Basic Income ... Good? Bad? Ugly?

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Ritafee

Ritafee

Is Being Human
When Ontario began one of the biggest basic-income experiments in the world in July 2017,
activists around the world were hopeful.

According to Mark Zuckerberg:

"If UBI cannot succeed in socialist Canada, it cannot succeed anywhere else, either."
"We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure that everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.”​

So this ...
https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-basic-income-pilot#section-6

Became this ...
Ontario, pulled the rug out from under the experiment

The pilot project was supposed to run for 3 years. It lasted for one.

'I feel very betrayed': Basic-income recipients react to one of the world's largest experiments suddenly being canceled

Being an anarchist at heart ... Basic Income is a common sense idea that will work if it replaces all other forms of welfare and entitlement programs (along with their bureaucracies) including corporate welfare. It could even out the playing field between the haves and the have-nots.

What do you think?
 
monk said:
Basic Income is a common sense idea that will work if it replaces all other forms of welfare and entitlement programs (along with their bureaucracies) including corporate welfare. It could even out the playing field between the haves and the have-nots.
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Basically agree with this. One payment that replaces pogey, welfare, etc. run by a single bureaucracy at one level of government (should be the feds but I'll bet it would end being provincial) to eliminate all the duplication we have now. The devil, as always, in the details of how you implement it.

Little M thinks the best way is to build it into the tax system as negative income tax. Basically, if you're above a certain income, you pay tax. If you're below that level, the government pays you enough to bring you up to that level. It's probably more complicated than that, but that's the 500 foot view. He's not an economist but he's studied finance and economics quite a bit on his own and did take a economics course as an elective so probably knows more than I do on the subject.

I do wish Ford had let the Ontario trial finish and given the data to some economists to crunch so we'd at least know if the approach used there could work.
 
One of the saddest stories I read was of a person who had used his income to enrol in community college. They can't afford to go to college now, and have missed the date to get a refund of their deposit.

It's a very sensible idea, and has been championed by a lot of conservatives, world-wide. Dauphin gave us some great data about who works "more" and "less" under UBI. The only two groups who worked fewer paid hours under a UBI were i) young people age 18-25 in post-secondary education, and ii) parents/mothers (this was the 1970s...) with pre-school children, exactly the two groups you want to be supporting.
 
I am of mixed opinions. Once the study started I wish it had finished. But I also confess to not knowing details. And the devil is always in the details

At the time they started the study there were many economists who said instead they could have change the tax rules. It would have had the same effect with minimal beaurocracy

On the other hand Wynne and McGuinty had not fixed the issue so I am open to a new idea.
 
They did this and they decreased the scheduled increase to those getting income for disability. Etc

Punitive
Mean
Disgusting
 
Because those are exactly the ones least likely to vote for people like PCPO
 
Real people and strong men avoid other strengths ... like thought ... and thus thought regains the lesser position ... through negative relating ... this may be inverted through time and machinations of sensationalism of doing what you can w/o thought through adaptations (adept Asians) with adequations ... adequate idioms?

These must be read into ... etudes of great depths? Some people go to Oxford for this ... ancient rheids ... others do not get old lessons ... too mentally out of here ... like the anonymous psyche ... gone for now (autonomously)! Part of the autistic spectra ... virtue un saw ... nonsense? There are hoards that cannot see abstracts ... too dark as satyrs ... mules called Midnight! Calls as Calais ... Nightingales, or cheap tricks in the unknown extraction ... once scoffed? M'n do return to it ya'll Zae ...

Perhaps naught ... due to the variant allegories of metaliterature to educate men on what they don't know ... tis dark domain ... tucked away between ears ... maisland, or a'maised by corn and silky attachments ... an odd thing for ribbing ... ribbons? Thus a'M'N 'r' overhauled ... contained in bleu jinns? Tis as AD story that goes on ... psychic stretch ... often disbelieved ... thus the fallout and logical fallacy ... lack of distressed learning? Like water off the backs of those immersed in doings ... little thoughts?

Leads to the stop and listen, look, etc, node ... a gap in thermodynamics ... just for the Kohl'r? The great void needs a lead-in ... thus de Nous ... as V'din ... some say Verdun, others ve Nous the first riser in the Din 've the Dei ... consider what's to be done ... well?
 
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There's a reason that Denmark is often chosen as one of the happiest countries in the world. If anyone was looking for a social experiment, one only has to look at this country...it works, not that I agree with the decision to stop the "experiment" in Ontario....but there are other resources to draw from.
Denmark has paid university education, free health care, free child care, if someone loses their job the government pays their wages for four years, homelessness is rare, everyone's income is listed and there is rarely any difference in pay from job to job, there is said to be no wide gaps between the rich and the poor and they are mostly all middle class and because most jobs pay the same, their university years are usually devoted to educating themselves with areas they are interested in rather than what will get them the highest pay cheque to survive....they pay 15% in taxes and they rarely complain about it because they realize it goes to pay for the benefits listed above and agree with it.
 
That wouldn't work here ... the perversely rich and powerful would be against paying taxes ...

This is the nature of purely free to carry out your willis ... the thorn of legend being a distant prick of heros ... it can wake the dead! Psychosomnolant ...
 
In the 60s/ 70s it was that high or higher, in Canada. It has only been since neo-lib ideology took over that people with excess wealth complained about paying high taxes. It used to be assumed, even on the right, that contributing to the good of all was a good thing. Instead people were led to believe that trickle down economics was an adequate contribution to the good of all. It failed, though. Well, it failed all but a few...made those few very wealthy. I’m not sure anything would change the minds of those few...so the best ideas for stopping inequality will be stopped from happening, by those ultra rich and powerful few.

Though, in BC we did elect an NDP/ Green coalition led by an NDP premier. And the welfare ministry was changed (it changes names ever two years or so) to the Ministry of (something I forget) and Poverty Reduction. Emphasis on poverty reduction. And that MLA/minister grew up in the east side of Vancouver, in a low income housing project, and has been advocating for the marginalized in all his work since...so maybe he will help implement a good plan.
 
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Lastpointe said:
I believe the income tax rate in Denmark is 60%. Not 15. 60 % for income over $55,000
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I was watching Youtube :LOL:.....(the happiest country in the world) and most of those being interviewed were saying 15%....but I guess what you're saying is comparable to the US (according to Mandalla's chart), but the country seems to do more with the taxes to benefit the people.
 
Ah sorry

Scandinavian countries are always held up as examples.

But they are so different from us. Geographically small. Fairly homogeneous culturally. Small populations. And often have a lot of off shore oil drilling money to cover a lot of government costs

Socially seem progressive. But then we got notice a couple of weeks ago that Iceland has eliminated Trisomy 21. By mandatory prenatal screening and abortions. My sister in law has a brother in Finland. He says while not a policy, that is a social obligation though under the radar so to speak
 
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