How about a lot of assumptions being left out altogether.
Yes, and you didn't even mention some of the biggest assumptions. For example, because Basic Income is something that you get even if you work, you'd be looking at a completely different salary structure. If you earn $2500 now and a Basic Income of $1500 were introduced, then you wouldn't suddenly earn $4000. You'd earn something like $1000 (plus or minus a factor due to the incidental massive changes to the economy from a Basic Income/Basic Job setup) on top of your Basic Income. That also means that taxation would have to work completely differently.
How that turns out is anybody's guess. With an emphasis on "guess". Code cannot magically substitute for the lack of the completeness of the underlying model, or for the research necessary to figure out the model. If you make stuff up from whole cloth and then bake it into code, it still remains stuff that's been made up from whole cloth. Running a program does not validate the underlying model.
>If you earn $2500 now and a Basic Income of $1500 were introduced, then you wouldn't suddenly earn $4000.
Yes, you would. That's what basic income is. If you make $1,000,000 per year and basic income of $10,000 is introduced, you now make $1,010,000 per year (before taxes).
>You'd earn something like $1000 (plus or minus a factor due to the incidental massive changes to the economy from a Basic Income/Basic Job setup) on top of your Basic Income.
This is similar to a completely different proposal called "guaranteed income" [1]. It's not what is being discussed by the OP.
I'm guessing what @rbehrends meant to say is that if you earn $2500/month and $1500/month basic income (unconditional) is introduced, the combination of inflationary pressure and downward salary pressure will result in you likely having a lower purchasing power than the assumed sum of the nominal values.
Personally, I don't believe that the impact is going to be quite as zero-sum. As recent stimulus attempts have shown, when you give poor people cash, they happily spend it, contributing to the economy. This in turn helps support greater production of goods and services. If the production capacity were fixed, then prices would jump. Instead, we are likely to see production jump more.
This is my personal belief. Anyone that claims to actually KNOW what will happen is fooling themselves. From my understanding, NO ONE has tried this at the scale being discussed.
Compare that with $14,000-$30,000 being discussed and you see that we have no idea what such an infusion will do. It might usher in a new golden age of arts and sciences, or it might make us all lazy and inept. Personally, I'd rather give it a go, than sit and guess forever. Ending poverty forever just sounds too good to pass up.
Yes, you would. That's what basic income is. If you make $1,000,000 per year and basic income of $10,000 is introduced, you now make $1,010,000 per year (before taxes).
You're misunderstanding me here. I'm saying the exact opposite of what you think I'm saying. My point is that the market for wages would find a new, lower equilibrium to compensate for the new basic income. Since there's only a finite amount of money in the economy, and we can't magically give everybody that much more, it has to come from somewhere. A Basic Income approach would still have to redistribute the existing money, not create additional money (at least not on such a scale). The average total income (basic income + wages) would remain largely unchanged (modulo changes in tax structure, GDP growth or shrinkage, etc.).
"there's only a finite amount of money in the economy"
I'm not sure of your definition of money here- the Government prints currency all the time. If you mean goods and services, why can't we produce more? Are you saying that our current economic output is at it's maximum capacity?
I thought it was obvious that I was talking about money at some specific point in time? Especially since I also mentioned the option of creating money?
So, you did. I missed that. So I guess my next question is why can't we just create more? The (increased) amount we would have to create would not be equal to the amount of the basic income, because we could eliminate most welfare programs and their associated overhead. On the surface, I don't see a problem with printing the rest.
Yes, and you didn't even mention some of the biggest assumptions. For example, because Basic Income is something that you get even if you work, you'd be looking at a completely different salary structure. If you earn $2500 now and a Basic Income of $1500 were introduced, then you wouldn't suddenly earn $4000. You'd earn something like $1000 (plus or minus a factor due to the incidental massive changes to the economy from a Basic Income/Basic Job setup) on top of your Basic Income. That also means that taxation would have to work completely differently.
How that turns out is anybody's guess. With an emphasis on "guess". Code cannot magically substitute for the lack of the completeness of the underlying model, or for the research necessary to figure out the model. If you make stuff up from whole cloth and then bake it into code, it still remains stuff that's been made up from whole cloth. Running a program does not validate the underlying model.