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Request For Research: Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#621

Post by FrankyHollywood »

eanzenberg wrote: post #502
FrankyHollywood wrote: post #424

A lot of people see problems in getting basic income funded. But is there is a simple solution :) Generate the money, just print it! Everyone on earth will get an equal quantity of money, every month. Now this money can be used in two different ways. 1) Buy natural resources 2) Buy services This distinction is important: When somebody provides a service, like fixing your bike he gets money and can keep it. When you b…

Money becomes devalued when you flood it to spend on non-productive things. You sure you want that?

well, what I want is that everybody has the same 'right' to get some of the worlds resources. But once you have used them, you got your share and the money must disappear.

However, if you work for something and add value to the world you should be rewarded.

It doesn't feel right to me to let people who work hard pay money to people who do nothing. By having to pay for natural resources generated money will not devaluate (quickly?)

How to keep such a system balanced is not trivial, but impossible? I can't tell

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#622

Post by mkempe »

mkempe wrote: post #614

Not a single comment so far has mentioned Karl Marx. This "research" proposal is merely a technocratic rehash of Marxism: the inexorable forces of materialism and technological improvements entail endless progress driven by a Hegelian spirit. This will free humans from labor and eliminate the power of capital. Thus, somehow, unlimited production will enable people to live according to the motto "from each according t…

Anecdote. My uncle (in Sweden) lived his whole adult life on the "basic income" he got from the State. He played the guitar, beautifully, wrote poetry, and never held a job in his life (why would he? the State was providing). He died in his early 40s, worn out by alcohol abuse and probably drugs. His "basic income" happened to be higher than what I had left after paying taxes as an engineer working for Ericsson.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#623

Post by crzwdjk »

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…

Another thing that would be helpful to most people is fixing the affordable housing issue. The problem is that lots of people are deeply invested in making housing increasingly less affordable (alternatively phrasing as "improving home values"). Housing is the single biggest expense for many people, especially those in economically productive high wage cities, and cutting that would dramatically reduce the remaining gap that something like basic income would have to fill.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#624

Post by fscherer »

tptacek wrote: post #513
fijal wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College in Poland is free and there are options for very limited stipends which can sustain you (albeit on a poverty level). That did lift me from a poor, but educated, family into the world of computer software and a relatively successful career it seems. As it did for countless of my peers. Please don't discount free education as "not changing much", in the US I would be probably working at Mc Donalds or dealing cr…

I'm not opposed to free education. I'm certain free education is better than $150k education. But gating stable employment on 4-year degrees is problematic for reasons other than tuition costs, and, equally important to this thread, startups probably can't make college free, but they might be able to replace college for a pretty big set of white collar jobs.

I think colleges should educate people and not only train them for a job. This is only really viable with free education and much harder to do with the alternatives which are discussed right now.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#625

Post by mkempe »

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…

None of this relates to the "universal basic income" idea.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#626

Post by simonrobb »

kasey_junk wrote: post #565
toomanybeersies wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be a very American thing to not have banking as a basic right (or at least assumed right). Here in New Zealand, there's pretty much no restriction on getting bank accounts. It's almost unheard of to not have a bank account. Transaction fees aren't really a thing either. Most people only have to pay to withdraw money from other banks ATMs. There's no fees for bank transfers (regardless of whether it's to t…

Please note I'm not trying to belittle your answer, but New Zealand is a very small place. In the US there are Credit Unions (the smaller, less popular non-profit bank alternatives in the US) that have more members than the entire population of NZ. If you were to only bank amongst one Credit Union here in the states you'd see similar levels of service to what you mention (other than chip & pin which is only recently…

I read this a few days ago and learnt a lot. It might shed some light on why some countries' banking systems are slower than others https://getmondo.co.uk/blog/2016/01/20/how-do-bank-payments-...

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#627

Post by fscherer »

surfmike wrote: post #281
sama wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes--driving down the cost of housing is one of the things I think about the most. It seems so critical to the whole equation.

I often think about big cities where people have reasonably priced housing options available. Two great examples for me are Tokyo and Berlin. I think a big factor in both is a combination of dense traditional city planning, and transportation. I really enjoyed this piece on traditional cities: http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20130330.php

Berlin also sees housing prices surge drastically, so the problem exists there as well

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#628

Post by ssalazar »

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?

University education has become such a bloated juggernaut, I don't feel its sustainable or sensible to continue to feed it growing amounts of free government money. Im hopeful that free/inexpensive/subsidized online education, packaged into degree/certification programs and sanctioned by educational institutions, will be able to take the place of much of what is really being offered at traditional 4-year schools.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#629

Post by ThrustVectoring »

tptacek wrote: post #269
avip wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a more trivial alternative to "equally credible alternatives to university" - just ban education based discrimination. Same way US so nicely enforces regarding race or martial status. Make it illegal to ask. Simple change with 100% guaranteed positive outcome.

Whether I agree or not with this (mostly, I don't), it fails my test of "being something a startup can do". Whereas a startup that had a really good solution for inculcating the kinds of skills and values white-collar employers are looking for could outcompete universities instead of legislating them out of the picture. When people discuss the value signaling provided by elite universities, their first example is usu…

It'd be easier than you think. Much like IQ testing, requiring a college education is already illegal under "disparate impact" arguments (unless it's a bona-fide occupational requirement - eg, an electrical engineering degree for an EE position). The difference is that employers expect to be sued if they give job applicants an IQ test, but they don't expect to be sued if they want a competitive alma mater.

The way to fix this is to sue lots of employers for requiring or discriminating based on college education. Or at least win a few high-profile cases.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#630

Post by chc »

dev1n wrote: post #488
davidw wrote: post #5

There's a very relevant section in this book ( The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies - http://amzn.to/1KFJ1Iu ) , that I just read last night: > "His view is strongly supported by the work of economist Andrew Oswald, who found that joblessness lasting six months or longer harms feelings of well-being and other measures of mental health about as much as the death of…

Easily solved: Basic income is paid out to people to go and work on infrastructure projects.

That's not a basic income, that's just a government job. The point of a basic income is that it is not contingent on services rendered.
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