Jayjay
Contributor
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2002
- Messages
- 7,173
- Location
- Finland
- Basic Beliefs
- An accurate worldview or philosophy
The GDP is basically an estimate representing the monetary value of all goods and services produced and imported to a country. An universal income, on the other hand, would be actual money handed over to people by the government. It's not "off a GDP", it's off the government budget. It's apples and oranges, and although in some cases it makes sense to have a "ratio of apples to oranges" as a meaningful metric, it depends on the context.true if you gave 50k to every living human in the country, but that's already two factors which don't enter into it.Understood. But that can be used as an average of what your plan would cost. $50k (on average) times 330M = $16.5T. Every single year.
firstly there's the question of age, you don't need to give every baby money. secondly there's the point about '50k' just being a number of equivalence, since more places in the US than not would require less money.
so 209M times let's say 35k = 7.3 trillion, off a GDP of about 21 trillion.
So, if the ratio of the cost of UBI is one or two thirds (low and high estimates) of the country's GDP, what does it mean? One way to look at it would be to ask what it would mean for 100% of the GDP to be spread evenly across every adult person. Everybody would get the same amount of everything, and the only reward of any work you do would be exactly 1 per 209 millionth of whatever it is that you happen to produce, which is for vast majority of things you can produce practically nothing. Want to grow your own food? Set up a farm that produces 200 million potatoes, and you can eat just one potato yourself. Clearly that would be an unworkable, unless you have some source of production that's independent of any human effort.
If only one third of the economy worked this way, that would mean basically that one third of everything you produce is diluted to the point of non-existence.
You don't "spend" GDP on anything. It's a number that tells how much you've spent already. And arguably, 100% of it is already used on human welfare, even if unevenly distributed. But at least you acknowledge that the GDP would drop radically if incentives for producing much of it were removed.broadly speaking from a moral standpoint i have no problem with spending 2/3rd of the GDP on human welfare, but i don't see the point of having GDP in the first place if not for that.That's a big fraction of the total budget. And it ignores that there is no reason for people say making $40k to quit their jobs to make $50k for doing nothing. One way around that would be to make it universal, but then it would cost $16.5T.
the issue is how much the GDP would drop, and we have nothing but speculation for that.
I think there is an inconsistency with your extended definition of "necessities" on one hand, and considering wanting more than that as being motivated by greed on the other. Is "bling" a basic necessity, or is it motivated by greed? If you give everyone enough money for fancy shoes or gold chains or whatever counts as bling now, there would always be more expensive bling to be attained. At which point does it stop being a necessity, and become greed?i'm guessing that by "basic necessities" you're using a much stricter definition than i do, and that difference in definition causes a rather huge gap in context.Sounds like a utopia to me. In reality, people rarely rob and steal for basic necessities.
i'd put drugs, shoes, phones, and bling under "basic necessities" with no hesitation, because despite them not being required to maintain biological function they are culturally and existentially necessary in order to maintain mental stability.
But savings are not something you can use to finance UBI. You can spend the savings once, and then they are gone. The UBI we're talking about would be something that's paid out annually. By appropriating the funds allegedly sitting in bank accounts (though in reality, they are not; the banks loan them forward) you could have UBI for one year, and maybe a couple of months for next year. Not continuously for 40 years.US GDP: 21 trillion, give or take a trillion.[citation needed]
US federal budget: 4.5 trillion, give or take a trillion
US state budgets: 3.2 trillion, give or take a half trillion
US consumer spending: 13 trillion, give or take
US institutional savings total: 9ish trillion, fluctuates a lot per year
US private savings total: estimated around 5 trillion.
so total created vs. government spending and consumer spending and you have about a trillion left over, and another 10-16 trillion in savings.
this doesn't even count money sitting in funds and investments, this is just the loose change left over after basic outputs.
i would say that 11-17 trillion dollars not in use easily falls under the category of "trillions and trillions"
But many of those jobs are necessary for society to function, like sanitation or changing diapers for the elderly. And even those jobs that aren't, usually exist somewhere in the value chain for things that people want or need, which would become more expensive if people would need to be paid exorbitant amounts to do them, which in turn would increase the dollar amount of what the UBI should be. The equilibrium point would shift radically. You might get $50k in your bank account every year, but the Nike shoes or drugs of your choice would also cost way more.i would expect and hope that few if any of them would, because those jobs are not fit for human beings - and certainly not with the current system in place where those are low paying jobs that the desperate are forced into at the threat of being homeless.And yes, sure, many people will work. Those that have fulfilling jobs. But what about people doing unpleasant or simply boring, menial jobs. How many of them would stay if they don't have to?
I disagree with your notion that people would continue to work even if they don't have to. Even those who want something to do, would work less hours, and be less productive because they would focus on things that give them satisfaction and meaning, rather than what other people want.
I support UBI not because I think that it won't discourage some people from working, but because I think that automation will make more and more people incapable of carrying their own weight in society.
Even Andrew Yang's proposal is too ambitious. I think the appropriate level for UBI is the poverty level of a two-person household, divided by two. Why? Because the poverty level is already based on an estimate of what a person needs to survive, and I think living alone is a luxury for most people.yes well that's what happens in a country full of at best center-right politicians - you get shitty half assed proposals for social change.It's a reference to how your plan is much more extensive that serious proposals for UBI. For example, Andrew Yang proposed $1k/month, which is $12k/a, a far cry from $50k.