A tiny Pacific country rolls out universal basic income

motionlessveloc

This doesn't sound terribly different from eg Alaska's Permanent Fund payouts? The main difference seems to be that PF payments fluctuate a lot, while the Marshalls plan seems to be a fixed, predictable sum.

backhold

While what's good for a tiny island might not be good for the gander, I like the attached cost analysis of a negative income tax. The author points out that this might be a more practical way to deliver a basic income, and more amenable to both sides of the argument. And at more or less no greater cost than the welfare system at time of writing. I wonder how the numbers would shake out now? https://martin-farley.medium.com/how-a-negative-income-tax-c...

turbobutton

I wonder if UBI might be an admittedly dark and cynical way to facilitate a possible AI transition. If e.g. full self driving for trucks is perfected in the US within the next three years and more than six million truckers loose their job at once, there is realistically no way to retrain this cohort. Using taxes on AI revenue to facilitate (somewhat universal) BI for that group, together with very liberal drug policies might keep social peace. Granted, not a satisfying live, but preferable to the alternatives...

DivingForGold

Paid for by the drug cartels ? UBI has to be paid for somehow, are there massive natural resources being sold off ?

1970-01-01

One caveat I don't think they understand, especially within a tropical environment, is retirees. Anywhere resembling FL and handing UBI out will slowly become flooded with old couples and retirees. Florida 2.0 if you will.

smitty1e

I wish them well, but really, really hope that people don't lose sight of the non-scalability of this. The freeloader problem will devour this when some fanatic tries with a substantial population.

2noame

I wrote about this when it started: https://scottsantens.substack.com/p/marshall-islands-just-im... FYI, so far it has barely impacted inflation there or to quote, "zero or very minimal." https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/sundayextra/universal...

dennysora-main

I've always thought that universal basic income is actually just everyone owning shares in all companies and receiving dividends and profits from those companies. It's just turning this entire system into something managed by law and government. Whether the whole system can actually work probably still needs observation and social experiments.