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The Basic Income Guarantee. Good Idea? Bad Idea?

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    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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    bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Yeah I've heard many a CEO complain about having no work for their interns and how it's stressing them out.

    Then I wonder, why should it fucking matter, FLSA states it pretty much shouldn't be at the company's benefit, so having unpaid interns do nothing all day isn't a big deal.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Fun fact about unpaid internships: most of them are actually illegal

    America doesn't really enforce most labor laws

    That's really the problem with unpaid internships - not that they're unpaid, but that they don't give the neophyte the learning experience that they're supposed to. This is a combination of misrepresentation and collusion.

    If somebody takes an unpaid internship and they're actually mentored and they gain some useful on-the-job knowledge, rather than put in a room and given clerical drudge work, then I wouldn't have a problem with it.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    What more context do you need?

    If you are running a for-profit venture, you should be fairly paying for the labor you need. I don't see how this is a controversial statement, let alone "diving off the cliffs of insanity".

    How does one determine "fair pay?" Market value? Minimum wage? Union contract? Executive fiat? Consulting a ouiji board?

    Can non-monetary compensation be fair? I might barter my services in exchange for something the client can offer. I might even work for an opportunity to get better work. I recognize that "exposure" is 99% of the time a bullshit canard when it's offered to creative artists, but that's a contextual understanding.

    What does "need" mean? Again, it's contextual. Amanda Palmer doesn't "need" local musicians in the way that I "need" a plumber when my toilet breaks.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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    LibrarianLibrarian The face of liberal fascism Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    Fun fact about unpaid internships: most of them are actually illegal

    America doesn't really enforce most labor laws

    That's really the problem with unpaid internships - not that they're unpaid, but that they don't give the neophyte the learning experience that they're supposed to. This is a combination of misrepresentation and collusion.

    If somebody takes an unpaid internship and they're actually mentored and they gain some useful on-the-job knowledge, rather than put in a room and given clerical drudge work, then I wouldn't have a problem with it.

    My general problem with unpaid internships is that if you see them as a possible gateway into working for the company/organization that offers these internships, said company makes sure that only people willing to go into debt or from a solid financial background can get in.

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    Pi-r8Pi-r8 Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

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    BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

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    ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    aRkpc.gif
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    Pi-r8Pi-r8 Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    First, what does BID stand for? All these acronyms are confusing...
    But you're right, we'd still have a labor market, it's just that there would be a floor so that everyone would me making some money, even if they don't have a job. I think that would do a lot to weaken the relationship in people's minds of "whatever your job pays you, that's what your worth to society". Much higher taxes on the rich would also help.

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    DelmainDelmain Registered User regular
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    First, what does BID stand for? All these acronyms are confusing...
    But you're right, we'd still have a labor market, it's just that there would be a floor so that everyone would me making some money, even if they don't have a job. I think that would do a lot to weaken the relationship in people's minds of "whatever your job pays you, that's what your worth to society". Much higher taxes on the rich would also help.

    Nothing, assuming. He meant BIG.

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    BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?

  • Options
    Pi-r8Pi-r8 Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

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    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited September 2012
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?

    Except if they don't want to do the internship they don't have to.

    Cause they'll have a guaranteed income.

    And I'm confident the number of people that want to do mind numbing menial clerical work is close to zero. Which means they'd have to provide actual internships. Which is fine with me.

    Quid on
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    override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited September 2012
    I think all unpaid internships should require the employer to document what relevance the intern's activities have on building career skills or mentoring, on a daily or weekly basis

    Or you know, tell every intern what the actual law is before picking them up so people fucking know if they're being bamboozled. Most 30 hour a week internships contain maybe 2 hours a day of what qualifies - sending the intern to get coffee or run memos around the building isn't something they're allowed to do

    Edit: yeah this is a problem that takes care of itself with BIG

    override367 on
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    BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

    I would think they'd be more likely to risk not getting paid now, for the reward of getting paid more later, because the risk/cost of not getting paid has been reduced.

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    joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?

    Except if they don't want to do the internship they don't have to.

    Cause they'll have a guaranteed income.

    And I'm confident the number of people that want to do mind numbing menial clerical work is close to zero. Which means they'd have to provide actual internships. Which is fine with me.

    And we are now arguing in circles! Wheeeeeee round and round and round we go

    There are really lousy jobs today that nobody wants and pay very little. When everybody gets a basic income to live off of, they don't need to have that crappy job to pay for their fundamental needs, so they'll look for something that pays more and/or sucks less.

    Then people who dole out these crappy jobs go, "Wuh oh, nobody wants to do this horrible job for a very small amount of money! I'd better offer more money to make the horrible job seem less horrible."

    Some people will be willing at some point to work a horrible job that pays a decent wage. Others won't. But at least nobody will be stuck doing something they hate for peanuts just because they are desperate for work, any work, so they don't starve.

  • Options
    joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    edited September 2012
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

    I would think they'd be more likely to risk not getting paid now, for the reward of getting paid more later, because the risk/cost of not getting paid has been reduced.

    There are two companies. Company A and Company B.

    Company A offers an internship program where you spend most of your time going to the lounge to make a cappuccino for the boss, alphabetizing his ties, and sorting through the outgoing mail to make sure that his (fake) signature is on every piece of paper so it looks like he cares enough about the thousands of people he's mailing at once to spend the time to personally sign them. You don't get paid for this; instead, you are told you will get valuable experience that will get you a job that actually pays and sucks less later.

    Company B used to offer the same thing, but after BIG legislation went through they changed it so they now offer $9/hr. to these people.

    If you had a guaranteed income, which company would you work for?

    joshofalltrades on
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    BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    edited September 2012
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

    I would think they'd be more likely to risk not getting paid now, for the reward of getting paid more later, because the risk/cost of not getting paid has been reduced.

    There are two companies. Company A and Company B.

    Company A offers an internship program where you spend most of your time going to the lounge to make a cappuccino for the boss, alphabetizing his ties, and sorting through the outgoing mail to make sure that his (fake) signature is on every piece of paper so it looks like he cares about the thousands of people he's mailing at once to spend the time to personally sign them. You don't get paid for this; instead, you are told you will get valuable experience that will get you a job that actually pays and sucks less later.

    Company B used to offer the same thing, but after BIG legislation went through they changed it so they now offer $9/hr. to these people.

    If you had a guaranteed income, which company would you work for?

    You have successfully assumed the consequence. Good work!

    In the real world.

    Company A offers a unpaid job. there is a promise of a 50k a year job after completing it.
    Company B offers 9$ an hour forever.

    In a world with no BIG, which job do you take? You take job B because you can't survive the no pay period. A is just not an option.

    In a world with BIG, you can always survive the no pay period, so you decide the possibility of not working for 9$ an hour forever is worth 6 months of shit.

    BSoB on
  • Options
    joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    edited September 2012
    BSoB wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

    I would think they'd be more likely to risk not getting paid now, for the reward of getting paid more later, because the risk/cost of not getting paid has been reduced.

    There are two companies. Company A and Company B.

    Company A offers an internship program where you spend most of your time going to the lounge to make a cappuccino for the boss, alphabetizing his ties, and sorting through the outgoing mail to make sure that his (fake) signature is on every piece of paper so it looks like he cares about the thousands of people he's mailing at once to spend the time to personally sign them. You don't get paid for this; instead, you are told you will get valuable experience that will get you a job that actually pays and sucks less later.

    Company B used to offer the same thing, but after BIG legislation went through they changed it so they now offer $9/hr. to these people.

    If you had a guaranteed income, which company would you work for?

    You have successfully assumed the consequence. Good work!

    And that's different from assuming that more people will be unpaid interns... how?

    joshofalltrades on
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    AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    I think all unpaid internships should require the employer to document what relevance the intern's activities have on building career skills or mentoring, on a daily or weekly basis

    Or you know, tell every intern what the actual law is before picking them up so people fucking know if they're being bamboozled. Most 30 hour a week internships contain maybe 2 hours a day of what qualifies - sending the intern to get coffee or run memos around the building isn't something they're allowed to do

    Edit: yeah this is a problem that takes care of itself with BIG

    The problem is that it doesn't matter what the law is, because actually using it becomes a mark against you to future prospective employers.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • Options
    Pi-r8Pi-r8 Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

    I would think they'd be more likely to risk not getting paid now, for the reward of getting paid more later, because the risk/cost of not getting paid has been reduced.

    Right now, the incentive for working for free is a chance at later raising your income from $0 to say $30,000
    With the BIG, the incentive for working for free is a chance at going from $10,000 to $40,000
    So yes, there's still that incentive, and some people will still take unpaid internships, but the incentive is reduced. So there will be fewer people doing it, which then creates more paid positions.

  • Options
    override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited September 2012
    companies are less likely to violate laws their employees know are violations

    sure people would still put up with illegal internships, but less of them would if they knew it was actually illegal in most cases

    override367 on
  • Options
    BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

    I would think they'd be more likely to risk not getting paid now, for the reward of getting paid more later, because the risk/cost of not getting paid has been reduced.

    There are two companies. Company A and Company B.

    Company A offers an internship program where you spend most of your time going to the lounge to make a cappuccino for the boss, alphabetizing his ties, and sorting through the outgoing mail to make sure that his (fake) signature is on every piece of paper so it looks like he cares about the thousands of people he's mailing at once to spend the time to personally sign them. You don't get paid for this; instead, you are told you will get valuable experience that will get you a job that actually pays and sucks less later.

    Company B used to offer the same thing, but after BIG legislation went through they changed it so they now offer $9/hr. to these people.

    If you had a guaranteed income, which company would you work for?

    You have successfully assumed the consequence. Good work!

    And that's different from assuming that more people will be unpaid interns... how?

    I didn't assume that, i argued for that.

    Are you having trouble understanding the difference?

  • Options
    BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    edited September 2012
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

    I would think they'd be more likely to risk not getting paid now, for the reward of getting paid more later, because the risk/cost of not getting paid has been reduced.

    Right now, the incentive for working for free is a chance at later raising your income from $0 to say $30,000
    With the BIG, the incentive for working for free is a chance at going from $10,000 to $40,000
    So yes, there's still that incentive, and some people will still take unpaid internships, but the incentive is reduced. So there will be fewer people doing it, which then creates more paid positions.

    Due to the diminishing marginal value of money, going from 0 to 10k is a bigger reduction in risk/cost than going from 30k to 40k is in gain.

    BSoB on
  • Options
    AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    What more context do you need?

    If you are running a for-profit venture, you should be fairly paying for the labor you need. I don't see how this is a controversial statement, let alone "diving off the cliffs of insanity".

    How does one determine "fair pay?" Market value? Minimum wage? Union contract? Executive fiat? Consulting a ouiji board?

    Can non-monetary compensation be fair? I might barter my services in exchange for something the client can offer. I might even work for an opportunity to get better work. I recognize that "exposure" is 99% of the time a bullshit canard when it's offered to creative artists, but that's a contextual understanding.

    What does "need" mean? Again, it's contextual. Amanda Palmer doesn't "need" local musicians in the way that I "need" a plumber when my toilet breaks.

    That you are resorting to sophistry belies the weakness of your argument. If we were discussing, say, Walmart forcing employees to work unpaid overtime, I doubt you would be defending the folks in Bentonville. And you're opposed to exploitation of unpaid internships. But this is somehow fundamentally different?

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • Options
    bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

    I would think they'd be more likely to risk not getting paid now, for the reward of getting paid more later, because the risk/cost of not getting paid has been reduced.

    There are two companies. Company A and Company B.

    Company A offers an internship program where you spend most of your time going to the lounge to make a cappuccino for the boss, alphabetizing his ties, and sorting through the outgoing mail to make sure that his (fake) signature is on every piece of paper so it looks like he cares about the thousands of people he's mailing at once to spend the time to personally sign them. You don't get paid for this; instead, you are told you will get valuable experience that will get you a job that actually pays and sucks less later.

    Company B used to offer the same thing, but after BIG legislation went through they changed it so they now offer $9/hr. to these people.

    If you had a guaranteed income, which company would you work for?

    You have successfully assumed the consequence. Good work!

    In the real world.

    Company A offers a unpaid job. there is a promise of a 50k a year job after completing it.
    Company B offers 9$ an hour forever.

    In a world with no BIG, which job do you take? You take job B because you can't survive the no pay period. A is just not an option.

    In a world with BIG, you can always survive the no pay period, so you decide the possibility of not working for 9$ an hour forever is worth 6 months of shit.

    They'd work for B, but because of BIG, they could enforce the promise with signed contract and not worry about being destitute for X years until they were finally offered the job or got enough experience to move onward. That's the difference, Company A's promise actually materializes under a BIG. Today's economy, Company A just uses interns for cheap labor because I would guarantee none of them know their FLSA labor rights or wouldn't report them because "I just need the experience so I can eat in a few months and not mooch off my parents or stick to draining my savings eating this ramen."

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Options
    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.

    It's not perfect, but it's not dismissible either. We recognize that some human activities have market value; others do not - the primary difference between labor and a hobby is that the former is marketable and the latter is intrinsically enjoyable.

    The creative arts blur these categories, consequently monetizing them has been a challenge since money was invented. Revenue models for art have always been problematic, and the only way to work them through is to have good-faith discussions about what is fair compensation; this includes the possibility that sometimes fair compensation is no monetary compensation at all.

    Many of the musicians who objected to Palmer's offer as well as the musicians who defended it had a lot of really interesting things to say about the intersection of marketable labor with intrinsic enjoyment. There was an actual respectful dialogue going, where people were voicing their perspectives on what they considered to be fair and just.

    I thought that was awesome. The problem with capitalism is that often laborers don't have any negotiating power, and employers don't listen to their concerns. So when we actually see that conversation happening, in a communicative and respectful manner, I don't see that as offensive at all.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    What more context do you need?

    If you are running a for-profit venture, you should be fairly paying for the labor you need. I don't see how this is a controversial statement, let alone "diving off the cliffs of insanity".

    How does one determine "fair pay?" Market value? Minimum wage? Union contract? Executive fiat? Consulting a ouiji board?

    Can non-monetary compensation be fair? I might barter my services in exchange for something the client can offer. I might even work for an opportunity to get better work. I recognize that "exposure" is 99% of the time a bullshit canard when it's offered to creative artists, but that's a contextual understanding.

    What does "need" mean? Again, it's contextual. Amanda Palmer doesn't "need" local musicians in the way that I "need" a plumber when my toilet breaks.

    That you are resorting to sophistry belies the weakness of your argument. If we were discussing, say, Walmart forcing employees to work unpaid overtime, I doubt you would be defending the folks in Bentonville. And you're opposed to exploitation of unpaid internships. But this is somehow fundamentally different?

    I... yes?

  • Options
    ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    Fair enough.

    I did reply to your question on page 5.

    Uh, i read that. So, in your model, you think there is no force causing the cost of capital to rise, correct?

    But every time the question is asked "where does this money come from" the answer is, "Rich people who don't work!". Which to me means, we're gonna tax capital. Which, unless i miss my mark, should raise the cost of capital.

    So, to your answer I say. Huh?

    three errors here, all italicized. There may be four, depending on what you mean 'tax capital'.

    You may notice that my model did not mention, anywhere, the source of revenue; this is because many GMI suggestions suggest replacing existing social spending, and the issue of raising revenue is quite identical, at the margin, to all other revenue-related issues. In general one always wants to minimize the unneeded costs of raising any given amount of revenue, after all.

    Strictly speaking it isn't, in fact, obviously the case that taxing capital raises the cost of capital (typically referred to as rent), for the same reason raising labour taxes doesn't necessarily raise pre-tax wages. 'Capital' is too large a thing for what economists call "holding all other factors constant" to hold reliably true. This is a tangent not quite related, though, so I'll stop there.

    Increasing the tax burden on rich people doesn't necessarily imply increasing taxes on capital gains, nor capital holding. It is quite possible, of course. But observe that a steeply progressive consumption tax would increase the tax burden on rich people.

    aRkpc.gif
  • Options
    ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    If a job is flooded with so many volunteers that its market wage drops off a cliff, saying "the wage should be even higher, for Fairness!" is going to make the situation even worse

    aRkpc.gif
  • Options
    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    That you are resorting to sophistry belies the weakness of your argument. If we were discussing, say, Walmart forcing employees to work unpaid overtime, I doubt you would be defending the folks in Bentonville. And you're opposed to exploitation of unpaid internships. But this is somehow fundamentally different?

    Requiring existing employees to work unpaid overtime under threat of losing their only revenue source in life =/= soliciting volunteers through your blog.

    Nobody is going to be fired from their job or lose their healthcare because they refused to accept Amanda Palmer's offer.

    The relationship between the two parties is fundamentally different and this spells different consequences for refusal and different levels of negotiating power.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • Options
    AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    What more context do you need?

    If you are running a for-profit venture, you should be fairly paying for the labor you need. I don't see how this is a controversial statement, let alone "diving off the cliffs of insanity".

    How does one determine "fair pay?" Market value? Minimum wage? Union contract? Executive fiat? Consulting a ouiji board?

    Can non-monetary compensation be fair? I might barter my services in exchange for something the client can offer. I might even work for an opportunity to get better work. I recognize that "exposure" is 99% of the time a bullshit canard when it's offered to creative artists, but that's a contextual understanding.

    What does "need" mean? Again, it's contextual. Amanda Palmer doesn't "need" local musicians in the way that I "need" a plumber when my toilet breaks.

    That you are resorting to sophistry belies the weakness of your argument. If we were discussing, say, Walmart forcing employees to work unpaid overtime, I doubt you would be defending the folks in Bentonville. And you're opposed to exploitation of unpaid internships. But this is somehow fundamentally different?

    I... yes?

    Care to explain how? Especially considering that she had raised $1.2M which was in part to help fund the tour, not to mention that for what she considered to be key shows, she made sure there was money to pay for backup?

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • Options
    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Especially considering that she had raised $1.2M which was in part to help fund the tour, not to mention that for what she considered to be key shows, she made sure there was money to pay for backup?

    Nope, you don't get to do this. You can't invoke context after hassling me for saying that context is important.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • Options
    ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    the distinction that a GMI brings to light is that the market telling you: no, you won't be paid $X for this work that you do isn't equivalent to "$X is your material worth". It's "this work is worth less than $X". That's really it. You're quite allowed to add an additional $Y, as a political decision, and "$Y for everyone" is what the GMI is.

    aRkpc.gif
  • Options
    ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited September 2012
    the fetishization of work as a personal identity - e.g., I am a Musician, Music is what I do, therefore if I can't be paid well on the open market for producing Music, then it means my self-worth is being publicly derided - is exactly the mirror image of fetishization of market wages as your worthiness to society, where "net tax consumers" who pay less tax than they receive in benefits are bizarrely regarded as having negative moral weight.

    at some point it is possible to have too many musicians. And lottery-style compensation with high wages for insiders and lots of hopefuls hanging around outside the gates are not good for society (also a problem in, e.g., law partnerships).

    ronya on
    aRkpc.gif
  • Options
    BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    edited September 2012
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    Fair enough.

    I did reply to your question on page 5.

    Uh, i read that. So, in your model, you think there is no force causing the cost of capital to rise, correct?

    But every time the question is asked "where does this money come from" the answer is, "Rich people who don't work!". Which to me means, we're gonna tax capital. Which, unless i miss my mark, should raise the cost of capital.

    So, to your answer I say. Huh?

    three errors here, all italicized. There may be four, depending on what you mean 'tax capital'.

    You may notice that my model did not mention, anywhere, the source of revenue; this is because many GMI suggestions suggest replacing existing social spending, and the issue of raising revenue is quite identical, at the margin, to all other revenue-related issues. In general one always wants to minimize the unneeded costs of raising any given amount of revenue, after all.

    Strictly speaking it isn't, in fact, obviously the case that taxing capital raises the cost of capital (typically referred to as rent), for the same reason raising labour taxes doesn't necessarily raise pre-tax wages. 'Capital' is too large a thing for what economists call "holding all other factors constant" to hold reliably true. This is a tangent not quite related, though, so I'll stop there.

    Increasing the tax burden on rich people doesn't necessarily imply increasing taxes on capital gains, nor capital holding. It is quite possible, of course. But observe that a steeply progressive consumption tax would increase the tax burden on rich people.

    OK, so as long as the money comes from nowhere, you're right.

    Which is exactly the problem i had with the "look at how awesome it works in this little village in Africa" example.

    BSoB on
  • Options
    Pi-r8Pi-r8 Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Well I was thinking of specifically professional situations, where someone really needs a service done, and they can afford to hire a professional, and they ask you to do it for free even though you're not friends. You're right of course that there are other kinds of situations- maybe it's your friend and you help each other out all the time, or maybe they're just barely scraping by and they really can't afford to pay you. But it's definitely a huge problem right now, that people are so desperate for work that they'll do anything to try and get a leg up, including working for free to get experience, which then makes it that much harder for anyone else to find paying work.

    Which is a sign that the labor being provided doesn't really have much market value, or the market is flooded with people willing to provide that labor.

    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.
    Which gets back to why a BIG is a really, really good idea.

    In what way does a BID remove the free market as a judge of value? What does it replace it with? Why is this thing better?

    it doesn't; one still receives a crappy pay for choosing to do jobs that are awash with volunteers for said job. so the market incentive for doing the job is still the same. but one suffers less due to the guaranteed income paid atop it.

    Doesn't this seem like it will make more people willing to do unpaid internships, which will result in more exploiting of unpaid interns?
    I would think it would make people more picky about what kind of unpaid internships they'll do- they'd be less likely to put up with doing shit work for a chance at someday getting a low salary if they had something to fall back on.

    I would think they'd be more likely to risk not getting paid now, for the reward of getting paid more later, because the risk/cost of not getting paid has been reduced.

    Right now, the incentive for working for free is a chance at later raising your income from $0 to say $30,000
    With the BIG, the incentive for working for free is a chance at going from $10,000 to $40,000
    So yes, there's still that incentive, and some people will still take unpaid internships, but the incentive is reduced. So there will be fewer people doing it, which then creates more paid positions.

    Due to the diminishing marginal value of money, going from 0 to 10k is a bigger reduction in risk/cost than going from 30k to 40k is in gain.
    uh... yes? That's exactly my point. There's less of an incentive for doing a shitty unpaid internship in hopes of maybe landing a shitty low-paid job.

  • Options
    ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    Fair enough.

    I did reply to your question on page 5.

    Uh, i read that. So, in your model, you think there is no force causing the cost of capital to rise, correct?

    But every time the question is asked "where does this money come from" the answer is, "Rich people who don't work!". Which to me means, we're gonna tax capital. Which, unless i miss my mark, should raise the cost of capital.

    So, to your answer I say. Huh?

    three errors here, all italicized. There may be four, depending on what you mean 'tax capital'.

    You may notice that my model did not mention, anywhere, the source of revenue; this is because many GMI suggestions suggest replacing existing social spending, and the issue of raising revenue is quite identical, at the margin, to all other revenue-related issues. In general one always wants to minimize the unneeded costs of raising any given amount of revenue, after all.

    Strictly speaking it isn't, in fact, obviously the case that taxing capital raises the cost of capital (typically referred to as rent), for the same reason raising labour taxes doesn't necessarily raise pre-tax wages. 'Capital' is too large a thing for what economists call "holding all other factors constant" to hold reliably true. This is a tangent not quite related, though, so I'll stop there.

    Increasing the tax burden on rich people doesn't necessarily imply increasing taxes on capital gains, nor capital holding. It is quite possible, of course. But observe that a steeply progressive consumption tax would increase the tax burden on rich people.

    OK, so as long as the money comes from nowhere, you're right.

    or, you know, consumption taxes, or site taxes, or...

    aRkpc.gif
  • Options
    Pi-r8Pi-r8 Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.

    It's not perfect, but it's not dismissible either. We recognize that some human activities have market value; others do not - the primary difference between labor and a hobby is that the former is marketable and the latter is intrinsically enjoyable.
    Sure, I agree that market value is a useful system with a lot of advantages over other systems. And there ARE other systems- you can, for example, simply have the government give everyone the stuff they need, or have arbitrarily fixed prices of what everything costs. I see the BIG as essentially preserving the useful utility of free market capitalism, while patching up some of its flaws.

  • Options
    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Maybe "the market" isn't the allmighty perfect judge of human value that people pretend it is.

    It's not perfect, but it's not dismissible either. We recognize that some human activities have market value; others do not - the primary difference between labor and a hobby is that the former is marketable and the latter is intrinsically enjoyable.
    Sure, I agree that market value is a useful system with a lot of advantages over other systems. And there ARE other systems- you can, for example, simply have the government give everyone the stuff they need, or have arbitrarily fixed prices of what everything costs. I see the BIG as essentially preserving the useful utility of free market capitalism, while patching up some of its flaws.

    Oh, I agree there.

    And good job bringing the thread back on topic. :)

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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