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Request For Research: Basic Income

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Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#871
post #213

"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…

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 am not sure if i have anything more intelligent to add, but i will post some of my experience for being poor, I guess most here dont have such experience in their life.

First I would say It is not only "critical", I argue it "IS" the problem of basic income.

For those who has been crying out about property pricing in your area, you should take a look in Hong Kong. The most ridiculously expensive location on earth.

http://www.scmp.com/property/article/1905261/hong-kong-most-...

A lot of people here are going on about Health Care, and Education System. But to me, those are different part of the equation. Do you ever see poor people buy insurance for health care or get a book to read to "enrich" themselves? Poor People only cares about a few things, whether they have enough money left this month, How long will these savings last them to pay for food and rent.

There are 3 things that is what I think should be needs of basic income, Clothes, Food, Housing.

Clothes are commodities these days, you can get all the clothes you need for a tiny amount of money. As long as you dont care about fashion. What needs to be done here is clothing for extreme weather, namely Cold weather.

Food, at one point in my life i spend average less then $2 USD per day on food. For nearly 12 months. People here claiming their Basic Income should cover their meal for McDonald or other outgoing dinning. ( May be in US only ) But that is not the point, real poor would care about savings. You can buy your food in bulk for extremely cheap prices, pasta or spaghetti, then get some Hams or Vegetable. As long as you go to supermarket and watch your pennies, there is no reason why you cant feed yourself for less then a Fiver a day. You just have to cook it yourself. Nutrients being another problem on $2, you should get by ok with $5.

Even without such thing as basic income, it is not hard to see as long as you get a Job today, as a hard working labor intensive job or part time, you can can enough for clothes and food and not worry about starving to deaths.

The problem then, lies down to Housing. Renting leaves you with the feeling you may get kicked out any day, and you will spend hopeless amount of hours trying to find a place that fits your budget. I suggest anyone who has never been through living on the streets to watch the "Pursuit of Happiness" by Will Smith. Although most people would had an different ending then the movie. Rent also cost you the largest percentage amount of your income. Where you can save a lot on Clothing and Food, there is no such thing as saving on Rent. Food and Clothes as commodities, it happens the most expensive out of the three is not a commodities but instead an Monopoly.

For Example what is the point of having $1000 basic income when $800 of it goes to Rent? And rental prices is being driven up by lots of factors.

Therefore as long as Housing market remains an investment asset, susceptible of being driven up by insane amount. ( Think about Rent in 2008 and now ), it will remain an unsolvable problem no matter how you price the Basic Income. Germany and some other European countries has rule to protect tenants from rent price hike. Some even take % of Housing Market profit as tax on top of the tax in place.

Government needs to provide basic housing, small even 15-20 meter square will do, with basic such as hot water, electricity and Internet ( Soon to be a basic need ), at rate that relate to their basic income percentage. And a promise they wont be kicked out unless they do things silly.

And if all these are too government related, we need technology to built public housing cheaply, and efficiently in short space of time. And open up the cost structure to let people know they are not being ripped off. Property market is an monopoly that derails much of our society.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#872
post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "basic income" divorced from free markets, see the Soviet Union, East Germany, Red China, Cuba, Cambodia, and more recently Venezuela. 1. There was no universal basic income in any of these places. 2. The proposal discussed here does not say anything about abolishing free markets. 3. Proof by analogy is fraud.

The 6th five-year plan of the Soviet Union had as one of its central aims a wage reform to guarantee a minimum income and simultaneously reduce hours required to be worked. Khrushchev held reduced working hours as a basic goal of the communist movement, which is entirely aligned with the vision of Karl Marx: to each according to his needs, regardless of ability or work. The notion that one's income ought to be guaran…

Increased wages and reduced working hours apply to workers, not to everybody. The USSR was very much focused on work; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_...

Creating bullshit jobs to ensure full employment and forcing people to work in them is pretty much the opposite of what a UBI is all about.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#873
> Do people sit around and play video games, or do they create new things? Are people happy and fulfilled?

The answer to this question is influenced by so many environmental factors that it would be difficult to do one study and arrive at a repeatable answer. Communities, countries, cultures, weather, and so many other things are at play.

We already know that education and training produce self sufficient people. If startups want to to give back, they should start with something they know and incorporate more training programs into the workplace. Develop growth cycles, from beginner to professional, and build a culture of renewal and community that makes people want to stick around.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#874
From an economic point of view. How would you provide Basic income for everyone while at the same time eliminating the "wage price spiral" effect of normal goods such as milk and bread. I am not an economist but I would be curious.

Another point would be who gets to decide what a basic income is. Why stop at basic income. One thing that always troubles me able minimal wage discussions is why start minimum wage as say $15 dollars an hour. Why not $100. I actually believe that if we eliminated the minimum wage altogether the wages for various jobs would be able to find a better equilibrium then setting a artificial minimum. The argument the employers would reduce wages to $0.50 and the like would not happen because everyone would quit.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#875

Let me bring front and center something that has gotten a surprisingly (to me) small portion of this discussion: ENABLE MORE REMOTE WORK. Why am I living in a high cost area? Because this is where the jobs are. Why are costs high? Because thousands of other engineers essentially _need_ to do the same thing. So to answer Sam's original question with another question, in addition to merely making this a one sided "busi…

From my experience working with remote workers, problems tend to be bucketed under "loss of context". The remote worker misses so many ad-hoc (e.g. lunch with a colleague) workplace conversations that they end up knowing less about what is going on. Time zone differences further complicate thing (misalignment of working hours). Secondly, and something perhaps tech could solve, is difficulty of working on problems tog…

Working in actual VR would do it.

Sort of like have an 'office' room of standard size and layout (no one deviates on the placement of furniture; decorations and quality might change).

The slip on some immersive 3D thing and have an actual avatar that's mapped to the worker's actions. This includes drawing on the virtual white board. It probably also includes a decent face-rig and several other non-verbal communications.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#876
post #380
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just ban education based discrimination I am not sure I understand this. If you are going to a doctor, you would want to make sure she is qualified, isn't it? And the only way (currently at least) to make sure is that degree that proves she knows what she is doing. Of course this doesn't apply to all professions.

There is still a path to become a practicing lawyer without going to law school. You need to pass a test and become certified, but going to school is only necessary for the pedigree. Arguably the simplest solution is to remove undergrad degree requirements from med / law school. In terms of education there are two options. Ban mentioning degrees only credentials, or ban mentioning school names which deflates the ivy…

Interesting, one of the top tier schools in my area has a little trick: they give you a ring. The idea being you wear the ring to interviews, so that they know you're from the school. Of course, if they looked at your application form they would know your school, but for other areas where they cannot ask for your school this gets around that. I personally find that very elitest but people will go to lengths to make their reputation known (they ban wearing school uniforms, but rings are exempt for example_

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#877
post #55
post #17

I wonder what basic income would do to cost of living? If everyone ends up with x amount of guaranteed income, does the cost of living eventually rise by the same amount across the board and basically negate it? It seems like rent-seeking behavior would come in to play here.

Inflation is the obvious issue here IMO. If basic income is X, then X really just becomes the new zero. We either need to provide products themselves (free food, housing, healthcare) or somehow lock the price of those things. I suspect both of those tactics will have identical challenges in terms of implementation though.

I continue to believe that the best way of 'locking' a price is to ensure that the market remains with the correct supply to buyer ratio.

As an example: to decrease the cost of rent in a city, an increase in rent-able locations and attached commercial business and non-retail jobs need to be in those locations.

This is also related to suggestions that say controlling medical care could be achieved by allowing more agents at all (doctors or not) to be able to treat obvious conditions. I agree that in the short term the suggestion would be viable, were it not for regulations; however I think that artificial diagnosis neural networks will probably achieve adoption before the regulations catch up.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#878
post #764

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…

The dual currency is how it works in Cuba- one currency for locals that buys mostly food, and another for imports, which is mostly "luxuries".

Needless to say, it distorts all kinds of incentives and the black market thrives anyway.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#880
post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The dual currency is how it works in Cuba- one currency for locals that buys mostly food, and another for imports, which is mostly "luxuries". Needless to say, it distorts all kinds of incentives and the black market thrives anyway.

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