Talk:Negative income tax/Archive 1

Can someone please clean up the terminology?
When the government can and does take my money, that is a 'tax'. When the government can take my money but doesn't for some reason, that's a "tax exemption". When the government gives me back some of the money it took from me, that's a "tax credit". Naturaly, this means the government cannot tax me for more than what I have, it cannot exempt me from more than what it would otherwise take and it cannot credit me for more than what it has taken.

Yet, according to this article, a tax can be applied to a tax exemption, a tax exemption is the same as a tax credit and a tax credit can not only be greater than the amount taxed but greater than what I had in the first place. (Oo) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheNightFly (talk • contribs)


 * I think the term would change to "subsity" once a tax credit returned more then what was taxed. Morphh (talk) 13:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

TheNightFly has raised interesting points. NIT emerged as a mathematical idea, that is that negative tax is the same as income. I regard this as no more than a curiosity. See my contribution on Guaranteed Minimum Income.

Someone who has lost their job, or has become too ill to work, needs to pay the groceries now, not when the next tax assessment comes round. The payment of a GMI should be seen as separate from the payment of income tax.

David Erskine

124.176.126.98 04:10, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Guaranteed Minimum Income, GMI
The goals of NIT are that all should receive a basic income. This idea has been overtaken by the concept of a Guaranteed Minimum Income, or Basic Income. Search Wikipedia and the web on these words, as well as the phrase ‘Freedom not full employment’. There is an excellent German site with a dauntingly long German compound word, which means Freedom not Full Employment. There is even an International Journal on Basic Income Studies.

The German site states explicitly that GMI is only logical, seeing that machines are taking over so much work. Good to see that what scientists have been talking about for fifty years is finally appearing at a political and economic level.

David Erskine

124.176.126.98 03:58, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * NIT may have different goals, but it is indeed one of two main ways to implement a basic income (which is not the same as a GMI, which may be conditional and means-tested). Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Would be great if someone had sources or even a date for the Nixon references
The article says it came close to passing under Nixon. Which year? Can we get a citation? Was this actually proposed by the Nixon administration, or does "under Nixon" mean he happened to be in the White House, but didn't support the legislation?

It was in 1970 and it was Richard Nixon.....the "economic stabilization act " —Preceding unsigned comment added by DonnaLudlow (talk • contribs) 15:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Earned Income Tax Credit
The article says, "Such a system has been discussed by economists but never fully implemented." Seems to me the Earned Income Tax Credit pretty much implements the idea, if not so lavishly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_Income_Tax_Credit

Yopienso (talk) 14:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, the Earned Income Credit should be included in this article. Prwagner3 (talk) 21:03, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge
Discuss at talk:Basic income. LK (talk) 04:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Criticism
It seems to me that some account of more serious criticism of the negative income tax needs to be represented. There must be scholarly literature on the effect on the concentration of wealth such a proposal would certainly have, as well as the deskilling effects. Not to mention the massive budget deficits it would create in (at least) the short term! Most importantly, any proposal that favors the creation of low-wage work to the extent of this kind of negative tax would certainly have a massive effect on the labor market. "Capital intensive" industries alone aren't the issue..."human capital" is also involved here.

An example of the problem (not just in this article, but to some degree in the larger discussion of this topic): The link at the bottom to a "critique of negative income tax" in fact critiques an entirely different model of the tax--one which does *not* include the guaranteed minimum income but instead implements a negative proportional tax (i.e. one phased in according to a "negative tax schedule"--a tax credit). This is not a critique of the model presented here, but a critique of an entirely different model of taxation.

A real critique would involve some realistic assessment of the net effects of the model that is actually presented here. K McG

Where did the first description of the NIT come from? Friedman and the critique use the model I posted just now.


 * "There must be scholarly literature on the effect on the concentration of wealth such a proposal would certainly have, as well as the deskilling effects. Not to mention the massive budget deficits it would create in (at least) the short term! Most importantly, any proposal that favors the creation of low-wage work to the extent of this kind of negative tax would certainly have a massive effect on the labor market." I am not certain I follow.  "Massive budget deficits"?  Doesn't that make a lot of assumptions about what the rates would be?  Are the precise 25% and $10,000 number integral to the proposal, or place-holders?  I thought this proposal was a type of taxation, not a rate.  Also I don't really know what "deskilling" means. Boris B 22:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

"Friedman feared high subsidy rates as those" ... did the author mean 'Friedman feared higher subsidy rates than those....'? "A flat rate income taxation with tax exemption implements a negative income tax as well as it maintains an actual tax rate progression at extremely low administrative cost: This is achieved by paying a tax on the tax exemption to all taxpayers, e.g. in monthly payments." I really don't understand the last sentence but I'm not sure how to phrase a question. Is the "with tax exemption" language a modification to the NIT proposal, or an integral part? I didn't think you needed to tax any tax exemption to get an effective tax rate progression. Boris B 22:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

'Concentration of wealth'. Why should NIT concenrate wealth? 'Deskilling' Why? 'Creation of low wage work' Again, why?

NIT redistributes income. That is all.

David Erskine

124.176.126.98 07:14, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

NIT disperses money throughout society. It certainly does not conentrate wealth. Skilled people continue in their skilled, well paid jobs. They also receive NIT automaticaly, but pay it back in higher income taxes. Low wage work is threatened by NIT. A labourer receiving a minimum income has less reason to accept work at low wages, not more reason.

David Erskine

124.176.126.98 04:04, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The first one is right that such a line of criticsm exists, Look at that articles criticism section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speenhamland, basically the same issue. Would be great if some actual economists could link some articles and explain that in detail in the article. Basically in a world where the supply side pushes wages down while the demand is quite inelastic, such subsidies just push more people into staate dependency that reduces their power, without any welfare gains for them but notable ones for the consumers of their services (quite often the rich). Theres not even need for any empirical evidence that such a model is close to reality as long as we formulate that wich some nice math anyway in an article about an idear from Friedman right :-).  84.56.88.25 (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

See Also - Tax Choice
Does anybody have any objections to including tax choice in the see also section? --Xerographica (talk) 09:13, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Machine slaves and Negative Income Tax
When the possibility of automated economies emerged in the fifties, those advocating automation painted a picture of a society where people live comfortable lives with only a small amount of work.

All through history, landowners and nobles have had unearned income, and in more recent times this independent class has emerged as lords of creation, moving about the world and living the good life.

Machines take the place of slaves, something that has been known for a century. A slave owning society arranges for a boss class and a slave class. In the future, the boss class will be all people in a society, and machines will be the slaves.

Take Mississippi, about 1850. Whites did little heavy lifting, leaving that to the slaves, as policy. The more slaves there are, the more work is offloaded on to them, as policy, until the boss class does not work much, but still receives income.

Take any advanced society, about 2015. As machines emerge as slaves, it is appropriate for the boss class, that is people, to offload as much work as possible on to the machine slaves, as policy, until a point is reached where the boss class does not work much, but still receives income.

Enter Negative Income Tax, or more realistically, a Universal Pension.

See also marshallbrain.com

David Erskine

124.176.126.98 07:03, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * A very interesting view, but I'm afraid I don't understand the tie-in to Negative Income Taxes. 72.44.12.209 (talk) 15:07, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

The New Jersey Experiments' Validity
"Competition from welfare was a severe problem for the New Jersey experimenters. Many of the families in the study were actually receiving welfare benefits worth more than the experimental payments. Therefore, some experts questioned the experimenters' findings that the NIT had only a minimal effect on work incentives, and indeed questioned whether the experiment had really measured anything at all." -http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/NegativeIncomeTax.html

I don't think it's appropriate that we reference this New Jersey study in the Implementation section. Note that there was a second version of the study which was supposedly more controlled and reliable that is cited in the "Criticism" section. 72.44.12.209 (talk) 15:14, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Did Friedman really say that?
"50% the rate recommended by Friedman"

in my recollection 50% was an example not his recommendation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.48.7.202 (talk) 14:38, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Advocates
I checked the reference to the Australian Liberal Democratic Party and couldn't find any mention of a negative income tax. However, after a quick search I found that the Pirate Party of Australia does in fact support it. I've updated the copy and reference accordingly. I am guessing that they may have supported it at some point but perhaps not any longer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infectoid (talk • contribs) 13:28, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Citation for Juliet Rhys-Williams
Will this work for "It was developed by British politician Juliet Rhys-Williams in the 1940s[citation needed]?" I can't actually look at the papers, but if they were anywhere...

and/or this ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tralfamadoran777 (talk • contribs) 02:19, 6 April 2015 (UTC) Fixing Everything, By Nedland P. Williams... ""Lady Juliet Rhys-Williams first proposed the negative income tax as aplan to alleviate poverty without generating the ill incentives to avoid work in 1942." Shiller pg 252 (She probably proposed a Basic Income rather than NIT, since Shiller states that she posited that a "means test was itself totally destructive of any work effort.")... and2602:306:34B0:D250:963:6C40:82C4:257E (talk) 03:37, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Negative income tax. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110514152858/http://www.uni-graz.at/~parncutt/BIFT2.html to http://www.uni-graz.at/~parncutt/BIFT2.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20140708083444/http://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform to http://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform#Basic_income_through_reverse_taxation

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 07:30, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Decreased labor supply relative to what?
It's not clear what the control situation was in these studies. Are the changes due to NIT relative to the welfare in place outside the study, or to some other control setup within the study (e.g. no welfare)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.246.64 (talk) 15:33, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

This article conflates negative income tax with guaranteed annual income
This article is supposed to be about "negative income tax", but it seems to be presented as a way of implementing "guaranteed annual income".

Most of the criticism of negative income tax seems to actually be criticism of using it to implement guaranteed annual income. The article would greatly benefit if everything related to guaranteed income were moved into one section.

A true progressive income tax, with negative rates in the lower bracket[s], is simple and implementable, but barely mentioned. Such a system could be used to supplement low-income wages without any of the harmful effects of raising the legal minimum wage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FEA8:1C80:417:78E6:19BA:11EB:ADF (talk) 18:42, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Negative income tax. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111130101109/http://www.urban.org/pubs/digest/introduction.html to http://www.urban.org/pubs/digest/introduction.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131522272100/http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/economic-justice.php to http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/economic-justice.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:36, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Difference between NIT and welfare?
"People earning below a certain amount receive supplemental pay from the government instead of paying taxes to the government"- is that not what welfare is? How does this differ? 71.205.174.204 (talk) 03:54, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Welfare is a means-tested system, whereas NIT is a mathematical factor not applied to need. NIT may be applied well beyond need for some households and woefully inadequate to need for others. 63.88.62.157 (talk) 14:58, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Originator of the concept
I rather doubt that Juliet Rhys-Williams was the first to think of negative income tax. The concept of a wage subsidy, which I think amounts to the same thing, was present in Pigou’s 1933 book ‘Unemployment’ – see p124 on which he explains it by saying that ‘the state may give a subsidy to all wages’. Obviously a negative income tax system, in which a variable sum is given or taken to all workers, can be redescribed as a subsidy system in which a fixed amount is given and a variable sum taken from each worker. Pigou doesn’t give any source for the suggestion, but I know that it was circulating at Cambridge at the time and that Joan Robinson mentions it in a book which I haven’t read which was the subject of a review by Harrod which I have.

So if I won’t be shot down for original research, I’d like to make an addition to the lead para to that effect. Colin.champion (talk) 08:22, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

on General welfare
I’ve added a to the final statement of the section on General Welfare. Presumably someone has estimated the administrative costs of NIT relative to standard tax systems and published the result. I find the claim here overburdened with rhetorical adjectives – ‘could reduce’, ‘large bureacuracies’, etc. Meanwhile it is not evident that the complexity of benefit systems would be much reduced (for instance NIT makes no allowance for the number of a worker’s children) while it would give rise to new forms of abuse: if jobs with zero salaries are eligible for automatic payments, then bogus jobs are likely to be created left right and centre, requiring associated bureaucratic countermeasures. Colin.champion (talk) 09:20, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Review recent edit
The recent edit adding the Universal Citizens Dividend implementation requires some review, seeing as I am the politician and economist who designed it and the cite is to my own work (as it's a policy proposal and the section in question relates to proposed implementations, it's sort of impossible for such a cite to be factually-inaccurate). In particular, while the people involved (e.g. Milton Friedman) are notable, I am not entirely comfortable writing articles in which I mention my own name and political campaign activities, for obvious reasons. John Moser (talk) 12:51, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

John – having come here for other reasons I thought I could try to be helpful by looking over what you’d written. I’m afraid I find it hard to understand – I feel you’re trying to squeeze too much into a few words. Here are a few random observations. I hope these remarks are the sort of thing you were looking for. I haven’t commented on your self-citation, which I imagine to be legitmate so long as the contents are of interest. Colin.champion (talk) 12:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * If it’s universal then surely it’s a form of UBI rather than NIT?
 * ‘FICA’ won’t be understood by most non-American readers.
 * I get rather lost by the concepts of ‘premium rate’ and ‘subsidy rate’. I think UBI can be expressed by a simple formula: if there are n citizens indexed by i each of whose pre-UBI income is yi, then their post-UBI incomes will be yi&#8239;–&#8239;f&#8239;(yi&#8239;)&#8239;+&#8239;&phi;(∑f&#8239;(yi&#8239;))&#8239;/&#8239;n where f&#8239;(yi&#8239;) is the tax taken from a citizen’s income and &phi; determines the UBI budget as a function of government revenue, ie. of what you call the ‘subsidy rate’. I don’t see how UCD differs from this general schema. Is the distinctive feature the dependence of total payments on total income (ie. &phi; being roughly proportional to its argument rather than pseudo-constant)? Of is f itself assumed to be linear (or rather an affine function), which is a property of the taxation system in general?
 * The third para brings in a lot of new ideas referring to stimuli and the liquidity trap. Presumably these beneficial properties are predicated on acceptance of Keynesian economic theory.

Harvey’s criticism
I removed the criticism attributed to Philip Harvey – that ‘targeted job creation would produce similar wealth redistribution with significantly less cost’ – since that is not what Harvey says: he says that it would ‘secure the right to work and income support’. He makes the more general point that NIT directs a lot of money to people who are not the poorest in society, but I didn’t think it worth trying to recast the alleged criticism since this fact is well known. It is pointed out here. Colin.champion (talk) 10:21, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Specific and generic senses
There was a discussion a while ago about the relationship between NIT and UBI. Many academic papers treat the two systems as related in some way (often as equivalent), viewing both as well-defined proposals. But something that has confused me is that the expression ‘negative income tax’ is often used to denote a concrete proposal (Friedman’s or something derived from it) which has a fairly high level of detail, while it is also used generically to refer to an income tax which becomes negative.

So I added an discussion of the generic sense to the article. After reflection I’ve moved the generic meaning to the top of the page and put the specific meaning below it. This seems to me logically right; it also makes sense of the taxation infobox which doesn’t belong against an account of Friedman’s NIT. Some of the wikilinks into the page clearly refer to the generic sense (those from Redistribution of income and wealth and Optimal labor income taxation). I hope this is acceptable to people. I’m not 100% happy with the result because the article goes into technicalities too quickly, but I think it’s a step in the right direction. Colin.champion (talk) 10:34, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Political activism
This page is being used in political activism. NIT is not UBI. UBI is not NIT, the creeping and intentionally misleading addition of UBI to this, and using NIT / Milton Friedman to falsely bolster support for UBI is intentional, egregious, harmful and from ill-intent.

"UBI and NIT are the same, that's why we have to delete the NIT article" they cry. No, NIT is "give some people some money at some times", UBI is "give all people all money at all times". Saying they are the same is like saying a bank robbery and a birthday card with $20 in is are "basically the same thing from a theoretical economics point of view, let me order this book on amazon and get back to you on it".

Proof: Everyone proposing deleting NIT, claims to support it (as it's the same as UBI) - but absolutely do not want it, do not agree with Milton Friedman's ideas, and do not want it implemented - yet they think this idea - that they find abhorrent is so similar to their own idea, they should be allowed to delete it, pervert it, and remove it from history.

"We hate this idea so much, but find it identical to our own ideas, that we'll delete it. Nothing to see here".

If they like NIT so much, why not support it?

This is willful manipulation, misleading, for political activism. NIT is a great idea. UBI is a terrible idea. Yet they will say "no no no they are they same, yet we should delete NIT".

That's weird, that there's a group of people that support NIT, and don't like UBI, being told they are the same, but people who want to delete NIT. That's proof enough. If they are the same, why do they want to delete it, what purpose does the idea of UBI serve? Then they are not the same. If they support it, why do they want to delete it? Why do they find it so distasteful?

This is a persistent and very alarming movement to rewrite what NIT is, and to fraudulently put Milton Friedman in as a supporter of UBI. Absolute fraud and political activism - we should vote on back-tracking all the UBI/NIT conflation, allow the UBI article to be the UBI article, and the NIT article to be the NIT article.

Let UBI stand on its own, do not mention Milton Friedman - and have NIT stand on its own. --author (talk) 09:09, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to stop political activism
Since there is activism on here to remove NIT - despite claims to support it - the only course of action is to allow two articles to exist on their own, and not allow false claims.

Remove attempts to make NIT seems like UBI in the NIT article (it says right there in the article that Friedman opposed "universal" or "basic" payments, he supported a universal law (notice law is spelled differently to payment, and has fewer letters) that provided some payments to some people. This is claimed to be the same as UBI, but proponents of UBI do not support Milton Friedman's ideas, do not support NIT, but are very concerned about removing NIT (merging is another word for deleting in Wikipedia Parlance, read "merge" as "memoryhole").

Since there are groups that support NIT and do not support UBI, who say they are different, and have evidence, in the existing article, that Friedman was not a proponent of UBI/BI (basic means universal in many uses of it, a basic income is universal) - and the UBI proponents say NIT is identical - then why would they want to remove NIT? Let both articles exist and do not allow cross-pollination and intentionally misleading edits.

I'm a proponent of not allowing the rewriting of history. Milton Friedman was vocally against universal and basic incomes. His very idea proves this also.

Allowing political activists (that disagree with his philosophy, but that's an aside) - to co-opt his name for an idea that's different to his, while claiming it is the same, in the same breath as trying to remove the idea, is to allow for intentional politically motivated rewriting of history.

We're not this naive - both articles should be clean and not muddied with ideas from each other.

Allow each idea to be stated clearly. Don't have each paragraph say "which is like", "similar to", "same as" - stop the comparisons, real people have to read this and they don't want to go through every other sentence saying "this is the same as that".

Let UBI state what UBI is. Remove NIT and Milton Friedman from UBI, this is perverting history, and misleading readers. Let NIT state what NIT is. Let the articles be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Author (talk • contribs) 09:27, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Please do not make such drastic alterations without consensus. If necessary the page can be protected, but this interferes with editors who are willing to work cooperatively.


 * The page is not written from an activist viewpoint and has no wish to bolster or undermine support for UBI.


 * You accuse the article of ‘fraudulently putting Milton Friedman in as a supporter of UBI’ when it quoted him word-for-word as saying that basic income was "simply another way to introduce a negative income tax" – a quotation which you deleted. If you’ve seen the Supplicy paper you’ll have seen Van Parijs’s comment: “Esta é uma afirmação muita clara da equivalência formal entre os dois esquemas, o que sugere que Friedman é tão a favor de uma proposta quanto a favor da outra...” – ‘This is a very clear statement of the equivalence between the two systems, which suggests that Friedman was as much in favour of one system as of the other...’. Colin.champion (talk) 09:50, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * you cannot redefine words to win an argument, someone once said that. The writing on this article is ridiculous, crowbarred, and nothing to do with NIT. There is no section on differences between NIT and UBI - and you clearly want to obsess over their connection. Milton Friedman clearly said that he objected to universal income - NIT is not UBI, paying some people some of the time is not paying all people all of the time. The fact that you pretend to ignore that is alarming. The NIT article must talk about paying some people some of the time. The UBI article must talk about paying all the people all the time. You cannot conflate these two ideas anymore than you can conflate two tax proposals merely on the grounds that they are both tax proposals. --author (talk) 11:21, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Incidentally the continuation of the passage I quoted goes on to imply that in Van Parijs’s mind Friedman thought UBI and NIT were more alike than is really the case, since (unlike Tobin) he made insufficient allowance for the difference between ex ante and ex post payments. But I wouldn’t trust my own grip on Portuguese relative pronouns enough to offer this as a reliable translation. Colin.champion (talk) 10:01, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * You haven’t said what distinction between UBI and NIT makes the latter acceptable and the former unacceptable in many people’s eyes. It may be the unconditional nature often attributed to UBI. I cannot tell whether Friedman expected NIT to be unconditional or not – he gives the impression of not having thought the matter through. It would make perfect sense to say that UBI is normally understood as unconditional and that this understanding is absent in the case of NIT... but it would need some evidence to support the claim. And it wouldn’t change the fact that the two systems work identically for people in work or seeking work, who are the focus of almost all discussions of NIT/UBI. Colin.champion (talk) 10:19, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * quit your ridiculous writing, you cannot say "pay everyone all the time" is the same as "pay some people some of the time" just by pretending you've read books that say Apples are Oranges. This is inherently dishonest and why people abandon the insidious activism of wikipedia. I don't have to say why NIT/UBI is acceptable or not in anyone's eyes, only that they are wholly different - perhaps enlighten everyone with why you hate NIT and Milton Friedman's ideas but are happy to pretend it's the same as your ideas and attach his name to UBI. These are simple articles for OTHER PEOPLE to read, not for you to treat as your own personal soapbox. UBI is UBI, NIT is NIT - stop trying to change history.--author (talk) 11:24, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Changing Nomenclature
"Universal" and "Basic" have been changed drastically to mean other things - there's so many umbrella terms now that include things in their modern usage, in this context, that we need terms that accurately and directly represent the ideas:

PEATT v PSPST

If you want to discuss Pay Everyone All The Time, use PEATT - say your ideas are PEATT. Say why you support PEATT, and why you think PEATT is the same as PSPST (even tho if you carefully count you can clearly see they have a different letters).

Pay Some People Some Time - PSPST - this is the NIT model - instead of using UBI/BI/TM/NIT/UBINIT or whatever redefined or umbrella term with barbs that you can come up with, use a simple long term that states inextricable what you are trying to say. Umbrella terms will not be accepted as you can define them however you like

"but no UBI also includes that because we can easily just pretend Universal applies to the law (as if the law isn't inherently) instead of to the payments" - this is the tomfoolery and dishonesty that has no place here. These should be simple, HONEST articles that do not mislead people with a political propaganda.

It's also particularly distasteful to rewrite the a person's take on new iterations of terms when they are not alive to defend their views, those new views being so antithetical to their own, and worse, the conflation of these ideas being intentional and engineered through twisting language and weasel words.


 * PEATT is PEATT
 * PSPST is PSPST
 * PEATT is not PSPST
 * UBI is UBI
 * NIT is NIT
 * UBI is not NIT

Now agree that UBI should be an honest and compete article, written normally, about UBI. And NIT should be an honest and complete article, written normally, about NIT.

And there should be nothing muddying these articles.

--author (talk) 11:31, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I suspect that your distinction between paying everyone and paying some people is one of unconditionality/conditionality. But you need to argue your position coherently and with support from references, not accuse people of ideological biases they don’t hold. Colin.champion (talk) 13:13, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * "I suspect", "your position". None of this is my position, there are no positions, only facts. One is PEATT, one is PSPST. Facts. Why are you going to extreme lengths to deny this? --author (talk) 15:21, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * To expand on my previous comment... I personally regard the unconditional aspect of UBI as undesirable; I also doubt that all supporters of UBI favour it. I wish the UBI article was less dogmatic on the matter. At the same time, I see no evidence that Friedman had a view on the matter at all. If you can find evidence that he, or other authoritative writers on NIT, had any position whatever, even avowed agnosticism, then I agree that it would be useful to mention it in the NIT article (and to guard the reader against understanding relevant passages in the UBI article as applying also to NIT). But what is not acceptable is to insist that NIT is different from UBI without being able to point out where the difference lies. And this needs to be done in precise language of the sort commonly used by academics. Colin.champion (talk) 13:50, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Again, for the fifth time, MF is quoted, in BOTH ARTICLES as being against the BASIC income - that is a universal income, that Nixon proposed. This is the poison pill. NIT is entirely entirely entirely different to UBI, but it boils down to PEATT v PSPST. You cannot deny this, nobody's personal thoughts come into this, and MF has nothing to say about the current ideas of UBI as he is no longer here, which is why it's so unsettling and gross that you are seeking to use someone you disagree with to bolster support for ideas that he disagrees with. NIT was very clear and specific in what it was, by design, MF supports PSPST. You do not. Yet you say PSPST is the same as PEATT. Both articles will be their own articles now, as is every single other article on Wikipedia, stop conflating them, remove UBI from NIT and remove NIT from UBI. Remove the academic writing. My word. 13 words when 2 will do. --author (talk) 15:26, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * "I personally" - literally nobody cares what you personally think. This is wikipedia not colinpedia. One is PEATT one is PSPST. Say it with me: ONE IS PEATT, ONE IS PSPST. They are not the same. YOUR "POSITION". YOUR "PERSONAL REGARDS" are inconsequential. If you change your view the facts will not change. UBI is not NIT and NIT is not UBI. The two articles will stand as their own articles now. Remove the NIT from the UBI and remove the UBI from the NIT. --author (talk) 15:21, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I attributed a view to Freidman. I cited references showing that he held that view. If you don’t think he held it, the onus is on you to provide written evidence. You have not yet cited a single word of Friedman’s or anyone else in support of anything you’ve said. Colin.champion (talk) 16:03, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Your long rants (this is now the third new section) which LACK ANY SOURCES to support your claims/opinions are not helpful to improving this article. I have watched ColinChampion's changes to this article and the UBI article, and I find them well sourced. If you want any changes done, please use Reliable Sources WP:RS to back up any and all statements you want added/changed.

You should familiarize yourself with this Wikipedia policy: No Original Research WP:OR. --- Avatar317 (talk) 23:39, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

You are being intentionally untrue and misleading: these are not rants, and they are not original research: i'm calling out colin's, and others, rants and original research, academic fluff and crusading on here. and then you lie, with colin trying to, again lie, and coopt you into the "truth by numbers game" and try to characterize me calling you out as me being the one trying to make a point by force.

You are the ones making invalid points you are the ones on a crusade, you are the ones trying to use fallacy after fallacy to push your own agenda on here. Everybody sees it. Now you tell me how something can be "original research" if that very thing is a proposal to NOT MAKE CHANGES - how can the absence of a change be a change that is driven by OR? OR needs a change to exist. I am proposing your proposed changes are not met, and the crusade you are on is recognized and stopped.

The more fallacies you use will just bolster this. Calling to an end of your crusade to mix two different terms is not in itself an attempt to push OR, and the fact fact that you try to characterize it as such underscores your own agenda. author (talk) 13:42, 15 December 2020 (UTC)