We’re not quite there yet. Even with offsets by eliminating virtually all other social programs, including socialized healthcare, and slashing the size of military expenditures to almost nothing, doing every single good idea there is to fund it and increasing taxation on the owner class, there simply isn’t enought GDP to support it without spending your way into inflation… not unless you’re a country with a very small population rich in natural resources.
It’s plausible if we can bring the price of energy down to the point that it’s negligible and multiplies productivity almost for free.
We need scalable commercial fusion power to make it work, basically.
I agree with the goal,l. I don’t think people will contribute less without the threat of being unable to meet basic costs of living. I think a lot of people’s contributions to society aren’t adequately captured and recorded by our economic system.
But I’m not naive enough to believe that it can meet all of a person’s cost of living with current tech.
doing every single good idea there is to fund it and increasing taxation on the owner class, there simply isn’t enought GDP to support it without spending your way into inflation…
I did the actual calculation a while ago for the US and found the following:
If a wealth tax were created to tax all wealth above $10 million with an annual 3% tax rate, it would generate enough money to give everyone in the US a $300/month handout.
I doubt this is correct. The argument against universal healthcare was similar and provably, historically wrong.
As UBI is not a lot per person and only goes to very low income people, the burden on the entire country is not great. And it turns out that impoverished people are a burden on the country. Alleviating that burden offsets the costs.
Especially with that single-payer healthcare we have. The unit rates for things like Dr. hours or beds in hospitals are enormous. If we can cut down on the number of visits required because people have somewhere safe to live and aren’t getting injured/sick living on the street, we could save huge amounts of money. Add onto that the cost of policing and/or incarcerating them, plus the economic benefit of having downtown areas feel safer for people, thus encouraging more people to live/work/spend time in those areas.
Hospitals have to be nonprofit here, so we can’t actually have shareholder payouts.
Executive compensation is public information in Ontario and you can look it up - often they’re paid less than Doctors in their own hospital.
EDIT: also, unit rates are set but the insurer (in this case the govt), so its not like hospitals can charge different amounts based on internal costs.
We’re not quite there yet. Even with offsets by eliminating virtually all other social programs, including socialized healthcare, and slashing the size of military expenditures to almost nothing, doing every single good idea there is to fund it and increasing taxation on the owner class, there simply isn’t enought GDP to support it without spending your way into inflation… not unless you’re a country with a very small population rich in natural resources.
It’s plausible if we can bring the price of energy down to the point that it’s negligible and multiplies productivity almost for free.
We need scalable commercial fusion power to make it work, basically.
I agree with the goal,l. I don’t think people will contribute less without the threat of being unable to meet basic costs of living. I think a lot of people’s contributions to society aren’t adequately captured and recorded by our economic system.
But I’m not naive enough to believe that it can meet all of a person’s cost of living with current tech.
I did the actual calculation a while ago for the US and found the following:
If a wealth tax were created to tax all wealth above $10 million with an annual 3% tax rate, it would generate enough money to give everyone in the US a $300/month handout.
Tell me you don’t know how UBI works in design or in practice without telling me you haven’t learned much about it at all.
Sounds like Canada. Nationalize our resources and we’re set.
I doubt this is correct. The argument against universal healthcare was similar and provably, historically wrong.
As UBI is not a lot per person and only goes to very low income people, the burden on the entire country is not great. And it turns out that impoverished people are a burden on the country. Alleviating that burden offsets the costs.
It goes to everyone. But as it also goes to wealthy people, you can tax them more in that way, and so basically there’s no real extra expense there.
Especially with that single-payer healthcare we have. The unit rates for things like Dr. hours or beds in hospitals are enormous. If we can cut down on the number of visits required because people have somewhere safe to live and aren’t getting injured/sick living on the street, we could save huge amounts of money. Add onto that the cost of policing and/or incarcerating them, plus the economic benefit of having downtown areas feel safer for people, thus encouraging more people to live/work/spend time in those areas.
Costs are enormous often because of executive compensation and shareholder payout.
Hospitals have to be nonprofit here, so we can’t actually have shareholder payouts.
Executive compensation is public information in Ontario and you can look it up - often they’re paid less than Doctors in their own hospital.
EDIT: also, unit rates are set but the insurer (in this case the govt), so its not like hospitals can charge different amounts based on internal costs.
That’s a precious thing. Guard it jealously.