Why do people HATE Basic Income idea?

[josephpalazzo]

It seems you haven't changed one bit since the last time I called you an elitist asshole  

Thanks for the compliment...  

[josephpalazzo]

But I don't like to bet against the Swiss. Maybe they can pull it off.

Yeah but the Swiss economy relies heavily on their banking system, which is designed for those who are hiding their money for tax purposes. And it is also a safe bank haven for illegal drug traffickers  and for all those involved in criminal/illegal/murky activities to hide their money. Not the kind of country I would want to emulate.

[missingnocchi]

The scale is based on how much you need to survive in the country. It should be quite a bit below minimum wage unless minimum wage itself is already ridiculously low, in which case the entire economy is basically fucked up. The amount is the same for all people in the country, but if a minimum wage job earns $2000 probably basic income would be closer to $1200 or something.

I don't even understand what you're trying to say. Do you mean that someone making more money will receive less in basic income, or are you saying basic income would be different from country to country? If it's the former, then you could make an argument for the funding of basic income, but you would also have to overcome the fact that at a certain level, people wouldn't be gaining anything by working harder (the same issue welfare recipients deal with today). If it's the latter, then I don't even understand why you would bring it up. I mean, yeah, duh, different countries would need different basic incomes. I don't think anyone is arguing against that.

I doubt anyone on this forum is such a lazy bum that they'd be complacent to sit in a really small run-down appartment, drinking cheap beer and watching a crappy old tv. If you're picturing being able to do more on minimum income, you're picturing you'll get more money than what it should be based on. It's a bare minimum, no more.

You underestimate my power.

Yeah, and that reason is also why so much money is lost on bureaucracy around the whole welfare program. When you put people on basic income, you can just let them starve if that's what they feel like doing. It's really just their own fault, we shouldn't need to babysit grown people.

I work in a grocery store. If I had a dollar for every pissed off customer trying to buy non-essentials with their welfare money, I wouldn't need to work in a grocery store anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Few of those real world tests involved enough money to meet basic needs, meaning that people were actually still forced to work for a living. The claim that the Namibian findings contradict the idea of basic income receivers becoming lazy and dependent is not valid, because there was not enough money involved to become dependent on. The quality of life scale involved is so drastically different than what exists in first world countries that the data isn't even relevant. Even the experiments in first world countries are on too small a scale to reliably test for larger economic effects. They do, however, make me consider that small, isolated implementations in extremely impoverished areas followed by a slow weaning period would do some good.

[Plu]

I don't even understand what you're trying to say. Do you mean that someone making more money will receive less in basic income, or are you saying basic income would be different from country to country? If it's the former, then you could make an argument for the funding of basic income, but you would also have to overcome the fact that at a certain level, people wouldn't be gaining anything by working harder (the same issue welfare recipients deal with today). If it's the latter, then I don't even understand why you would bring it up. I mean, yeah, duh, different countries would need different basic incomes. I don't think anyone is arguing against that.

Basic income is indeed country dependant; so option 2. The reason I'm bringing it up is because some people seem to assume that you can live comfortably off of just your basic income due to some of the numbers posted (as examples) in this thread. You should not be able to live comfortably off of your basic income. You should be able to live barely. (Thing is this is probably comparable to US minimum wage, which might be skewing things by a lot)

You underestimate my power.

So if you ever get basic income; go and sit on your ass all day long and do nothing. Either you'll get bored quickly, or else who really cares? Overall the country should still be cheaper off than if you're leeching welfare instead and someone else will do your job and have twice your income while you sit and waste away in your living room.
You are probably underestimating your own power as well, though. I find it hard to believe that you have nothing in your life that you're willing to put effort into. And if you are, that's really, really sad and I feel sorry for you.

Even the experiments in first world countries are on too small a scale to reliably test for larger economic effects. They do, however, make me consider that small, isolated implementations in extremely impoverished areas followed by a slow weaning period would do some good.

I do agree that we need way more tests with the whole concept. Preliminary tests show good results, but we need to see what happens in a major country. But we shouldn't let the idea die because common sense disagrees with it, nor because some people claim that they and the rest of the world are lazy bums when the evidence seems to suggest otherwise.

[zarus tathra]

The shitty jobs need to be available and quite often no jobs at even shitty pay are available. Ever been somewhere with 25% unemployment? Then the 'scarce resources' are allocated to protecting the haves from the have nots and then the resources become allocated to prisons where the shitty jobs become exponentially shittier.

The phrase "protecting the haves from the have nots" is an interesting one.  Government resources are dedicated to protecting the government from the people.  That shows who the real "haves and have nots" are, and it isn't based on income.

I always did wonder why the poor always relied on "the government" to carry out their revolutions instead of using their obvious, essentially insuperable advantage of having superior numbers. Not only do you have to trust that the government has your best interests at heart, you also have to trust that it is actually CAPABLE of delivering on your promises.

[hillbillyatheist]

you first. LOL

[mediumaevum]

The objective is to get people off the welfare roll, not encouraging them to stay there.

YOU claim that to be the objective. I have another objective: Quality of life for more people, as fewer people would have to develop severe mental illnesses from the stressors at work.

By making work optional, you increase people's quality of life.

I just hate when it gets stated that there is only one objective that is to get people off public support.

[Plu]

By making work optional, you increase people's quality of life.

Not really, the work does not yet do itself. If too many people make work optional, quality of life will go down for everyone.

(Fortunately I think that more than enough people will still do work under this system so it shouldn't be much of a problem.)

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I think this article might make it easier for the non-Americans to understand where the Americans in this thread are coming from.

[mediumaevum]

By making work optional, you increase people's quality of life.

Not really, the work does not yet do itself. If too many people make work optional, quality of life will go down for everyone.

(Fortunately I think that more than enough people will still do work under this system so it shouldn't be much of a problem.)

Exactly. That's why I believe it is no problem making it optional.