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The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

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Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#71

Post by brbsix »

beat wrote: post #9
jupiterrising wrote: post #5

[deleted]

"Breeding for welfare" is a myth. Children are a major economic burden, even with welfare subsidies. That said, there's no reason offhand to provide basic income to minors. Parents can choose to have as many children as they want, at their own expense. One of the key advantages of basic income is getting rid of the complexities and irregularities of the current welfare model. Subsidies for children are one of those c…

I think the bigger issue is that women are having children that they would otherwise not be able to afford. We know that people respond to incentives. Between free healthcare, WIC credit, free or low cost child care, public education, and more, there's massive subsidization.

UBI still permits people to have children that they'd otherwise be unable to afford, but at least the absence of other sibsidies will force individuals to decide how they'd like to budget that income, on children or otherwise.

Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#72

Post by dragonwriter »

golemotron wrote: post #60
throwaway2048 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point of UBI is to get rid of 19th century style notions of worthy and unworthy poor people, thats a huge part of the inefficency and waste of the current system.

> The entire point of UBI is to get rid of 19th century style notions of worthy and unworthy poor people, thats a huge part of the inefficency and waste of the current system. So noble. When people see others spending their money in ways that they wouldn't, do you really think notions of 'worthy' and 'unworthy' will go away? People are judgmental. History and current events show it to be a dependably consistent aspec…

> So noble. When people see others spending their money in ways that they wouldn't, do you really think notions of 'worthy' and 'unworthy' will go away?

Its not so much to make the notions "go away" from existence in society (which is a harder problem), but to make them "go away" from producing the inefficiencies the particular current reflections of them in public benefit programs and their administrative rules do in the application of government policy and expenditure of public resources.

Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#73

Post by [deleted] »

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #68
golemotron wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there's a deficit of meaning in people's lives, that's true.

The idea that addicts don't have meaning in their life is completely false. But, even if that were true, you'd have to think you are a pretty special snowflake to think that there are currently people that: a) have "a deficit of meaning" in their life (not sure where you come up with this stuff but keep it coming, I think it's great!) b) Once the stress of wage slavery is removed, they wouldn't spend time searching f…

[deleted]

Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#74

Post by humanrebar »

gshulegaard wrote: post #52
humanrebar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But with this belief more money being spent (consumption) makes for a stronger economy, for everyone, including those of us who are not in need of welfare. So what's your counter to the 'broken windows' objection? It's pertinent in this case because we're talking not about broken windows but broken (addicted, depressed, isolated) people.

That's a rather complicated question, but in general I think a lot of people tend to believe in a greater broken windows effect than actually manifests in practice...from the Economist article: > Mr Anoche’s first move on getting his windfall was to buy a new roof. Not only is thatch leaky, but it also needs to be replaced twice a year, at $40 a time. He spent half the money on his home, and half on timber and chicke…

I'm not opposed to UCT. I was wondering whether demand-side spending-for-spendings sake is a good argument here.

Efficacy of UCT compared to CCT is a different (empirical) argument that I'd definitely like to see continued research on.

Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#75

Post by ThomPete »

beat wrote: post #57
ThomPete wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fast food vendors are already now starting to look for ways to automate as they continue to push the prices down on their products. Prices that needs to keep going down in order for them to 1) survive the competition, 2) deliver affordable food from the majority of their customers who are making less and less money.

"Now starting"? Fast food vendors have been automating since fast food was invented. And now, the industry is bigger than ever.

I mean to replace the people who actually service you.

Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#76

Post by ThomPete »

notahacker wrote: post #54
ThomPete wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fast food vendors are already now starting to look for ways to automate as they continue to push the prices down on their products. Prices that needs to keep going down in order for them to 1) survive the competition, 2) deliver affordable food from the majority of their customers who are making less and less money.

The Automat has been around since before most of the fast food chains, yet half a century of continuous innovation in process optimization has continued to conclude that paying a bunch of people to mostly stand behind counters exchanging cooked food for cash is worth the money. And unlike the average service industry employee the fast food worker isn't even expected to be a particularly good generalist, is mocked for…

This is changing which is exactly why you have the whole discussion about minimum wage.

It basically affect how employers can make money and it will be the very reason why you would se an even bigger move towards automation of the actual service.

You keep using history as if it's any indication of the future even though the very underlying premise why have been how they have historically is changing.

It's ok you don't want accept this but that doesn't mean it's not happening. Anyone who sits u little further up than the people who work on the floor will tell you that there are in fact plenty of plans to reduce the work force to be able to keep competing by keep making it cheaper.

Ignoring that problem won't make it go away.

Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#77

Post by dragonwriter »

notahacker wrote: post #38
ThomPete wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of evidence that this is how things are moving. What most people get wrong about a job is that they confuse the human doing them with the job they human is doing. Most if not all jobs only require you to be a subset of a human to actually be useful. And so there is a general misconception that computers would need a general intelligence to take over a job when in fact most of the jobs we do require onl…

There was a lot of evidence that this was how things were moving a century ago, but the predictions made at the time look more than a little bit wrong. Not only have the sons of the increasingly obsolete production line employees mostly found jobs, but so have their daughters! Trouble with breaking down jobs into smaller subsets is that you need an awful lot of robots, and suddenly the rental on those doesn't look an…

> There was a lot of evidence that this was how things were moving a century ago, but the predictions made at the time look more than a little bit wrong. Not only have the sons of the increasingly obsolete production line employees mostly found jobs, but so have their daughters!

No, actually, a century ago there was reason to think things would head that way at some time in the future; now, there is evidence that it is actually happening. Real average hourly wages of production and nonsupervisory private-sector employees peaked in January 1973, and for the manufacturing sector in January 1978. Sure, there's still jobs, but more of the value they produce is going into providers of the capital necessary to do them than the labor, as labor is marginalized.

Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#78

Post by notahacker »

ThomPete wrote: post #76
notahacker wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Automat has been around since before most of the fast food chains, yet half a century of continuous innovation in process optimization has continued to conclude that paying a bunch of people to mostly stand behind counters exchanging cooked food for cash is worth the money. And unlike the average service industry employee the fast food worker isn't even expected to be a particularly good generalist, is mocked for…

This is changing which is exactly why you have the whole discussion about minimum wage. It basically affect how employers can make money and it will be the very reason why you would se an even bigger move towards automation of the actual service. You keep using history as if it's any indication of the future even though the very underlying premise why have been how they have historically is changing. It's ok you don'…

Fast food restaurants with no human servers existed decades ago, but the Automats were actually killed off by the more profitable franchise outlets that used people rather than technology. And there's nothing remotely new about the fast food industry's investment in process optimization, or indeed their lobbying against minimum wages

"This time it'll be different" is never a good argument, especially not when deployed with condescension in lieu of evidence.

Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#79

Post by ThomPete »

notahacker wrote: post #78
ThomPete wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is changing which is exactly why you have the whole discussion about minimum wage. It basically affect how employers can make money and it will be the very reason why you would se an even bigger move towards automation of the actual service. You keep using history as if it's any indication of the future even though the very underlying premise why have been how they have historically is changing. It's ok you don'…

Fast food restaurants with no human servers existed decades ago, but the Automats were actually killed off by the more profitable franchise outlets that used people rather than technology. And there's nothing remotely new about the fast food industry's investment in process optimization, or indeed their lobbying against minimum wages "This time it'll be different" is never a good argument, especially not when deploye…

You are missing the key point here.

The chains have no other way to go than to reduce the cost of their staff.

It's not a this time it will be different argument it's this is the only way they can survive in the market argument.

Re: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

#80

Post by ThomPete »

notahacker wrote: post #38
ThomPete wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of evidence that this is how things are moving. What most people get wrong about a job is that they confuse the human doing them with the job they human is doing. Most if not all jobs only require you to be a subset of a human to actually be useful. And so there is a general misconception that computers would need a general intelligence to take over a job when in fact most of the jobs we do require onl…

There was a lot of evidence that this was how things were moving a century ago, but the predictions made at the time look more than a little bit wrong. Not only have the sons of the increasingly obsolete production line employees mostly found jobs, but so have their daughters! Trouble with breaking down jobs into smaller subsets is that you need an awful lot of robots, and suddenly the rental on those doesn't look an…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11631418
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