Comment on Open Thread, May 19 - 25, 2014

Tue, 20 May 2014 18:17:37 GMT

If the government would give each person say 30 % of GDP per capita to each person (not a very high standard of living), then that would force them to raise 30 % of GDP in taxes to cover for that.

In 2002, total U.S. social welfare expenditure constitutes over 35% of GDP

I think that would be too high anyway. Since anyone who bothers to work can make more than that, and the reduction in labor supply would increase pay, and any money you save will last you longer, there's little reason to make it enough for people to be well off, as opposed to getting just enough to scrape by.

It's also worth noting that most people will get a significant portion of that money back. If you make below the mean income (which most people do, since it's positively skewed) you will end up getting all of it back.

It seems unfair to charge people the entire price to get slightly better goods. Thus, if you want to get slightly better goods, the government should still reimburse you for the price of the cheap goods. At this point, it's just unconditional basic income with the government selling cheap goods.

As a minor point, Soylent as it is now can't be considered no-frills food. If you buy it ready-made, it costs around $10 a day.

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