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Arthur, I concur.
This proposed basic income on Sally's noted site would supply a person with
the bare minimum living; a living not now approached by minimum wage. This
system would not be giving anyone all the "nice toys" that so many appear to
want (or think they need) unless they got a job and worked for them.
So, the idea that Chris has suggested that children would drop
out of school because their lives are paid for would not hold true for the
greater % of students; IMHO. Generally the desire to drop out of school comes
from the home life; if you need to get out of an abusive home, you would have
the chance (and supposed ability) to do so.
There would be many other positive aspects to the proposal of BI from
personal and community points of view; not necessarily from business because the
taxes required to pay for this and education, and healthcare (welfare -not
necessary, unemployment insurance - not necessary) would have to come from
business and the workforce. If a certain business does not like
it - tough. I think that every business that wants to sell their product in
a certain country must have the manufacturing of that product done in that
country and be taxed for it. The customer ends up paying the increase anyway but
at least there is work for some individuals instead of the
company flying off to Timbuktu to increase business profits.
Would this be attacked by the "Free Trade war machine" of the United
States. Absolutely! But whether the war is accomplished with tanks (which one
can see) or economic aggression which is more subtle and difficult to see, it is
still war and must be stopped.
With all the anxiety over BI, one might think it is
an act of war against the economy of business. Hmmm! MAYBE.
Darryl
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 6:25
AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] FW Basic Income
sites
Keith,
I
think similar criticisms were levelled against the minimum wage, child labour
laws, old age security, medicare, etc.
Same
old, same old. Can't afford it today. Wait. Wait.
Someday.
Rubbish.
arthur
Christoph,
Well said!
Keith
At 17:30 14/12/2003
+0100, you wrote:
Thomas Lunde wrote:
> Well,
Chris, you got me - sloppy analogy. Let me try a different
one. We
> have a benefit for children called the Child Tax
Benefit. Depending on the
> age of the child and the number of
children in the family - every parent is
> eligible and I would say
there is a 99% participation rate. Now note that
> their is no
income eligibility. The millionaire's child is as eligible
as
> the pauper's child. However, this has to be declared as
income on the
> yearly income tax filing and for low income families
they get to keep all
> the benefit of about $2000 per child while
the affluent having to add this
> to their income find that the
benefit is taxed back. The end result is the
> poor get the
benefit and the rich - while they are rich and it is not always
> a
permanent state, end up not getting the benefit.
The BI Canada
website (recommended by Sally) says:
"Income tax would be paid
from the first pound, dollar, franc or mark of
extra
income, but the basic income itself would not be taxable."
This sounds
like everyone, rich or poor, can fully keep the BI
(untaxed).
> I see a way for a Basic Income to work in which
everyone gets a monthly
> cheque or weekly and for the poor, they
get to keep the Basic Income, while
> the more affluent find that it
is revenue neutral in the sense they get the
> benefit on a
monthly/weekly basis to use but at the end of the year, they
> would
repay the benefit while paying there taxes
But even if you change
the rules as described above, this system ends up
penalizing work
(taxing work but not the BI). How can you solve the
production
problem --and keep it solved-- with a society of non-workers ?
Worse:
who, if not workers, is supposed to pay the taxes to fund the BI
?
> I think a Basic Income does represent going to the root
of the problem which
> is an adequate redistribution of wealth so
that all citizens benefit from
> the wealth of the country - not
just the successful capitalists or overpaid
>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
executives.
Now I understand why you said it's a Canadian
solution... "The wealth of
the country" probably refers to
timber, oil&gas, and in the sell-out of
natural resources, you want
to distribute it to all Canadians instead of
just a few managers of the
sell-out.
However, plundering forests and fossil fuels is not a
sustainable solution,
and it offers no model for countries who lack
natural resources to plunder.
> > Going back to school or
building a house with a GBI ?? How many thousand
> >
dollars per month are you thinking of ?
>
> If you follow the
Basic Income web addresses that Sally posted a few days
> ago and
went to the United States web site, you will see them talking
>
$25,000 a year. A few years ago, I worked out a Basic Income based
on the
> governments budget with a figure of $10,000 per person per
year.
For Canada, that would be over $300 billion (about 5 Bill
Gateses worth --
how many Bill Gateses does Canada have, btw?), that is
~80 % of present
tax revenues. (So I guess the schools,
hospitals, roads, sewage system,
army etc. will have to be maintained
by unpaid volunteers then.) But
since the BI would be an
incentive not to work, the tax revenues would
fall significantly.
Bye bye Canadian forests and gas reserves...
> I know the
average knee jerk reaction to the family of eight in that many
>
women would opt for 8 children and $80,000 a year. So what? It
is damn
> hard work to raise eight children and I have read
statistics that each child
> costs the parent $250,000 to raise a
child in a middle class environment and
> through
University.
Including through University, i.e. you're talking about
the first 25 years
of life, times the BI of $10,000/year gives exactly
$250,000 ! But who said
that they'll send all children to
University, especially if the kids can
live on the BI without working
anyway ? So you'll end up with an incentive
to breed like rabbits
and produce school drop-outs with no incentive or
desire to work or go
to University. In a society of uneducated mostly
non-working
people, plundering the country's natural resources is indeed
the only
option that remains... Canada the Saudi-Arabia of the North
?
Chris
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Keith
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