> Hard to find good sources but Kuwait had a median household income of $40k. Meanwhile, almost 1 million workers make less than $300 a month, so Kuwait citizen families likely make a lot more than $40k.
Yeah that sounds pretty unbalanced.
> The purpose of money is a medium of exchange for goods and services. Giving money for the sake of nothing defeats the entire purpose of money, because you're giving everyone money without creating new good and services. Note that this is different from conditional payments like food stamps or pensions, which serve the purpose of insurance. This is also different from welfare, which is targeted towards certain people in hopes of improving their well-being.
People get lots of things for "free", like infrastructure, and that doesn't defeat the purpose of money. Basic income isn't "for the sake of nothing".
What conditions do you think are important for food stamps and welfare?
If a certain level of low income is good enough, that's basically equivalent to universal income plus progressive taxation.
So how would that be different from Americans getting ~$12000 and buying goods from developing countries where workers also make $300 a month.
>People get lots of things for "free", like infrastructure
Infrastructure serves a specific purpose. Why should we give money to people for free when we can instead use it to build infrastructure?
>What conditions do you think are important for food stamps and welfare?
Welfare targets people who cannot provide for themselves, such as children and the disabled. We don't lose much productivity by giving these people money. Every able bodied adult should be expected to give back to society.
> So how would that be different from Americans getting ~$12000 and buying goods from developing countries where workers also make $300 a month.
I don't really know how to respond to this because we buy those goods anyway.
> Infrastructure serves a specific purpose. Why should we give money to people for free when we can instead use it to build infrastructure?
Every category of spending has diminishing returns. You'd never want to spend everything on infrastructure, or zero in any effective category.
> Welfare targets people who cannot provide for themselves, such as children and the disabled. We don't lose much productivity by giving these people money. Every able bodied adult should be expected to give back to society.
We also want to have certain standards for non-dehumanizing employment, and not everyone has access to jobs that meet those standards. Basic income is a way to help that situation a lot, but do you have better ideas?
Also how much productivity do we need to demand from everyone? Somehow a century after establishing 40 hours, with productivity per hour skyrocketing over that time, we're demanding more than 40 hours from so many workers just to make ends meet.
Yeah that sounds pretty unbalanced.
> The purpose of money is a medium of exchange for goods and services. Giving money for the sake of nothing defeats the entire purpose of money, because you're giving everyone money without creating new good and services. Note that this is different from conditional payments like food stamps or pensions, which serve the purpose of insurance. This is also different from welfare, which is targeted towards certain people in hopes of improving their well-being.
People get lots of things for "free", like infrastructure, and that doesn't defeat the purpose of money. Basic income isn't "for the sake of nothing".
What conditions do you think are important for food stamps and welfare?
If a certain level of low income is good enough, that's basically equivalent to universal income plus progressive taxation.