The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by **jacob** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 12:26 am

@secretwealth - The same problem exists inside first world countries with people not living up to their potential due to corruption, archaic cultural values, gang violence, etc... why should the line be drawn at national borders rather than with, say, demonstrated ability?
@Felix - I have no problem living on $7124/year, which I presume is the money-equivalent of parting the world's goods out equally(?), but I think there's a lot of people even on this forum for whom that is too little.

Riggerjack · Post by **Riggerjack** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 1:11 am

That number was what I came up with as 60% of global gdp per capital based on 7 billion people. I used 60% gdp because the original poster thought that was an appropriate minimum wage basis.
On the issue of resentment, we just had fast food workers strike in Seattle because 9.19/hr is not enough.
My point with the numbers above was that if we are here, we already have more than we've earned, and that "raising the bottom" doesn't make people happier.

bluejoey · Post by **bluejoey** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 1:23 am

I personally have no issue with a minimum wage, but economics shows it's a trap.
Which economics exactly show minimum wage to be a trap?

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 1:39 am

"The same problem exists inside first world countries with people not living up to their potential due to corruption, archaic cultural values, gang violence, etc... why should the line be drawn at national borders rather than with, say, demonstrated ability?"
Because we can't draw the line at demonstrated ability. Not yet. If we could, then we should.

Post by **jacob** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:06 am

I can draw the line at demonstrated ability pretty easily by investing in a company registered in Bangladesh and not investing in Chicago gang violence, say.

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:12 am

1. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
2. Yes, which is why the globalization of capital is a good thing. But so too should we have the globalization of labor.

Post by **jacob** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:18 am

@secretwealth -
1) I'll take that risk.
2) Well, that's exactly what's happening. The wages are equalizing and the places with cheaper wages are capitalized. People what are paid $20/hour to push a button on a conveyor belt are seeing their wages decreasing, alternatively losing their jobs, people who are paid 50c to do the same job in another country are seeing their wages increasing. Of course it sucks being on the decreasing side. The free movement of people is very much being prevented by "does that mean I'm no longer getting paid $20/hour to push a button"-crowd. Not so much by the "lets bring in the experts and have them work here"-crowd. It's only natural.

bluejoey · Post by **bluejoey** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:58 am

I know for a fact that each time minimum wage is about to be increased, I can save some money buying things in advance. Maybe it is different in your place.

But how does this make the minimum wage a trap?

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 4:35 am

It isn't a foregone conclusion that higher minimum wages will result in higher prices, and I don't think a single economic study has shown this to be the norm, let alone inevitable.

aussierogue · Post by **aussierogue** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 6:57 am

quote
A lot of the world's GDP potential is artificially limited due to corruption, lack of rule of law, high gang violence, archaic cultural values, etc. I don't think there's much logic in suggesting that Swedes should share their wealth with warlords in Chad.
unquote
Leave Chad out of this!

Riggerjack · Post by **Riggerjack** » Sun Jun 02, 2013 4:52 am

@aussierogue: cute.
@ bluejoey:

there are three main objections to raising minimum wage:
1. raising the minimum wage results in inflation, hurting those you are trying to help. admittedly, nobody is saying the inflation cancels out the raise, simply diminishes it
2. raising minimum wage discriminates against low skilled or unskilled labor. this results in fewer opportunities at the bottom. minimum wage work is either automated, (grape picker's stike) or eliminated (small businesses operating on low margins fold). Minimum wage is NOT supposed to be a living wage. it is the wage you are paid while you establish a work history, to allow movement into better paying work. In America, raised minimum wages hurt the young and minorities the worst. Google Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams. The both write very accessible columns on econ studies.
3. the higher minimum wage is, in proportion to cost of living, the lesser the incentive to do better, this includes learning vital skills like interviewing and negotiating skills vital to flourishing in a capitalist society.
In 1989, i was working a variety of crap jobs for 3.35/hr, competing against out of work loggers, who were cursing spotted owls. raising the minimum wage would not have helped me, though i didn't know at the time. What I needed to do is find a less economically depressed area to live, and develop marketable skills.
Anything encouraging me to do else would be wasted effort.

Felix · Post by **Felix** » Fri Jun 14, 2013 8:31 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RkX6enC ... ture=share

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:15 pm

Paying a universal income to people to compensate them for caring for elderly family members, helping neighbors, tending neighborhood gardens, etc. would remove corporations' stranglehold on income distribution, thereby removing their economic power. This is why they resist, and why they use appeal-to-emotion ideological fallacies like Randism to get the lower middle class to resist ideas that would ultimately benefit them.
Sadly, whether it's marketing junk food or junk philosophy, advertising is very effective.

Felix · Post by **Felix** » Sat Jun 15, 2013 8:57 am

The idea of leaving people to their own devices is just as much a project to make better people (making them more self-reliant, with self-reliance being the yardstick for personal value). This molding of people towards an individualistic ideal very much goes counter to everything we know about humans as social creatures.
Reality on the streets is that economic inequality and lack of the means for a decent life breed crime and violence. One could say that people react to economic incentives here.
It is very naiive to believe that leaving people to themselves will instead just cause them to better themselves and become more productive.
This idea is especially misguided in a system with a systemic unemployment rate. In a game of musical chairs, someone ends up without a chair, even if everyone gives his best.

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Sat Jun 15, 2013 3:05 pm

@ffj Your point of view seems to be that people tend to work because they have to, not because they want to. My experience has been the exact opposite. This board is full of people who cannot stop working, and it's a board dedicated to early retirement! Just about everyone I've met in every industry I've worked in works for much more than to avoid homelessness. Why isn't Bill Gates relaxing on a beach? Why do most hedge fund billionaires stay active into their 70s and 80s? Why do celebrities worth hundreds of millions produce more movies?
The idea that people work to avoid starvation seems very outdated.

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Sat Jun 15, 2013 3:31 pm

>>The idea of leaving people to their own devices is just as much a project to make better people (making them more self-reliant, with self-reliance being the yardstick for personal value). This molding of people towards an individualistic ideal very much goes counter to everything we know about humans as social creatures.
I would say this is only true because of the way people are institutionalized from an early age (formal schooling, traditional jobs). They are trained to perform specific tasks for specific rewards. Only those with strong individualistic tendencies break out of the mold. Is that because of how we're wired, or how we're trained? I believe the latter, and I believe that with every new layer of institutionalization that gets added to our lives, fewer people are able to break free.
So I guess the argument is whether to remove most support, live with the pain that would follow, and allow society to learn how to live more independently, or increase support to provide for the people who can no longer think or do for themselves.
>>Why isn't Bill Gates relaxing on a beach? Why do most hedge fund billionaires stay active into their 70s and 80s? Why do celebrities worth hundreds of millions produce more movies?
If people believe that the goal is money and the power it can provide, then of course they would keep working. Wealth and power are moving targets so you would never get past the accumulation phase. See materialism thread

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Sat Jun 15, 2013 3:50 pm

I honestly don't believe money and power are the end goal for a lot of the multibillionaires out there. The thrill of the game is the drug they chase. Wheeling and dealing, being the important man in the boardroom, is a kind of social belonging that can get as addictive as sex or love. When you're sitting on a beach, you have no value to society. Pretty much everyone cannot deal with having no value to society.

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Sat Jun 15, 2013 4:01 pm

>>Wheeling and dealing, being the important man in the boardroom, is a kind of social belonging that can get as addictive as sex or love.
I guess that's how I would describe power.

secretwealth · Post by **secretwealth** » Sat Jun 15, 2013 4:26 pm

Yeah, you're right. It's a little bit more than having power over others, though--there's the thrill of turning out being right that drives a lot of entrepreneurs.

Post by **jacob** » Sat Jun 15, 2013 4:54 pm

There are two variables that determines how well off one is

1) The absolute value of the income.

2) The management of that income.
People vary widely in their ability to create income. They also vary widely in their ability to manage income.
You can help people who don't have a lot of income but manage it well by raising their basic income.
However, for those who mismanage their money, no matter how much you increase it, they'll always manage to piss it away and not improve their situation markedly.
See:

viewtopic.php?t=3729#post-52488
The problem is that there are two kinds of poverty:

Poverty of money and poverty of mind.
You're not going to fix poverty of mind by handing out money. If you believe in consequences, you might even find this counterproductive. If you believe in education, you essentially have to call people out for being stupid.
The problem is that some people simply aren't qualified to live a good life no matter how much money they're given. They don't need money. They need someone to think for them.
It's the old problem with everybody being given the same rights (both culturally and legally), to be an adult essentially, but not everybody being capable of being sufficiently responsible to act like an adult.
You can't fix this with money. You have to fix it culturally.