A universal basic income to the ultra wealthy would be perceived by them as being given a couple pennies every month
The way someone with $100,000,000 would perceive $1000 is how someone with $100,000 would perceive $1.
Back in the day, a local New York City humor magazine decided to find the cheapest rich person in New York.
They set up a bank account and mailed a bunch of rich people a check for about $2.50. Half didn't bother to cash it, and were eliminated.
They kept lowering the amount, until it was 13 cents. Only Donald Trump and an arms dealer cashed a check worth a dime and three pennies.
They should have kept going until the arms dealer stopped cashing checks.
A banana still costs $10 for everyone
Where tf do you live that a banana is $10?
In my own world.
It’s a meme from the show Arrested Development
Oh we'll get there one day
$1000 to someone with $100,000 is like $1,000,000 to someone with $100,000,000. To make your point you'd have to do it backwards: $1000 to someone with $100,000,000 is like $1 to someone with $100,000.
The way someone with $100,000,000 would perceive $1000 is how someone with $100,000 would perceive $1.
Yea, I rewrote it in a way that makes more sense.
You got it backwards of course
Except that's only how it works mathematically, not in practice due to human nature. Perceived value of money would be something really interesting to study as there's just so many variables of which wealth is one, but I'm not even sure it's the most important when compared to upbringinging, source of money (do you work for it, even if you're overpaid, vs winning the lottery/being a parasite like selling mineral rights or buying properties and getting a management company you're not involved in to rent them out etc.) and others
A universal basic income to the ultra wealthy would be perceived by them as being given a couple pennies every month
A couple pennies...
0.02 * 336,000,000 = 6,720,000 a month. There are not that many "Ultra wealthy" individuals who could sustain that for any significant amount of time. $80,640,000 a year.
The top 25 richest according to wikipedia range from 30.7 - 251 billion as of September 2023.
I don't think that's going to feel like "a couple pennies"... Especially since the ask is actually $1000 a month.So $336,000,000,000 per month... or $4,032,000,000,000 per year. Or about double all top 25 put together ($2,045,700,000,000). Source on net worth.
Strictly taking from the rich to create UBI will not work. UBI in general will devalue the dollar to nothing on the global market since the only way to do it is to print $$$ at an enormous scale. And we can validate this by looking at the COVID stimulus money. $1,800,000,000,000 of the $5 trillion went to individuals and families. Which was ~3200 for each adult? So about 3 months worth of UBI proposed? Which is about half of what I would expect given the numbers... And after COVID we all see rampant inflation, making everything worse off overall!
You misread the post
So I did. Oh well. Thanks for letting me know.
Edit: I still think some of it is relevant discussion and I'm okay with leaving my flaws out there so I'm not going to delete it. But I sincerely do appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I don't know why I assumed this post was the other way around. I think I read a comment that switched the logic in my head for some reason. I dunno.
Can we keep this kind of political rhetoric off of shower thoughts please?
Not sure when poor people being able to survive had become politics, but you do you
When it involves terms like "universal basic income" it becomes political.
I just don't like seeing left propaganda all over Lemmy. If you want to create community fine as I believe in free speech but don't pollute other communities with your beliefs. I've noticed that Lemmy has gotten a less political overall but I still have noticed bad moderators for time to time.
I agree. As much as I agree with the idea of universal basic income - because I think supporting society while reducing the work necessary is something we should aim for, because it's the best way to ensure everyone gets a fair lot in life and because I think it's a necessity with the direction the labour market is heading - this isn't really the kind of thing I want to see in this community, personally. Hell, UBI doesn't really have much to do with the thought of "if X is Y% of Z then 1000X is Y% of 1000Z" - it's just basic maths really (and OP seems to have got the maths wrong, too).
I got it backwards, and rewrote it very clearly,
The way someone with $100,000,000 would perceive $1000 is how someone with $100,000 would perceive $1.
Which is one of the reasons I actually oppose UBI. Also, in practice, it will be used to replace SSI, not enhance it. At least in the USA, a better answer is fixing and expanding the SSI and Social Security system. People making 6 figures don’t need an extra $1k a month or whatever figure people want to suggest. But giving very poor people an extra $2k, moderately poor people $1k, etc. would be a bigger help. And the idea would be if you make $2 or $3 more dollars, you lose $1 in support
Edit: it would have to taper more slowly, maybe $10 you lose $1. It’s funny to see the downvotes, I don’t often see Lemmy folks defending ideas from conservative economists like Friedman.
That's just pointless extra bureaucracy.
Ok, the alternative is removing SSI, which is always how it’s been presented in the USA. People always get excited and never read the full language in proposals.
Here’s a great article on why it won’t work: https://www.rebelnews.ie/2021/07/05/universal-basic-income-socialist-case-against/
What is the cutoff point, where someone making more than that amount can use an extra $1k, but not someone making that amount?
It decreases with income, as I said. If we give $2,000 to everyone making under $60k, for example, then decrease it for every few bucks you make. You’d probably have to do something like a 10:1 ratio where is you make $60,010, you’d get $1999 and so on. That would mean people making $80k or more don’t get anything. And they don’t really need it anyway.
But regardless, UBI, even under Yang, is always an attempt to destroy and replace our current welfare system. Poor people would barely get any more than they currently do under SSI