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Moving Forward on Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#361

Post by CWuestefeld »

dragonwriter wrote: post #231
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…

> You'll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. Actually, I think the two main groups are both libertarian, though there's a left-libertarian and a right-libertarian viewpoint, with the libertarians that aren't strongly left- or right- splitting between them. I personally prefer keeping the existing means-tested programs but counting UBI as income when considering eligibility, such that wit…

reserves

Perhaps we could keep those reserves in some kind of locked box, so that it can't be abused ;)

Seriously, I think that expecting the bureaucrats to keep their hands off any funds left sitting around is way too optimistic.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#362

Post by jamiequint »

ncallaway wrote: post #321
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 thing I'd like to see is government services that will optionally replace portions of your Basic Income. If you're having problems feeding yourself, I would like to see an opt-in program where you can receive food, in exchange for $X out of your BI. If you're having problems housing yourself, an opt-in program for housing in exchange for $Y out of your BI. The same options should be available for all the necessit…

The thing is that with Basic Income these no longer need to be Government Services, they can be private services if the government just guarantees private organizations opt-in access to a piece of the paycheck prior to its distribution.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#363

Post by gnaritas »

Shivetya wrote: post #132
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 problem with most BI solutions is they just want to hand out money but not change how its used and where. There is certainly sufficient technology to track and even restrict the usage of BI funds. So my idea is this, your restrictions on your BI lift as your income does to the point its just flat out money the ends up in your account. You could put forth some requirement that to receive BI you agree to have that…

> There is certainly sufficient technology to track and even restrict the usage of BI funds.

That's not BI, that's the opposite of BI. The whole point of BI is to remove all such qualifications to eliminate the bureaucracy overhead.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#364

Post by pekk »

greedo wrote: post #319
EGreg wrote: post #213

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…

"newly issued fiat currency" is theft. Forced inflation is theft from people with savings etc etc etc.

By this logic, anything that increases inflation is theft because anything that reduces savings is theft.

This is too broad a notion of theft.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#365

Post by shkkmo »

misja111 wrote: post #317

What amazes me in this discussion about BI is that most people don't seem to realize that systems similar to BI have already been tried in Europe, and that they didn't work. I come from the Netherlands, which has always had unemployment benefits. Nowadays you get those only if you meet a bunch of strict conditions but it hasn't always been so tough. In the early eighties, there were almost no checks whatsoever. The r…

Unemployment insurance is not BI. BI goes to everyone, Unemployment insurance only goes to people who aren't working legally.

Unemployment insurance reduces the incentive to work because it pays people to not work. It similarly incentivizes black market labor.

BI does not do that. It does (if we get replace minimum wage with basic income) allow people to do work that pays nothing or very little. However, I would see that as boosting overall economic productivity since it allows a wider range of job and thus helps offset the loss of jobs to increasing automation.

As far as the expense. I would advocate scaling BI up as we scale the minimum wage down, allowing us to grow the program as we can afford it while boosting the economy (and thus tax revenue) with lower labor costs.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#366

Post by newobj »

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…

This has got to be the most pathetic strawman argument I've seen on HN in a long time. "BI doesn't work because it can't perfectly protect the most pathological outliers"? Ok. Did anyone say it would solve this scenario? And I'm sorry, but what existing agency currently helps people back on their feet after their 12th car accident in the first place? I'm really struggling to see the unequivocal BI take-down you tried to set up with your "riddle me this" quip.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#367

Post by rtkwe »

simplify wrote: post #279
rtkwe wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you get into a whole mess of determining what's actually a company and what's a job and lose one of the (hopeful) benefits of BI which is allowing people to explore creative endeavors like the arts which aren't totally job based or allowing people to study for a better job without having to compromise and basic living standards.

Well it wouldn't be 100% subsidized, meaning that the company has to payout some money. With a subsidized payout, I imagine companies would hire even more people. And, even if someone gets away with not actually "working", there's a cap on the number of dollars the government subsidizes. As much as I like the idea of programming side projects by just relying on BI, I'm not sure how realistic that is; I think cost of…

You misunderstand me. My main point was that by making it a job subsidy you're limiting the benefits to jobs only where UBI would allow people to pursue non job endeavors like education or creative fields without being destitute. Not that some people could skirt the system by making a company just for themselves to get benefits.

> As much as I like the idea of programming side projects by just relying on BI, I'm not sure how realistic that is; I think cost of housing and food – both of which are increasing – needs to get much lower for that to be possible.

The point of UBI would that it would be set high enough to cover those costs. And if a particular location is expensive enough that it couldn't you'd have the freedom to move wherever it could to support you. Living in the mid-west is incredibly cheap compared to any big city or the coasts after all.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#368

Post by cbr »

misja111 wrote: post #317

What amazes me in this discussion about BI is that most people don't seem to realize that systems similar to BI have already been tried in Europe, and that they didn't work. I come from the Netherlands, which has always had unemployment benefits. Nowadays you get those only if you meet a bunch of strict conditions but it hasn't always been so tough. In the early eighties, there were almost no checks whatsoever. The r…

> worked for black money and collect the social benefit at the same time

This one doesn't apply to BI, since you get the same amount of BI money whether you work or not and regardless of how much you earn.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#369

Post by dragonwriter »

tlholaday wrote: post #313
dragonwriter wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 redi…

"Inflation" occurs when the money supply increases but the supply of things money can buy does not increase. If basic income is funded by taxation, then the money supply does not increase. Every dollar distributed to the set { A, B, C ... } is taxed away from the set { A, B, C ... }, so the purchasing power of the set is unchanged.

> "Inflation" occurs when the money supply increases but the supply of things money can buy does not increase.

There are two different uses of the term "inflation" in economics: one is simply an increase in the money supply ("monetary inflation"), the other is simply increase in nominal prices in either the market as a whole or some segment ("price inflation"); the latter is what is being discussed in the grandparent post. Monetary inflation is a potential cause of price inflation (though there are other potential causes, and other factors can result in monetary inflation without price inflation, so there is no necessary direct relationship.)

You seem to want to restrict "inflation" to mean "monetary inflation producing price inflation", which is narrower than either of the usual definitions.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#370

Post by sievebrain »

ewzimm wrote: post #111
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…

Additional safety nets would be needed. A transition wouldn't likely happen overnight. It would more likely be a gradual phasing out of old programs and a build-up of basic income as money is moved toward that program. At the same time, additional resources would need to be pushed into services to help people budget and manage their finances. A combination of traditional in-person financial counseling and software wo…

It would more likely be a gradual phasing out of old programs and a build-up of basic income as money is moved toward that program

Yes, this has been my conclusion.

I don't think a BI will ever happen. But I suspect/hope that in maybe a couple hundred years, we'll have something very similar to it under a different name ... probably still with some level of admin overhead to deal with the "poor people make bad decisions" issue that has been raised.

The welfare state has expanded massively over time just due to the increase in life expectancy and health care cost inflation. But if we assume that these things reach some sort of natural peak, then eventually as GDP grows and more taxes become available, a progressively more generous welfare state should be the natural outcome ... at least for governments that have got their debt levels under control.

Unfortunately the looming pension deficits mean it'll probably be a long time before we reach such a happy state. Our society is very obviously not rich enough to handle even the current levels of welfare (or put another way, our society misallocates resources). There is no realistic chance of a BI any time soon.

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