A Town Without Poverty? Canada's Guaranteed Income Experiment

Interesting Experiment. People will work even with guaranteed income and necessities provided for.

When people Retire, they get really bored, and tend to go back to work or find some form of work to occupy them, even if it is a serious hobby.

The wealthy, who don't have to work ever again, choose to work as well.

Our society is a system based off of debt and slavery, by forcing people to work just to survive and just enough so they do not have enough time to do much else but eat, sleep and do a few errands here and there.

In a society such as this, where everything is provided for, people tend to have to work less. Also, when societies embrace technology they get more for their inputted labor.

Utopia can happen right now in a very short time frame. But the ones stopping it are those who benefit too much from the current system and enjoy being powerful and privileged.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
reply to post by Partisanity

 

Why don't you just go back to reading your copy of "The Little Red Book" and buzz off.

Sorry, I'm too busy here being endlessly more mature than you in discussion (since I'm actually engaging in it and making points rather than gurgitating political rhetoric). Did you want to talk with the adults? Awwww. Not with that terrible attitude, sorry, kiddo.

Originally posted by 547000
How are you going to guarantee income for a whole country or even the world? You would have to get the money from somewhere, and if it was from the people itself, they would have to work crap jobs to pay into the pool of income. If there are too many people seeking one profession there will be unemployment and the whole scheme collapses.

edit on 5-10-2011 by 547000 because: (no reason given)

You tax consumption, that's how. A guaranteed minimum income only helps you with the most basic necessities. The government isn't footing all your bills. You want to do anything above the most basic necessity, you work for it, and that consumption is taxed.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
reply to post by Leahn

 

Yes, I read the article. I believe that it said that the data had not yet been compiled or evaluated. I would like to see the raw data, before it is folded, spindled and mutilated by political spin.

If you read the article, then you know that there is no reason to assume that it costed anything. It might have even saved money, for all that anyone cares. Until the data is fully analyzed, to claim that "someone had to foot the bill" is merely prejudice. You have no evidence that there is even a bill to be paid.

Since none of this money was essentially saved, or speculated with, but actually used to pay for bills and necessities, it went immediatedly back to the system, and that's how economy works.

You believe that it costs something until you understand that "I can now buy the school books for my children" means that without such guaranteed income such books would not be bought, the bookseller might not make rent, the editors might not get fully compensated by their work, etc etc, and that that the fact that books were bought when they wouldn't be otherwise means that the economy grew thanks to it.

reply to post by JIMC5499

If they were given anything, it had to come from someplace.

No you are missing the point.... They did work too and the wealth generated had to go somewhere...

reply to post by purplemer


Deaf ears, man. All of your profits can only possibly be pooled into one area and spent on boobjobs and sports cars for fat cats that sit around doing nothing all day.

DP

I hate to rain on everyones parade, but...

Evelyn Forget is full of it.

Mincome was never locked away.

Here is a list of studies and commitees that directly pertain to Mincome implementation and analysis.

•1."The Problem of Poverty." In Fifth Annual Review (Ottawa: Economic Council of Canada, 1968).
2.Canada, National Health and Welfare, Income Security for Canadians (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1970).
•3.Canada, Special Senate Committee on Poverty, Poverty in Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1971).
•4.Quebec. Income Security: Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Health and Social Welfare (Castonquay-Nepveu Commission). (Quebec City: Government of Quebec, 1971).
•5.R. Van Loon, "Reforming Welfare in Canada," Public Policy 27 (1979), p469-504.
•6.A.W. Johnson, "Canada's Social Security Review (1973-75): The Central Issues," Canadian Public Policy 1 (1975) p456-72.
•7.National Council of Welfare. Guide to the Guaranteed Income. Ottawa: National Council of Welfare, 1976.
•8.Gary Burtless, ."The Work Response to a Guaranteed Income: A Survey of Experimental Evidence." In Alicia Munnell, ed., Lesson from the Income Maintenance Experiments, (Boston: Federal Reserve of Boston, 1986) 22-52; Michael Keeley, Labor Supply and Public Policy. (New York: Academic Press Inc., 1981); Philip Robins, "A Comparison of the Labor Supply Findings from the Four Negative Income Tax Experiments," Journal of Human Resources 20 (1985) p. 567-82.
•9.Derek Hum and Wayne Simpson, Income Maintenance, Work Effort, and the Canadian Mincome Experiment Ottawa: Economic Council of Canada (1991), Chapter 5.

Here is a link to an article about Mincome, written by Derek Hum (Research Director of Mincome).
Whatever Happened to Canada's Guaranteed Income Project?

reply to post by predator0187


Neo-Con economists also routinely ignore Milton Friedman's theories - yes, THAT Friedman! - of having a 'negative income tax' which amounted to the same thing.

The numbers he used were all from the late 60s but he basically said it was easier to just give the poorest of the poor money, then claw it back gradually the more they earned, so there would always be an incentive to earn. Once it was clawed back to zero, and people were earning well above that amount annually (I think it was around $9,000 a year or something in 60s dollars), they would then be taxed on their income. Can't remember whether it would be a progressive income tax or not.

His rationale is that all the myriad entitlements such as food stamps and public housing and means testing for each category was so costly that it was simply cheaper just to give everyone money and claw it back in proportion to incremental rises in income from other sources.

Originally posted by peck420
I hate to rain on everyones parade, but...

Evelyn Forget is full of it.

Mincome was never locked away.

Here is a list of studies and commitees that directly pertain to Mincome implementation and analysis.

From the article (which you apparently didn't read): "During the next years the fate of the data itself appeared uncertain. The manner in which the data was archived (unpublicized location, unknown means of access, etc.) was not conducive for research."

reply to post by Leahn


Seeing as it took me less than 5 minutes to find out who collected the data, who ran the program, where the program was based from, and where the data was stored, I'd say she is full of it.

Project was run through University of Manitoba.

Headed by Derek Hum.

Any request for data could have easily been directed to the UoM, and if needed directly to Derek Hum.

There is zero indication that the Canadian Government tried to bury this, as all of the references I have found have been through public records dating all the way back to the pre program comittee .

If I, some nobody on the interweb, could find this in 5 minutes, a real researcher should have had the entire program, top to bottom, within a week.

This is trying to be used as a political statment, and to that...fail.

reply to post by 547000


sorry, I don't consider packaging and selling shoddy mortgages that the ones doing the packages knew weren't worth crap as being that productive!!! and well, they did just come up with around a trillion to bail out the packagers!!

so, well...
what are you talking about??
producers....
like machinists...oh, ya, go talk to those who are in the habit of hiring those guys.....by what I hear alot of them are complaining, they can't find any!!! why??? well, ya see...they got tired of scrapping by....or well, they have struggled through the years, and are set to retire....

Originally posted by predator0187
reply to post by JIMC5499

 

What about natural resources? Or import taxes? That is one thing we have that is very abundant is natural resources.

To mine and collect natural resources, require people to collect them.
...who need to work.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
One town. What about the other towns that had to foot the bill?

Exactly! Someone had to pay. Where do they think the govt got the money? From the money tree? This is really veering into Utopian communism for sure.
Ok its still a fixed income right? Means you cant go any higher? eek

Originally posted by dawnstar
reply to post by 547000

 

sorry, I don't consider packaging and selling shoddy mortgages that the ones doing the packages knew weren't worth crap as being that productive!!! and well, they did just come up with around a trillion to bail out the packagers!!

so, well...
what are you talking about??
producers....
like machinists...oh, ya, go talk to those who are in the habit of hiring those guys.....by what I hear alot of them are complaining, they can't find any!!! why??? well, ya see...they got tired of scrapping by....or well, they have struggled through the years, and are set to retire....

The mistake you are making here is confusing the Intl bankers with the backbone of the free enterprise system, that is small and medium sized business.

Originally posted by purplemer

Originally posted by JIMC5499
One town. What about the other towns that had to foot the bill?

Since you do not know how much they were given, you do not know if other towns has a bill to foot or not..

Um really? The amount is relative.

Originally posted by Partisanity
reply to post by purplemer

 

Deaf ears, man. All of your profits can only possibly be pooled into one area and spent on boobjobs and sports cars for fat cats that sit around doing nothing all day.

So what? IF that's what they want to spend their paycheck that's their right. Who are you to decide how people should spend their money? All this collectivism destroys individuality and free will. That is the biggest reason I oppose collectivism and communism.

Guaranteed income is inevitable if we ever want to eradicate poverty on this planet. It is already de facto implemented in many developed countries with extensive welfare systems. Coupled with negative income tax, it makes for a neat framework to unite both welfare and taxes into one system while solving some problems of both.

I do believe that this guaranteed income needs to be truly basic, tough, otherwise people could get lazy.

reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus

who are being eating up and put out of business by the gov't/corp alignment!!!

like I said, what we have is isn't capitalism, it isn't socialism, but it's a hybrid, where' ya, there's socialism, but it's all geared to aide the corps and big business, at the expense of the little guy....

every dollar that is taken from the economy, to help prop up a corporation, or industry is taken from somewhere. it's a dollar that might have been spent in an entirely different industry, or one of the corps competitors would have benefitted. but well..it was taken away (or just manufactured out of thin air, in which case in the end we all pay for in the end in the form of inflation, which will hurt the little guy, the little business owner far worse than it will these big corps.

and well every four or eight years, the "values", the "priorities" within the gov't changes as one party is outed and replaced by the other. different priorities different values means the money is shifted, the busineeses that were thriving during the past suddenly find the funds that were enabling them to thrive has been taken away....while others, more to the liking of the current power, well, they begin to regain some strength after the long drought.
and of course, if you the small business owner, you really don't have much of a voice, since you don't have the millions to buy off the politicians, regardless of what party you align with!!! I don't care if you are republican or democrat, it's not possible to thrive under those circumstances for long!!! since well, within a decade you will be finding yourself in a famine, simply because the gov't is the major mover, with the most money to pull the strings, and it's swinging wildly from far left, to far right!!!

we don't truly help the poor in this country mainly because both sides have found the poor and the gov't policies as to how we deal with them as beneficial to them!!!

I believe we would in fact save money if we set a guarenteed income and removed the job of providing for the poor from the multiple agencies that are currently fullfilling that role! there'd be alot of gov't workers laid off, but well, gov't workers in no way can add to the gov't revenue, since they will always take from the pot more than they put in. and, yes I'll admit, that we would be also harm a few small business owners who have set themselves up as "non-profit" organizations when the system was partially "privatized".
we could also use the gaurenteed income to control the rising cost of living!!!