Wednesday 11 January 2017

Insanely stupid reader's letter of the day

From City AM:

Isn't the logical progression from the universal basic income idea so in vogue at the moment a national maximum wage?

People should be careful what they wish for.

Jim Smart


We can also file this one under "people with wildly inapposite surnames".

5 comments:

mombers said...

UBI would sort out minimum wage - it wouldn't be necessary. Marginal jobs could be available once again as people would be happy to work for £5/hour if they had UBI to top it up. Would also solve the immigration problem - recent arrivals would demand higher, not lower wages as they wouldn't have UBI immediately

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, yes of course, but the letter links ubi with national MAXIMUM wage.

mombers said...

*facepalm*

Bayard said...

"Isn't the logical progression from the universal basic income idea so in vogue at the moment a national maximum wage?"

No.

And your next question?

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, my next question is… "I accept that people who don't understand logic or numbers or know anything about anything come up with KCNs like "it would be unaffordable" or "it wouldn't be enough to live on" and so on, fair enough, you can forgive people for being stupid, opinionated or ignorant, but there is at least an attempt at logic - but where is the logic in this statement? It is like saying, if we introduce tax breaks for British films, then mobile phones will stop working."