‘Basic income’ poll: 64% of Europeans would vote in favor!

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: luthier

Why would it be busy work. You really can't think of useful jobs that could be done in your town, county, state?
I can think of hundreds of useful jobs that could be done with just a few miles of where I am.
Greater self sufficiency is great in theory but in the modern specialised economy it is just not realistic.

Yeah I can. Does that mean I am trained to do it?

Are we talking about training people now too? Foreman? Secretaries, on and on. It's a logistical nightmare, code inspectors, liability insurance equiptment etc.

It's a good idea. But the roll out would be far beyound the scope of Congress or state gov today. They barely agree on what time to meet to talk about the problems.

I knpwnself sufficiency is an ideal.

However it's something I have been able to do.

I am spraying laquer right now on two guitars. I have a garden. I trade with a farmer for lamb and chicken.

People may need to learn to take care of themselves because these d bags aren't going to fix any of the problems. Everyone puts their chips into their magic candidate hoping it will be the answer and it never is. We have had a handful of decent presidents over the last 100 years. Congress is even worse.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Fishy
Money has no intrinsic worth or value. And it certainly is not scarce. You can create trillions of it out of nothing by pressing a few keys at the right keyboard.

Create the money out of nothing like every bank loan in the last few centuries.

Bank loans add money to the system, but that adding to the system is also temporary. Repaying the loan removes the money from the system.

The aggregate rate at which banks create money is always greater than the aggregate rate at which they destroy money.

This is how the money supply grows.

originally posted by: Aazadan
You can create new money to pay for it, but only to the extent that the demand for new money exists.

There is always demand for money in the economy. I already explained why (capitalist, for profit economies always have a shortage of purchasing power).

originally posted by: Aazadan
Once you meet that demand you'll run into rather severe inflation problems. Instead it's better to obtain the money through taxes or other means the government can use to profit.

1. If the money supply doesn't keep growing geometrically, you have an economic crash. I already explained why that it is in my previous posts.

2. The only way the money supply can grow is through bank loans.

3. For bank loans to be issued, there need to be willing borrowers who qualify for the conditions required by law and the banks' own regulations for issuing them loans. This generally means incomes for people to pay back the loans.

4. Up until the financial crisis of 07~08, banks were willing to lend to people with no or insufficient incomes and few or no assets to pledge as collateral. Mostly because they couldn't get enough borrowers with better financial status and banks, as a whole, want to lend. Because when they lend money they effectively print their future interest earnings.

5. Due to automation and advancements in AI and the increase in productivity and the consistent lessening of requirements for human labour they cause, more and more people will find themselves without incomes. And they can't get loans either. They'll eventually unavoidably default. Unless the banks keep issuing them more and more credit.

How is that any better than a basic income issued out of nothing? The bank loans themselves come out of nothing. Yet instead of just paying the borrow so they can live in a home, buy a tv, buy food high fructose, high fat, high salt food and be content and pacified, you're paying both the borrow and the bank.

Let's say you don't issue them more credit. What then? They default en masse, like they did in 07 and 08 and afterwards.

Then what? Repossess their homes? Kick them out on the street? Demolish the homes? Sell them for pennies on the dollar?

6. Without people continuing to borrow money out issued out of nothing to spend on goods and services, a large percentage of businesses cannot sell enough at high enough prices to at least cover their costs completely, let alone register a profit.

I already explained, in ample detail, why this is. It's because all businesses have expenses towards all businesses. So they cannot afford to purchase their own production with their stockholders' dividends and their employees' wages. And the government cannot provide the missing necessary purchasing power either, because it cannot issue money. It can only redistribute it.

So, for example, it takes money from owners and employees of businesses to give to government employees, to recipients of welfare payments and stipends etc. Some of the money it redistributes to other businesses, yes. However, this doesn't change anything. Because the businesses the money was redistributed from (through various taxes) will only be deeper in the hole and farther away from being able to purchase its own output.

And this is true of all businesses so, consequently, it's true for the economy as a whole. A capitalist economy cannot purchase its own aggregate economic output without extraneous purchasing power.

Which is where, I already explained, the banking system comes in, with its money it continually creates out of nothing and which is the only source of extraneous purchasing power which can compensate the purchasing power deficit inherent to capitalist, market economies.

However, banks cannot spend that money on themselves. They need borrowers.

How are you going to have borrowers if they're unemployed and employment is basically the only means of income most people can ever hope to have?

Are you going to continue with the NINJA loans, the subprime loans? That bubble burst already, mate. It burst last decade.

Are you going to allow the government to borrow the money and spend it on public works or welfare programs or a basic income?

No, because Fox news and friends told you the following lies, which you believe :

1. Money has intrinsic value, is intrinsically valuable, and 'wasting' money (which seems to be basically anything that isn't giving it to the MIC) is sacrilegious.
2. Money is rare.
3. Money is difficult to create.
4. Although money supposedly has intrinsic value and should be cherished, creating more money is always bad. But only when the central bank does it, of course.
5. You can only get money through hard work, taking risks, having exemplary work ethic, being brilliant, contributing commensurately to society and generally being God's gift to humanity.
6. People with money are hardworking or else they wouldn't have it. People without money are obviously lazy bums.
7. If you run a deficit that's like the worst thing ever. Because,
8. If you run a deficit, that money disappears into oblivion rather than being circulated through the economy and generating economic activity. And having money 'disappear into oblivion' is wasting money and that's very bad (see 1).
9. Helping the poor and downtrodden with money created out of nothing is very bad, and inflationary (inflation is always bad).
10. Making the rich richer by inflating asset prices, the MIC bigger and more powerful, militarising the police and waging wars with lots and lots more money created out of nothing is awesome, and inflationary (this kind of inflation is good, obviously).

I ask you this :

How are you going to grow the money supply without borrowers, because they're all unemployed and you don't want to loan to the unemployed perpetually because you believe in right wing values but debts that can't be repaid won't be repaid?

NINJA borrowers are who and what keep economies afloat nowadays.

Do you either :

1. contend that what I explained about the money supply NEEDING to grow geometrically perpetually just for the economy to function (let alone grow) is false, incorrect?

2. propose some other way of growing the money supply, which doesn't involve lending new money created out of nothing to people?

3. continue lending to people indefinitely, so they never have to pay and they can have an income without a wage?

If you choose 2, what other ways of expanding the money supply do you propose?

If you choose 3, how is that fundamentally different, in a good way, from a basic income?

If you choose 1, you obviously believe in something from nothing and there's no point continuing.

a reply to: Fishy

Excellent. Brings me back to a class a should have payed more attention to. I wish you were around when the Austrian school fanatics were around. I respect Mises and definitely Freidman and Hayek but in the most militant form they believe in zero regulation and ignore money power. Which IMO is just not reality.

Has anyone brought up the slippery slope? If there is a basic income for everyone, that means that all citizens are "employees" of the government. It's not like they can fire you, but maybe come up with another way to cut employee spending. One child per couple? People older than 80 must end their suffering? I don't like it.

originally posted by: whatmakesyouright
Has anyone brought up the slippery slope? If there is a basic income for everyone, that means that all citizens are "employees" of the government. It's not like they can fire you, but maybe come up with another way to cut employee spending. One child per couple? People older than 80 must end their suffering? I don't like it.

How so any more than wellfare? It's supported by quite a few prominent libertarians. In fact Freidman may have started the concept with negative income tax.

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Fishy

Two banks cant earn money by lending each other money. They would be increasing their liabilities at the same rate.

Of course they can. All money is created out of nothing through bank loans so any interest earnings by any banks are money previously issued by a bank. Although it's not supposed to be done directly, by banks lending to themselves or to each other. The newly created money is supposed to be lent to the real economy so that the money banks create through loans don't go directly into interest payments back to banks.

en.wikipedia.org...

Almost half of all the loans made by Icelandic banks were to holdings companies, many of which are connected to those same Icelandic banks. Money was allegedly lent by the banks to their employees and associates so they could buy shares in those same banks while simply using those same shares as collateral for the loans. Borrowers were then allowed to defer paying interest on the loan until the end of the period, when the whole amount plus interest accrued was due. These same loans were then allegedly written off days before the banks collapsed. Kaupthing allowed a Qatari investor to purchase 5% of its shares. It was later revealed that the Qatari investor "bought" the stake using a loan from Kaupthing itself and a holding company associated with one of its employees (i.e., the bank was, in effect, buying its own shares).[167]

There were also instances of banks lending to each other and in loops so they could quickly and easily start collecting interest on money they created out of nothing through loans from the same money they created out of nothing through the same loans.

a reply to: Davg80



Thanks for the post. Definite yes from me, in fact I am working on exactly this. I'm supposed to present a paper on this in July. Basic income for everyone in the European Union paid by an increase in the VAT (value added tax) rate.

Could do with some help to be honest - tying down the existing VAT European earnings is looking a bit sketchy. Message me if you are keen to help.

This solves to many problems to be ignored.
Peace

a reply to: luthier

Are you on welfare? I'm not. Welfare is optional. This was worded as everyone gets a basic income, if they are working or not. That means everyone is in the system. They own everyone.

originally posted by: Dfairlite

originally posted by: luthier

originally posted by: Dfairlite

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Dfairlite

Yes because educational achievement, health outcomes and poverty levels are all bunk. We should just measure quality of life by suicide rates.......

If a very smart, healthy, and wealthy person kills themselves, were they happy? Yet they'd tick all of the quality of life boxes for you.

Thats not the psychology at all. The suicide rates go up as society gets elevated. This is a very well studied phenomenon. Why are the suicide rates of horrible countries like Bulgaria lower than the US or Canada? Because those people are far too busy surviving and trying to feed themselves to be depressed and have time to think.

There are many issues even in your endocrine system that occur the easier life is. Especially the less physically active you are. Your glands need to produce the hormones they were made for and your body chemistry even. Even using your adrenaline is important.

So how does that translate to a high quality of life? I mean, is depression a better quality of life than surviving?

Further, your analysis fails. Burundi is the second poorest country in the world and has a massive suicide rate. Double that of the west. Zimbabwe is also one of the top poor countries and has a suicide rate that's about 150% of the western nations.

My point is not that those metrics aren't good metrics, rather they don't measure what they purport to measure.

Did you consider that people are offing themselves more often in socialist countries (if that's even true, did you provide a citation? I didn't see one.) because they don't have to be as concerned with what happens with their family after they've lost a breadwinner?

And even if there is a correlation, it doesn't prove causation unless it's conspicuously strong.

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: ScepticScot
Actually there are a lot of very valid arguments against UBI, the simplest if which is that there is a lot more socially useful ways to guarantee a minimum income. A job guarantee scheme would provide a similar set minimum income but while actually achieving something productive and providing a host of social and economic benefits.
It would also obviously require additional schemes for those unable to work but I think think this is much better use of resources than a UBI and has many more benefits.

A basic income creates jobs. If everyone has money to spend and they go spend it, businesses can't handle the volume, this forces them to bring on someone to work. That someone will need a wage they consider worth it. It results in a more market driven approach than we currently have where those at the bottom of the totem pole work mostly under duress and with no bargaining power.

I agree it does that. I just don't think it is the best way to do that.
A job guarantee scheme also creates minimum income for most, stabilises prices, provides useful labour for social projects, can improve skills of long term unemployed and is intrinsically counter cyclical.

There's no reason why you can't have both a basic income and job guarantee programs. However, will that be employment for the sake of employment? Like the old Trabant plans? Google Trabant production line factory.

Or will it be gainful employment? And will you elect to employ people instead of having machines do a better job, quicker, with less energy and resources consumption and less pollution (people commuting to work alone, in a private vehicle), in a smaller space (smaller plant or factory, cheaper to build)?

Why / what do you want a market for? What does it give you?

Competition? You can have that without a market. Just have several design bureaus compete with each other for any given project or design and test their design and compare the test results. The bureau with the best design for the purpose, after impartial testing, has its employees given money prizes.

You don't actually need to have entire companies which actually put their design into production competing to find the best designs, ideas or technical solutions. That's just waste. Just look at design contests on freelancer websites for instance. The winning design can be selected at the design stage, before going into production.

originally posted by: Fishy
The aggregate rate at which banks create money is always greater than the aggregate rate at which they destroy money.

This is how the money supply grows.

The money supply doesn't always grow. Banks have in the past contracted the money supply significantly.

originally posted by: Aazadan
There is always demand for money in the economy. I already explained why (capitalist, for profit economies always have a shortage of purchasing power).

No there isn't. When people are saving rather than spending the demand for money falls significantly.

originally posted by: Aazadan
How is that any better than a basic income issued out of nothing? The bank loans themselves come out of nothing. Yet instead of just paying the borrow so they can live in a home, buy a tv, buy food high fructose, high fat, high salt food and be content and pacified, you're paying both the borrow and the bank.

Bank loans are limited to the reserve ratio. The ability to make loans is not unlimited unless the central bank authorizes the unlimited creation of funds.

And this is true of all businesses so, consequently, it's true for the economy as a whole. A capitalist economy cannot purchase its own aggregate economic output without extraneous purchasing power.

And this is why capitalism will fail. It encourages inefficiency in the production lines, either through making products wear out quicker in order to eat up existing supply or through producing too much that can't be used.

Which is where, I already explained, the banking system comes in, with its money it continually creates out of nothing and which is the only source of extraneous purchasing power which can compensate the purchasing power deficit inherent to capitalist, market economies.

I think that what you're getting at is the concept of a social credit, unfortunately that assumes inflation doesn't exist. Rather than debunk it myself I'll leave the ample literature on it to do it for me.

How are you going to have borrowers if they're unemployed and employment is basically the only means of income most people can ever hope to have?

The act of existing requires ongoing consumption, which requires an ongoing supply of jobs in order to meet that consumption. The need to consume has a value, and that can be monetized.

Are you going to allow the government to borrow the money and spend it on public works or welfare programs or a basic income?

If it were up to me, I would copy Benjamin Franklins model, he put a large chunk of funds up for the city of Philadelphia, these funds were used to supply business and housing loans to the city at a profit. After 100/200 years of being continually reinvested in the city half of the fund was pulled out for a large public works project while the other half was kept in the fund to reinvest in the city.

Having several large community funds like that would handle the bigger public works projects over the long term. Welfare is a different beast because it requires a continual small amount of spending rather than a large one time expense.

No, because Fox news and friends told you the following lies, which you believe :

I don't watch Fox (or any TV actually) and I don't believe any of those 10 points, aside from 9 that if you continually expand the money supply without any limitations it will be inflationary. Earlier in this thread I posted a way to get around that, but simply creating infinite dollars is not the way because people are only able to spend a finite amount in their lifetimes, once their access to funds goes beyond their ability to spend the currency becomes useless.

2. propose some other way of growing the money supply, which doesn't involve lending new money created out of nothing to people?


If you choose 2, what other ways of expanding the money supply do you propose?

I proposed this system. Actually, I take it back, I haven't posted it in this thread... they all run together. I don't feel like summarizing or copy/pasting so I'll just leave you with a link to a fairly verbose way of proposing things
www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: whatmakesyouright
a reply to: luthier

Are you on welfare? I'm not. Welfare is optional. This was worded as everyone gets a basic income, if they are working or not. That means everyone is in the system. They own everyone.

They already own everybody. Try not paying taxes.

A basic income would actually delete several gov Dept. It would potentially make gov smaller. It would be fair and give everybody the same. Think of it as reparations and tax money back. It would be about the same cost as now (possibly considering tax revenue of more spent and the elimination of benefits and even possibly the IRS as it is)

So no I don't think this is any worse than any other scheme and it solves some problems while being fair to everyone.

originally posted by: luthier
A basic income would actually delete several gov Dept. It would potentially make gov smaller. It would be fair and give everybody the same. Think of it as reparations and tax money back. It would be about the same cost as now (possibly considering tax revenue of more spent and the elimination of benefits and even possibly the IRS as it is)

I find it interesting that it all comes down to phrasing. If you phrase a basic income as a rebate against taxes you'll pay for the next month/offset to spending to effectively exempt the first $X certain people like Ted Cruz are all over it, but if you phrase it as monthly income to each citizen they're against it.

a reply to: Davg80

I wonder what the effect would be on pricing. I can only imagine rents, property value, basic goods, and the like would all skyrocket the first year. I wonder if humanity will make it to the point where robotics will do everything and there will be no real work to be done. I am sure the elites would love that. It would be easier and more justifiable to off more of us as time went on.

originally posted by: whatmakesyouright
a reply to: luthier

Are you on welfare? I'm not. Welfare is optional. This was worded as everyone gets a basic income, if they are working or not. That means everyone is in the system. They own everyone.

In most of the european countries we're talking about (because remember, that is where this is being proposed) there is state financial aid that is given to everyone already. That is not a big step for them. Like the state provides fully paid vacations, maternity leave, sick days, child support payments, regardless of how much money you make. They are considered the right of every citizen.

But for some reason, they still consider that they own the system. Right now, for example, the country I am in is being shut down entirely because the people did not like some proposed new labor laws. They don't let the politicians get away with whatever they want.

originally posted by: Fishy

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Fishy

Two banks cant earn money by lending each other money. They would be increasing their liabilities at the same rate.

Of course they can. All money is created out of nothing through bank loans so any interest earnings by any banks are money previously issued by a bank. Although it's not supposed to be done directly, by banks lending to themselves or to each other. The newly created money is supposed to be lent to the real economy so that the money banks create through loans don't go directly into interest payments back to banks.

en.wikipedia.org...

Almost half of all the loans made by Icelandic banks were to holdings companies, many of which are connected to those same Icelandic banks. Money was allegedly lent by the banks to their employees and associates so they could buy shares in those same banks while simply using those same shares as collateral for the loans. Borrowers were then allowed to defer paying interest on the loan until the end of the period, when the whole amount plus interest accrued was due. These same loans were then allegedly written off days before the banks collapsed. Kaupthing allowed a Qatari investor to purchase 5% of its shares. It was later revealed that the Qatari investor "bought" the stake using a loan from Kaupthing itself and a holding company associated with one of its employees (i.e., the bank was, in effect, buying its own shares).[167]

There were also instances of banks lending to each other and in loops so they could quickly and easily start collecting interest on money they created out of nothing through loans from the same money they created out of nothing through the same loans.

Sorry but you are wrong. You seem to have looked at two separate parts of money creation, got the right answers and then jumped to the wrong conclusion.

Central banks can create money out of nothing on the government's behalf. The mechanism for doing this varies from country to country but it is effectively always the government creating money.

This is new 'base money' and can only be created by government running a deficit. You are entirety correct when you said that deficits are important to provide funds for an expanding economy.

Commercial banks also create money but it is not the same type . It is credit created and to the public there is no difference as under ordinary circumstances everyone knows the bank is good for it. (Crucially there is one body that doesn't accept credit money which is why it is not the same as base money).

When a bank creates money through a loan it also creates an equal liability. Money is effectively just an IOU on the bank. However when banks settle these various IOUs between themselves they do so in base money.

While individual banks can profit between intra bank loans banks as a whole can't as the position would net back to zero.

If banks could profit from creating money directly then no bank would ever run into for financial difficulties.

The analysis you are quoting is mainly MMT (possibly MR which would explain your confusion over money creation) and I agree with a lot of what you are saying however you seem to be conflating how central banks and how commercial banks operate.

a reply to: Fishy

I find it strange that so many people think any government job is going to be make work. I look around and see almost limitless additional jobs that could be done adding real value to society. These range from basic labour to the highly skilled. None of which are being done because if the mistaken belief (as you have correctly pointed out yourself) that government spending is constrained by revenue.

Automation may one day do away with need for labour, but I don't think we are there yet or even close.

Markets provide an effective way of allowing people make choices and distribute resources. They don't work for everything and I don't believe that society has to accept the results of markets however for most goods and services they are best mechanism.

Design contests work when they are part of a market system. The final product still needs to viable in the market. If you think for consumer goods single design is better then you may want to revisit your Trabant example.

The bigger flaw to this ludicrous idea that people are going to work for the same about of money , pay for their travel to work, food at work, work clothes and the usual aggro that goes with low paid boring jobs, whilst others get exactly the same amount of money for sitting on their backsides comfortably at home. In fact if you have to pay to travel to work and appear smart then you would be worse off - did someone intelligent think this up with a degree????

The basic flaw in the UK is that the cost of living figures the government releases don't actually include - Wait for it - the costs for food and energy - so there you have what the living wage is loosely based on and why it keeps people poor - its not only people who have nothing that go to the food banks etc.

This is either a ploy to totally destroy the EU which is already spiralling quietly downwards or its an appeal to thick Brits to hopefully influence their vote for BREXIT- and both together would work pretty well for the bankers and those who want yet more control over masses of people or are seeking war in the area which of course they would earn a lot of money from whilst keeping their evil backsides safely behind their piles of gold.

a reply to: Shiloh7

An UBI does not replace your income from work. It is a payment everyone gets.

If you work you still get paid.

This has already been covered in this thread.

a reply to: Shiloh7

your wrong about quite a bit there. For one if you work the money will be on top of your payment, so that would instantly bring class levels up a notch and better living for every one. And also the benefits awarded in the UK are plenty enough to pay for your rent, council tax, food, and your energy. What it isnt enough for, is your alcohol, tobacco or any other drugs that use to escape from your mundane life.
I can guarantee this is the case cause im on benefits just know and i still have my internet and the only thing i go without are my escapisms, which is good cause i believe that everything in moderation is healthy.
Although i do agree on one thing and its not that im thick, its more that this may actually be to influence UK voters on the upcoming EU vote.
But bring it on, if it turns out a bad move either way us Scots will just come out of the UK and the EU and leave yous all to it, with us remaining in the UK for now, we will always have that get out of jail card if the UK Futs things up.