Author Topic: The Currency Relativist Theory (Stéphane Laborde's TRM)  (Read 3662 times)

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Offline starspirit

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In short, money is created for each human participating in the currency, to a rate that is in function of the lifespan of the human beings, so that it is equilibrated both in space and in time. (For the population of Europe, given the lifespan, that would correspond to a Universal Dividend of about 500 euro per person per month).  That is, the new money is distributed to people, instead of to bansters, and in a reasonned and justified manner, instead of with aphasard "quantitative easings".

For the US by way of example, this would be getting up to USD $2 trillion per year, and need to compound annually in line with the money supply to retain value in real terms. Where are the savers going to go? Capital controls?

Offline pc

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Quote
No one could escape it, the “rich” pay more,

This is naive, IMO.

When I write such statements it was directed toward the naive readers who support Basic Income.

Just for clarification: the "naive" refers to the statement as such, not to you as the author of the blog post.
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Offline VoR0220

FYI... not everyone would be spending more.  Currently those with social security, unemployment benefits, foodstamps, and the like would be spending the same or less.   A basic income for me would simply lower my net taxes and thus be similar to a tax cut for me and a benefit cut for those currently on welfare.   Thus why I support it.   Tax cuts and reduction in welfare will not result in inflation.

This is again why I bring up the Negative Income tax and whether you used that as part of your calculations of cost of a basic income or not. This, IMO, is the best chance anyone has at implementing a basic income because it's cheaper than alternatives and at the same time eliminates the welfare trap.
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Offline bytemaster

Basic income will never work, IMO. Mostly because economy is a zero-sum game (more or less). You cannot unconditionally distribute sufficient money for everyone's food, clothing and shelter, because in the end someone will have to create that food, clothing and shelter.

Quote
So how big of a difference would it make to me personally if a basic income was adopted to simply replace existing government spending? For starters, I could buy a new car if this were adopted today. If it replaced child support I could buy a new house as well.

This is why a basic income always leads to inflation, IMO. *Everyone* would be able to buy more, which leads to an increase in prices. Furthermore, certain types of low-pay work would no longer be performed. The only way to get workers to do these jobs would be to pay them more. This also leads to an increase in prices.
And suddenly the basic income would no longer be sufficient for food, clothing and shelter.

Regarding inflation,

Quote
No one could escape it, the “rich” pay more,

This is naive, IMO. You can escape inflation by investing money into property. The people suffering from inflation the most are those who have only little money and save that up for "bad times" in their bank account or under the mattress.

The rich can even take credit from banks, using their property as collateral. In that case they *win* from inflation.

You must understand that if I qualified all such statements my blog posts would turn into books.    I could write an entire blog article about how "inflation" doesn't tax the rich because the rich don't hold much money, but instead have massive debts collateralized by assets that appriciate due to inflation.

When I write such statements it was directed toward the naive readers who support Basic Income.

FYI... not everyone would be spending more.  Currently those with social security, unemployment benefits, foodstamps, and the like would be spending the same or less.   A basic income for me would simply lower my net taxes and thus be similar to a tax cut for me and a benefit cut for those currently on welfare.   Thus why I support it.   Tax cuts and reduction in welfare will not result in inflation.
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Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline bytemaster

Basic income will never work, IMO. Mostly because economy is a zero-sum game (more or less). You cannot unconditionally distribute sufficient money for everyone's food, clothing and shelter, because in the end someone will have to create that food, clothing and shelter.

Quote
So how big of a difference would it make to me personally if a basic income was adopted to simply replace existing government spending? For starters, I could buy a new car if this were adopted today. If it replaced child support I could buy a new house as well.

This is why a basic income always leads to inflation, IMO. *Everyone* would be able to buy more, which leads to an increase in prices. Furthermore, certain types of low-pay work would no longer be performed. The only way to get workers to do these jobs would be to pay them more. This also leads to an increase in prices.
And suddenly the basic income would no longer be sufficient for food, clothing and shelter.

Regarding inflation,

Quote
No one could escape it, the “rich” pay more,

This is naive, IMO. You can escape inflation by investing money into property. The people suffering from inflation the most are those who have only little money and save that up for "bad times" in their bank account or under the mattress.

The rich can even take credit from banks, using their property as collateral. In that case they *win* from inflation.

You must understand that if I qualified all such statements my blog posts would turn into books.    I could write an entire blog article about how "inflation" doesn't tax the rich because the rich don't hold much money, but instead have massive debts collateralized by assets that appriciate due to inflation.

When I write such statements it was directed toward the naive readers who support Basic Income.
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline VoR0220

On the topic of voting, the only problem I forsee there is how would one go about in making sure that once in power, the wealthy donating powers wouldn't hijack it and again turn this program into a "socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor"...I would think that the blockchain could only do so much in this instance. Any ideas?
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Offline VoR0220

An interesting thought in regards to the funding mechanism. What if contributing more to the general welfare gave one more voting power in a government? That might make for something interesting. I personally would like a government to be run by the most benevolent people.

This would be superior to the current method where contributions to political campaigns and interest groups gives more power in government. 

My basic idea was that if you could convince the society as a whole that giving to the basic income fund was very high status, you could fund it that way.  (Currently, spending lots of money on luxury goods is high status, but no one really benefits from this other than producers of luxury goods).

The problem I see with that is that I think people will want something more....concrete than just status.
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Offline fluxer555

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An interesting thought in regards to the funding mechanism. What if contributing more to the general welfare gave one more voting power in a government? That might make for something interesting. I personally would like a government to be run by the most benevolent people.

That would be an interesting mechanism in BTS:

If you burn funds on your own wall, this account gets an extra 1.5x the voting power of funds burned.

Offline Ander

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An interesting thought in regards to the funding mechanism. What if contributing more to the general welfare gave one more voting power in a government? That might make for something interesting. I personally would like a government to be run by the most benevolent people.

This would be superior to the current method where contributions to political campaigns and interest groups gives more power in government. 

My basic idea was that if you could convince the society as a whole that giving to the basic income fund was very high status, you could fund it that way.  (Currently, spending lots of money on luxury goods is high status, but no one really benefits from this other than producers of luxury goods).
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Offline VoR0220

I agree that a basic income is superior to current welfare programs in terms of efficiency, and also that an income of a level that could provide a middle class lifestyle is unsustainable at the present time.

However, I do think that a form of basic income is critical to the long term future of humanity.   Eventually as our civilization's technology continues to grow, and we get technologies such as AI which begins to replace laborers and service workers, 3D printing which can eventually help us manufacture any items needed for cheap, etc, two things will occur.  First of all, it will be more and more difficult for average people to have a job, because all of the normal jobs have been automated.  Secondly, it will be less and less expensive to provide for the basic needs of a human being.

A basic income is eventually the solution to both of these problems.   In such a future society where vast amounts of current jobs have been automated away, profits could be huge, and the cost needed to sustain a person at a reasonble level of life (I would say 'college student level') should decrease.   When both of these things occur (some decades away), we will need a basic income system.


In my idea of a basic income, the funds for the payouts would not have to come from taxation.  Instead, a fund would exist that was considered to be jointly owned by all people, that held capital, and earned dividends, and distributed these dividends to everyone. 

This fund could be created by voluntary donations.  Currently the rich spend a great deal of money on status items.  If donating to the fund for humanity could be made to be seen as high status, some of these funds could make their way to it instead.  It could be marketed as patriotic to conservatives (the fund that helps everyone in your country), or as compassionate to liberals (donate to the fund that will help meet the needs of all people).

The fund's holdings would need to grow over a very long period of time.  At least decades.  Of course, this makes it unrealistic in terms of current politics or as a short term solution.

Alternately, the funds could come from taxation initially, but be gradually phased out and replaced by dividends of the fund's capital. 



Of course, this is not the idea that most basic income proponents talk about now.  Its not realistic now, it is made for a future time.  But I still think it would be good to start now, to get the world politically used to basic income systems.  As bytemaster mentioned in the blog, they are superior to current welfare systems, and we could begin with a small basic income at a level sustainable at the present. 


Just my crazy futurist thoughts on the matter. :)

An interesting thought in regards to the funding mechanism. What if contributing more to the general welfare gave one more voting power in a government? That might make for something interesting. I personally would like a government to be run by the most benevolent people.
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Offline Ander

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I agree that a basic income is superior to current welfare programs in terms of efficiency, and also that an income of a level that could provide a middle class lifestyle is unsustainable at the present time.

However, I do think that a form of basic income is critical to the long term future of humanity.   Eventually as our civilization's technology continues to grow, and we get technologies such as AI which begins to replace laborers and service workers, 3D printing which can eventually help us manufacture any items needed for cheap, etc, two things will occur.  First of all, it will be more and more difficult for average people to have a job, because all of the normal jobs have been automated.  Secondly, it will be less and less expensive to provide for the basic needs of a human being.

A basic income is eventually the solution to both of these problems.   In such a future society where vast amounts of current jobs have been automated away, profits could be huge, and the cost needed to sustain a person at a reasonble level of life (I would say 'college student level') should decrease.   When both of these things occur (some decades away), we will need a basic income system.


In my idea of a basic income, the funds for the payouts would not have to come from taxation.  Instead, a fund would exist that was considered to be jointly owned by all people, that held capital, and earned dividends, and distributed these dividends to everyone. 

This fund could be created by voluntary donations.  Currently the rich spend a great deal of money on status items.  If donating to the fund for humanity could be made to be seen as high status, some of these funds could make their way to it instead.  It could be marketed as patriotic to conservatives (the fund that helps everyone in your country), or as compassionate to liberals (donate to the fund that will help meet the needs of all people).

The fund's holdings would need to grow over a very long period of time.  At least decades.  Of course, this makes it unrealistic in terms of current politics or as a short term solution.

Alternately, the funds could come from taxation initially, but be gradually phased out and replaced by dividends of the fund's capital. 



Of course, this is not the idea that most basic income proponents talk about now.  Its not realistic now, it is made for a future time.  But I still think it would be good to start now, to get the world politically used to basic income systems.  As bytemaster mentioned in the blog, they are superior to current welfare systems, and we could begin with a small basic income at a level sustainable at the present. 


Just my crazy futurist thoughts on the matter. :)
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Offline VoR0220

Basic income seriously skews competition in the work market. The problem is that the workers most likely to drop out of the work market are those with low wages. And low-pay work is particularly connected with the production of the most basic needs, i. e. food, clothing + shelter. I don't know about skyrocketing prices, but you can't simply unconditionally give away money and expect prices to largely stay where they are.

Not sure I agree with this. If you have a basic income, the need for the minimum wage disappears. While I suspect wages would shift downwards, low-pay work I think would flourish because people would do what gives them the most utility. In particular a field which I think would flourish (and this seems to be backed by studies of the Negative Income Tax as well as other studies of basic income) would be education, especially online micro degree companies such as Coursera which I think would be a positive externality for a society. We already give money away in large heaps. Giving it away with no constraints is simply allowing more liquidity for those who are worse off in the labor market.

Also note that the rich can always "escape" to a different jurisdiction, unless you're talking about a global basic income (which would obviously have even greater difficulties).

Yes and I quite like that. The vote with your feet principle keeps governments on their toes and "competing" with each other for more revenue (because power hungry people are just wired like that).

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Offline CLains

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Offline pc

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Basic income would lead to inflation only in areas where there was not perfect competition. The price of food would not skyrocket bearing normal circumstances, for instance. However, there are two areas that I can think where inflation might just skyrocket if we replaced the entire safety net. Those two are healthcare and education (I can't imagine there'd be a UBI without these thrown into the cost measures).

Basic income seriously skews competition in the work market. The problem is that the workers most likely to drop out of the work market are those with low wages. And low-pay work is particularly connected with the production of the most basic needs, i. e. food, clothing + shelter. I don't know about skyrocketing prices, but you can't simply unconditionally give away money and expect prices to largely stay where they are.

One fascinating tax that I've researched in my debates with socialists is the land value tax. It's interesting you bring up that the rich would invest money back into property because this is supposedly a progressive tax with no dead weight loss (no economic inefficiency) because it taxes based on the value of the land (which we already do today).

It's a simple equation. Compare the loss through inflation on the monetary value of your property with the revenue generated from it minus the tax you have to pay on it. For land, the revenue will usually be greater than the taxes (because if it isn't you can increase the price of your products, or the rent charged in your apartment buildings).
Also note that the rich can always "escape" to a different jurisdiction, unless you're talking about a global basic income (which would obviously have even greater difficulties).
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Offline VoR0220

Basic income will never work, IMO. Mostly because economy is a zero-sum game (more or less). You cannot unconditionally distribute sufficient money for everyone's food, clothing and shelter, because in the end someone will have to create that food, clothing and shelter.

Quote
So how big of a difference would it make to me personally if a basic income was adopted to simply replace existing government spending? For starters, I could buy a new car if this were adopted today. If it replaced child support I could buy a new house as well.

This is why a basic income always leads to inflation, IMO. *Everyone* would be able to buy more, which leads to an increase in prices. Furthermore, certain types of low-pay work would no longer be performed. The only way to get workers to do these jobs would be to pay them more. This also leads to an increase in prices.
And suddenly the basic income would no longer be sufficient for food, clothing and shelter.

Regarding inflation,

Quote
No one could escape it, the “rich” pay more,

This is naive, IMO. You can escape inflation by investing money into property. The people suffering from inflation the most are those who have only little money and save that up for "bad times" in their bank account or under the mattress.

The rich can even take credit from banks, using their property as collateral. In that case they *win* from inflation.

Basic income would lead to inflation only in areas where there was not perfect competition. The price of food would not skyrocket bearing normal circumstances, for instance. However, there are two areas that I can think where inflation might just skyrocket if we replaced the entire safety net. Those two are healthcare and education (I can't imagine there'd be a UBI without these thrown into the cost measures).

One fascinating tax that I've researched in my debates with socialists is the land value tax. It's interesting you bring up that the rich would invest money back into property because this is supposedly a progressive tax with no dead weight loss (no economic inefficiency) because it taxes based on the value of the land (which we already do today). Throwing morals aside (I don't consider myself a libertarian on ethical grounds...moreso economic...and even then I'm okay with some government intervention so long as it's done at a local level). Be interested to hear both of your responses.
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