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Moving Forward on Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#211

Post by jackpirate »

DawkinsGawd wrote: post #180
gshulegaard wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really isn't a good riddle. First, Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCT) work better than most people expect ( http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-... ). As noted in the article, UCTs work surprisingly well in scenarios where lack of capital is the primary problem. A UBI (at least as usually is discussed in the US) is a de-scaling UCT. Second, most proponents of a UBI see it as more efficien…

You completely side stepped the question. I find it absolutely amazing how naive BI supporters are. I grew up poor in a ghetto in New York. Studied, went to university, became an engineer and am no longer in that socioeconomic bracket. However it is very apparent that the people in my current bracket (the one's that support BI), have no idea about the issues of the poor. Poor people are mostly poor because of the dec…

> ... mental illness ...

This is hardly a "decision somebody made".

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#212

Post by kilroy123 »

prokes wrote: post #105

Can anyone explain how this can be implemented mathematically? Assume 300 million people @ $12k / year, you are spending $3.6 trillion. That is already more than current government revenue, leaving all current government services unfunded.

Pretty sure the number is significantly smaller than that. Children under the age of 18 wouldn't get money. People in prison likely wouldn't get money. I'm sure there would be other reasons to decline some people. Such as mentally disabled. (maybe parents or care giver would receive more?)

So it would probably be around 200,000,000 - 250,000,000.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#213

Post by EGreg »

People wonder "where is the money going to come from?" On a national level it could be newly issued fiat currency, which silences the "it's theft!" argument but then raises the crucial question: what about inflation?

Well, there are two issues here:

1) If the people are freed up to learn or take jobs (I wish minimum wage would be abolished in any jurisdiction that UBI is given out) then more dollars would be chasing more goods and services, so no inflation.

2) However, if there will be more money chasing the SAME number of goods and services, we would have to remove the money from the system by taxing corporations. And this is, in fact, something that raises questions of liberty (of corporations). Corporations can choose where to operate and they often choose tax havens.

What we should really be doing is recognizing the incredible changes that are coming because of AI and its effects on automation in the next 20-30 years. Demand for human labor will fall and experience massive shocks. Wealth creation will increasingly be done by ROBOTS.

This is a GOOD THING as it breaks countries' historic dependency on social security schemes working from having more and more children pay for the elderly. That leads to overpopulation and kicks the can down the road to the children.

Instead, we want to TAX THE MACHINES by somehow measuring the productivity gains from laying people off. Not enough to disincentivize R&D but enough to scale with the UBI and remove money from the system. The machines don't really need to keep ALL the money and the argument that "taxation is theft" starts to sound silly when you are taxing profits of corporations run largely by machines.

The other way, of course, is to redistribute the money to shareholders in the public stock market via dividends. This has been the "socialism" we've had so far in this country.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#214

Post by imgabe »

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…

For people with an income above the level where they can apply for assistance programs, what happens to them if they blow all their money? They're broke until their next paycheck. If they borrow too much and can't pay it off, they declare bankruptcy.

BI isn't a one-time payment. Presumably people would get checks every other week or every month like a paycheck. If they blow it all, worst case they will be stuck for a couple weeks. Not long enough for an eviction to go through or to starve to death. After being hungry for a couple weeks, they should figure out pretty quickly that they need to buy groceries before lottery tickets.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#215

Post by elizabeth-ycr »

xrange wrote: post #53

>If the pilot goes well, we plan to follow up with the main study. If the pilot doesn’t go well, we’ll consider different approaches. I'm excited that someone is taking the initiative to test the idea further. Any thoughts on how to tell if things "go well"? Is there a set of metrics that will published beforehand? Most of the claims I've heard about basic income tends to fall into the not-falsifiable camp. I am very…

We believe transparency is crucial to the integrity of the research, and we’ll be sharing our research design and data analysis plan for the full study ahead of time. We will also share the data with other researchers. As for the success of the pilot, we’ll consider several metrics, including success of mechanics (payment, data collection mechanisms, etc.); whether the amount of money is sufficient to meet basic needs; and, through interviews with participants, whether the research design is likely to offer insight into how individuals would experience and respond to a basic income.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#216

Post by rtkwe »

haaen wrote: post #133

The YCR statement says: "We think everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs—no matter what, especially if there are enough resources to make it possible." Why give free money to people who are too lazy to work?

There are plenty of people who do work but still can't cover their basic needs reliably (minimum wage isn't nearly enough in big cities but cities still need the jobs that pay minimum wage) and then people who can't work (infirmity or lack of skills).

Why should money just accumulate at the top where it's marginal utility is vastly smaller than if it were in the hands of the bottom portion of our population?

Finally why should work be the measure of a person's worth to the point of denying basic survival if you don't?

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#217

Post by blowski »

dragonwriter wrote: post #190
eanzenberg wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tough shit" sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.

> "Tough shit" sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty. Seems to me that with a universal unconditional benefit that is sufficient for adequate support of both parents and children (which, incidentally, I don't see as likely in any early-phase UBI, though over time it would hopefully grow to that level), failure to provide adequate support for ch…

In my very limited experience of these matters, there is rarely a clear line between 'bad but acceptable parenting' and 'culpable neglect'. In the UK, a recent report suggested that child services spend so much of their time chasing the former, that the latter cases (which are much more serious) don't get the attention they need. As a result, children die in horrible circumstances.

So the question is a good one, and can't be answered with 'tough shit' quite that easily.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#218

Post by clavalle »

prodmerc wrote: post #189

This shit again. NO ONE has given me an answer to the question: what will happen when basic income inevitably raises the overall price of basic stuff because now "everyone can afford it"? It will be back to zero, people with basic income will not be able to afford both housing/bills and food. Moreover the ones without will be totally fucked. So, what gives? Run BI in a few small counties and call it a success? Gee wo…

>what will happen when basic income inevitably raises the overall price of basic stuff because now "everyone can afford it"?

That is the kind of question that experimentation like this sets out to answer.

There are a lot of theories. My personal theory is that, in general, stuff is not going to get more expensive because of basic income. Providers know that people have more money to spend but there is also still competition between providers.

There will be places where this generality fails, no doubt. Two areas that I'd be interested in looking at are businesses that require marginal employees to provide a small amount of value and cannot raise prices to cover the increased cost of enticing employees to work for them: fast food, for example. They may have to pay more or change what kind of employees they hire or they may even get to pay less since basic needs are accounted for. Who knows. That is why experimentation is needed.

My main concern, and you may be referring to it with your 'basic stuff' category, is what will happen to rents. Landlords know that people /need/ a place to live. I would not be surprised if there is a spike in rents because they hold more power over their consumers than, say, a fruitseller whom, if they raise prices to try and capture some of that extra cash sloshing around, might find their customers just buying a muffin or going to the movies or, really, anything else that is available in the overall market.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#219

Post by acgourley »

notahacker wrote: post #202
acgourley wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. The liberal would prefer to keep universal healthcare and food programs and put cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger. The liberatian would prefer to simply move the complex paternalistic safety net into a simpler cash payment which doesn't disincentivize work while not increasing it's size. As an aside, if you pay attent…

The two types of people might squelch their vocalization when writing arguments in support of the BI. But both would vote in favour of the status quo against the other side's proposal if given the opportunity: liberals don't want a meagre BI to replace most of the welfare state and most existing low income tax credits and libertarians certainly don't want high taxes to pay for a generous BI in addition to most existi…

It's a serious problem, no doubt. I would still probably vote for a meager BI because I feel it's easier to turn the knob up later than it is to get everything done at once.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#220

Post by tlb »

DawkinsGawd wrote: post #180
gshulegaard wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really isn't a good riddle. First, Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCT) work better than most people expect ( http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-... ). As noted in the article, UCTs work surprisingly well in scenarios where lack of capital is the primary problem. A UBI (at least as usually is discussed in the US) is a de-scaling UCT. Second, most proponents of a UBI see it as more efficien…

You completely side stepped the question. I find it absolutely amazing how naive BI supporters are. I grew up poor in a ghetto in New York. Studied, went to university, became an engineer and am no longer in that socioeconomic bracket. However it is very apparent that the people in my current bracket (the one's that support BI), have no idea about the issues of the poor. Poor people are mostly poor because of the dec…

Some of that is due to the traditional monthly nature of payments and expenses, which is beyond some people's planning horizon. How do you think it would change if everything (both BI deposit and rent payment) were weekly, or even daily?
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