someone else provided an estimate for a hypothetical plan, which I mentioned as a reasonable baseline. You are free to disagree with that plan, with that estimate, with anything you want. But unless you provide some actual concrete ideas other than “the whole system is corrupt and needs to be changed”, how can anyone determine if a new system would work better?
Nonsensical? Those are suggestions on the general point of discussion. If you think they’re bad suggestions, that’s fine. But they’re not irrelevant or off-topic.
