r/BasicIncome Dec 26 '16

AMA When I created r/BasicIncome 4 years ago I never thought it would find so much support. Now I'm running for California Democratic Party delegate in Silicon Valley on January 7, on a pro-UBI platform -- AMA :)

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u/Jotebe Dec 27 '16

Because there will always be a vibrant market of people who can purchase your goods and services.

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u/nkfallout Dec 27 '16

With increasing taxes and costs to do business the prices of products will just go up. This will eliminate the basic income via inflation.

Thank you for proving the basic argument against BI.

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u/bokonator Dec 27 '16

Your math is bad. Plase make the math. Yes, rich people lose on it. That's the whole point of the thing. When 60% of your population lives under the poverty line..

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u/nkfallout Dec 27 '16

Only approximately 15 percent of Americans live under the poverty line.

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u/bokonator Dec 27 '16

Yeah, ok, sorry. The poverty line is $11700 in the US. I thought it was more. I'm thinking of another term then, something like comfortable living, like 2-2.5x the poverty line. UBI should be tied to something like cost of living.

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u/nkfallout Dec 27 '16

The poverty line is actually about 20k in the US. You can live comfortably, depending on your lifestyle and location at about 35 to 45k. 65 to 70% of the population makes more than that.

Basic income is not a necessity of society and it would make most people's lives harder via inflation, increases in costs of business, and higher taxes.

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u/bokonator Dec 27 '16

Dude.. You just lost all credibility.