Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why we should all have a basic income

weforum.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 492 posts

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#331

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ElComradio wrote: post #311
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this context "long term" is the time it takes for the market to respond by building more schools or housing or whatever, which generally takes a low single digit number of years (like one). To which the response then becomes, so what? And that's assuming your argument is true, which in general it isn't. If you raise prices then some of your customers will go elsewhere. That's why sellers don't raise prices already…

It feels ambitious to suppose an equilibrium state for schooling to be met within a year. I'd buy two or three. Is it the case that existing private schools have much excess capacity? Frequently the argument for private schools is smaller class sizes; a rapid influx of new students without new, excellent teachers defeats the purpose. Presumably new classrooms would need to be constructed and so on. If you receive a $…

I'm trying to understand what your objection is.

Suppose you're right and a $5000 voucher will cause a $1000 increase in tuition for three years, after which new schools will open and the competition causes tuition to fall again.

So as a parent, for the first three years I'm up net $4000/year and $1000/year is going to build new school capacity to meet increased demand, and thereafter I get the whole $5000/year. Am I supposed to be unhappy about this?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#332

Post by jakeogh »

prodmerc wrote: post #299
raintrees wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. If my seizing my neighbor's extra car because I do not have one is theft, it is still theft if I convince a majority to pass a law take it for me. And it is enforced with the threat of (or actual) violence against my neighbor, if my neighbor refuses.

Well, you can always stop using roads, hospitals, sidewalks, subsidized foods and fuel. Then you can call the tax man a thief and shoot him. Unless you're rich, taxation benefits you, you brainwashed idiot.

LOL on the name calling. Worked so well lately... keep it up:)

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#333

Post by prostoalex »

jondubois wrote: post #323

If I had basic income, I would go back to study, get a PhD in Computer Science Majoring in AI/Machine learning and then I would try to do something meaningful with it. I am tired of doing pseudo-intellectual software 'engineering' tasks - I would like to use my intellect to tackle difficult problems instead of trivial problems like building UI components and managing databases. Unfortunately, I can't afford to go to…

How many people in your position would make a similar decision? Do you expect the tuition rates and housing rents in the college town of your choice to go up or down? What happens once the education system and landlors absorb and accommodate the influx of revenue?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#334

Post by jimnotgym »

simonh wrote: post #292
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.

This is a persistent and pernicious misconception. UBI is intended to increase people's autonomy, but manly by eliminating the poverty trap. Too many people live off benefits they would lose if they took a low paying no job, so are better off or only marginally worse off not working. UBI takes that problem away to that everyone would always be substantially better off working. It would act as a major subsidy for low…

In the UK the poverty trap is very real. A young person with a family in social housing and on benefits has to jump right up to something like average income to be better off. The penalty for getting a job is colossal. UBI would mean that if they could get work for even 4 hours a week it would represent an improvement to their income. It is an incentive to work

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#335

Post by wolfgke »

ycmbntrthrwaway wrote: post #206
ako wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating jobs is one thing, but creating meaningful jobs is something completely different. In communistic days in eastern europe, everyone was employed, but most people had a lousy job, that involved very little effort. The first time i came to the US, i got the same feeling, lots of meaningless jobs (lift boy, parking lot attendant, grocery store bag filler) that i didn't see in the Netherlands. Are these meaningle…

Street promoters make me sad. If they can find no job they better stay at home and learn something new, but they have no time for it, so they are stuck doing useless, maybe even harmful, work.

> Street promoters make me sad. If they can find no job they better stay at home and learn something new, but they have no time for it, so they are stuck doing useless, maybe even harmful, work.

If these people really have such a large earning potential if they were just learning something new, why not let coworkers get together and finance a fund: The worker (let's call him John Doe) will get his existing income for, say, 2 years, financed by the coworkers together. John Doe on the other hand is of course obligated to learn something new (what exactly is agreed upon beforehand). After these two years for the next, say, five years John Doe has to donate, say, 40% of his gross income back to the coworkers who financed him this opportunity. Both sides should be willing to agree on such a deal: John Doe gets his opportunity to learn new things and (hopefully) get a much better job afterwards and his coworkers will (hopefully) get a lot more money back than they originally invested.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#336

Post by 2noame »

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…

Universality removes stigma. As evidence, read this about Canada's Mincome experiment.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cars.12091/full

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#337

Post by prostoalex »

twblalock wrote: post #303
swift wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are voters any less able to vote to give themselves more money now?

Yes, far less able. Most voters aren't on welfare, and they aren't interested in increasing welfare payments. If every voter got money from the government, things would be very different.

People do vote based on politicians' tax policy promises.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#338

Post by xvedejas »

Mz wrote: post #321

When I was 3 years old, my dad bought a brand new house in a brand new suburb. It was 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, etc. For its era, it was a very solidly middle class or upper middle class house and he had 3/4 of the price of the house in the bank. The house cost $16k. He had $12k in the bank. It was a LOT of money when I was 3 years old. It is not a lot of money today. A $1000/month sounds like a lot now. But the minute…

I think most proponents of UBI agree that the value should be tied to inflation, updated on a regular schedule (I advocate monthly). This would guarantee that UBI doesn't go "out of date".

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#339

Post by ElComradio »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #331
ElComradio wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels ambitious to suppose an equilibrium state for schooling to be met within a year. I'd buy two or three. Is it the case that existing private schools have much excess capacity? Frequently the argument for private schools is smaller class sizes; a rapid influx of new students without new, excellent teachers defeats the purpose. Presumably new classrooms would need to be constructed and so on. If you receive a $…

I'm trying to understand what your objection is. Suppose you're right and a $5000 voucher will cause a $1000 increase in tuition for three years, after which new schools will open and the competition causes tuition to fall again. So as a parent, for the first three years I'm up net $4000/year and $1000/year is going to build new school capacity to meet increased demand, and thereafter I get the whole $5000/year. Am I…

You are basically saying that what happens in the short term is not relevant, but as taxpayers, a lot of people will be upset by profiteering in the manner I described, even if it is only for 1-3 years.

Or from another angle- what will prevent an ever increasing amount of tuition such as happened with the higher education system? "We need to raise the voucher to $10,000 now…"

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#340

Post by jimnotgym »

lg wrote: post #262
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 ahe…

This is exactly the same in the UK, particularly with housing benefit
Post reply on HN