Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Nationalism and Basic income

Team-ism:  The positive of nationalism

Wishing for success and happiness of your team members, possibly hoping (though not requiring) that they share that success with you, is certainly good for the team.  Humanism is team human, and teamism is not inherently evil.  Cooperation beats individualism, and success of the team (or member) means there is more available to share or trade with all team members.

The propaganda of teamism
Lectures and advice about teamism is exclusively about you needing to pass the puck more to the people of the lecturer's choice.  You making sacrifices for the team leaders.  In nationalism, the media message is dominated by politicians and others high in the hierarchy who can control the media.

Nationalist resentment is a method of harnessing stupidity and hate by directing it away from social dominants.  This point will be explained later in the paper, but there are 2 fundamental choices the wise and smart can interact with the childish and stupid.  Either teach them the truth, or sell them lies.  The latter has significant profit opportunity.

Nationalism as protection from competition
The dominant rationale of nationalist protectionism is the appeal to the protection from competition.  This neglects the opportunities created by trade and immigration.  Specifically, you cannot possibly feel threatened by everyone of these groups:

  • Strawberry pickers and other ultra low wage agricultural "foreign workers"
  • Domestic and gardening servants
  • Parking lot day labourers
  • Street food and convenience store employees.
  • Skilled blue colar work
  • Skilled white colar work, software and tech workers.
  • Doctors, and other healthcare workers
  • Foreign high end home buyers.
If you hope to be a strawberry picker when you grow up, then as long as the immigrants allowed in come with a mix of skills and job seeking, then you gain more opportunities for work than get threatened by competition for work.

For the blue collar worker most susceptible to protectionist and hate propaganda, immigrants typically offer little to no competition to their field.  For those who work in lower paid fields, there is only opportunity created for everyone else, as every penny they receive is paid out to fund other people's work, and more food and housing and other services is produced to let them survive.  Even if you see no direct profit from immigrants' presence, those that do directly profit buy better homes, cars, and other stuff... which you may assist in producing.

For those immigrants who work in higher paid fields, they can directly cause increased consumption of better homes, cars and other stuff, and so overall, there is much more opportunity than competition created by immigration.
Slavery is awesome
Slavery produces consumer benefit of lower prices, and master's benefit of control and power and production capacity.  For the non slave, slavery whether robotic or mexican, frees them from doing the slave's work.  We could have full employment, if we outlawed the mechanical distribution of water and energy through pipes and wires, and instead forced human labour to collect and deliver it.  Full employment but with a standard of living closer to subsaharan Africa, and difficult to justify urban centers.

Immigrants usually earn lower wages than nationals, and the perceived threat from immigrants is quite similar to house slaves fearing encroachment from the field slaves.  A fight among the slaves for the crumbs of servitude.  For those who understand the awesomeness of slavery and servitude, that is the fight they want you to take, the framing they want you to see you define your problems.

Oppressing immigrants and ethnic and racial minorities, depresses their income potential, and increases their desperation to fill a servitude position or to resort to criminal activities on a unionized/gang scale.   If eradicating immigrants is successful (despite your masters craving more of it), then those seeking the advantages of slavery will be compelled to relocate where labour can be more easily oppressed.

So, if you feel threatened by the oppressed, then you are necessarily oppressed yourself.  No one points out the opportunities that the oppressed create for you, only the threats you should imagine.  Nowhere in the world has ever shown success through a declining population.

Many people appreciated this article:  Most people support slavery

1000 new people in your country 
This analysis also applies to, the reverse, removing 1000 people.  60% of non-senior adults are employed.  The general breakdown by industry is linked here.  If all new people subsist on welfare, then 600 new jobs are created to serve their survival needs.  Those who profit from exploiting the poor, trickle up their proceeds into luxury goods purchases.  Both high end and low end consumption increases.  More people also means higher prices for energy/natural resources and food and housing, which attracts more employment in those sectors (higher commodity prices offer greater profit opportunities and more pursuit thereof).

1000 fewer people actually creates more than 600 job losses.  Deflation in commodities causes substantial disinvestment in those sectors.  Empty housing halts new construction.  Disemployment causes more disemployment.  Nowhere in the world or in time will there ever be economic growth accompanying population decline.

$1M in increased Chinese GDP/wealth
China imports 5% of its economy, and another 5% in net capital outflows.  Its growth has fueled high commodity prices which has kept US employment in those sectors high.  The capital outflows has propped up housing and stock markets.  These benefits primarily flow to rich Americans, but while rich Americans doing well absolutely does not trickled down as a broader benefit, it does prevent economic collapse that does trickle down.  The raw imports number does mean that $1M in increased chinese economy does create 1 foreign (to China) $50k job.  A bit more than that due to inflationary pressure in commodities.  $1T in increased Chinese economy directly creates 1M foreign jobs.  $50B in foreign (to China) investment, which is money going to people in your nation.

Balanced trade vs. higher trade
Considering 2 proposals:
  1. Trade balance of $10B exports and $10B imports
  2. Trade deficit of $100B exports and $150B imports.
Although nationalists would fan resentment over the 2nd scenario, that one includes $90B of additional job/wealth creating national value (excluding addtional distribution and retail work/value).  Intangible consumer value is also much higher.  You are much more likely to be happy and buy  a $300 TV than a $1000 TV.

Trade protectionism
International trade benefits you through lower prices, and retributory opportunities of access to trading partner markets.  As a consumer, it gives you more choice.

As an affected worker, you may wish that your job is perpetually protected, but such protection comes at the expense of others' opportunity, and all consumers choice and value.

More importantly, today's and tomorrow's threat to your work is not globalization, but instead automation.  This too is more opportunity to more than threat to some.  We further all want to free ourselves from work that is by definition (mechanization more efficient than manual) unnecessary.  So, insisting that others be forced to hire us breaks with any principles of justice and fairness we would want to enhance.

Basically we cannot principally object to the rich corrupting protections for their empires of gold, if we insist on protecting our empires of dirt.

Nationalism as capturing hatefulness
A hateful person is going to feel resentment towards someone that outcompetes them for their ambitions regardless of the ethnic makeup of that competitor.  Nationalism provides a socially expressible way for people who hate everyone all the time, to rally around other hateful people.

Politics can successfully achieve popularity by selling you the lie you want to hear.

Hatefulness is fundamentally a product of environment.  You live in a harsh world where the only political options you are likely to know about are having to seek permission from capitalist assholes or socialist assholes.

Unconditional Basic income (UBI)
is a cash payment paid to citizens and tax payers that is a necessarily affordable tax cut the higher the basic income amount because the higher the UBI, the more existing programs can be cut, and so more "tax disbursements" (refunds) are made than taxes collected.  The simplest implementation is as a refundable tax credit.

Basic income as freedom from servitude
Servitude as an employee has provided over the earlier part of the last 75 years, tremendous opportunities for income security that permitted a fulfilling lifestyle.  The desire to idealize and protect those lifestyle opportunities is natural.

UBI does not prevent you from accepting employment in any way.  Contrary to welfare system, no benefits are taken away from you when you earn more income.  A fearmongering stupidity critical of UBI is that it may promote laziness.

The freedom of others to choose not to work is a significant benefit to anyone who seeks work.  Less competition for work directly enhances your bargaining for servitude positions.  That more people have the funds to purchase goods and services ensures that more work is available to try to take all of their money.

Furthermore, UBI makes it much easier for you to attempt to start your own enterprise.  You can survive without immediate profit.

Even if no new opportunity given to you through UBI appeals to you, there is no reason to deny it to others.  UBI improves your pursuit of an employee lifestyle, decreasing your competition, and increasing the supply of potential employers.

UBI makes competition easier and more profitable
That work is awesome and fulfilling, and lets you afford nice things should be a secret that you try to keep away from the masses.  The lazier and rejecting of work the rest of them are, the easier it is for you to get to do it all and take all their money in exchange.

Easier competition reduces unethical and criminal behaviour and hatefulness
Labour (and work/entrepreneurial) markets that are free of the oppression of starvation/survival as a method of forced participation, reduces the ruthlessness and hatefulness that is conditioned into those whose life is a survival challenge

An easier life allows individuals to place higher weight on ethical concerns, and the harm, danger and repercussions.of criminal choices.

UBI allows a reactionary attitude to job displacement as "oh well, someone or something else is doing the work so that I don't have to.  I'll just do something else." instead of promoting hatefulness.

Basic income as nationalist policy: Citizen's dividend
The simplest recommended implementation for basic income is through refundable tax credits.  This is a tax filer benefit independent of citizenship.  A citizen's dividend is specifically a benefit only for citizens.  The reasons leaning towards making it a tax filer benefit are:
  1. Immigrants pay taxes too.
  2. Our team can mostly be defined as those who choose to live here.
  3. Poverty programs designed just for special groups have nearly the same expensive bureaucratic overhead, and are recipes for manufacturing ghettoization, crime and hatefulness.
  4. Nationalist/racist resentment of welfare is tied to benefits going to groups that they perceive exclude them.  Asset tests and other conditionality for welfare often prevent you and your family members from receiving the same benefit.  A refundable tax credit would eliminate the stupidity of Bill Oreily explaining to you how much more privileged the poor are compared to your (rich) group.

mix of tax filer and citizen benefits
The simplest mix of benefits are a basic fixed amount, and a supplementary variable citizen's dividend paid from a targeted surplus, and dependent on society's economic success and tax revenue.

Life accounts or Unconditional Loan Income (ULI)
Life accounts are like student loans, but without the conditionality of spending the funds on education.  Recipients can use the cash anyway they like.   Repayment is through income based royalty administered through the tax code. Features include:
  1. Low interest rate of 2% or less.
  2. An annual new loan withdrawal limit of $5k-$10k.
  3. Maximum outstanding balance (~$100k) that either reduce or eliminate the annual new loan amount when the cap is reached.
  4. 10%-15% of income repayment rate while an outstanding balance exists.  So no repayments are owed if no income is earned.
  5. To help overall funding, those with no outstanding ULI balance (usually rich through previous full repayments) can pay a 3%-7% income surtax
ULI as a social investment is extremely similar to UBI.  A personally accountable income royalty replaces a general income surtax.  But rather than faith in higher future tax revenues as a result of investing in citizens, the personal life account makes a direct connection between personal future funding of your own past benefits.  The loan program is likely to have a moderate loss, but its a lower accounting loss than marking UBI as an unrepayable gift.  Many of the loans will be repaid, and the interest and surtax on those who do not have life account balances makes up the funding shortfall.

Compared to UBI, ULI does mean slightly higher clawback/surtax rates, because spectacular home run successes (ex: Mark Zuckerberg) only repay their loan amount + surtax instead of an extra $1B in taxes under UBI.  The latter pays for 75000 people's UBI who make no contributions to society.

Life accounts and nationalism and the politics of UBI
UBI is said to be pollitically difficult only because politics are dominated by hatefullness and protection of lobbyists.  UBI provides a tax cut to 90%, the greatest possible leap in human freedom and economic growth, and so greater after tax income to 95%+, and elimination of poverty and servitude.

The only objection to UBI is protecting lobbyist and rulership empires, and the irrational value of the objectives of hatefulness to others over one's own prosperity and freedom.  Structured servitude and  international competitiveness are economic and political theories that justify manufacturing hatefulness and revering empires (more on this next section).

ULI acknowledges the entreneched politics of hate by attaching individual accountability to basic income.  It becomes an easier introduction to UBI.  The model of UBI personal successes paying for "failures" becomes more evident with the inherent trackability of past ULI access.

But the key takeaway from this and following sections is that basic income and life accounts can serve and be structured to serve nationalistic populist objectives better than nazi mexican hunting parties or hate-fulfilling political promises that your troubles are caused by slaves more oppressed than you.

Structured servitude
Servitude is systemically structured in order to ensure an abundant supply of soldiers, servants and minions.  The masters use the strongest language of freedom, because unlike slavery, structured servitude provides a security/resentment free illusion of freedom..

Conscripted soldiers are the closest class to slavery as they give up autonomy towards life preservation.  More generally, the culture of employee status seeking, through tying health and family-permitting-stability benefits is the main form of structured servitude.  Welfare systems guide the poor towards servitude.

Client-supplier/contractor relationships are not the servant system.  Supplier/contractors can value freedom over the security of servitude.  They can still struggle financially, but that struggle occurs somewhat independently of the systemic structured servitude that is inflicted on society as a whole.

Most people support slavery and structured servitude even when they are near the bottom of the pyramid.  Its entirely stupidity and the acceptance of lies that drive it, but the good news is that the masters no longer need to systemically structure servitude.  Foreign policy and murder can be asserted in the comfort of one's own pajamas (drones), and structuring desperation such that work paying $8 or $15 per hour is begged for is no longer necessary if machines can do it for $1 or $5 per hour equivalent.

International competitiveness
Structural servitude and oppression at home is meant to keep wages low, and labour competition and desperation high.  This enhances employment and profit for those who control work.

An easy way of enhancing international competitiveness is to lower the national currency value.  This forces lower real earnings for everyone in the nation.  If this is something anyone actually wants, then that person could instead individually request or accept to be paid less.  If the US as a people want to produce socks and underwear for the Chinese, they can achieve that goal instantly through a 90% currency devaluation.  Few people would be able to afford a cell phone, but you might also put your children to work in coal mines to earn enough to get one.  The view on work that gets lost is that having others make your underwear is a position most children would genuinely prefer when they grow up.  If you resent Mexican gardeners and housekeepers, currency devaluation can give you the opportunity to emigrate to Mexico to serve Mexicans.

International competitiveness and oppression of the local labour force is the main reason to oppose UBI.  Differential tax rates have 0 effect on globalization.  Exploiting desperation is what drives manufacturing or international service production decisions, and UBI reduces local desperation levels and puts upward pressure on work conditions and income.

These policies benefit less than the top 1%, but its easy to scare people into subservience and enhanced desperation.  Structured servitude, and a harsh world, provides you with your place in the hierarchy and visibility for the next rung up and down, and so visibility for the behaviour to strive or avoid.

Trying to force purchase of nationally pure labour is a stupid myopia that misses the new opportunities created by new money and people comming in, money staying in, and serving the needs of new people.  Forcing higher priced local labour, increases the cost, and limits the selection, of purchases, and necessarily increases overall poverty.  If a foreign good can compete with a local good despite the transportation costs involved, then protectionism forgoes the better option, and also eliminates the extra transportation and distribution jobs created by competition.  Retaliatory protection eliminates export jobs, and the associated distribution, and lessens economies of scale benefits (products cost and price) for larger local and international production demand.

Bringing the jobs back
Even if you forbid foreign slavery and exploitation for protection of home markets, globalization will still be tempting to better access foreign markets.  If forced to produce local consumption at home, heavy automation is likely to be pursued to ethically keep the benefits of slavery without any responsibility for harm to any individual.  Without UBI, this causes a poverty spiral where increased desperation unable to find employment sinks consumer spending and business revenue and profits and employment.

The only jobs politicians create is through, often wasteful, direct government employment and spending.  The US and Obama were doing much better than international peers in maintaining employment.  The art of the deal involves great sincerity when lying to people filling them with hope for what they want to hear.  Lowering taxes on the rich and corporations, will not help coal and steel companies that are not making money.  It will lead to all companies reducing expenses and investment (a tax deduction) that have any uncertainty to their profitability.  Enhancing profits only for the most successful companies that know ahead of time that they will get a positive return on their investments.

Begging politicians to create or flatter you with the promise to create jobs for you is not the right request.  You want the pay/money of a job.  With that money, you can create your own work, or help someone else that creates their own work.  Its up to 300M people with the power to create work/jobs instead of at most a limited number of uncaring officials.

Trump's domestic economy plans, unimpeded by congressional opposition, are a worsening of GW Bush's policies that, we are told, brought civilization to the brink of economic collapse (just domestic policy.  Excludes more liberal use of nuclear weapons, child torture, and wars for the express direct pillage of oil).  Hoping that the art of the deal was BSing republican elites in his support for the enslavement of Americans was the real con, is a long shot on the day after the election, and the unification platitudes speech writers always present.

Solutions with some Libertarian, Republican and Trump appeal
  • Flat tax combined with universal refundable tax credits (UBI)
  • Equal high corporate and personal tax rate 
  • Elimination of payroll taxes.
  • Territorial tax system.  Revamping international tax system to tax sales where sold.  Expenses (deducted) where spent.
  • Cashflow based taxation to eliminate all avoidance
 These policies would tax people and companies based on the profits that they extract from society.  Exporters are subsidized with tax rebates for what they spend locally, enhancing job creation.  Foreign companies are taxed on the full sales price (instead of just profit) of the goods they sell to us.  This is a better solution than tariffs because it enhances trade and global work/value while compensating the nations with trade deficits.  It significantly enhances investment in small and uncertain businesses by simplifying tax refunds if the investment fails.  Protectionist sentiment is best served through higher rather than lower taxes.

Importantly it also allows a union of independently governed states and regions to unilaterally apply tax rates in their own interests, with the trade and work effects they prefer.

Basic income/refundable tax credits creates smaller government while eliminating poverty and empowering real freedom, including not impeding great wealth from being accumulated without permission or cronyism, and despite any high tax levels.   Supposed libertarian goals.

More details on the tax plan:

Detailed Overview
Focus on how it eliminates international arbitrage

Basic income rationale and funding :

Refundable tax credits and financing overview

Philosophical justifications 


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