
Basic Income as Common Dividends: Piloting a Transformative Policy - T-A
https://www.thersa.org/events/2019/05/basic-income-as-common-dividends
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m33k44
I use to be a proponent of UBI, but in recent months have changed my mind
after moving to a shared accommodation(mostly students). In this house there
are 4 students and 2 non-students. These two guys don't work, are living on
government dole outs and the whole day and night play video games, and not
only are they themselves not working, but they have started setting a wrong
example for the students. And it is not that jobs are not available, it is
just that because the government is paying unemployment benefits people don't
care even if jobs are available. There should be no free money as I have
started seeing negative side of this policy in recent months.

I think governments should provide free education and healthcare to everyone
and peg the prices of housing to some standard price index. That's it. No
blanket free money.

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max76
> There should be no free money

The video states that 60% of the wealth in the U.K. is inherited, which is
essentially free money for the receiver. Why is it okay for rich people to
receive free money but not everyday people?

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autokad
> "The video states that 60% of the wealth in the U.K. is inherited"

I hate statements like this because they are completely misleading. other
similar ones like "top 1 % controls ~50 % of wealth" etc.

This goes by networth. Imagine this, there are about 20 million college
students, nearly all of then have a negative net worth. By that logic, if you
hand a homeless person a single $ bill, they 'control' the wealth of at least
20 million Americans. you can add in tons of americans who have a positive net
worth to make up for all that negative net worth. Its an absurd way of
thinking. its especially problematic since most net worth is paper net worth
(stocks that not even the owners can really touch).

Surely someone who just graduated college and has 100k negative net worth is
far better off than a starving person in a desert, distended belly and all.

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max76
Are you really saying a statistic about wealth inequality shows exaggerated
inequality because we have lots of people heavily in debt?

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autokad
thats only one issue, there are many others. there are also a ton of people
who just dont save/invest any of their money, even those making 100k a year.
furthermore, we are in a bit of bull market for stocks, which networth overly
focuses on.

also networth is just a terrible metric. it ignores income streams, it ignores
things that produce income like degrees, etc. it over inflates paper wealth as
mentioned before.

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max76
I understand that a person's networth isn't the same as their value. It's
still a reasonable approximation of someone's current financial position.

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rossenberg79
Have any proponents of Basic Income policies ever proposed instead of handing
out money, we hand out tangible assets instead? A basic house, clothing, food,
access to education and healthcare (and maybe some transportation in less
walkable areas) seems like it would cover everything a person needs to live
without any other source of income, and through economies of scale these
things could all become cheaper to provide as opposed to having to depend on
sources of money to fund dividends.

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Jedi72
I think there should be much more focus on this kind of plan. People dont need
income, they need housing etc. My concern is that if you swap out welfare and
services for basic income inflation will eat away at it and sooner or later BI
wont mean very much and we now have no services either.

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rossenberg79
Indeed, as housing becomes prohibitively expensive everywhere that people want
to live in the US, I doubt someone living off basic income will even be able
to afford any kind of home.

If however, we had government built apartment buildings that could be
partitioned out and made available for free only to those who need it, that
would actually help solve _real_ problems, and wouldn’t even disrupt those who
depend on their property values rising. Imagine such buildings right here in
San Francisco.

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qqqwerty
Those exist in SF, and some of them are colloquially known as the projects[1].
The nice thing about UBI, is it avoids the issue of the 'welfare trap'. UBI
isn't meant to directly impact the housing situation in SF, it's meant to help
in places like Detroit, where the collapse of the auto-industry could have
been mitigated somewhat had there been a UBI to help support the affected
individuals and keep money flowing into the local economy. And this would also
have a second order effect of relieving pressure on the high growth economies
like NY/SF/LA, as folks would not need to immediately migrate away from
low/no-growth areas in search of work.

[1] [https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Life-at-the-bottom-S-
F-s...](https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Life-at-the-bottom-S-F-s-
Sunnydale-project-3228433.php)

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s_erik
There is also "Negative Income Tax" policy that tries to solve the same
problem that Universal Basic Income is trying to solve.

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_448
For UBI to work smoothly, it will help if it goes hand-in-hand with another
economics policy called the Modern Monetary Theory[0] (MMT).

[0] [https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/24/economy/modern-
moneta...](https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/24/economy/modern-monetary-
theory-explained)

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G8WyaX
Pdf: [https://www.progressiveeconomyforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2...](https://www.progressiveeconomyforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/05/PEF_Piloting_Basic_Income_Guy_Standing.pdf)

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RickJWagner
Wouldn't it be best to launch UBI in a nation with stronger socialist mores
first? It seems like it'd be a smaller jump, and probably more likely to
succeed.

