A Guaranteed Income for Every American • Hacker News Board

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#181

Post by rexpop » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:30 AM UTC

avz wrote: post #175

The way I understand the motivation behind UBI is that it is inspired by the notion that we have (mostly) automated production of goods and therefore human work has been (mostly) delegated to machines. It is therefore perfectly reasonable for people to receive UBI so they can purchase all the robot-produced goods. The reason I am skeptical of such a view is that production of goods is a tiny fraction of the work huma…

> Saying that humans should not need to work is like saying: This is it. We're done here. This is the world we want.

That's not what's being said. We're not done. This is not the world we want. We should be able to work on Alzheimer's, clean energy and climate change without worrying about where our next meal is coming from.

And, sure, many researches have salaries. But many potential researchers aren't employed, aren't trained, aren't educated. Think of the millions of folks whose passion for helping people, taking care of the planet or tinkering is getting sidelined while they work a cash register to save up for community college. Those people can use a basic income to find a better, more productive, more fulfilling and more useful position in life.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#182

Post by danjoc » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:30 AM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #94

danjoc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another source of money not included here. The Fed creates money from nothing. That has to go somewhere. On top of the usual inflationary dollar creation of the Fed, they were doing "Quantitative Easing" for years to the tune of about $85-100 Billion per month given to banks in exchange for known worthless mortgages. So a good quarter of that $3.9 trillion could have been covered just by some "Quantitative Ea…

I'm more sympathetic to innovative monetary policies than most people that have studied the topic, but the monetary base isn't a money tree and unfortunately virtually every claim you've made is false. The M2 growth figures are available and published by Fed sources. They're nowhere near enough to underwrite a basic income, even if none of that newly created credit was being directed towards useful economic activity…

>The M2 growth figures are available and published by Fed sources.

Sorry, typo. I meant M3.

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/US_Federal_Reserve_ceases_to_pu...

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#183

Post by leepowers » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:35 AM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #172

arbre wrote: post #73

Wouldn't the price of everything raise accordingly, so that you basically can't afford anything with the basic income?

Its a really difficult analysis. Take a food stuff. In theory the current price is the cross section of supply and demand (price equilibrium), your idea is that with BI we have just increased demand while supply remains unchanged naturally price equilibrium changes resulting in a price increase. However, with a growth in demand, the market should respond and supply should increase to meet the increased demand, thus r…

The Murray UBI plan is paid for in part by eliminating agricultural subsidies. So any stabilizing effect of these subsidies would go away. Would food producers keep their prices high, since each consumer has an extra 10k to spend? Or would prices collapse as growers, with no incentive to leave fields fallow, flood the market with cheaper food?

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#184

Post by youngButEager » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:35 AM UTC

In economics there is a saying: "There's no free lunch."

Basic Income gives people a free lunch.

What is the "opportunity cost" of that free lunch?

For those of you unfamiliar with "opportunity cost", here's an example:

- you have two passions at age 18: software and playing in rock bands. You want to become a professional in one of those fields. The rock band choice prevents you from being in a place long enough to be hired to write code. And vice versa.

- You choose to write code. Ten years later you are at the top of your game, age 32. You own a condo and are married and on an 'executive track' at the company you work for.

But had you chosen the 'rock band' career, who knows? Maybe you would have taken off and at age 32 have a string of hit records, millions of fans and million$ in wealth.

That's the 'opportunity cost' -- you cannot do both.

Okay back to Basic Income. A person receiving Basic Income could replace that income by working more. But they don't work more because, why should they?

The opportunity cost of Basic Income is that lost productivity in the economy, the lost output from that person. Who knows how large that economic benefit to society is, when it's replaced by "Basic Income for everyone."

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#185

Post by gizmo » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:37 AM UTC

mac01021 wrote: post #161

gizmo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is when you give the same subsidies to a healthy 22 year old who lives with his parents and a single mother of three, we're dealing with one of two situations: 1) the subsidies are sufficient for both groups to do OK. This is fine in theory, but taxes would have to go up by a lot to have the minimum take care of the needy with the largest expenses. The UBI would have to be closer to 25,000 USD. If it's poli…

I think you are probably right that a welfare system that does not consider the cost of dependents is likely misguided. And we're in agreement that properly raising three kids is a tremendous undertaking that demands either a whole bunch of money or almost all of your time. I take issue, though, with the idea that a family of 4 living on other people's money should spend so extravagantly. You do not need a car. You n…

At the present technological level tough choices have to be made to divide the scarce resources we have. In my view this necessitates means-testing and a conventional welfare state. A UBI only makes sense to me when there is so much wealth in society everybody can be gifted a subsistence income, without having to cut other necessities such as healthcare, infrastructure, and so on.

As for the example: Rural poverty is a huge problem, and not everybody can live in cities. Without a car you're stuck in the house because you can't leave your kids unattended. You need to drive miles just for groceries. People around you live in squalor and substance abuse is ubiquitous. Finding a sitter on short notice? Forget it. Move? With what money? Living on a tight budget is easy when you're young, healthy, educated, etc. In the real world poverty doesn't look like that. You can make a back of the envelope calculation where 10k a year is sufficient for a one parent family of four, but I don't think it holds up in the face of all the struggles poor people face.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#186

Post by wildmusings » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:38 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #164

I am all for Basic Income but the way the author wants to implement it would be a disaster. My mother is fully disabled and unable to work as a result of her stroke and she relies on Medicaid, Food Stamps and SSI to live. $13000 per person would be lower than what she gets right now and that's without considering the insurance issues. These changes would quite literally kill or leave homeless a large amount of Americ…

>If Basic Income is to work then it needs to be actually liveable and adjusted based upon the CoL in each area.

There's a good argument to be made for a larger sum for the disabled who cannot work. But I'd be extremely opposed to any regional adjustments. If individual cities and states want to supplement the UBI, then that's up to them, but people moving out of high-cost areas and into low-cost ones is part of the natural ebb and flow that keeps the cost of living reasonable. And can you imagine what a CoL adjusted UBI for San Francisco would look like? A massive ripoff of the rest of the country.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#187

Post by aianus » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:40 AM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #103

mac01021 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a single mother with 3 kids has to make do with $10,000 a year? Actually, under Murray's proposal, she has to make do with 10k per year plus whatever she can earn. If she's earning very, then she's probably doing all the childcare herself and her living costs are not much more than a single, childless woman. If she works full time, then her total income (earned and unearned) will be 30k at minimum. I'm not saying I…

The point is when you give the same subsidies to a healthy 22 year old who lives with his parents and a single mother of three, we're dealing with one of two situations: 1) the subsidies are sufficient for both groups to do OK. This is fine in theory, but taxes would have to go up by a lot to have the minimum take care of the needy with the largest expenses. The UBI would have to be closer to 25,000 USD. If it's poli…

Why should people be entitled to three children they can't afford rather than a beach bum lifestyle? If anything we should incentive the latter; at least it doesn't hurt anyone else.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#188

Post by avatarlite » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:41 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #164

I am all for Basic Income but the way the author wants to implement it would be a disaster. My mother is fully disabled and unable to work as a result of her stroke and she relies on Medicaid, Food Stamps and SSI to live. $13000 per person would be lower than what she gets right now and that's without considering the insurance issues. These changes would quite literally kill or leave homeless a large amount of Americ…

The article's author also wrote a book advocating a universal basic income, “In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State,” which was first published in 2006. In that book he allows that services for the disabled would need to be retained and could not be replaced with a UBI.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#189

Post by mac01021 » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:43 AM UTC

ericd wrote: post #180

mac01021 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to get rid of people under 21 by reducing the population from 320M to 300M, but I guess I should look and see what the actual numbers are.

"People under 21 years of age made up over a quarter of the U.S. population (27.1%)" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State... ) So the population over 21 is about 230M.

Hmm... That's a higher fraction than I expected. It could be much lower 20 years from now.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#190

Post by leepowers » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 12:50 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #164

I am all for Basic Income but the way the author wants to implement it would be a disaster. My mother is fully disabled and unable to work as a result of her stroke and she relies on Medicaid, Food Stamps and SSI to live. $13000 per person would be lower than what she gets right now and that's without considering the insurance issues. These changes would quite literally kill or leave homeless a large amount of Americ…

Under the Murray UBI plan recipients would be required to spend $3000 per year on health insurance. That would be your mother's replacement for Medicaid. However, that doesn't factor in co-pays, deductibles, balance-billing, and the myriad other costs of private insurance. A health care premium of $3000 is going to have a high deductible. My premium is close to $3000 a year, and my deductible is $5250. Under this plan a disabled person requiring frequent medical care would have $4750 to live off of, after health care costs. That's a whopping $395 per month.

UBI is not feasible absent a universal single-payer system. Health care is just too damn expensive to be paid for by the individual.