Moving Forward on Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#451

Post by spott » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

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…

How do we deal with this now? If you have a job, and you spend all your money before you pay your rent, how do we help those people out? I'm not aware of any government institutions that will pay your rent for you. If you spend all the money you have on food, I suppose you can get food stamps, but most likely you go to a soup kitchen.

I guess I'm wondering if there is any data on how many people "blow all their money and now can't afford rent and/or food", and how we help them now.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#452

Post by Arainach » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #193

thoth wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flat-out blows all their money and now can't afford rent and/or food? Well for starters I'd imagine a future BI system to handle something like rent via direct transfer to the landlord. Food handled the same way, some prepaid debit card that only works at grocery stores, etc. I don't envision a system where people pick up a stack of 20's with a post-it note on it that says "remember to pay your rent".

> Well for starters I'd imagine a future BI system to handle something like rent via direct transfer to the landlord. Food handled the same way, some prepaid debit card that only works at grocery stores, etc. In other words, exactly what I said originally. You'd be recreating the administrative overhead BI is intended to eliminate (section 8 for housing, food stamps for food).

BI isn't necessarily intended to eliminate overhead. It's intended to acknowledge that we're rapidly approaching an economy where there aren't jobs for everyone (thanks to automation and a number of other factors that have been discussed) and to aid the transition to that point.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#453

Post by ElijahLynn » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:30 PM UTC

manmal wrote: post #447

I wanted to write a comment a la "Who is going to work at Starbucks if they don't need to earn their rent" - but then I realized that those jobs might go away very soon. And what then? I don't want to live in a world with 70% of the population losing a large portion of their growth potential (bc of unaffordable education, healthcare, even housing).

Yup, "One reason we think it may work is that technological improvements should generate an abundance of resources."

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#454

Post by lukeschlather » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

powera wrote: post #70

moheeb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the figures I have seen have pointed to large increases in food prices. Where are they getting their figures that food prices have dropped?

Where are you getting figures that food prices have increased as a percentage of total income? I've only seen that they've decreased, and GP post gave a link supporting his position.

It's macro vs. micro. Over the past 50 years food prices have fallen, but since the great recession they've risen considerably (though still nowhere near what they were 50 years ago.)

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#455

Post by aminok » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:33 PM UTC

There is nothing compassionate about authoritarian income redistribution.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#456

Post by mac01021 » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

czzarr wrote: post #181

What I don't understand with BI is this: if you give everyone the same amount of money, won't prices and rents adjust accordingly by exactly that amount, thereby nulling the effect ?

1> Proposals for the institution of BI as a public policy do not create money out of thin air, they redistribute it from wealthier individuals to poorer ones. (So if you earn $2million per year, you might pay about 1million in taxes and then get back 10thousand in BI. If you don't work, you pay no taxes and get 10thousand in BI.)

2> This YCombinator experimental program is not a fully implemented BI system. They will be selecting low income individuals and paying them a regular no-strings-attached income to see how it affects their lives/behavior. Other people in Oakland who do not receive these payments will probably bear a cost due to inflation as more money ends up in Oakland.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#457

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #311

zappo2938 wrote: post #46

I grew up with basic income. In high school my parents gave me $25 a week. If I wanted a new bicycle or expensive sneakers I had to work. At the time $25 covered going to the movies on a Friday or $7 grand stand seats at Fenway. Maybe we should look at how teenagers manage allowances.

I don't think that's a good test case because allowances don't have to go to things like basic necessities so leisure and nonessentials get all the money and there are a lot of constraints on what a teenager can do. They're bound to their home and have limited free time to do other things.

[deleted]

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#458

Post by vidarh » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

acgourley wrote: post #123

colinplamondon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help. That's where family and charity hopefully take over. At the same time, I think your instinct is right, and it's something I've never heard mentioned before. It's almost inevitably that there'll then be the "food security" fund, and the "housing gua…

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…

As a left libertarian I fall firmly in the camp you call "liberal", for the reason that provisioning about universal healthcare is not just about cost, but about liberty.

If one sees protection of life as a moral imperative - because without life there can't be any liberty - then allowing someone to purchase priority over those who need healthcare most is already morally dicey; allowing them to do so without ensuring there is a well funded alternative a big problem (and no, doctors etc. are not an infinite supply that just grows to handle an increased demand).

To me, the right libertarian property centric view does not maximise liberty because it guarantees a resource distribution that deprives a lot of people of essential means. BI could help somewhat with that, but it would likely always be a bandaid - the bare minimum that keeps people quiet.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#459

Post by usrusr » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

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 private sector will be more than eager to supply assistance in converting BI to a reliable stream of minimal food+shelter for those who can't trust themselves to do it on their own.

Protecting troubled individuals from all too nasty excesses of a debtor's prison renaissance emerging from the combined forces of payday loan and prison industries will be quite a challenge. Best solved maybe by forming lesser evil versions of the same.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#460

Post by PeterisP » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

Strilanc wrote: post #167

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…

Delivering the money in small chunks might help. Instead of 70$ every week, make it 5$ twice a day. So no matter how broke you were yesterday, you'll have enough money to eat in a few hours. Another "make it easy to get food even if you really screwed up" option might be to give grocery stores 'first dibs' on the money. Basically, let people spend the money a couple days in advance if they do it at a grocery store. A…

Solving this debt is not that tricky, it has known legal solutions - e.g. when you have a court order to collect debts from you, where your wages are garnished, it has a floor limit of monthly income that's untouchable and that monthly amount will be available on your bank account no matter what, and there are no legal ways to recover that from you. Threatening to break your legs may work, but that can be handled by the police.

Set this floor equal to BI, and that's it. On the other hand, it will mean that payday lenders will likely not lend to you at all if you have no other income, since you can easily never ever pay them back with impunity; but that might be considered a good thing - people won't get stuck with predatory loans en masse because they won't be given them.