Labor Is a Market Distortion, we need VAT and UBI

b3ing

Keep dreaming, we are in hyper capitalism mode, ebshitification, etc. They just spent weeks of government time state and national worrying about people on food stamps buying candy or coke, to save pennies, they watch the poor like a damn hawk but let millionaires rape children in the biggest pedo ring in history.

lelanthran

> Why VAT? > This is a little harder but not too hard: Because it’s the mirror of UBI. The UBI will fund consumption, VAT taxes consumption. This is dumb; there's literally no other way to put it! VAT is a tax exemption on the rich; that's all it is.

CuriouslyC

We're not going to get economic change until the people revolt. This doesn't need to be a revolt with guns and bombs, it could just be a refusal to pay taxes and to purchase things. The US has shown that it's extremely vulnerable to economic warfare given how little slack there is in the system for absorbing shocks, so it's the perfect avenue for asymmetric warfare.

jmclnx

What is needed are enforceable laws that force companies to pay a living wage. The wage paid is based upon the cost of living in various US metro regions. The wage must be updated every 6 months. And we need a single payer health system. Plus a type of tax that forces the ultra-rich to pay, if needed, a wealth tax that some countries are enabling.

bob001

Isn't VAT generally a regressive tax so does the exact opposite of what the author thinks it does? The rich spend less versus their income than other demographics. I guess the UBI is to offset that but that just doesn't seem like a stable system.

PowerElectronix

I'd say a better alternative to taxes and handouts is to normalise and incentivise to give a stake in the company/business to every worker. It's the only reasonable way to avoid the main flaws of our economy/society. Billionaires would be way worse off, as they won't freely reap the fruit of the labor of the workers that power their ideas, and the workers will be way better off, as their productivity is no longer decoupled with their pay.

julienreszka

the diagnosis has data behind it, but the proposed mechanism doesn’t, by your own admission

kjshsh123

Labor is not a market distortion and average wages not following average productivity is not evidence that it is. In a competitive market, wages should follow marginal productivity. Probably what happened is America was in an increasing returns to scale part of its production function. Now it's in the diminishing returns to scale portion. If I had to guess why, it would be due to growth boundaries of cities and lack of new cities. There's no new Manhattans. Instead Manhattan has just gotten more and more expensive to live in. Anyway, if F(Population) is the production function, then wages should be F'(Population) and total wages should be Population.F'(Population). F(Population)-Population.F'(Population) is total production minus total wages and is known as economic rent. The right thing to do would be to tax economic rent. Use a tax on land value and natural resources to fund UBI.

pseudalopex

You submitted this article with another title 6 days ago.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48434114

OutOfHere

VAT for essentials like food, medicine and household supplies makes zero sense; it will greatly hurt the poor. Save the VAT exclusively for luxury items like clothing, furniture, travel, etc. which the rich spend a lot on. Computers qualify as essential and must not be VATed either. --- VAT joke: Question: Why is there is no VAT in the Vatican? Answer (reversed): "!tcelloc t'nseod dog esuaceB"