Tom, As you have probably gathered, I have been working for most of the last 50 years to obtain justice for all. Justice doesn't mean a chicken in every pot, or a BI. IT means no more than that a person will keep what he produces and shares equally the bounties of nature.
So, the problem with some of your remarks is that there are consequences. Such as the threshold, something that occurs often in economics but is given a variety of names. If one gets $900 for no work - but $1,100 (net after taxes $800) if you work - why should you work? I might choose unemployment plus welfare as a preferred alternative (perhaps with some off-tax work under the counter). This is done everywhere now. It's a constant welfare problem. If the welfare is not enough to provide a reasonable standard of living, cries arise for more. Yet, as welfare rises and approaches real net wages, there is greater incentive not to work, but to collect the freebies. If welfare is reduced, more people work but the demands to increase welfare increase. Incidentally, it was found that if unemployment payments were extended over a greater time, the search for work sagged. Reducing the length of time that unemployment benefits are paid results in a scramble for jobs. Obviously! This is just an extension of the two assumptions. You'll recall those. Yet, it's just another threshold thing that makes the welfare theorist have puppies. With regard to "black" working, you may recall my story about those poor people living in low rent flats in Toronto. The council found that they were working two or three jobs (not allowed) and with the advantage of low rents, saving enough to get a home of their own. The puffed up peacocks of the Toronto City Council were properly annoyed at this. Needless to say, I loved it and used the CBC to good effect supporting these people. You suggested "raising the minimum wage to a realistic $12 -14 an hour, but then the cost would fall totally on those businesses that use minimum wage employees". Not quite - the cost would fall entirely on the hamburger consumers. (Not even that quite. It would fall on those speculative land-values I've talked about - but that gets a little technical.) What the heck is a clawback? Harry ******************************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242 http://haledward.home.comcast.net ******************************************** <clip> Thomas: I don't see a BI system as replacing the work for wages system. I see the BI system as a support system for a variety of ills. On a previous posting, I suggested $10,000 which is about what we Guarantee our Senior Citizens through government universality pensions At about $900 a month for Basic Income, there is a strong incentative to get a job. You're never going to buy a new house or car on $900 a month. But if you got a minimum wage job which brings you in about $1100 gross and maybe $800 net, all of sudden that shit work becomes worth doing with a BI supplement. Now the same thing could be accomplished by raising the minimum wage to a realistic $12 -14 an hour, but then the cost would fall totally on those businesses that use minimum wage employees and they would scream - unfair and I think rightly so. Plus, it would still leave those with no jobs dependent on Provincial Welfare which is less than $900 a month and creates tons of problems and expenses. But for those who can't find work or for some personal reason do not want to work at this point in their life, there is a support system that they can depend on to supply basic needs. That one would spend their whole life living on $900 a month is a ridicoulous assumption. As to the last sentence, I have mentioned in a previous posting that there is clawback when there is no need through the tax system. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.552 / Virus Database: 344 - Release Date: 12/15/2003 _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
