"Guaranteed Minimum Income isn't 'less progressive'.

[hbons@mastodon.social]

@codinghorror whatever makes me not have to file taxes. :p

[Guest]

@oblomov @codinghorror sounds like those were part of the implementation details? is there any information how it was done? I thought the cleanest way to do it was via a "positive / negative" tax rate, which has low bureaucratic overhead?

[Guest]

@oblomov @codinghorror I m not sure on the social stigma if it is just part of the normal tax declaration. Not sure about Italy, but here in Luxembourg we have good parental leave (6month for each parent, paid at up to 5 thirds of the minimum wage) and there is no stigma about it.

[brad@1040ste.net]

@pol_9000 @oblomov @codinghorror Isn't that more-or-less UBI with appropriate adjustments to the income tax thresholds and/or the upper rates? Albeit with a lag factor added of course - you need to consider the previous period's income before deciding to pay people or not - vs UBI being immediately available and the clawback being the part that lags?

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@brad @pol_9000 @codinghorror and that's a nontrivial factor. Especially for those more in need, 300 now (UBI) may be more important than 700 down the line (MGI)

[nlswrnr@mastodon.social]

@codinghorror Can't you implement the same by implementing UBI and raising income tax at the same time?

[illogical_me@mastodon.cloud]

@codinghorror UBI doesn’t cost more because you can get rid of all the checking infrastructure. And because of UBI you don’t need to worry about how those people are going to survive. Also limiting it to the people in need, as someone else said, incentivise clandestine employment but also disincentivise finding better/any employment, if that would push you over the line.

[illogical_me@mastodon.cloud]

@codinghorror The biggest problem would be inflation from exploitative basic necessities companies, like supermarkets, but that’s already a problem we should address, and good taxation seems to be the only way. So if they raise the prices to extract all UBI you raise more taxes and raise UBI.

[toddz@social.linux.pizza]

@codinghorror I suspect that closing sentence doesn't really say what you mean..?
"GMI... hell no." 🤔

[epic_null@infosec.exchange]

@codinghorror

we have to deal with things like "scarcity," "incentives," and "math."

I would argue the big economic problem we are having right now is that "Scarcity" itself is breaking down. While it still technically exists, we can call things out like "Labor" where a lack of scarcity means providers of that product are struggling, and products like "food" where scarcity has been artificially injected.

With Scarcity breaking down, "Incentives" get weird, and the math runs models that don't reflect reality.

GMI avoids this by slowly phasing out the benefit as you earn more,

Unemployment and foodstamps are supposed to do that. When you look at how those worked out, the answer is not well. Putting in the effort to earn money causes those who rely on said benefits to have less resources instead of more. I would not advise adding another system with the same mechanics until we fix the existing ones.

UBI is also inflationary.

Question: Do we fucking care at this point? People could earn less on average and prices will STILL GO UP. Prices go up! That is what they do!

The only way around that is more competition in the markets, which will not happen unless we make it easier and safer to put your time and energy into new companies. This is a place where "Inscentives" have been working against us - people are inscentivised to work for existing companies rather than try their own.

Specific Support: Focusing on the disabled, the elderly, and families with children -- the groups who truly cannot work and need the most help. And GMI can help them get back to work.

I am not saying specific support is not good. I am saying we have existing programs for these people, and these people still struggle because these programs are designed like crap, and then that crap is not experiences by people like us because we don't rely on the programs, allowing said programs to be even more crap.

One advantage of UBI is that... everyone would experience it. The cost of acquiring it. The overhead of filing for it. The benefits of living on it.

And it doesn't start costing you $1.50 for every dolar you earn, with sudden drops as you hit a point where your efforts to put food on the table mean suddenly you lose childcare and have to figure out what you have to cut to be able to both feed your family and care for them.

not in the mailboxes of the wealthy

Imo the easist way to resolve that is to tax the wealthy appropriately. They can have their monthly state money and pay it back with their anual taxes. Less overhead to do it that way, and it means if they fall on hard times... then that's just whatever.

[epic_null@infosec.exchange]

@passwordsarehard4 @codinghorror Did you mean AGI or UBI? AGI is an AI thing.

AGI is not needed to prevent people from struggling due to being less intelegent. We have plenty of tools and strategies for that already. We just have to decide as a society that we want to actually take care of each other.

[codinghorror@infosec.exchange]

@Epic_Null and tell me please how we tax the wealthy when billionaires pay nearly zero today? Explain it to me, step by step. The reason the other programs are “crap” is because they are far more complex than GMI, by the way.

[codinghorror@infosec.exchange]

@illogical_me literally no data supports anything you wrote. If you have data supporting your statements, please share it.

[codinghorror@infosec.exchange]

@Epic_Null @passwordsarehard4 exactly. And those us states that have decided they don’t want to take care of each other need to form their own country, IMHO.

[codinghorror@infosec.exchange]

@toddz it reads cleanly to me: “ not in the mailboxes of the wealthy... and as a very wealthy person myself: hell no” (we are not putting money in the mailboxes of the wealthy, like me, one of the said wealthy, which is what UBI would do.)

[mbpaz@mas.to]

@illogical_me @codinghorror

FWIW - "finalistic" policies do cause clear inflation (i.e., there are examples on how giving 200€/month to help pay rent to everyone under a minimum income ends up raising avg housing prices by 200€/mo).
GMI should not have the same effect... to an extent, as in many markets, housing takes most family income and any additional income would go towards paying rent.

(I am not an economist. Nor do I want to)

[mbpaz@mas.to]

@illogical_me @codinghorror

Lack of stigma and universality are two good reasons supporting UBI vs GMI... *but* in my humble opinion everything else supports GMI vs UBI. Social services should strive to find everyone in need of support and request GMI for them. Payment should be in plain money, not coupons or a "poor man's card".

Does it leave room for cheating? Sure, like every policy does. Far smaller room than building a road or purchasing jet fighters, anyway.

[epic_null@infosec.exchange]

@codinghorror We can and have taxed the wealthy before. It was highly successful. We do not do so today, but have several proposals (improved capital gains tax, for example) that address this. We also have states beginning to implement additional taxes on those with high income. (See Washington State's "Millionair Tax")

The challenge is that it's a political fight to get these established - more so since Citizens United.

Also... the programs being crap is not because they need to be complex. If it were, we would not be having a social security crisis. They are crap because we give poor people crap.

If you have ever sampled procucts across the spectrum, you might notice how anything directed at poor people is full of advertisements, scams and upselling. This is considered lucrative, even though we are selling services to individuals who cannot afford the bells and whistles.

We specifically design benches to be uncomfortable. There was even a toilet designed to be uncomfortable.

But this is about government services, not just what we find acceptable.

So to bring us back, I need to call out how much scruteny poor people are under to prove their poorness is not a moral failing instead of the fact they are paid less than enough to meet the poverty line - a line chosen to describe not "Who has enough", but instead "Who is literally starving".

And why? Because of the "Welfare Queen Myth".

So no. I do not trust us with any means testing. I will not until we fix existing means testing.

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@codinghorror @illogical_me Italy