Kia-ora
The concept of UBI has a long history in New Zealand.
Of course, we already have a UBI for
those over 65. Which has been extremely successful at eliminating
poverty amongst the elderly, at a very moderate cost by international
standards.
“In fact super has been so
effective in removing poverty amongst the elderly it should be extended
to everyone in the form of a guaranteed minimum income. There is no
excuse for having people with inadequate food and housing in a country
which is capable of supplying an excess of both internally”. http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/on-retirement-pensions-and-age-of.html
It has been a policy plank of various minor political parties, such as Social Credit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Democratic_Party_for_Social_Credit
Currently, the Greens have discussed a UBI as part of welfare and economic policy development.
Many organisations, and individuals
both left and right wing, have discussed the idea. Including the
darling of the extreme right, Roger Douglas.
Recently Gareth Morgan has been an advocate. He puts the case rather well. http://www.bigkahuna.org.nz/universal-basic-income.aspx
“Paying universal
transfers acknowledges that every individual has the same unconditional
right – to a basic income sufficient for them to live in dignity. The
Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) provides this.
With this basic protection in
place people are then free to add to that income through paid work if
they choose. Equally, they can live on the UBI and pursue other
activities – doing the unpaid work of caring for children or others in
their community for example, or studying full time, or pursuing new
business ventures. The UBI offers the prospect of ensuring everyone has
the means to live while giving them the freedom to live their lives as
they choose.”
However David Preston from the MSD
exemplifies what seems to be the main concern and almost the only real
objection to a UBI. People may chose to go surfing instead of working.
Horrors! http://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/journals-and-magazines/social-policy-journal/spj10/universal-basic-income-cure-or-disease.html
The vision, of 80 year old pensioners surfing, this engenders, caused me a great deal of mirth.
In fact the only real experiment with a universal basic income. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
,showed that the overwhelming majority, even with guaranteed income,
chose to do something constructive. Work, study or raising children. In
the 70′s in New Zealand, with a much more generous unemployment benefit
than we have now, almost everyone still chose to work.
The biggest advantage of a UBI, of
course, is the almost total elimination of poverty, with all the savings
in the accompanying economic and social costs. There is also the not
inconsiderable savings in administration of welfare, simplified tax
systems and the hit or miss nature of targeted welfare. Because it is
universal, there is less incentive for the wealthy to try and destroy
it, to cut taxes.
The main objection, apart from the
horror of some people that recipients may simply go surfing, A horror
they do not seem to extend to the inheritors of unearned extreme wealth, is cost!
It is not, however, a given, that the overall cost of a UBI would be more than that of a fair targeted welfare system.
Of course those same people throw up
their hands object to the cost of current welfare. They cannot
understand why the poor are not made to live in cardboard boxes and
starve quietly as they do in their ideal economies, just so those on
high incomes can pay a few dollars less taxes.
Universal superannuation in New Zealand has been considerably cheaper and more effective than targeted schemes elsewhere.
Don’t see why a UBI should not pay for
itself in the savings in administration, the decreased costs of poverty
and the extra tax take from extra income within the economy. Flat taxes
over the UBI rate, are possible, which should cheer up the right wing.
The removal of abatement rates for
working and the removal of the penalty of extreme poverty for business
failure, for those not already millionaires, can only help more people
into work, study and entrepreneurship. For others, it frees them up for
socially useful unpaid work, such as sport coaching, teaching and the
myriads of other unpaid and unrecognized work which makes for a
functional society.
Lastly. In an era where resources are
running out, being able to survive without having to find ever more
creative ways of using up resources, and ripping off your fellow
citizens, is an essential step towards a steady state sustainable
society.
Also published in The Standard
Showing posts with label Poverty.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poverty.. Show all posts
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Kicking away the ladder.
Kia-ora
Advocates of Neo-Liberal, "free market" idealogy claim that the prescription they want to impose on other countries is the one that made them prosperous.
Not only is this manifestly wrong by any empirical measurement, (Compare poster boy, "free market" New Zealand to largely still socialist and protectionist Norway, or Australia, for example) it also ignores the protectionist history of every successful economy.
Notable in the USA, the more protectionist, socialist and publicly co-operative the State, the more succesful their economy. High tax, more socialist States are propping up the more Neo-Liberal States.Compare North Dakota and Texas for example.
The height of Neo-liberal absurdity is when Chile under Pinochet is held up as an example of successful Neo-Liberal economic.
How Neo-Liberal ignore evidence, and History!
"
Advocates of Neo-Liberal, "free market" idealogy claim that the prescription they want to impose on other countries is the one that made them prosperous.
Not only is this manifestly wrong by any empirical measurement, (Compare poster boy, "free market" New Zealand to largely still socialist and protectionist Norway, or Australia, for example) it also ignores the protectionist history of every successful economy.
Notable in the USA, the more protectionist, socialist and publicly co-operative the State, the more succesful their economy. High tax, more socialist States are propping up the more Neo-Liberal States.Compare North Dakota and Texas for example.
The height of Neo-liberal absurdity is when Chile under Pinochet is held up as an example of successful Neo-Liberal economic.
How Neo-Liberal ignore evidence, and History!
"
"Almost all of
today’s rich countries used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their
industries. Interestingly, Britain and the USA, the two countries that are supposed to have reached the summit
of the world economy through their free-market, free-trade policy, are
actually the ones that had most aggressively used protection and subsidies".
Living wages.
Kia-ora
One of the "grass roots" initiatives that has arisen partly out of the occupy movement is The living wage movement. Living Wage
Predictably those who award themselves 100k bonuses and 17% pay rises, while dodging taxes are opposed.
Zetetic on a living wage.
"Don’t you love hearing the rich say the working poor can’t have more pay? The faux concern that higher wages cost jobs from the same people who support huge executive pay packets and tax cuts? If you really believed higher wages meant fewer jobs, you would cut the CEO’s pay in half, not dick around over a few dollars an hour for real workers. (Emphasis mine).
Of course, the truth is more money in working people’s hands means more demand for the basics, meaning more jobs. It’s well-established empirical fact. Anyone who argues otherwise is just using a false justification that masks their real – much less altruistic reasons – for wanting the poor to stay poor.""
How, if low wages are good for the economy, do the wealthiest justify awarding themselves higher pay while the rest of us have pay cuts.?
We have a shortage of skilled technicians and trades in New Zealand. How is it econmically justified that their pay has been cut year by year, while financial finaglers, directors and "managers' where there is no shortage continually award themselves more pay? Japan and Germany seem to find competent managers, with pay differentials much less than ours.
How do managers, bankers or politicians, and other non-producing parasites, sleep at night when they collect 100's of thousands a year and put a miserly $13.50 an hour into their hard workers pay packets.
At the same time, in New Zealand, half of our wealtheist people pay little or no tax. Wealthy dodge tax
One of the main reasons the PIG's went under is the lack of tax take from the wealthy. In Greece dodging taxes was a national sport. In New Zealand we just make the wealthy avoiding paying for the social and natural capital they use, legal.
One of the "grass roots" initiatives that has arisen partly out of the occupy movement is The living wage movement. Living Wage
Predictably those who award themselves 100k bonuses and 17% pay rises, while dodging taxes are opposed.
Zetetic on a living wage.
"Don’t you love hearing the rich say the working poor can’t have more pay? The faux concern that higher wages cost jobs from the same people who support huge executive pay packets and tax cuts? If you really believed higher wages meant fewer jobs, you would cut the CEO’s pay in half, not dick around over a few dollars an hour for real workers. (Emphasis mine).
Of course, the truth is more money in working people’s hands means more demand for the basics, meaning more jobs. It’s well-established empirical fact. Anyone who argues otherwise is just using a false justification that masks their real – much less altruistic reasons – for wanting the poor to stay poor.""
How, if low wages are good for the economy, do the wealthiest justify awarding themselves higher pay while the rest of us have pay cuts.?
We have a shortage of skilled technicians and trades in New Zealand. How is it econmically justified that their pay has been cut year by year, while financial finaglers, directors and "managers' where there is no shortage continually award themselves more pay? Japan and Germany seem to find competent managers, with pay differentials much less than ours.
How do managers, bankers or politicians, and other non-producing parasites, sleep at night when they collect 100's of thousands a year and put a miserly $13.50 an hour into their hard workers pay packets.
At the same time, in New Zealand, half of our wealtheist people pay little or no tax. Wealthy dodge tax
One of the main reasons the PIG's went under is the lack of tax take from the wealthy. In Greece dodging taxes was a national sport. In New Zealand we just make the wealthy avoiding paying for the social and natural capital they use, legal.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Livable income.
Kia-ora
A liveable income should be a human right.
We accept that someone can inherit unearned millions, but we do not accept that someone else should inherit enough, from our society, to live on, as of right.
Who actually has the culture of unearned entitlement?
The Koch’s, Romney’s, Bennets, Shipley and Keys getting thousands a day for contributing very little.
Not a teenager who has been struggling unsuccessfully to find work for two years and is expected to live on $130 a week.
The days of constant growth and full employment are gone.
We can produce enough for everyone to live in comfort in NZ with fraction of our present activity/employment.
I do not have the figures for New Zealand, but, rather than a more equal distribution of income making everyone poorer, if the USA’s current production was shared equally, every family in the States would have an income of around 180k annually.
The right wing idea that a more equal distribution of income means equality in misery, is an obvious fallacy.
A surgeon, teacher or entrepreneur should earn more than an unqualified cleaner, but by cutting extreme wealth there is plenty of room to eradicate poverty in New Zealand. Or the US.
No one except for some rare exceptional entrepreneurs, “earns” millions.
Note that in both the USA and New Zealand when they were at their most prosperous the top progressive tax rate was much higher and inequalities in wealth much lower than they are now.
Trickle down does not work. http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/blog-post.html
A liveable income should be a human right.
We accept that someone can inherit unearned millions, but we do not accept that someone else should inherit enough, from our society, to live on, as of right.
Who actually has the culture of unearned entitlement?
The Koch’s, Romney’s, Bennets, Shipley and Keys getting thousands a day for contributing very little.
Not a teenager who has been struggling unsuccessfully to find work for two years and is expected to live on $130 a week.
The days of constant growth and full employment are gone.
We can produce enough for everyone to live in comfort in NZ with fraction of our present activity/employment.
I do not have the figures for New Zealand, but, rather than a more equal distribution of income making everyone poorer, if the USA’s current production was shared equally, every family in the States would have an income of around 180k annually.
The right wing idea that a more equal distribution of income means equality in misery, is an obvious fallacy.
A surgeon, teacher or entrepreneur should earn more than an unqualified cleaner, but by cutting extreme wealth there is plenty of room to eradicate poverty in New Zealand. Or the US.
No one except for some rare exceptional entrepreneurs, “earns” millions.
Note that in both the USA and New Zealand when they were at their most prosperous the top progressive tax rate was much higher and inequalities in wealth much lower than they are now.
Trickle down does not work. http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/blog-post.html
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Unintentional irony from individuals who are sitting on 100 thousand dollar pay rises, while their company tanks in the recession, salt their income away offshore to avoid taxes, prefer to spend on bidding up prices with unproductive speculation, expect taxpayer bailouts when their gambling fails, and ask for tax cuts while the deficit increases.