They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone. Sure, your Hollywood actor is probably driving an exotic sports car and their iphone is diamond studded, but fundamentally, what does it matter?
> housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair
I agree in the general but I suspect we disagree quite differently on the details. We do provide housing for the poor, and short term homelessness outcomes are actually generally positive - we tend to get people who lose their home back into another house. We provide free education through a high school diploma and community college in most areas is exceedingly affordable with massive scholarship opportunities available for ivy leagues. You can walk into any hospital and it's illegal for them to refuse you treatment.
Does this mean our society is without fault? Of course not - we've shown repeatedly that we're terrible at finding real solutions for the persistently homeless (and no, shoving them into homes doesn't actually fix their problems as much as it fixes the stats), and healthcare is at best described as "horrifically abberant".
And we should fix those things. But that some Hollywood starlett is flying around in a gulfstream has nothing to do with those fundamental problems - it is not a lack of resources but a lack of willingness and deep understanding of the problem space.
It's easy to blame the wealthy, it's much harder to solve the actual problem set.
It will avoid the perverse incentives that lead people to get costly health care in the ER (which is then covered by other patients) instead of having health insurance and receiving preventative care
It can prevent people from avoiding getting a higher income lest they start earning too much to qualify for the social programs they depend on
No UBI won't fix all problems - but it may very well pay for itself through better externalities
But UBI decreases motivation while also inflating the cost of goods and services so that they rise to meet the new money supply.
NIT avoids both problems by scaling with income. It provides motivation without paying every one. More fair, less cost, and better purchasing power.
"Motivates working, avoids a blanket handout which would just raise the prices of everything in response"
"More fair, less cost, and better purchasing power"
I mean that it's a made up difference between UBI and NIT, they are simply equal in this regard, for better or for worse.
It makes no sense that they would be different, as the net money flow between individual (or household) and the government can be made exactly the same between UBI and NIT scheme, and how much money someone actually has in their hands is what determines motivation, fairness, purchasing power, inflation etc.
Under UBI: NetMonthlyIncome = income + UBI - taxes_ubi(income)
Under NIT (where taxes_nit can yield a negative value): NetMonthlyIncome = income - taxes_nit(income)
You can make taxes_ubi(income) == taxes_nit(income) + UBI and you get the same exact real life result, it's just that the accounting is different.
However the way they do it is very different and that's what changes everything. NIT guarantees min. income without just paying everyone. This costs less than UBI. NIT pays a (negative tax) bonus on the first dollars instead of immediately taxing earnings. This provides more motivation. Not giving everyone the same helicopter money prevents cost of living inflation. This provides better purchasing power.
How you provide the income is more important the final amount because the economy is an interconnected system with secondary effects. This is why Friedman recommended NIT instead of UBI. The mechanics of the system matter.
Well, if you didn't know, there's stuff like this:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/college-bribery-scand...
The special access and leg-up in society offered to people with very high wealth (whether an actor, a corporate CxO, or someone who inherits a business empire) is huge, and entire systems are set up to tend exclusively to their needs and the preservation of those advantages.
Can you actually do anything with just an associate's? In my experience, most places that require college degrees require a minimum of a bachelor's.
One has to keep working to live a comfortable life, the other doesn't (and neither will their kids).
> We do provide housing for the poor
Waiting lists for both subsidized housing and homeless shelters are overflowing in many places. Have you ever tried to obtain housing as a person with limited resources?
> short term homelessness outcomes are actually generally positive - we tend to get people who lose their home back into another house.
What do you mean by positive? That most people don't stay homeless forever? Sure, that's better than the alternative, but you're ignoring the consequences of becoming homeless in the first place (ex. losing a job because you don't have a place to shower, sleep, or are simply overwhelmed due to your position, eviction records that make it difficult to rent again, exposure to unsafe conditions, etc.), as well as the factors that contribute to that phenomenon.
> community college in most areas is exceedingly affordable with massive scholarship opportunities available for ivy leagues.
Community college is not as cheap as many imagine it to be. Tuition typically runs $3 - 5,000/year, which doesn't include fees, course materials, or, most notably, living expenses. Financial aid isn't as generous as many would expect - as you'll see below, a grocery store clerk earning $22,646/year would receive less than $1,500 in grant aid (while being expected to contribute ~ $4,700/annually). Loans can help, but they can also become a considerable burden, especially for the 47% percent of college students who don't end up graduating within six years (or, ever, for the majority of those students). [10] Perhaps surprisingly, the typical community college graduate actually takes around 5.5 (calendar) years to earn their associate's degree (assuming no participation in "dual enrollment"). [11] If they continue on to earn their bachelor's degree, the overall process typically takes more than 8 (calendar) years. [11] That's a long time to be in a financially-tenuous position.
I may as well ignore your comment regarding the Ivy League, as the amount of poor Americans who will find it relevant is virtually zero.
> You can walk into any hospital and it's illegal for them to refuse you treatment.
...for them to refuse you treatment for a life-threatening injury, not regular checkups, non-essential treatment or preventative medicine. And if you are treated for an emergency, you'll be billed for it later. Although the ACA has made things much better for Americans, you can't simply walk into a hospital and expect free healthcare without health insurance.
> What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor?
> They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone.
If your grocery-store clerk is a middle/upper-middle class teenager whose parents give them those things, sure. Otherwise, this assumption seems pretty unrealistic to me. Some quick googling seems to confirm my assessment...
According to Glassdoor, the average American grocery clerk makes $22,646/year ($1,532/month) after taxes. [1] Abodo says that rent for the median one-bedroom apartment in the US cost $1,078/month last year. [2] That doesn't include utilities, which average around $240/month for renters. [3] That leaves your grocery clerk with $214 to use for all additional expenses each month. Owning a (cheap) car costs around $486/month overall, according to Nerdwallet (including a $111 monthly car payment [4] and $118 for car insurance [5], plus misc. expenses). [6] Now this grocery clerk is going $272 further into debt each month. If they want an iPhone and a ("cheap") phone plan from a major carrier, that will cost an additional $90/month (assuming they buy the cheapest iPhone 11 and keep it for two years - $700 / 24 - and opt for the cheapest standard phone plan [7]). At that point, they're spending $362 more than they earn every month and they haven't even spent anything on food, household goods, clothing, entertainment, or education!
Assuming this person wanted to improve their financial situation by attending community college (average tuition: $3,660 for 2018/2019 year [8]), they'd be eligible to receive around $1400 in Federal Pell Grants (depending on their state) and up to $1,465 in Federal Work-study benefits (assuming their college participated in the program and that they could manage working two jobs while going to school full-time), plus up to $9,500 in Direct Stafford Loans (note: not dischargeable through bankruptcy). [9] However, they would still be expected to contribute around $4,700/year toward their education.
1. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/grocery-clerk-salary-SRCH...
2. https://www.abodo.com/blog/2019-annual-rent-report/
3. https://www.apartmentlist.com/renter-life/average-utility-bi...
4. Calculated using https://www.cars.com/car-loan-calculator/ (assuming $5,000 car price/$500 down payment/7% sales tax/4.67% interest rate/48 month term)
5. Assuming average American cost in 2020 https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/car-insurance/average-co...
6. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/total-co...
7. https://www.consumerreports.org/cell-phone-service-providers...
8. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/12/tuition-at-community-college...
9. Calculated using above income info via https://fafsa.ed.gov/spa/fafsa4c/#/landing (Note: "Expected Family Contribution" (EFC) ended up being around $4,700/year)
10. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/freshman-year/just-over-half...
You are redefining fair to mean equal. I don't want equal at the expense of fair.
Inheritance is a made up rule, and as such can be unmade without having to change the definition of fairness.
But second, age is thing, older people tend to have accumulated more wealth than younger people, even without inheritance. Younger people tend to be fitter and more attractive and Hollywood knows it. An equal playing field in the way you describe it will never be achievable by humans.
And that is why I say fairness is the most important, the rules have to be the same for everyone because that is the part that is up to us.
Extreme economic inequality drives unfairness by tipping the scales towards the very wealthy. Nobody is suggesting that we somehow enforce biological equality, whether between individuals of the same age, or among individuals of very different ages. To suggest so is a strawman intended to distract from the real problem of growing economic inequality.
Also, you don't need to abolish inheritance to increase fairness, but in the context of growing inequality, you must limit the extent to which it drives unfairness by phasing it out as wealth grows exponentially.
"The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." --Anatole France (I always meant to get a more precise source for this quote.)
Perhaps I can put it another way: the existing laws are not the only rules that govern our laws. We all live under the same laws, but we don't all live under the same rules. For some people, it's a rule that if they quit their job they will quickly be homeless. For other people (whose only merit is to be born in the right place), there is not such rule. This is not fair.
My definition of fair is not perfect, but it looks to resolve the most egregious cases of unfairness I can think of.
What you describe is of course good, but maybe we could just call that a welfare society or some other words. Giving people the bare minimum won't automatically make their lives fair.
You are just targeting one thing it's called inheritance, what about other things like "social network and connections which are passed to the new heirs in the family", beauty/atheletic abilities and other talent?
More people are concerned about whether their uber eats driver is going to show up on time than food riots at the moment. I don't see that changing in the immediate future.
I prefer a definition of fairness that is actually achievable[1]: everyone has at least the bare minimum, regardless of fitness and deserving. You can quibble about what the definition of bare minimum, but to me it should include housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair, as people who don't have access to those don't have the minimum to compete with those who do.
We can't have an equal playing field. But we can perhaps make the bare minimum livable.
[1]This is almost impossible, as opposed to entirely impossible