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Moving Forward on Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#81

Post by thecrow1213 »

xienze wrote: post #60

So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…

As a BI fan, this is a great question. While BI does simplify welfare distribution it does put more responsibility on the receiver. If we wanted to protect from misuse of funds we need a way to restrict how they spend their BI, like how food stamps work.

BI should be spent on life necessities while earned income should be disposable and/or go into savings.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#82

Post by kauffj »

acgourley wrote: post #62
kauffj wrote: post #34

Unfortunately, the explanation most consistent with data on happiness/satisfaction is that the primary utility gain from wealth is derived from gains in zero-sum social status. We can tell this even from the language of the post itself: "everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs." Basic needs? Everyone in America has their basic needs. Almost all of the _basic_ needs of a human, i.e. those that we r…

If what you are saying is that a large part of happiness is related to your distance to the mean wealth, wouldn't you say a society with a 'normal' wealth distribution is going to be on average happier than a society with a 'bimodal' distribution? The technologist view is that automation is taking us in an increasingly bimodal direction, and that BI can "raise the floor" to pinch the two humps closer together. That d…

Yes, generally speaking the flatter the income distribution the greater mean happiness. However, even setting aside moral concerns about methods (which are tremendous), it's not a given we even _want_ to optimize for mean happiness.

E.g. A society that possesses greater mean happiness may also possess more starvation, more work, or less robustness against future threats.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#83

Post by dluan »

xienze wrote: post #60

So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…

There's been a lot of research into this, particularly around the concept of savings as the big obstacle towards independence and freedom. The poorest people who struggle to achieve even a basic income (think participants in microcredit) face a difficult task of building enough savings to live past one catastrophic flood, one bad recession, one big purchase/investment (a new car that doesn't always break down vs. crappy money pit of repairs and bills).

IMO, research into developing savings capacity is arguably more important, and a much broader problem. But the wisdom of saving pennies is not a sexy idea. The people doing the most progressive work in this are orgs like Grameen.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#84

Post by dragonwriter »

tlholaday wrote: post #40

Are there any papers addressing the issue "basic income increases the returns to owners of scarce goods" issue? I don't know what the correct name is. Use case: A 250 square foot apartment in a building with twenty annual homicides rents for $350 per month before basic income. After basic income, the same apartment rents for $1350 per month, because the rent on all the apartments in safer buildings has gone up due to…

> Are there any papers addressing the issue "basic income increases the returns to owners of scarce goods" issue? I don't know what the correct name is.

The correct name is "inflation", the effect to which this is effect is present for suppliers of any particular good is measured by "price elasticity" -- both price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply play a role (in a real tax-funded BI, which is redistribution of returns, it is offset in part for many goods by the fact that increased money chasing the goods in one segment of the population is mirrored by reduced money chasing goods in another segment of the population.)

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#85

Post by malthaus »

I just put in my YES vote for the upcoming Swiss vote on the topic. It won't get through mainly due to it being a very high-level proposal with too many questions open and a rather weak supporter camp. They could have done a better job of presenting models on how the economy would change which makes the financing part work.

Nevertheless, depending on what the share of yes-votes is it might trigger further discussion here and in surrounding countries.

Unfortunately, i'd be surprised if it gets more than 35% yes votes.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#87

Post by stale2002 »

kauffj wrote: post #34

Unfortunately, the explanation most consistent with data on happiness/satisfaction is that the primary utility gain from wealth is derived from gains in zero-sum social status. We can tell this even from the language of the post itself: "everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs." Basic needs? Everyone in America has their basic needs. Almost all of the _basic_ needs of a human, i.e. those that we r…

If the whole game is zero sum, then thats great! The solution to a zero sum game is easy. Redistribute wealth from everyone so that everyone is equally happy.

There is no need to worry about innovation or discouraging people from working. Its zero sum, so we may as well go with the fair solution of 100% income redistribution and 100% basic income.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#88

Post by jklinger410 »

xienze wrote: post #60

So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…

>Do you tell them "tough shit, you've exhausted all your social safety nets"

At that point we would need to investigate to see if this failure is being caused by mental illness. Treatment would be much easier if our current homeless shelters could use their infrastructure to help people like this. They take your UBI check and give you a place to stay, treat you for drug addictions, etc etc.

Either that or you end up in jail, because making homelessness illegal would not be so immoral under a UBI system.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#89

Post by kefka »

xienze wrote: post #60

So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…

The idea for Basic Income was that people have a better idea of how they need to apply money then one-size-fits-some programs government makes. This is the same argument that a market economy is better than a command economy, precisely because there are too many hidden variables for a mega-organization to understand.

What happens now, if someone has a financial emergency in our current system? Well, you're just fucked. Unemployment doesn't start until 2-4 weeks after you've been laid off/fired, and that's assuming they didn't fight it. Medical bills just linger, whilst the bill harassers keep calling. Your car broke? Well, too bad.

At least with BI, if money was disbursed every 2 weeks, then the crisis would be averted partially by that. Unlike now, if your car dies, you lose your job, and then no way to get a job or pay for a car.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#90

Post by coldtea »

wtvanhest wrote: post #22

> Although basic income seems fiscally challenging today, in a world where technology replaces existing jobs and basic income becomes necessary, technological improvements should generate an abundance of resources and the cost of living should fall dramatically. I am 100% for this experiment. But the assumption that technology will replace basic jobs seems naive. Throughout human history, we have seen rapid and accel…

>I am 100% for this experiment. But the assumption that technology will replace basic jobs seems naive. Throughout human history, we have seen rapid and accelerating technology improvements.

Arguments from "but this is how it always have been" have a tendency to break down when significant societal/technological changes happen.

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