Request For Research: Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#351

Post by protomyth » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:54 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #257

Did anyone else read this post, and think, "Wow, what a dream job. What an opportunity to actually study something in real-life with real people that could make a fundamental difference in the evolution of humankind." It is harder to conceive of a notion more beneficial to the fate of humans than the notion that all humans deserve the basic essentials of life, and that the first task of a civilized society must be to…

I guess I did data consulting for one too many programs and read it as, "damn, that's going to be a hard outcome to work out and the data collection is going to be problematic. I hope they find someone who knows what their doing."

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#352

Post by scotty79 » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

All of Silicon Valley should chip in and fund Basic Income for all SF. It would quickly become blatantly obvious that all bonus money would get sucked in by landlords.

Basic income yes, but not without progressive tax on owned real estate that could curb rent seeking behavior of large property owners.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#353

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

jakeogh wrote: post #204

"send them a cheque for $10,000 and increase their taxes by ~$10,000" which (suprise) just wastes people's time and money.

Replace "cheque" with "direct deposit" and what time is wasted? You have to do taxes every year anyways.

And what little time is wasted is offset by the sense of security that $200/week is going into your bank account every week like clockwork no matter happens to you or your job.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#354

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

Riseed wrote: post #287

ryandrake wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that shows that Basic Income (that you DON'T lose if you happen to find work, as in the USA system) will cause people to sit around idle?

Not "idle" exactly, but in the Canadian Mincome experiment, teenagers and new parents decreased work hours (to focus on studies and childcare, respectively). http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf

But studying and caring for children is not idleness. We're talking about "sitting around idle" which, admittedly needs to be defined, but I'd argue doesn't include productive activities.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#355

Post by Mz » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

In my opinion, "we tried this before" and it didn't work. We didn't call it Basic Income, but we have some historcal examples of large scale attempts to guarantee everyone gets a share. Famous failures include communism.

I do not care how you arrange this research, it will not tell you what will happen under real world conditions. There is plenty of instructive data from the real world that you can look at. For example, about 2/3 of lottery winners are bankrupt within 5 years.

When people get unearned money, most of them piss it away. "Easy come, easy go." I have thought long and hard about this. I don't have time to write an opus on it today, and I imagine it wouldn't be welcome anyway. Here are a couple of things I wrote previously:

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/01/ubi-we-tried...

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-conversa...

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#356

Post by RivieraKid » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

It's important to realize what exactly basic income is, because it's a somewhat vague concept. People typically mix two different concepts, the amount of income redistribution (how much money goes to welfare) and the structure of it (who's eligable, etc.).

What people usually call basic income is different from current systems in these points:

- It's automatic, no paperwork or going to authorities.

- It's simple, everyone gets the same amount - disabled people, people with children, etc.

- The income jump from unemployment to employment is higher.

But I don't think the difference is that big. Just modify a few parameters of the current system, perhaps change the level of income redistriubution to your liking and you have basic income.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#357

Post by notahacker » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

aggronn wrote: post #145

marcell wrote: post #44

I'm very skeptical of basic income as commonly understood. The typical basic income program I've seen goes something like this: give every person in the country $10k to live on, no strings attached. [a] 1) As defined above, this is horribly inefficient and expensive. I, a software engineer in Silicon Valley, would receive this $10k. How does this benefit society? I already make over $100k; I don't need additional inc…

1) How is this more inefficient than our existing welfare system? Seems a lot more efficient to give everyone money rather than spend $100M on bureaucratic infrastructure for verification and employment tracking. 2) It benefits society because you no longer have to work to live. This affects how you make decisions about your employment. You would be more likely to change jobs when you're unhappy, for example. This is…

It might seem more efficient to give everyone money rather than spend on bureaucratic infrastructure until you've realised just how many adults don't work or pay income tax or claim welfare. The choice between raising taxes or cutting incomes for the people that do really need the welfare payments isn't a pretty one...

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#358

Post by tptacek » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #347

tptacek wrote: post #170

Things that would help everyone, regardless of income, without depending on a radical restructuring of entitlement spending, that seem like things startups could actually do: * Equally credible alternatives to university education for professions that don't involve students shouldering $100k-$200k in debt based on decisions they have to make when they're 18 years old. * Empirical, blinded, skills-assessment based tur…

Equally credible alternatives to university education for professions that don't involve students shouldering $100k-$200k in debt based on decisions they have to make when they're 18 years old. Why not just free university education for people who have the prerequisite academic qualifications?

* There are limited seats available at the highest-status universities, so admission to those schools will remain a privilege disproportionately available to wealthy parents who can pay to game the admissions process.

* Simply attending a 4-year university has costs beyond tuition and books; there are plenty of people who don't go to college because they can't afford 4 years out of the workforce.

* The 4-year university system is extremely brittle, in that it creates good outcomes primarily for people who are in the right place (somewhere they can easily attend a good university) at the right time (right after they graduate high school) --- do anything to get off the college track during your high school years and it becomes extremely hard to re-engage with it.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#359

Post by soperj » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

neuromancer2701 wrote: post #30

mbesto wrote: post #6

This is awesome. This is my favorite interpretation of a basic income and how it might fit in a capitalist society: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

Removing minimum wage is a very important aspect because it allows teens to get experience early. Nothing kills teenage employment rates better than a 20$/hr mandate.

Or just do what Australia does and have a different minimum for teen agers...

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#360

Post by IanDrake » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

I can't take this seriously.

>(Questions about how a program like this would affect overall cost of living are beyond our scope, but obviously important.)

No, that's not just "obviously important". It's practically the ONLY thing that's important. If basic income raises the cost of living to the point where it negates the effect of having it, then basic income is meaningless.

Here's your study.

1) Bring one piece of candy into an elementary school class.

2) Ask all the kids what they'll do to get that piece of candy.

3) They'll pretty much do anything.

4) Next, bring bags of candy into another elementary school class, give one bag to each student.

5) Now brandish a piece of candy and ask what they'll do to get it.

6) They're pretty much ignoring you at this point.

Money has no value without scarcity and work has no value without ownership of it's rewards.

Basic income makes money less scarce and (to pay for basic income) steals from people who work.