Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people • Hacker News Board

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#101

Post by err4nt » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:49 PM UTC

aleksei wrote: post #16

err4nt wrote: post #3

As a Canadian entrepreneur I worry that mincome/basic income will serve to knock the wind out of the sails of many innovators and entrepreneurs who, like me, are currently DRIVEN to work hard, research, push the industry along and crank up competition. I would much, much rather work hard, earn more money, and feed my neighbour - than have no hope of digging myself out of my situation no matter hos hard I worked, bein…

So what's your take on universal healthcare? Do you resent having to pay for the treatment of others? I get that increased taxes are offputting, but what's your alternative to making sure people aren't forced to live on the street, taking into account future loss of work due to automation? And what makes you believe that mincome would deter people from innovation?

Its not about an increased tax ration, its about entitlement and motivation. Would you feel better giving $1000 to charity, or having $500 stolen from you?

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#102

Post by CPLX » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:50 PM UTC

jackcosgrove wrote: post #73

DougWebb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that clear cut. Your options are more like: 1) Trust your brother, feed him and let him crash. Costs you $50. 2) Don't trust your brother. Hire an investigator to determine if he bought weed. Most of the time nothing is found so you wind up helping him, which now cost $70. Occaaionally you discover something and choose not to help. Still costs you $20. Is #2 worth it? That depends on how often the investigat…

There's a third option which always costs $0.

There's never an option costing zero as long as the brother in question has the ability to punch you in the face and take your food for leaving him to starve.

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#103

Post by mordocai » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

err4nt wrote: post #92

kohanz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is the same argument we see time and time again against higher taxes (not just Mincome). We saw it in 2008 with "Joe the Plumber". Some entrepreneurs are driven by maximizing profit margins and some aren't. If your opinion was widely shared, there would be almost no entrepreneurial success stories in countries with a much more socialist approach than even Canada (e.g. throughout Europe). I am a Canadi…

If they give taxes a bump of course, but what if they radically rearrange taxes. There are many voices i hear who believe people above certain limits should be taxed 90% or more, and some cutoff limits Ive heard have been 250k, or even 100k. If you suddenly fell into a 90% taxation bracket would you still be just as happy as today?

You do realize that, assuming taxes work like they do today, it'd be 90% on the amount over 250k/100k not 90% over the total income?

Assuming you realize it, your point must be that only having 10% effective increase in income after you reach the threshold is demotivating, and I would agree.

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#104

Post by radarsat1 » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #27

It's extremely counterproductive to, as the article puts it, "take the question of the moral quality of the poor off the table." The fact is that a large amount of poverty is directly correlated with "moral quality". Most poor people in the US (maybe Canada is different?) have low "moral quality", which I define as engaging in behaviors that are likely to keep a person poor. These behaviors include not seeking work […

Do you not see that poverty can also be the cause of those behaviours, rather than the reverse?

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#105

Post by mseebach » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

1123581321 wrote: post #42

duaneb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't let basic income advocates evade the question of who pays for their utopian scheme. Have you witnessed this?

I have seen it in every discussion. Some of the forms of evasion include: * focusing on the wealth/profit generated by a surge in entrepreneurship from the millions suddenly motivated to start successful businesses * focusing on the unlimited wealth created by robots/asteroids/solar in space which will fund any program we wish * focusing on how we can't afford not to try BI, i.e., the default system is a financial fa…

The most common evasion is in the handwaving around the size of the proposed UBI check. Total US tax revenue per person comes out to just over $20000/year, that's $1666/month (in comparison, a 40 hour workweek at the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr, no holidays, comes out at $15080/year or $1256/month).

If you abolished every single government program and fire every single government employee, right from the DoD down to your local playground, from congress to the schools, never mind every single existing welfare program, assuming that tax revenue somehow managed to stay at the same level, what with no IRS to collect it and 22 million newly unemployed public sector workers, you could barely afford to pay a UBI at the minimum wage, never mind attending to the people who might legitimately need more help (also, no roads or schools).

UBI is either going to require cuts of a depth never proposed, much less enacted, in any western country, ever -- or be too small (perhaps a hundred dollars a month) to live up to its promises.

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#106

Post by bryanlarsen » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

IsaacL wrote: post #70

duaneb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't let basic income advocates evade the question of who pays for their utopian scheme. Have you witnessed this?

Yes. The huge majority of pro-UBI writings I see talk up the benefits in great detail but either ignore, or misrepresent, the costs. Lots of naive idealists support UBI - but I also frequently see UBI advocates who purport to be "evidence-based" and "rational", and yet who fail to provide even a back-of-the-envelope calculation of how they propose to fund their scheme. Instead they do 1 of 3 things: 1. Provide eviden…

OTOH, back of the envelope calculations by detractors are usually misleading by an order of magnitude.

For example 320 million Americans * 15K/year in basic income = 4.8 trillion dollars that has to come from new taxes and spending cuts.

But if it all comes from tax increases than somebody currently making the average income will see their taxes go up by exactly amount as their BI payment. Is that actually a tax increase? And if we can get cost savings from simplifying welfare, then their BI payment is more than their tax increase.

4.8 Trillion is completely unfeasible, but the real cost is in the order of hundreds of billions. A heck of lot, but it is feasible.

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#107

Post by err4nt » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:53 PM UTC

mordocai wrote: post #98

err4nt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The resources that I built my business on: - a chair - a table - electricity - any computer - internet - coffee (for food) - bathroom If you can bring your own laptop to a starbucks, they have plenty of the rest of those. A laptop can cost as little as 230$ USD, so thats really the only barrier and I beleive its an attainable goal for anybody in North America. If your life depending on having a laptop, thats somethin…

$230 extra above living expenses is not attainable without title loans or something similar for many in America. Not to mention that if the laptop breaks you have to know how to fix it yourself or pay $100+ to fix it (or buy another new one for $230). If you don't know enough about computers to transfer data off a "dead" machine then you have to pay $100+ for someone to do that even with the new one.

You must be joking, I know an awful lot of americans with laptops. Its not like mortgaging a house!

And Im not talking about 'above living expenses'. When I bought mine I had no money for the electric bill. I leveraged the laptop purchase into paying that bill and many more after it!

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#108

Post by Applejinx » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:53 PM UTC

err4nt wrote: post #77

ep103 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the reports I've seen have stated that actually, it works the other way around. That the vast majority of people who go into entrepreneurship only do so if they have money to fall back on, one way or another, should their business fail. So by that logic, basic income should actually significantly increase the likelihood of entrepreneurship, because while mincome will still be low enough that people will want…

Maybe on paper, or in theory. In my life I'm not ashamed to say it was the hunger of having nothing, no safety net, and having no job that STILL drives me today. That fire that got started when I had bills and no money is still burning strong today. But I worry if theres too mucb cushion perhaps I would have not hurt as bad, and ever achieved what Ive accomplished since then.

Then make way for someone who is otherwise motivated, by something other than fire. Your personal drive to get money and succeed has nothing to do with your capacity to provide goods and services: heck, it might be causing you to cut corners, cheat people, and otherwise push so hard that you're harming your longterm prospects.

If you're some sort of titanic corporate entity, you're almost compelled to deliver constantly growing earnings for the next quarter. If you're a sole proprietorship but driven by these deeply personal motivations, you might be stuck in similarly self-defeating attitudes. Compare to Elon Musk, who barely seems to register the concept of money and is only interested in the specific things he's doing. Without the money, he'd be much the same person, I think.

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#109

Post by SandB0x » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:54 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #90

heartsucker wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was taking the most simplistic approach. Your point is better than mine, but usually the argument I see is that "there are welfare queens, and that's not fair, therefore there shouldn't be welfare at all." I was more arguing against that.

I'm arguing for good government , not no government . Unfortunately good government requires carefully understanding and administering a bureaucracy, taking into account individual incentives, and building something non-simple. Basic income is just a cheap mental hack used to seduce the lazy. It's like looking at a webapp, realizing that 75% of your compute cycles are doing error handling and then saying "aha, the so…

Out of interest, what do you think their real goals are? (I agree with the sentiment of your comments FWIW)

Re: Basic income doesn't emphasize divisions between poor and working people

#110

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:54 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #36

sanxiyn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What this seems to say is that people shouldn't starve, but to get food people should demonstrate that they are starving. I am unsure why demonstration is essential, because either way others are still obligated to provide food so that people aren't starving.

If my brother tells me he's hungry and broke I might make him dinner and let him crash on my couch. If I just saw him spend $500 on weed I'll probably tell him he's on his own. The demonstration is essential because if we don't require it, some people will exploit our kind nature to rob us. This is already a massive problem in programs where we do require demonstrations of need. See NPR's expose on rampant disability…

> See NPR's expose on rampant disability fraud

There's no incentive for fraud in an unconditional benefit system.

> It's hard to see how eliminating safeguards will improve things.

Its actually easy to see, when the "safeguards" directly produce perverse incentives. Means-testing reduces the marginal benefit to finding additional income, encouraging a culture of dependence. And any type of conditional benefit scheme creates an incentive for fraud where the benefits of fraud outweigh the expected cost of committing it.

The "safeguards" are the problem, not a mitigation.