A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage • Hacker News Board

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#231

Post by ThomPete » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:26 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #46

ThomPete wrote: post #3

It's not just smarter it's the only possible solution out of the two. Many people wrongly discuss the premise of basic income in the context of whether it's a better solution for for the job market. I.e. as a better way to solve unemployment fluctuations which in this view are still going up. But the whole point about Basic Income is what we do about there being fewer and fewer jobs that pay a proper salary.

>But the whole point about Basic Income is what we do about there being fewer and fewer jobs that pay a proper salary. The fact that there are few jobs rebuilding America's crumbling infrastructure is due to a political choice, not some sort of inevitable outcome of a 'fair' and just market. Likewise, the fact that China makes most of the cheap things we buy at Walmart was thanks to a series of political choices (tra…

Well you are entitled to that opinion but I frankly don't see where you find the evidence that this is political.

Every country in the west wether socialist leaning or capitalist leaning is experiencing exactly the same problems.

Uber is affecting all countries the same way. Technology is disrupting even the nationstate and it's ability to control it politically.

And yes there are plenty of reasons why you couldn't bring back the jobs because even in China they are not really there anymore.

The Chinese are loosing jobs to the robots in ever expanding phase.

So yes you can get production back but it wont be coming with any jobs.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#232

Post by randyrand » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:27 PM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #93

kough wrote: post #29

> No one wants to hire them at a high minimum wage, especially when locals are readily available The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, to the point where it's no longer worth it to an employer to hire a low-output employee. I think we'd all agree that increasing employment is a good goal, but an increased minimum wage actually hinders progress on that front. As the m…

Wait, what? Employment is a net-negative, the denominator of economic productivity. If we have the same amount of material wealth, it's better to not work as hard to get it. "Increase employment" is targeting the wrong measure.

> "Increase employment" is targeting the wrong measure.

What is the correct measure? Sounds like you are arguing for wealth per capita or total wealth.

Even still, wealth per captia is (productivity) * (employment) / (population). Ignoring time.

So even if I agreed with you, more employment is still a good thing even under your 'correct' measure.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#233

Post by chadzawistowski » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:28 PM UTC

clarkmoody wrote: post #175

QuotedForTruth wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter argument is that human labor has an actual cost. That is the cost to keep a human alive and in some level of comfort. Government benefits of many different types have "artificially" lowered this cost. Where employees refuse to pay enough for a human to live on, the government picks up the slack. Raising the minimum wage may be "artificial," but its not the first control placed on some otherwise natural la…

Critical omission on your part: not everyone needs to live on this wage. Think about high school kids trying to get a summer job. They don't need to survive on this wage, they simply need something productive to do over the summer. Should my business be required to shell out $15/hr for a high school kid, when the value of his/her labor is way less than that?

42% of the American workforce makes $15/hr or less. http://fortune.com/2015/04/13/who-makes-15-per-hour/

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#234

Post by gozur88 » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:28 PM UTC

lisivka wrote: post #226

gozur88 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and what that means in practice is instead of making a little bit of money, people whose labor is worth less than some arbitrary amount can't get work at all. You can't mandate a minimum wage, because the true minimum is always zero.

Why we should care about these super low productivity jobs anyway?

Because there are people who depend on them. For spending money, if nothing else.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#235

Post by gknoy » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:28 PM UTC

yanilkr wrote: post #151

enraged_camel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>A Basic Income from Govt comes at a huge price of loss of individual liberty. If someone gives you free stuff, they will expect controls like where you are allowed to spend your money and time. No. The entire point of basic income is that it is unconditional . You get a check from the government at frequent intervals. Unlike food stamps, you can spend the money on whatever you want.

Do you think I can get the check in America and go and spend it outside America?

If we make it something available to _all_citizens_, I don't think the location where you live should matter -- just like paying taxes.

If you're a citizen of the US, and get an unconditional monthly check deposited from the gov't, I don't think I care whether you (my fellow citizen) decides to spend that money living in Los Angeles, or decides to travel to Vietnam and live cheaply. You pay income tax as a US citizen even if you live elsewhere, so I don't see how it's unfair to send you a check either.

That's _the point_ of UBI: you get it, and can do what you feel is best with it. If that means buying steak one night a month and ramen the rest, or pay your tuition, or pay for a gym membership, or sock it away in a bank account to fund your 15-year anniversary trip to Italy, I should not care.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#236

Post by home_boi » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:29 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #173

floppydisk wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing devil's advocate, what happens to businesses in the presence of an even higher regulatory and tax environment and what will the impact of increased taxes be on employment and business viability as well as the cost of living? For the sake of argument, think about businesses with razor thin margins like restaurants. In the presence of increased taxes, their margins significantly diminish, if not vanish, and it…

Most restaurants derive most of their cost from labor. With basic income in and minimum wage out, you can pay people much less than you had to before. Yes, you may pay more in taxes, but that's from profit after everything else has been taken care of. So if you end up with less total profit than before, it sucks, but your control over the situation is far more variable than if you had to simply suck it up and plan to…

It's the opposite. The utility of money decreases as the amount of money owned/earned goes up. $9/hr to a person without basic income is worth more than $9/hr to a person with basic income.

Now people need more money to gain the same utility as they could have previously gained without basic income.

Why would people wash dishes if they didn't need to pay the bills?

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#237

Post by a3n » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:29 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #82

a3n wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, And? Why is that artificial increase a problem. Every law on the books is an artificial act. I don't see many people wringing their hands over the mortgage interest deduction, another of those artificial changes to the economy.

And? It keeps people who want to work from working. People who would be willing to work at less than the minimum wage. Subsiding on government relief can lead to depression, loss of social status, load term mental illness. Not having a job is a very unhealthy thing for most people.

And the mortgage deduction makes a house a better investment, and so increases the price of buying and renting houses.

These are all tradeoffs that we decide to make.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#238

Post by yanilkr » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:29 PM UTC

clarkmoody wrote: post #196

yanilkr wrote: post #95

A Basic Income from Govt comes at a huge price of loss of individual liberty. If someone gives you free stuff, they will expect controls like where you are allowed to spend your money and time. This model of taking from the productive sources and rewarding everyone else will have to break at a certain point. how come you get rewarded for enjoying the gossip column and I spend extra effort doing something else which i…

The Basic Income is the terminal phase of a democracy, wherein people are rewarded simply for existing, extracting their subsistence from the productive forces in the economy. It is the final vote-buying mechanism of the political elite to create a permanent dependent underclass. Thanks to our democratically-installed public school system, liberty is a topic which cannot be discussed in polite company. Don't be disco…

Hacker news crowd are usually wealthy programmers who got very lucky in the nature's randomness. You have to be definitely smart to be a good programmer and the comments are usually very optimistic and ideal world scenarios.

The programmers who graduate to be good managers and fail couple of businesses really care about liberty. The best leaders I ever worked with cared so much about giving their productive people more liberty and they think like programmers. So there is hope after all ;-).

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#239

Post by dv_dt » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:30 PM UTC

lujim wrote: post #149

a3n wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, And? Why is that artificial increase a problem. Every law on the books is an artificial act. I don't see many people wringing their hands over the mortgage interest deduction, another of those artificial changes to the economy.

And borders are just imaginary lines. They are however a based around the underlying reality of geographical, cultural, and political factors. We could make a law that all airplanes must slow down to 50 miles per hour over crowed areas but that doesn't matter if most planes can't fly any slower than 120mph without falling out of the sky. Laws do have to take into account things like physics and economics. The latter…

Economics has no particular respect for human self-sufficiency. If businesses can operate with employees just above starvation wages then all sorts of technologically feasible efficiencies are skipped while human suffering is prolonged.

From a practical standpoint, it feels like for a time that capitalism seeking local-optima was perfectly ok in that the efficiencies gained were lifting society all around - and it still seems that way in the world at large.

However, in more mature economies it seems like a different discussion needs to be made because the business actions seem to be divergent from the interests of society - optimizing on the same financial metrics seems merely a shell game of keeping a larger share of the production -- to the point that there is little to no growth in value to most of society.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#240

Post by filoeleven » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:30 PM UTC

lujim wrote: post #178

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas universal income means that everyone in society can tell terrible bosses that they can take their shitty job and shove it, and still live with dignity, a greater dignity than having to work at the absolute minimum of pay, regardless of whether 51% of politicians choose to call it a "living wage."

I'm sure we have all had terrible bosses. I have probably had one of the worst bosses you could imagine. Quitting that job was one of the best days of my life. However it still isn't a persons birthright or written anywhere in the constitution that you have only have to work for people you like. If you want to avoid bad bosses you need to learn a skill that makes you highly sought after or be self employed.

Wouldn't a basic income tend to increase self-employment? It lowers the barrier to striking out on one's own, I would think, at least in fields like ours that don't cost a lot to spin up.