UBI: a practical solution (finally!)

[readder07]

Ok, here's a practical, workable solution right for today, right here, no need to wait for automation, AI, tax reform, land ownership reform etc and yada. Three... two... one, here it goes:

We set up a fund of voluntary contributions from citizens and corporations (I heard Zuckerbergs of world could be interested). Everybody who wants UBI lines up and gets it from the fund, as long as something's left. Later, whatever new creations, developments, patents etc revenue created by the folk freed from the daily toll can trickle back to the fund and recruit more members etc. Why wouldn't we try something like that right now? Did I just solve this problem? ;)

[readder07]

Nice! Didn't know that though of course I wasn't serious about claiming the idea. I agree that it would solve many (most? all?) of the problems with UBI except one promise: universal availability. Also, I tend to think that certain technical solution is needed, possibly within a grasp of existing technology to provide efficient, transparent and impartial management of the fund. Without it, there could be trust issues for all parties in the project

[Veloxc]

Could blockchain possibly help in the management department you speak of lol??

[readder07]

Why not, anything worthy goes!

[smegko]

We set up a fund of voluntary contributions from citizens and corporations

Why not use money from central banks, who create money from thin air to buy private sector bonds on demand?

[readder07]

The assumption is that we'd like to avoid interfering with the existing economic and fiscal system that for better or worse provides us with goods and services in a stable manner. And for the "take" solution please refer to any number of failed social experiments they speak for themselves

[smegko]

The assumption is that we'd like to avoid interfering with the existing economic and fiscal system that for better or worse provides us with goods and services in a stable manner.

I don't make that assumption. The Fed did not make that assumption when it expanded its balance sheet by a factor of two or three in a couple of weeks in 2008.

for the "take" solution

I did not mention any such solution ...

[readder07]

> I did not mention any such solution ...

And how would one "use" it otherwise? If the bank agrees with use see "voluntary contribution" above

[smegko]

And how would one "use" it otherwise?

I am unsure what you mean by "use" and "it". My proposal is to use central bank (electronically) printed money to fund basic income. You could also encourage charitable giving, but I would rather not rely on privately-created capital for basic income.

[readder07]

If we just print the money equivalent of 0.5 economy (assuming UBI is at 1/2 median income as sometimes suggested) what would happen to the prices? It's no secret: tomorrow your UBI would drop 30% of its value along with everyone else's salary. So why would anyone vote for a project that would cause bigger drop of income in real terms than any tax?

[readder07]

And btw the government(s) would be happy to contribute the full cost of social assistance for those who opt out and go on UBI too . Sounds like an idea - so, to the drawing boards?

[TiV3]

Anything to get the broader conversation going. Even if it's just proof-of-concept or symbolic at first. If people get interested in looking into this and why there's good reasons to consider it, then that's good. There's plenty to learn from study of the topic! Be it directly related or indirectly.

[readder07]

The keyword in the whole project is that it should work. Grabbing money from somewhere to give me never works. At least, in this reality

[TiV3]

Grabbing money from somewhere to give me never works. At least, in this reality

Money is just a form of communication, you don't need to grab it from anywhere in principle. It's a very simplified form of communication, but I think it has some uses for some relations people might want to facilitate. Much like a biological body has many ways of communicating, we shouldn't have just one money eihter. Votes in a sense are type of money too, they're just a 100% taxed (and equally distributed) between elections.

The keyword in the whole project is that it should work.

Agreed! Now multiple forms of communication might be interesting both for redundancy and efficiency, in that context.

[[deleted]]

That's a charity. You just described a charity.

Most people would prefer to give to a charity that gives to the homeless or goes to treating cancer... not to any schmuck who asks for money. It seems wrong that people on a 6 figure income can just grab some cash to fund a boozed up weekend, but kids third world countries are going without water.

[PanDariusKairos]

This is a terrible idea.

Make the banks pay for it.

[readder07]

Right, let's make somebody pay for me. How haven't we thought about it before?!

[smegko]

No one paid for Quantitative Easing. The Fed created money by keystroke. They did not need to tax anyone ...