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Request For Research: Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#811

Post by realkitkat »

imgabe wrote: post #564

Where do I volunteer to be a test subject in this study?

+1. I am a willing test subject. where do I sign-up? That said - given the cost of living here in CA, I would assume that in the eventuality of becoming unemployed for an extended period of time, I couldn't support myself with the basic income only and would need to look into moving to some less expensive areas. In fact, this is what was suggested in some discussion ( couldn't find a link ) I remember reading relative to Finnish basic income experiment cited in some posts here. E.g. unless basic income would vary based on cost of living in your region, it would effectively result as people relying solely on it having to abandon living in more expensive cities and areas. Which seemingly is a notion few politicians would want to put forward when introducing basic income. But when you introduce regional differences in level of income, you open a can of worms that seemingly leads to all kinds of potential abuse, managing which then prevents dismantling of bureaucracy that was the whole idea to begin with.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#812

Post by ldd »

derefr wrote: post #764
tptacek wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about that, and about the story of Ferguson Missouri, where some huge portion of the (largely African American) population had arrest warrants over petty fines that had blossomed through late fees and default judgements into financial catastrophes levied by the (largely middle class white) municipal government, with the last few suggestions.

Instead of Universal Basic Income, how about Universal Basic Food Stamps? It feels like, rather than a basic income, we need two orthogonal currencies: one for necessities (food, rent, utilities) and one for niceities. Everyone would just have two numbers in their bank account, for each of the country's two official currencies. Basic income would be paid in one, while all income from trade in the economy would be in…

For anyone interested in why this would not work (coming from someone in the left) please see the "MUC dollar" used by a Peruvian president in the 70s[1](https://books.google.ca/books?id=8M6ueEbn3GUC&pg=PA343&lpg=P...)

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#813

Post by irishcoffee »

ddod wrote: post #791
irishcoffee wrote: post #778

So, I'm sure this will get buried, but in the hopeful event of responses: How does this prevent people from spending up to their means? People who make 20k, spend to their means. People who make 50k, spend to their means. People who make 100k, spend to their means. People who make 452k, spend to their means. This is a sincere, non-snark question: people spend to their means. It's similar to packing a bag, a person ha…

UBI isn't supposed to fix the problem of money mismanagement. If everyone was spending up to their means, that would be a success because the economy would be flourishing. If they were putting that money into savings, the experiment would be a failure. UBI is designed to solve for the future economy where human labor's value diminishes. In 20 years your brother's welding job may still be paying but whatever job you (…

My brother _is_ most of our economy.

This was my whole point.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#814

Post by nl »

IanDrake wrote: post #360

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…

Right. All of this is true.

But the point of a Basic Income is that it substitutes for other forms of income support/welfare.

That's supposed to increase the incentive to work, because many forms of welfare are income dependent. For example, we often hear reports of parents who refuse to work because they'll lose some or all welfare payments and their wages will be net worse off.

If everyone gets the basic income, then maybe this effect can be overcome. There's some reason to think this could be true - the marginal benefit of $1 extra at low income levels is much more than at higher levels.

It's worth noting that many conservatives support a basic income because of this, and because the system will be much less complicated and reduce the number of government programs.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#815

Post by alexmat »

taurath wrote: post #724
alexmat wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this a problem? It incentivizes breeding. The more resources are freely available the more our population will grow until we reach equilibrium. Although we usually overshoot and end up with a Malthusian outcome. "Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to a virtuous attachment is so strong, that there is a constant effort towards an increase of population. This constant effort as…

Here is a graph that says thats wrong: http://www.udel.edu/johnmack/apec324/excel_lab1/xy_plot1.png As people get more resources, they tend to have FEWER children than those with little resources.

We don't know what effect basic income would have on GDP, only that it would affect distribution of wealth.

Income equality might rise while GDP falls in a re-distributive system. High GDP does not imply high income equality. That graph is misleading in this context.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#816

Post by nl »

There are many good suggestions around how to increase prosperity so far.

Could I make point related to the proposal?

In order for it to be accepted, I think it would be very useful if people could understand the modelling. Obviously this is difficult because economic modelling is pretty hard.

However, a good first step would be to make the model open - and preferably hosted on some kind of notebook-style platform so anyone can change the assumptions are try it.

I'd note that the Fed Reserve's economic models are open[1][2] and frequently updated, so there is some precedent for this.

[1] http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/frbus/us-models-pa...

[2] http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/2005/835/revision/if...

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#817

Post by rorykoehler »

matchagaucho wrote: post #751

Abraham Maslow addressed the psychology of basic needs in the 1940's. http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html The fear drive for basic needs is an innate motivational quality in humans that should not be artificially taken away. Only upon overcoming the fear of basic needs can a human evolve and pursue more enriching needs.

You tell that to all the trust fund kids who go on to build global businesses? You're way off. Fear is a disabler. Many peer reviewed studies prove this.

Stolen from another comment on this page: >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 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 cognitive tasks at hand." Financial stress impedes human thinking / problem solving. People get consumed by the short term challenges in front of them, and can’t see the big picture. Sources: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976 http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/good-thinking/201309/why...

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#819

Post by rorykoehler »

honksillet wrote: post #218
simonh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cost of a lot of basic goods and services would fall. Employers would only need to offer relatively modest wages because the marginal value of those wages would be so much higher. This could drive down labour costs without driving down net pay for low wage workers. Basically a worker on $1,000/Mo now might be on $600/mo basic income and $600 wage after (fantasy numbers). This could make low wage workers m…

This is exactly wrong. The cost basic goods would increase. Basic Income would immediately have an inflationary effect as the money supply for these good would be expanded drastically. The Employer would not see as much benefit as you'd think as presumably he would be amongst the class of people/entities (including the middle class, upper class, and corporation) which would be paying for this indirectly in the form o…

3D printing and market forces will take care of raised prices. Cost of production are going down. If company X decides to sell for 100% increase company Y will see an opportunity to undercut and we will continue with our race to the bottom. If no one offers value a new company Z will enter the market and provide it or people will just start manufacturing/growing it at home.

Inflation only occurs with increased supply of new money into the system so whether or not there is inflation depends entirely where the money to pay for BI comes from.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#820

Post by cma »

larsiusprime wrote: post #167
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…

Georgism is another option to tackle the housing issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Martin Luther King, Jr. touches on Georgism a bit in this writing shortly before his death: http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/King_Where.htm
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