Seriously, just fuck off!
The concept, which involves ditching the traditional means tested benefits and replacing them with an unconditional flat rate payment to all citizens, has been trialled in various parts of the world, including Finland and Canada.
Mr McDonnell revealed he had recently discussed the idea with former Labour leader Ed Miliband, who was “really keen” on getting a pilot of the scheme in the next manifesto.
And how will this Utopian ideal be paid for? The very wealthy can simply move their money offshore – as well as themselves. People like me are already above the likely level for UBI so it will simply be absorbed into the tax code. Which means that it will be people like me who will be expected to pay for those who will get actual money. Again.
A poll last year by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath suggested that nearly half of all Britons (49 per cent) would back such a scheme and proponents include the prominent billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson.
Ask them if they are happy to pay for someone else to have UBI and I think you might get a different response. I’m more than happy to have a basic system that acts as a safety net in the event of urgent need. What I am not prepared to do is fund other people to not work while I am working.
As for paying for it…
The guaranteed sum would be paid by the state to everyone, regardless of wealth or work status.
No, it won’t. The state won’t be paying anyone. The state has no money. We will be paying. The productive will be paying for the unproductive. The only potential benefit here is that it should be less bureaucratic. Should being the operative word. When have you ever known a bureaucracy to simplify itself?
Another suggestion is a negative interest rate, that would take a percentage of every citizen’s bank account each month.
A universal basic income in the United Kingdom that would give every adult and child £12,000 ($14,900) per year requires a negative interest rate of 2.5 percent per month*, according to the Centre for Welfare Reform.
So, if a person were to have £5,000 ($6,600) in his or her bank account at the beginning of the month, by the end, £4,884 ($6,500) would be left because £116 ($153) would be taken by the government for a universal basic income pot.
The word for this is “stealing“. I’ll be damned if I will leave my money in a bank account if the state is going to come along and start helping itself. I’ll put it all in used fivers under the mattress before I allow that to happen. At least then, it won’t decrease in value.
Some have suggested a sliding scale of basic income, so the higher a person’s employment salary, the lower basic income check he or she would receive from the government.
They won’t be getting anything from the government – because they have already paid the government more than this amount. What will happen in reality is that this will be absorbed into their tax-free allowance. So, again, the productive will be picking up the tab. As usual.
*Fucking Hellski! Do the maths – 2.5% per month. After less than four years, my pension pot will be wiped out. The idiot who proposed this nonsense is living in some cloud cuckoo land where I’ll get more back in my UBI pot than they steal from my bank account. I presume he has also solved the conundrum of perpetual motion.
With a free 24 grand a year between us, my wife and I wouldn’t need to work. This must be true of millions of other households too. Where is the money going to come from when half of the population have packed their jobs in?
The pink unicorn in the sky.
I had a discussion at a philosophy group recently about this. The usual suspects were saying that universal income was a great idea. I pointed out that implementing this would be “universal” so everyone got it or it couldn’t be universal. No, they said, the rich wont get it, only the poor.
I said “you will have to re-design healthcare because everyone will have to pay for their own out of the universal income”. No, they said, it will be free for the poor.
“You will have to scrap benefits as well” I said. No, they said, the poor will still get benefits.
“You will have to scrap the tax-free allowance and implement a universal tax rate on income – say 25%”. No, they said, the poor will still get a tax-free allowance and the rich will still be taxed at 50%.
“OK”, says I, “define rich”. Anyone who earns more than I do, they said. “Define poor” – answer “Me. I’m poor”.
This philosophy group was full of seemingly intelligent, probable graduate, sub-30s. And ageing hippies. All of whom were in full employment.
I stopped going and took up archery instead.
That might come in handy if this lot ever win power.
Then they haven’t been paying attention. Or they don’t understand what universal means. 😉
They suffer from congenital “hard of thinking” as do most of those who never suffered under Hard Labour and the consequences of the brain drain and tax flight.
Perhaps under a Corbyn administration, some kind of wall might be in order as well as a well structured scheme for a limited number of exit visas, excluding those wishing to emigrate to Israel who will be given expedited travel documents (after paying the necessary 100% exit tax)
‘… seemingly intelligent…’
Intelligent does not mean smart or capable, the important thing is its application.
Adult chimpanzees have the same intelligence as a Human five year old, the latter can talk, write, read, sing, use a computer, the former screeches, farts a lot and throws its fæces about…. a description of people on the Left too.
UBI may work in a country with no benefit system.
UK needs to make existing system “make work pay”. Existing system which “taxes” those on benefits at ~80% to >100% for working is an abomination.
IDS tried to do this, socialist Osborne blocked him.
I seem to recall that the Green Movement of the 1930’s (not related to environmentalism) advocated “Social Credit” and the distribution of a “National Dividend” which was pretty much identical to the UBI of today.
LINK: >Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland<
This was long before the Beveridge Report and the Welfare State as we’ve come to know it.
“A poll last year by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath suggested that nearly half of all Britons (49 per cent) would back such a scheme and proponents include the prominent billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson.”
Been on the Uni of Bath half-arsed department site. No mention of this poll, however I’d treat ANYTHING that comes out of Bath Uni as close to useless.
On the other hand, what exactly is the point of including Branson and Zuckerberg?
Yes they’re wealthy, but Branson’s a tax exile and Zuckerberg’s a Yank, so what they have to say ain’t worth diddly squat. Furthermore they both employ very talented professionals to ensure their UK tax bil is kept to the absolute legal limit.
One thing’s for sure, Tony Blair won’t be a “proponent” – ever.
If a flat rate was genuinely paid to everyone with no exceptions, it might concentrate some minds. But you just know that all kinds of hard cases would be judged to be deserving of a bit more.
Well, no – not if that 2.5% after the first month is on the previous month‘s balance, rather than the starting balance.
Start off with (say) £100,000, (presuming no other withdrawals or deposits) then 2.5% per month off the previous month’s balance would leave, after 48 months, a balance of just shy of £30,500.
Doesn’t make it any less theft however.
Adrian Rogers is springing to mind here:
Not sure why this went in the SPAM bin…
Okay, so my maths may be off a bit, but its moot as you point out. Reducing £100,000 to £30,000 is still pretty appalling – give it another two or three years and it will be wiped out. The cretin who came up with this seems to think that UBI will involve another pot of money coming in that will replace it. This cannot ever work in practice. There won’t be a pot of money coming in for those over the threshold – they will have it in the form of their tax free allowance. So that pension pot will continue to diminish. The timescale doesn’t really matter too much, it is still being stolen.
The basic idea is that everyone gets the universal basic income which counts as taxable income. If you work, that also counts as taxable income and working means you pay income tax. Assuming 95% effective tax enforcement and such lovelies as a negative interest rate and citizens with Baldrick-like lack of low cunning, this can work.
Where it goes wrong is when the citizenry starts thinking, even a little.
If your bank account thieves from you, then you simply do not use it. If the currency is stable, you deal only in cash; if it is unstable then you use gold and silver. As much as possible, you deal cash in hand to keep the dead hand of government bureaucracy out of your affairs, which in the most part will also be off-shored to similarly keep the government’s thieving hands off your cash.
Given the levels of low cunning the average citizen is capable of, a UBI scheme will falter on just this. There is however another couple of things that will kill it.
For a UBI scheme to work, you have to know who is a citizen and who isn’t, else you’ll have all of Africa beating a path to your door “because Britain pays you and you don’t have to do anything”. They do this already; this tendency will merely get a million times worse.
Knowing who is a citizen means ID cards, and a back-end database that would make the architects of the previous failed attempt have wet dreams all day and all night long. The UBI is also a licence for every government snoop to pry into everyone’s affairs; that too will kill it and the government that tries to implement it.
After the first month of a 2.5% tax everyone with a single working brain cell will have taken their money out of any savings accounts they can. What is going to fund month 2 on?
Well, precisely. However, the canny, upon seeing this about to happen will have removed their funds prior to month 1.
These people dislike savers. I believe that Richard Murphy is one who thinks that our money should all be spent to keep the economy going. Fuck that. I want my pot for a rainy day – and to enjoy when it suits me, not the state.
Ain’t your money any more than my savings are mine.
You selfishly hoard communal resources to indulge later in “ownspend”. Why should you not be penalised for such an affront to the folk community?
This has to be stopped. For your own good of course. You might spend it on alcohol, meat, tobacco or maybe even – Corbyn forgive you – a holiday in the Trump Reich!
It just brings home to you just how truly, cosmically, surreally stupid, stupid, STUPID these cretins drooling at the thought of a cashless society really are.
Ha! You are Richard Murphy and I claim my £5. 😀
UBI as a concept may well have been trialled, but never successfully.
And it never will be because someone has to pay for it and it will always be the squeezed middle.
‘…an unconditional flat rate payment to all citizens…’
Extra bunce for the Queen too then.