What a government spends is a lousy proxy for what the citizens receive; it ignores redistribution costs and profits

Sir, Tim Harford writes that the idea of a universal basic income “appeals to three types of people: those who are comfortable with a dramatic increase in the size of the state, those who are willing to see needy people lose large sums relative to the status quo, and those who can’t add up.” “Could an income for all provide the ultimate safety net?’ April 30.

And while doing so he uses figures for UK’s social security spending of £217bn, and on health and education spending of £240bn. 

Over the last 15 years the poor in Venezuela have most surely received less than 15 percent of what they would have received, had only the oil revenues been shared out equally among all citizens as a universal basic income. In such a case, supporting a net oil revenue funded universal basic income could be done by someone like me, someone who wants the state to become much smaller, who wants poor people to obtain more, and who can add quite well.

The basic mistake the undercover economist makes in this case, is that he equates all social support received by the needed with what is spent on them. That ignores the redistribution cost and profits. A universal basic income, that would put aside in different account much of the redistribution, would help bring more transparency to what the real cost of real government’s functions are. In these Panama Paper days, when so much concern is expressed on the issue of tax evasion and tax avoidance, there is little mentioning of the possibility that pure tax revenue waste could add up to much more.

Many wealthy non-leftists do harbor serious concerns about the growing income inequality, not only because of a sense of justice, but also because they know it could come back to haunt them. And so for them, a universal basic income distribution of a pro-equality tax, and which would not have to cost more than 2 percent in administration fees, might seem as a quite reasonable way to go.

Also many of us concerned with climate change but who also do feel quite uncomfortable with all the climate change profiteers who surround most initiatives, could find a huge gas/carbon tax paid out by means of a universal basic income scheme much better. For a starter it would beautifully align the fights against climate change and inequality.

And please, whenever I mention “redistribution profiteers’, I do not only refer to those who get cold cash and favors, but also to those so much worse, those populist and demagogues who take out their share in political power.

By the way here is a question for the Undercover Economist: Would our economies be better or worse had the QEs been redistributed in equal shares to the citizens?

PS. The problem with governments is not they are monopolies. It is they are operated and exploited by too many monopolists.

@PerKurowski ©

Should not those who live under the thumb of blatant redistribution profiteers have safe access to safe tax havens?

Sir, David Pilling raises a question that needs to be asked more often, especially when inequality is debated “Why would people pay tax if much of the money is simply stolen or distributed to others, and provision of public goods is so inadequate?” “Where states remain at the mercy of their elites”. March 17.

In my country Venezuela, the really poor have not received more than a maximum of 15% of what would have been their per capita share of the nations net oil revenues. The rest if not just wasted, has gone to redistribution profiteers and associates.

And Pilling quotes Senator Alphonso Gaye from Liberia saying: “You need some cash. Your respect in this country depends on your capacity to respond to people’s demands.” Of his salary… how much do you think goes into his responses? 10 percent?

This is why I am hopeful the universal basic income that currently is being studied, for instance in Finland and Canada, could become a reality.

That would help us to get rid of all those odious redistribution profiteers. And with such a redistribution mechanism many would look much more favorably on a pro-equality tax on wealth.

Question: Where would inequality be today if all social redistributive spending had been done by means of a cost effective Universal Basic Income?

PS. My tax paradise (Nothing as powerful against tax havens as tax heavens)

@PerKurowski ©

Capitals of ordinary citizens should also have rights to political asylum.

Sir I refer to your “Close the account on Swiss secrecy” February 28. If I wanted to be politically correct, I guess I would have to loudly shout out a “Hear, hear!”

BUT, I need to add that in the same vein there is political asylum granted for people being persecuted in their homeland, there should also be asylum rights granted to capital when these are being persecuted, beyond reason. Otherwise the closing down of a possibility to hold secret accounts seems a bit like a wet dream of a Global Sheriffs of Nottingham mutual admiration club.

I have no firm idea of how to go about it, but perhaps there could be a Global Council of Citizens, in front of which a citizen could anonymously make a specific country based appeal. When? Perhaps when taxation becomes too high, let us say over 50%; when the government role in the economy becomes too high, let us say 40% of GDP; or when there are notoriously public displays of government waste.

But of course, the capitals of anyone who has held a government office within a period, like for instance the last 20 years, should possess no such rights.

Really, is there anything to be gained by retaining all capitals of all citizens in a country, if all that means is that the capital gets all wasted?

I remember when my country, Venezuela, in February 1983 woke up to a huge financial disaster, mainly as a consequence of the government having acquired too much debt and keeping the Bolívar from devaluing too long. At that moment most politicians swore that the cause of it all was capital flight, and this even when they all must have known that had there been no capital flight, it would all have been wasted. The truth is that the capital reserves built up abroad by some Venezuelans, by quite a few in fact, then allowed Venezuela to recover fairly fast from the disaster… unfortunately only to start the buildup of the next one.

Also, FT, do you really want to close Switzerland down as a haven for secret capital flight when that might only mean promoting other deeper and darker havens?

PS. Granted you might not really know what it is to be living in countries like Zimbabwe.

PS. I recently ended and Op-Ed in my country with the following PS: “In a country in which all those here described injustices are committed, and many more, and on top of it all they print out monstrous amounts of inorganic Bolivars without caring about the inflation that will cause, one could ask: Is not capital flight sometimes a citizen's moral obligation… towards his own nation?