Watch: New report on universal basic income presented to shadow chancellor McDonnell

That's ok Lily65 I thought what you said was funny no offence taken

... a prolific poster of links on here who also sometimes used shouty capitals.....it’s never appreciated ... (Wed 08-May-19 12:19:28)

By whom Lemongrove. That small but loud minority who spoil the threads where others want to discuss by laying down rules not backed by GNHQ to my knowledge. Who made you think you have the right to set these rules - yet again?

I thought you might well be joking too Lily65. Others have a track record

Interesting to hear that 73% of workers in the UK have fluctuating incomes. Dr Standing's report shows that current statistics underestimate the extent of inequality. He comments that this allows "certain rouges" to pretend that it hasn't increased because "they don't measure the top and they don't measure the bottom". I think I need to get hold of the report and see exactly what he is commenting on as I have always had a feeling some of the statistics on inequality were, shall we say, massaged by the government politicians.

He also says that the global income distribution system has broken down. I would guess that this is to do with globalisation and governments, internationally, lagging behind in picking up the changes needed.

He then gets to the share of income going to capital shooting up while the shares going to labour have rapidly gone down. This is quite stunning. He reports that wages have stagnated, for 30 years, in parts of the industrial world. It's not just a British thing.

He then gets to what we were discussing on another thread the other day: the "grotesque levels of wealth inequality." He actually uses the word "grotesque" several time. He reports that wealth is now six times our national income. Can you imagine the power that gives the wealthy over the rest of the electorate? Terrifyingly would be a word I would add to grotesque. This gets worse when he adds that 60% of the wealth in this country is inherited wealth. As I have said before on this forum, back to pre 1930s inequality where a worker has no chance of earning what an idler can get for doing nothing other than having the right parents.

This was just the first of his "giants on the road to reconstruction". Beveridge had five; his updated list contains seven. This first one is "inequality".

The experiment with a Basic Income in Finland did not achieve what they had hoped it would achieve ww.helsinki.fi/en/news/nordic-welfare-news/heikki-hiilamo-disappointing-results-from-the-finnish-basic-income-experiment

But having it proved that one's pet plan doesn't work has never stopped people not pressing on with it. So I am sure John McConnell will continue to flog this stumbling horse.

I had the title changed to lower case I hope some of you are feeling better now

M0nicaThe overall message from this report was about inequality Labour wants a more equal fairer society

Yes been tried in Finland and abandoned funny enough this was discussed last night on LBC.

I'm afraid I couldn't get MOnica's link to load, it kept timing out. I did a bit of a search on the Finnish BI trial and found various interpretations. I get the impression that a) it wasn't a 'true' Universal Income because it was only given to unemployed people and b) it had a positive effect on wellbeing; which seems to me to be a good result.

It didn't seem to lead to more people in employment, though I'd like to see a proper report on the trial to see how true that is, as one recipient is reported as saying that it enabled him to take casual work as it relieved him of fear of having benefits reduced when earning. I don't know if the Finnish government was expecting it to produce a plethora of full time work; their expectations might have been to high, especially as it only ran for 2 years.

I did find this article about it,which, among other things, pointed out that with automation the number of 'conventional' jobs may be declining anyway. I though it was an article worth some consideration, though I should warn you that it came from a rather, shall we say, 'interesting' website

goldenageofgaia.com/2019/03/10/preliminary-results-of-the-finnish-basic-income-experiment-and-a-guardian-article-about-them/

Yes they were discussing how AI might make many people unemployed but it was pointed out this was all said about computers and in fact millions of new jobs were created.

It sounds a very expensive non sustainable unicorn money tree idea that would be typical left wing spending spree.

Where was this being discussed, mycat?
I rather suspect that the 'millions of new jobs' (a most unlikely figure) in computing were balanced by the jobs lost by the people like bank clerks who used to do by hand jobs that computers can do in a fraction of the time. And things like typing pools disappearing because people could word process their own letters. I'm sure there are many examples.

As for your 'money tree' thesis, UB cuts out masses of time consuming admin work; much cheaper to administer.
Also, it's money which will circulate in the economy and, apart from if some of it is put into savings, which will all come back to the government as tax in some form or another. Public spending doesn't just disappear into a black hole, never to be seen again.

Big discussion last night MaisyD on LBC as I posted.

If you down load the pod cast it’s Ian dale very interesting and all your points were covered.

Basic Income, on the face of it, sounds like a good idea - and it may well be when it is first introduced.

However, I have a suspicion that once there is more money in people's pockets, prices of goods and services will go up correspondingly. There was a time, I think in the 60's and 70's, when only one salary would be enough for most families to pay their rent/get a mortgage and afford the basics of life. As more women came into the workforce, prices rose to meet increased incomes and now it is very much more difficult for a family to survive on one salary.

I think the real problem is the gap between the poorest and the richest - until that is addressed by means of a fair and progressive tax system - including inheritance tax - there will still be massive inequality.

I haven't had time yet to read the links but does Basic Income preclude other welfare payments? If so, how can it be beneficial for families or individuals who get extra help towards, for instance, housing costs, disabilities/long term health conditions, etc, etc.?

As more women came into the workforce, prices rose to meet increased incomes and now it is very much more difficult for a family to survive on one salary

Are you saying that the high inflation of the 70’s was entirely due to women entering the workforce eloethan?
Surely it was a bit more complicated than that?

I had no luck with the link either MOnica. If you download the actual report you can read, in Appendix A, an assessment of all the recent "Basic Income" pilots. Some come closer to the actual definition of Basic Income schemes than others.

This report suggests, and many of those who are knowledgeable about basic income agree, that Finish trial was not a true "Basic Income" trial.

It did start out with that intention, to be applied to all in certain communities, whether working or not, but political and budgetary pressures meant it was only used with 2,000 unemployed. This immediately breaks one the Basic Pension guidelines. Sometimes termed a Citizen's Income, it should be universal, in work or out and paid with no means test. The Finish one was obviously not testing the universal nature by limiting it to the unemployed, and there was an element of selection based on possible means. This was done to allow coalition partners to accept its goal described as ‘to obtain information on the effects of a basic income on employment’, which sort of loses the point. There is no doubt it still gave some useful information.

There were still many good outcomes which met some of Standings "modern giants" or major social problems. Do read the report - or at least the Appendix. This Finnish experiment, while interesting and useful, seems to have had a bad fairy at the Christening but even so seems to show many points of success but any trial needs positive political backing.

Antagonistic journalists use this as an example, even though all the data is not yet available. If you watched the presentation you will have seen that many, many others (all in Appendix A) have been run. Obviously, just using one example and one which was not actually a test of Basic Income does suggest confirmation bias, but of course, no journalist or poster would dream of trying that one on woudl they?

Do watch the link Eloethan. I think you would find it interesting.

"It sounds a very expensive non-sustainable unicorn money tree idea that would be typical left-wing spending spree." Mycatisahacker (Wed 08-May-19 18:48:29)

So, you didn't watch the presentation; you seem to know almost nothing about it, but think your opinion on how this will work out is one to be listened to over the experts. Definitely signs of the Dunning Kruger Effect and of course the standard Confirmatory Bias which tells you that, as you don't like the Labour Party everything they are prepared to listen to must immediately be thought of in anti-leftist puerile statements.

This might work or it might not. This was not the Labour party but people trying to attract their attention to these ideas but let's not worry about a silly thing like the truth, hey.

The biggest pressure on household incomes is the cost of housing and the main pressures on that have been firstly the growth of households rapidly outgrowing the supply of housing so that the competition for houses has driven prices up and the opening up of the mortgage market to lenders other than the building societies.

When we bought our first house the Building Society was almost the only financial institution that lent on mortgages and they had a very conservative policy on multiples of income, to what extent they would take second incomes into account and generally limited the proportion of a family income that could be paid each month in mortgage payments.

But in the 1970s the mortgage market was opened up and banks and insurance companies came into the market, They had no kind of social conscience. All they wanted was a big share of a lucrative market when interest rates were high so they started taking all household incomes into account, lending larger percentages of earnings etc. this contributed to the rise in house prices.

We thus got stuck in a vicious circle, whereas when I had my first child I stopped work and while it straightened our circumstances, out mortgage was not an onerous burden, when a bank would lend 4 times 2 salaries, it is obvious that the mortgage payment is so high that a family cannot afford to lose the second salary and women have to stay in work.

Eloethan it is actually the other way round to your suggestion. Women had to stay in work due to the banks and other financial institutions being prepared to lend too much money to households to buy a home, contributing to the rise in house prices, which meant households needed to borrow more and more to buy increasingly expensive houses and as a result they could not afford to lose one income when children arrived because of the cost of servicing the mortgage.

Something else that can be blamed fairly and squarely on Mrs Thatcher's financial policies.