Quote from: romjpn on April 10, 2015, 05:00:40 AM

Basic income does not mean "very high tax" (well it depends on the political view of the people you talk with Grin

).
On the english page of wikipedia about the basic income, there is not much information about financing it. The french page is more interesting about that.

- Cancellation of the "RSA" in France (free money program if you search for a job, around 400 euros I think). Anybody without a job can apply (with other conditions of course).
- Other social welfare program such as "housing help", or giving money for each baby born.
- Monetary creation, meaning not giving money to banks but directly to people (See QE for people).
- Then we come to taxes (eeeww are saying libertarians ^^) with property taxes and capital revenues and if possible, low "active" income taxes.
- Money spent on checking if people search for a job etc. Coming down to ZERO.
- Revenues from "nature" (like in Alaska with Oil).

I'm pretty confident that it will be at the center of the political debate in the forthcoming years.

Well, if you think about it, the countries which already have benefits for unemployed (without time limits), benefits for the disabled, child benefits, state pensions are not that far from unconditional income. Pretty much every adult, whether employed or not gets his money one way or another.

Quote from: DanielT on April 11, 2015, 12:15:58 AM

Much before robots become that useful, most people will already have bought one or two of them (it is worth surviving a massive economic transformation), and they will probably make robots works for livelihood. In the worst of hypothesis, people will associate to others who have robots.

Doubt that. Your robots would likely end up sitting on the couch with you and watching day-time tv. If I have a factory, why would I employ your robot if I could just buy/lease my own? Your robot will always have higher cost as you'd need to include not only its maintenance/depreciation but also costs of your living.