Here is the News.

This is on the edge of one of the most offensive (to me) arguments I hear against UBI.. which is the idea that vast numbers of people will just stop working and take the free money.

It’s offensive because you ask anyone making it if THEY would quit work and spend their life watching telly and scraping through on a subsistence income and they say ‘of course not.. but other people will’.

Most people will still work, as they do now, because they want more than what a UBI income would provide. Those that really don’t want to do that are probably not working now, and better off not working at all. UBI at least affords those people a bit of dignity and freedom to pursue interests without the threat of the state taking away what meagre income they have.

Most people do want to work. They want to contribute something and they want to have money for nice stuff. My piss is boiled by those who think otherwise. I could take a low-wage-don’t-give-a-shit job, or go part time, or maybe even just retire and live a UBI life off my savings and home equity for 20 years until I can get a pension.. but I am not going to do that. Why would I assume large numbers of other people will take the first bus out of work-town when I wouldn’t?

Now.. does UBI mean that some people will need more persuading to work? Yes, yes it does. And that’s a feature, not a bug. If the person who cleans the bogs in Wetherspoons is only doing it because they’ll starve if they don’t.. well that is a bad thing.

UBI isn’t going to spunk loads of new money into the system. Most people will be no better or worse off. Todays dole recipients might be better off but there really aren’t all that many of them and I have to ask if you’d be making the same objection if the proposal was not UBI but, rather, raising unemployment benefit and making it unconditional. Because that’s the broad extent of the potential inflationary impact.

It’s absolutely true that if you make the unemployed a bit better off, mostly it’ll be swallowed up by rent. It always is… it’s a problem… and why the third plank of my plan is massive investment in public housing… but even if those people see the money whipped away by landlords.. they’re still better off having been freed from the system as it exists today.

Everyone's piss seems to get boiled the moment anyone thinks of applying this to a situation that isn't entirely theoretical.

The examples are bad here, personally I would have gone with who wipes the old people arses in the care home. Good luck automating that gig, and a million other real world roles. The care sector is in crisis, shorn of money and staff. Double the wages to make it more attractive would mean half the staff.

The distilled argument is still the same, should people be allowed to opt in and out of work or not. I beleive everyone who is able to should contribute to society, you don't, I get it. All carrot, no stick.

Why couldn't you redress the balance here by doubling everyone's TFA? Funded by putting the top rate up by 50% and getting global companies to pay their corporation tax in the countries they trade in.

Here's some fag packet maths for you to discredit.

Taking UBI at £20,000 for the 53.44 million in the country over 16 (ons 2019) = £1,068,800,000,000

In 2017 the government spent £264,000,000,000 on welfare - 34% of government spending. (Again ONS)

You want spend 137% of all government revenue on this project.

Have you considered buying a football club?

Clearly Ingo's fag packet maths is more persuasive than actual economists' extensive calculations for some, because they don't want to believe it can work.

I’ll admit I’ve only read the Wikipedia page on the Ontario experiment but it was only 4000 people and noone’s tax had to go up to pay for it. That bears no relation to implementing for a country of 70 million people that is constantly changing. UBI is an interesting thought experiment but the practicalities surely make it impossible in the real world.

I'm hoping for actual economists with extensive calculations to discredit it for me, to at least improve my understanding.

I'm expecting a load of condescending jib from people who have no experience in employing people.

Thanks for getting the ball rolling.

One of the pieces linked to suggested a negative 2.5% per month interest rate on bank accounts. I'm sure in economic models that works fine. In the real world, there won't be any money in bank accounts because it'll all be under mattresses, in gold, in shares, in bitcoin.

I have to spend all the UBI money in a month? OK. Me and my neighbour are now both self employed gardeners - I mow his lawn, he mows mine and we pay each other (in cash) our UBI at the start of the month.

The same article dealt with this issue by suggesting money is only digital in the new UBI world didn't it?

"If I transfer my UBI payment to my high street bank and then withdraw the money as cash I can accumulate a huge pile of money over the course of a year because the collection system – the negative interest rate – can only work with electronic money. The most elegant way around this is to abolish notes and coins and replace them with convenient electronic payment methods (which are already catching on). To placate those who will doubtless complain about the loss of physical money I propose that the UBI fund is established with the money that’s taken out of circulation when notes and coins are abolished. In the UK, to provide everyone with a cashflow of £1,000/month the UBI pot would have to contain around £60,000 million, which is conveniently similar to the value of notes andcoins in circulation."

Have you actually read the article I linked to? It seems to answer most of your questions.

citizen-network.org/library/how-to-fund-a-universal-basic-income.html

What do we use to buy all our imports when our currency massively devalues under negative interest rates?

I like his ballsy approach. In a few lines he has proved that money is not wealth, so we can all move on from that, job done.

I was expecting a self-important under-analysis by someone pretending that their real-world experience was relevant, so we're even.

You said it was fag packet and I agreed.

It lost me at turning personal finance into business style cashflow, which is hilarious. It's like people who think that £10k a month thing from the Lottery would be their dream.

Interesting take on what would placate people. Taking their cash and share it out among the rest of the country. Feels like he thinks placate means the opposite of what I think it does. Also sounds like a recipe for a black market trading in cash.

Also, that £1,000 a month = the £60 billion in circulation only works in month 1.

As it's a direct attack on my castle it is relevant to me, at least.

I have no idea if the maths works, and my initial thought is it won't, but people who've put in the effort say it can.
The opposition have a strongly negative view on normal people, often for selfish and misanthropic reasons. They'd be better off attacking the maths, imho, but making it a meaningful effort.

Certainly a redistribution of wealth to ensure everyone has housing and basic food seems a logical step even if people don't "deserve" it.