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Why we should all have a basic income

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Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#261

Post by Koshkin »

ako wrote: post #254
Koshkin wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> job for everyone You are implying that this was dictated by political rather than economical reasons, but that may be not entirely correct. > we pretend to work This is true - for some workers. Thing is, the Western society in not and has never been different in this regard. And, some of the "job creation" policies could exacerbate the problem even more.

Yes, some jobs are the same here. The main question is: do you create a job because there's some work to be done, or do you create a job because somebody needs a job?

Do you have an evidence of the latter, or this is purely hypothetical? (An honest question.)

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#262

Post by lg »

dzink wrote: post #192

During Brexit, people in job-starved areas of UK were reported as resentful for receiving handouts. They wanted gainful employment and their dignity back. You could have corporations foot the bill for basic income and people with certain values would still not want it. The image of being a breadwinner is so deeply instilled in some people that for them not being that, triggers mid-life-crisis: a depression, sense of…

I don't know about the UK, but in the US, you effectively have a choice between getting welfare and working. So people have the option to take some low-paying job, but they don't do it because then they lose welfare benefits that pay almost as much, sometimes subsidizing childcare etc. so it's an unemployment trap. UBI is much saner because you get it in addition to any income you earn from working, so you can go ahead and take that low-paying job as well.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#263

Post by undershirt »

shahbaby wrote: post #236

“How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli 1469 - 1527 Even if UBI was proven to be a net gain to society, implementation is highly unlikely. This is less about technology/economics and more about human nature, which has not changed much over the las…

> human nature, which has not changed much over the last 500 years

Let's be clear that "human nature" is relatively stable, but the "cultures" that sit atop are much more capricious-- slowly changing in different ways to fit the same human desires.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#264

Post by ryandvm »

braveo wrote: post #237
TulliusCicero wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are absolutely people like you, and absolutely people who will just play WoW all day, every day. The question is, how many of each?

why does it matter? The point of UBI is to allow people to do what they want.

Because, if it turns out that most people are just fine with fucking off all day and living off their UBI check then UBI is unworkable (pardon the pun).

The cycle would go something like this: * UBI checks start getting sent out * Large droves of people quit the shitty jobs * Due to reduced labor supply, cost of producing goods rises * The increased cost of living means that now we need to send out even bigger UBI checks (i.e. raise taxes)

This feedback loop continues until even the most motivated individual cannot rationally continue to pay into the system.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#266

Post by jganetsk »

DougN7 wrote: post #229
jganetsk wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, let's spell it out with a basic example You said we are going to give $12 billion to the poor There is $747 billion of credit card debt in the United States. Much of that comes from lending in the past to the poor to finance their basic needs. $747 billion > $12 billion It is possible that all of 1 year's basic income entirely goes toward paying off credit card debt. In this scenario: 1) The poor receive a much n…

Paying off debt is good. Once it's paid off, that money will probably go to goods and services (if you say the poor will save it instead, they weren't that poor to begin with). So your scenario of paying off debt for one year just pushes the inevitable out one year. And that one time price change will cancel out the benefit of the UBI. It has to, otherwise companies are not getting the most profit they can (they won'…

Few things wrong in your post:

> So your scenario of paying off debt for one year just pushes the inevitable out one year.

There is enough debt out there that the poor can spend many years paying it off.

> Raising the minimum wage eventually has a similar effect. Ask yourself why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 any more (it surely was sometime in the past 200 years). The obvious answer is inflation. But why? Why did prices increase over time? What economic pressure caused that?

Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz wrote A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, where they made the claim "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" [1] Thus, the reason why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 anymore is because of the expansion of money supply, not because of raising minimum wage. The article suggests financing basic income through tax revenues -- and even doing so without raising the deficit. It is not suggesting expanding money supply. Milton Friedman himself even supported the kind of basic income described in the article, which he called a "negative income tax" [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetarism

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_securit...

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#267

Post by jakeogh »

dasil003 wrote: post #197
jakeogh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Personal taxes (taking things via threat of force) are theft. It does not matter who is doing the taking.

You would not have been in a position to earn any of the money you have without public infrastructure paid for by taxes. Maybe you would have been successful under an anarchy, but I doubt that is the case for the majority of HN'ers, and my best guess is that your ideological position would crumble pretty quickly if you were forced to live in the world which you ostensibly desire. Fortunately for everyone I can't see…

I'm not advocating Anarchy. That's never going to work. We need laws, and I would love to change the laws regarding the income tax.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#268

Post by JoeAltmaier »

ryandvm wrote: post #264
braveo wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does it matter? The point of UBI is to allow people to do what they want.

Because, if it turns out that most people are just fine with fucking off all day and living off their UBI check then UBI is unworkable (pardon the pun). The cycle would go something like this: * UBI checks start getting sent out * Large droves of people quit the shitty jobs * Due to reduced labor supply, cost of producing goods rises * The increased cost of living means that now we need to send out even bigger UBI ch…

Straw man. No data to support that; just a scare story. How about: cost of goods continues to drop as automation continues to expand explosively (as it has in the last 10 years). Standard of living rises steadily as the workforce decreases.

What's the difference in the two scenarios? Data. Which we don't have. So certainly a UBI should be carefully introduced to keep the economy stable.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#270

Post by gdix »

The first graphic is geniusly deceptive:

"See, we take a little bit from everyone, shuffle it around a bit and return it back to everyone. Hooray!"

When it reality, the actual result is the red section loses dots which just go blue green and yellow groups.

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