A Guaranteed Income for Every American • Hacker News Board

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#211

Post by danbruc » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:13 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #194

danbruc wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentioned that in another comment, there are certainly a lot of cases like your example where it makes no or not much sense to apply a minimum wage. I want the minimum wage to target specifically normal (full time) employment. An employer should not be able to pocket most of the money for say selling relatively expensive cloths but pay shitty wages to its sewers. You might argue that employees are free to negotiate…

I think that devolves into "I can hire Matt, the neighbor kid and pay him $5/hr, but I can't hire Matt Inc, the landscape company, because they aren't allowed to pay Matt [the neighbor kid] $5/hr" All of which perpetuates the cash/grey economy (and the off-shoring of garment-making jobs in your example). The thing about UBI is that it allows employees to turn down bad economic deals without starving. Sure, you can't…

But that seems not unreasonable on its own. Tipping a friend $20 because he helped carrying boxes when you moved as compared to hiring a professional mover for $20 seems like a valid difference to me. But you a right that this could maybe be turned into a good argument for an universal basic income because you may be able to sidestep some otherwise relatively difficult to solve gray area issues, but I am not sure, I haven't thought that through.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#212

Post by wildmusings » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:15 AM UTC

newjersey wrote: post #203

wildmusings wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My preferred approach for health insurance is to eliminate all of the regulations about what insurance plans must cover, and any other rules that prevent high-deductible catastrophic insurance from being available on the market. You could then buy a very cheap plan that covers everything once expenses exceed, say, 20k, and be responsible for everything before that out of your pocket. Then, unlike now, people would ac…

I can support letting the bottom fall out like this provided we had full single payer coverage for everyone. Any additional coverage can then be whatever you want with the only protection from law being protection from false advertising. I can also support removing the ama-fia's control on licenses but I'm afraid we'll just replace it with something similar when it comes to which providers are eligible to reimburseme…

My idea is that these catastrophic insurance plans would be affordable by anyone with their basic income. Debt financing could cover anything below the deductible, for the indigent. Getting such loans would also be easier because of the UBI. Again, people would be financially responsible for their own healthcare, which restores sane incentives, but it wouldn't be possible for it to financially destroy them. No need for a single payer system if this works as I envision it.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#213

Post by mac01021 » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:19 AM UTC

mac01021 wrote: post #165

chimeracoder wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In difficult times people stop spending money, even with UBI. This means less income to spread around, the solution, print more money = inflation. This is... not really correct. It's true that expansionary monetary policy is often practiced in times of economic recession, but that's not really because there's 'less income to spread around'. And the reason expansionary monetary policy is practiced isn't to give peop…

> Expansionary monetary policy reduces the costs of loans and investments How does it do that? Suppose I want to borrow $1M to build a factory, but nobody (banks, venture capitalists, whatever) can afford to invest in my endeavor. So the fed prints a bunch of money, causing 5% inflation. Now the bank can more easily afford to loan me $1M, because that $1M is worth less. But now I need a $1.05M loan to build my factor…

Why was I downvoted? I was just asking a question about monetary policy, hoping the GP (who clearly knows more than I) would come back and answer it.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#214

Post by Pyxl101 » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:21 AM UTC

TACIXAT wrote: post #206

Kind of a meta comment, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the basic income movement was (for the most part) started and promoted by an intelligence agency. After reading about the literary magazines and abstract art that the CIA funded I started thinking what a current program would look like. I think it would look like how basic income is developing.

Could you be more specific? What literary magazines and abstract art did the CIA fund? What about the way basic income is developing gives you the impression that it's a CIA program? Without detail this seems like an unsupported conspiracy theory. What would be their incentive in this instance?

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#215

Post by mac01021 » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:21 AM UTC

TACIXAT wrote: post #206

Kind of a meta comment, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the basic income movement was (for the most part) started and promoted by an intelligence agency. After reading about the literary magazines and abstract art that the CIA funded I started thinking what a current program would look like. I think it would look like how basic income is developing.

> After reading about the literary magazines and abstract art that the CIA funded ...

Any links?

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#216

Post by joshkpeterson » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:22 AM UTC

TACIXAT wrote: post #206

Kind of a meta comment, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the basic income movement was (for the most part) started and promoted by an intelligence agency. After reading about the literary magazines and abstract art that the CIA funded I started thinking what a current program would look like. I think it would look like how basic income is developing.

Uh, okay. Why would an intelligence agency have an interest in UBI? The idea's been around for a long time, by the way. MLK was into it.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#217

Post by nickbauman » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:23 AM UTC

maxaf wrote: post #174

nickbauman wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to guess you either bought a house you can't afford or have more than 2 kids or have a lot of student loan debt. (Not judging at all) Correct?

Zero student debt, one kid, and I'll never own real estate, as I've explained in prior HN comments, i.e. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11495713 I can barely afford to live in the US because I live in a pretty expensive part of it. I'll blindly guess that my zip code is the second most expensive one in NYC. My thesis is that you (and I, and my family, and everyone else who has ever lived) live only once. I refu…

That's interesting. My employer is also based in Manhattan. I live in Minnesota. I live in a 4-br home that costs me $800/mo including taxes in downtown Minneapolis. I go and work in Manhattan once every 3-6 months for a week or so. I could never live there though; I would be throwing my money away. I like certain aspects of NYC, but not enough to take such a paycut. There have been a lot of studies that show that what kind of home or city has almost no bearing on your happiness. You might reconsider.

Also, seriously, if someone is on food stamps or their kids are in the free lunch program, they are not advantaged, they are not comforted: they are living on the edge. Trust me.

On the other hand, I live in subsidized housing. The mortgage interest deduction is the largest (in terms of $) subsidized housing program on earth.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#218

Post by noonespecial » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:25 AM UTC

arbre wrote: post #73

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

Not quite:

Consider a society with 2 members, Mr Rich (net worth $10M) and Mr. Poor (net worth $100). Mr. Rich is 100,000 X richer than Mr. Poor right now.

Institute a ridiculous UBI of $1M/year for everyone. At the end of the year, Mr. Poor has $1,000,100 and Mr Rich has $11M but Mr Rich is now only ~ 11 X richer than Mr Poor.

Now sure cheeseburgers at Micky-D's are now $700 but the fact has changed that before, Mr Rich could buy a hundred thousand burgers for every one Mr Poor could buy. Now he can only buy 11.

UBI works like gravity. Continually pulling the unequal towards a center. The rich will still stay rich, but unlike today where rich automatically makes richer, the force will be reversed. It will take "energy" to stay rich.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#219

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:28 AM UTC

mac01021 wrote: post #215

TACIXAT wrote: post #206

Kind of a meta comment, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the basic income movement was (for the most part) started and promoted by an intelligence agency. After reading about the literary magazines and abstract art that the CIA funded I started thinking what a current program would look like. I think it would look like how basic income is developing.

> After reading about the literary magazines and abstract art that the CIA funded ... Any links?

[deleted]

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#220

Post by poppow » Sun, Jun 05, 2016, 2:39 AM UTC

Murray is known for his eugenics arguments. He's pushing for economic Darwinism. The use of 'DNA' in his article belies his propensities. He uses pseudoscience to sell his brand of politics. Firing salvos for a Trump advisor.