The US (and UK) have been growing enormously in wealth inequality. This is the big actual problem wealth needs to be distributed more evenly as its harming many people. I think there are a lot of arguments for which mechanism is used, whether its inheritance or direct wealth tax or capital gains or something else, but the obvious cause of the problems today is inequality and that needs to be addressed.
> wealth needs to be distributed more evenly as its harming many people
Why? Seriously. I used to believe this. But it’s increasingly apparent that a lot of people are idiots. Why is inequality in wealth fundamentally bad if the poorest are taken care of? (They’re not, in America. But I’m framing a hypothetical.)
If a UBI proposal requires dismissing the concept of waste, it’s probably a stupid one.
One reason is that the intensely wealthy class doesn't simply spend their fortunes on more food or more sheds to store more lawnmowers or extra rice cookers or patronize more local businesses across the country. They might buy more beds for their now larger mansions, but their rate of consumption doesn't scale linearly with their wealth beyond the median. I seriously doubt they're commonly buying even 12 to 20 yachts, and if they buy 45 cars they aren't driving them enough to also be buying 45 times the maintenance since you can't drive more than one car at once.
Instead they invest their fortunes into private equity and other capital like homes that, after driving the cost upwards, will now rent to the people who are, economically speaking, incomprehensibly far beneath them. They will acquire hospitals, doctor's practices, homes, drug rehab facilities, banking institutions, water utilities and electrical companies to fuel their own wealth. They squeeze out the stakeholder in preference for shareholders who will demand stock buybacks to provide additional returns on investment.
The result is that the people who are on the losing end of wealth inequality will have no voice in how the resources are deployed, the cost of the utility provided, or the capital to compete in the market. It drives the cost of inelastic supply upwards as its utility is no longer a home but an investment vehicle. Generational wealth like farms become corporations which pay their profits to someone other than their local community. National banks squeeze out local institutions with stake in their local economies, they will burn cash to buy the market out from local economies and the profits of life vanish from the people who live it. When there is nothing left to buy, they'll buy the government.
I agree. The arguments for UBI can’t be economic because it isn’t economy. The arguments have to be democratic. This also sustains why it must be federal or perhaps at the state level, versus municipal.
There should be votes for de-selection through the annual possibility of an 'ostracism', in which citizens could write down any name and the 'winner' should pay 95% tax.
If taxes on income were rated by wealth, we could consistently tax billionaires 95% tax and they would still be pocketing millions for safe investment returns
That assumes billionaires don't have billions of free speech to hand out to politicians. How many billions of dollars of free speech do you and I have to counter them?
