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Request For Research: Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#731

Post by bcheung »

larsiusprime wrote: post #32

What I want to know is whether Basic Income implemented with our current housing and laws about land ownership will just run afoul of the Henry George Theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_theorem IE, the aggregate value of public spending in an area tends to soak into the land value -- give everybody $X,000 a year and the landlords will dutifully raise annual rents by $X,000.

Will it cause inflation, probably. But they don't have to live in the most expensive areas. They can move to a cheaper area. There will be places above and below the inflation curve. Housing is the largest expense so other things would not be affected as much.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#732

Post by chii »

objectivistbrit wrote: post #393
bishnu wrote: post #3

It's worth reading about the Canadian experiments with basic income in the 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/colby-cosh-what-th... The experiment allowed households to opt out, and after a while most did. However this result is convoluted by the fact that the income was not inflation indexed, and inflation rates in Canada in the 1970s got quite high. The main concl…

Or New Zealand's research into the feasibility of implementing UBI: http://igps.victoria.ac.nz/WelfareWorkingGroup/Downloads/Wor... Key takeaways: "An income of $300 per week is just over the average (mean) benefit income – therefore a plausible minimum income. However, paying a guaranteed income of $300 per week to every New Zealander aged 16 years and over, excluding superannuitants, comes at considerable fiscal co…

this is actually a really good read about it. Perhaps a lot of comments on HN is skewed towards the young tech worker who sees himself as victimized in a souless wage slavery, but we don't hear any opinions on UBI from the truly needy - the homeless, the chronic unemployed etc.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#733

Post by amalag »

throwawaytime wrote: post #632
mijustin wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial desperation squeezes the cognitive juice right out of you. In 2013, Harvard researchers did a study of how financial stress affects decision making. Denise Cummins, Ph.D. explains their findings in Psychology Today: "When the cost of [a car] repair was increased to $3,000, a very different picture emerged: The cognitive performance of those at the upper end of the income distribution was unaffected by the i…

"When the cost of [a car] repair was increased to $3,000, the cognitive performance of those at the upper end of the income distribution was unaffected by the increase. But those at the lower end suffered a 40% decline! The authors interpreted this to mean that scarcity impaired people’s ability to think clearly. The threat—even an imagined threat—of a large bill made it difficult for poor people to focus on the cogn…

I know a person fired from his Rails dev position who had a sleep issue on the job. They later came under new management and switched to a remote team and let him have his own hours. If you are competent you can do fine with a remote job. You can probably good money and move to a cheaper area.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#734

Post by miguelrochefort »

kansface wrote: post #169
surfmike wrote: post #97

"What can startups do to increase prosperity for everyone?" I think cheap quality housing is a huge area that would help everyone. Taxes and housing together eat up the vast majority of the earnings most people make. What could make a difference? - applying technology to building denser housing. for example, imagine cheap robotic excavation, so every house and building could bury all their parking lots and long term…

All of those problems are political; ie, we already know how to build more densely, how to make better trains, how to zone, etc. etc. For that matter, I doubt Uber for Houses would be successful (ignore all permits and just build).

You know those capsule hotels in Japan? I could easily see the same thing being implemented, except as appartments, in the US.

- You get there, strip down, leave your stuff in a locker, put a clean bathrobe on.

- Go to your room to sleep, browse the web on a tablet, watch a movie.

- Go to one of the many restaurants to eat a breakfast, lunch or dinner.

- Go to one of the many theatre rooms, to watch a movie, watch a live event, watch the news, etc.

- Go to the bathroom or shower (soap, shampoo, razor, deodorant, toothbrush included).

- Go to the gym, pool, spa, sauna, etc.

- Meet people. Play chess. Have a coffee.

You basically come back from work/life to a simple indoor resort every single day, and get to relax and disconnect for a while. You don't have anything to maintain or worry about. Calm, by yourself or with others, at the end of each day. That's the dream.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#735

Post by davemel37 »

Probably the best way to decrease the cost of living is to balance information asymmetry so that buyers know everything that sellers know when transacting. Price comparison and fighting predatory businesses is a start, but too much commerce revolves are arbitrage and exploiting the vulnerability of being uninformed.

Balance out the knowledge gap and consumers will be able to transact directly with producers, bringing down costs across the board.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#736

Post by tempestn »

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…

It's definitely an excellent point that a basic income would only solve part of the problem associated with lower need for labour. I'm sure there are many more startups that could be founded around the expected increase in numbers and breadth of retired people. There are plenty of things that people can do to be active and engaged when not working; it's just that often they don't. Making these activities more accessible, or accessible in different ways, surely provides some opportunities.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#737

Post by branchless »

sliverstorm wrote: post #657
branchless wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we don't change this you can forget it. Land is the issue, it's been the issue for hundreds of years. The ability to expand into free land was what made the USA different. You could take a job for the man on subsistence wages or set up yourself. That's why you had to have slavery. In the UK with land enclosure the prison is the country. We should tax land and stop the exploitation of workers by rentiers.

How does LVT achieve your goals while property tax, which we already have, does not?

Property tax doesn't go nearly far enough. LVT would replace income tax for the majority of workers.

Right now tax on capital gain is far less than income tax.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#738

Post by branchless »

Tsagadai wrote: post #716
branchless wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we don't change this you can forget it. Land is the issue, it's been the issue for hundreds of years. The ability to expand into free land was what made the USA different. You could take a job for the man on subsistence wages or set up yourself. That's why you had to have slavery. In the UK with land enclosure the prison is the country. We should tax land and stop the exploitation of workers by rentiers.

Except that like everywhere else on the globe that isn't Antarctica there were already people there that needed to be displaced. Someone else's asset was stolen and sold (for very little initially, but sold nonetheless). Land (in absolute terms) has little to do with property prices compared to where the land is geographically, politically and socially. Land tax will help marginally with inequity but the majority of…

LVT is set by location. Property prices are set by location.

LVT can't be passed onto renters. It does stop land speculation. It's the opposite of what you say.

If LVT could be passed onto renters then why, given the market can apparently bear higher prices, are our genius landlords not charging us more already? That's how prices are set my friend, they don't sum up the input costs and add 5% profit.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#739

Post by Chinjut »

jpmcglone wrote: post #714

What if some companies experimented with basic income? I mean, sure, people working there are probably already getting paid pretty well, and 'basic income' at that point might just seem like a small bonus to their salary, but what if it was implemented like we implemented life insurance? Hear me out: So, you work at Company X. You and one person of your choice are now entitled to basic income. It will come as a separ…

As you already noted, this doesn't seem much like basic income (as payment regardless of employment is the sine qua non of basic income). This just seems like an augmented salary, slightly unusually paid out.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#740

Post by gliese1337 »

saganus wrote: post #693
throwawaytime wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When the cost of [a car] repair was increased to $3,000, the cognitive performance of those at the upper end of the income distribution was unaffected by the increase. But those at the lower end suffered a 40% decline! The authors interpreted this to mean that scarcity impaired people’s ability to think clearly. The threat—even an imagined threat—of a large bill made it difficult for poor people to focus on the cogn…

I'm truly sorry to hear that. I don't see why narcolepsy should be a problem, especially in our area. I mean sure, meetings and stuff like that might be harder to do, but our industry is/should be lenient to things like office hours. There have been tons of times where I go to the office at "late hours" (e.g. 1+ PM), and as long as I turn in my deliverables on time (or let my lead know I won't be able to), there is n…

    I don't see why narcolepsy should be a problem, especially in our area. I mean sure, meetings and stuff like that might be harder to do, but our industry is/should be lenient to things like office hours.
I blame scrum. Or, more specifically, people who drink the cool-aid and don't understand the actual purpose.

I've interviewed at I-don't-even-remember-how-many companies that claim to offer extremely flexible hours, or don't care about telecommuting, just make sure you deliver... until you tell them that you can't promise to be there for the daily stand-up at 9am. This is typically justified by "it's only one meeting a day!", but if that one meeting is in the middle of the night for you because you work in a different time zone, or you can't make it in till 10 because you've got kids to take care of, etc., etc.... that doesn't really seem so reasonable anymore.

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