12 thoughts on “Universal Basic Income”

  1. Eh. Honestly, I still think it’s potentially better than most of our current welfare programs.

    AFAIKT it wasn’t cancelled so much because it wasn’t working as because even the Finns are tired of hearing about people being paid out of the public purse for not working. Only a UBI that was actually universal (i.e., paid to everybody) would be able to garner any real support, and to fund that you’ld have to gut the whole welfare state and social security to boot…

  2. I get the theory of UBI and understand its appeal.

    But the theory when applied in the real world falls apart, because the model that suggests the theory’s success isn’t a good predictor of economies based on free will.

  3. Regrettably, it was a poorly designed experiment. They don’t seem to have had the money or political support for a randomized intervention.

    1. I’ll add that more capitalists and libertarians should get on the Universal Basic Income/Negative Income Tax bandwagon. The managerial state will not wither away any time soon and UBI/NIT is the only proposed counterattack on the government employee parties/unions with any chance of success.

      1. UBI would be an absolute disaster, so you should only get behind it if you want the economy to collapse.

        To pay for someone to rent an apartment and survive around here would cost maybe $2k a month. Since that would be Universal, it would mean a couple who already paid off their house could collect $4k month for doing nothing. Why would they bother to go back to work on Monday? Heck, move in with the parents, collect $8k a month and take a few cruises every year.

        And it gets even worse. If the Universal amount is set for a big city like New York, it will allow people to live like kings in a small town. And if the small town folks don’t get the same as the struggling Manhattanites, then it’s not ‘Universal’.

        It’s probably the worst idea anyone’s come up with since Keynesianism. So it’s no surprise the left are the ones pushing it.

      2. This is another example where the theory of a UBI fails in the real world. Public employee unions are powerful because the donate to get favored politicians elected. Those politicians are not going to turn around and enact programs that weaken those unions by reducing the number of public employees. In the end, you’d end up with thw worst of both worlds – a new and expensive income redistribution scheme administered by the same public employees you wanted to eliminate.

        1. Yes. The main economic claim by UBI proponents is ‘it will simplify the welfare system and reduce costs.’

          But the only way to reduce costs by simplifying the welfare system is to sack many of the government employees who run the welfare system.

          And does anyone really believe governments will do that? At best, they’d be moved elsewhere in the government, where they’d cause even more economic harm than they do today.

  4. UBI removes the concept of the value of labor from the market.

    Further distorting the free market

    Which makes the economy worsen.

    Which brings on more raging idiots clammoring for more Socialism because, “See? The free market doesn’t work!”

    2. “UBI removes the concept of the value of labor from the market.”

      I don’t know what you mean by that but if people are less willing to work then the reserve price of their work will be higher.

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