Guaranteed Minimum What? • Hacker News Board

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#411

Post by dllthomas » Sat, May 13, 2017, 3:08 PM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #373

dllthomas wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe you're engaging in good faith, so I'm done here.

Why I wouldn't be engaging in good faith? I really believe that UBI is impossible.

I expect that you believe that UBI is impossible. I am not interested in continuing to engage with you because you are not interested in engaging intellectually and analyzing why you might be wrong or helping others analyze why they might be wrong, but are focused exclusively on scoring rhetorical points. That's sometimes a fun game to play, but it's not productive and it's not why I come to HN.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#412

Post by intended » Sat, May 13, 2017, 3:17 PM UTC

nv-vn wrote: post #292

justinator wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write as though you've never held a minimum wage job. Have some compassion for those people who are working hard for almost nothing. Sometimes, it isn't their first choice, or it's their only choice. I would suggest a better experience is had when you give respect to the (say) service industry worker you engage in a transaction with.

I disagree. It's not that the GP isn't being compassionate or understanding their perspective. They're describing why automation is more appealing to a large company and why this change is taking place. That said, the change will likely be met with the same response that similar changes have come with: people won't be out of jobs, the job market will change. Programming jobs will become more common, for example. Mini…

Even economists themselves finally admit that retraining is the missing link in the global trade model. So while jobs go, people don't transfer into other well paying jobs. Instead the good jobs are replaced by worse paying service sector jobs.

So that theory that people will get new opportunities which are as good, or they can transition into is not valid.

Now if the service sector jobs go too?

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#413

Post by wavefunction » Sat, May 13, 2017, 3:18 PM UTC

Erik816 wrote: post #32

wavefunction wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's a matter of trusting the person behind the counter over your smartphone.

Why trust one random person (who may not have even seen the movie you are interested in, share your preferences, or be particular insightful) when you can have the aggregate wisdom of everyone who has seen the movie and cared enough to rate it?

Actually it's the opposite of asking a random person a question, which is what aggregated opinion really stems from.

The person behind the counter, for example, has likely seen the movie given the folks I've known who work these jobs. As well, they might tell you something like "the people leaving the movie are always talking animatedly" or some other insight that a random movie-goer likely couldn't assert themselves.

I was just pointing out that people have different preferences and that there are many reasons one might trust a single person behind the ticket counter over whatever information they might derive from their smartphone.

That this is so controversial is amusing to me.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#414

Post by dsacco » Sat, May 13, 2017, 3:24 PM UTC

1_2__3 wrote: post #124

dsacco wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was probably a nicer way to make that point without attacking the parent's awareness of "the value of basic human interaction." For what it's worth, I didn't infer any value judgement about caste in the comment.

I did and think the reply's tone was perfectly reasonable given the parent comment's dismissiveness. Yeah I do like interacting with people. Even "minimum wage workers" who last time I checked were still people.

Sure, but my point is that he never said they're not people. I believe you're reading something in it that isn't really there. It feels like you're unfairly mischaracterizing what was actually said, which was rather neutral.

Some people (myself included) appreciate minimum wage workers as humans and still want the efficiency that comes with automation. It's a mixed bag. When I'm at CVS I would rather have actual cashiers. At a movie theater I'd rather have a ticket machine.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#415

Post by intended » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #265

cbanek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said in my original comment, even if the people are great, they are usually doing a very boring repetitive job. And even if they aren't a "bump on a log," many employers these days honestly want them to be. (liability, efficiency) They really want a robot that is cheaper, not a person. There are so many rules about what an employee can and should do now, especially for lower level jobs. What they can say, how…

I'd argue that those companies that have squeezed the humanity out of their workers are the first ones getting dislocated by the market. E.g. Blockbuster being bankrupt and our local independent video store doing just fine. Or McDonald's vs Waffle House. If you play was "we can provide a worse service for less" then yes, you're going to get steamrolled by automation. If your business is run around adding value (like…

A major point of data missing in your example is all the many, many cafes, diners and other eateries which Mc Donald's itself wiped out.

The point being that lots of independent and service focused restaurants have died, and automation, consistency and efficiency has decimated the alternative.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#416

Post by prostoalex » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:16 PM UTC

pg314 wrote: post #376

prostoalex wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If poor people have income not tied to a specific location, I'm expecting that they're going to move to lower-cost locations, rather than stay in expensive urban areas. So why haven't we seen a massive exodus to Detroit or Mississippi? Outside of coastal areas US already tends to be affordable and accessible.

Because that is not where the jobs are. Unemployment is at 9.8 % in Detroit, 5.6% in Mississippi, compared to 4.7% nationwide (all numbers Dec 2016).

How would introduction of UBI result in job creation?

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#417

Post by prostoalex » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:17 PM UTC

bitJericho wrote: post #387

prostoalex wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make hospitals publish their prices They already do http://www.oshpd.ca.gov/Chargemaster/ > ban insurance companies So lose the negotiating advantage and be forced to haggle on prices on a case-by-case basis?

Who haggles for anything besides cars in the us? Publish pricing and give estimates, shop around.

So to recap, the key to lowering prices in healthcare is (a) strip consumers of negotiating power (b) not try to haggle the prices down when providers consistently try to raise them?

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#418

Post by maxerickson » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #416

pg314 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that is not where the jobs are. Unemployment is at 9.8 % in Detroit, 5.6% in Mississippi, compared to 4.7% nationwide (all numbers Dec 2016).

How would introduction of UBI result in job creation?

Without speaking to the net effect, a possible mechanism of job creation is increased demand for goods.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#419

Post by PeterisP » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #348

PeterisP wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing is one of things that can be solved by UBI - currently in many regions housing is scarce in places "where all the jobs are" and plentiful, cheap, and even empty and abandoned in places with few jobs. This imbalance happens in 'competition' between different centers, and also in the process of urbanization. We have people leaving their granparent's houses, and leaving them empty, just to go to the big city whe…

> UBI can change that by making it feasible for underemployed people to live in those cheaper areas. Detroit or Baltimore are pretty affordable already, and some counties will give away free land if one agrees to settle there. That did not seem to spur much economic development.

That's the big difference I'm talking about. Cheap or even free housing is not sufficient, currently hard-to-employ people can't afford to live in Detroit - they also need to eat, so they need jobs that simply aren't there. So the practical result is that such people are forced to move to locations with much more expensive rent so that they'd have any income whatsoever.

UBI would mean that the underemployed people could move to Detroit if they wanted to. That would effect a transfer of money towards Detroit - as money would be taxed elsewhere, flow through these people and get spent in Detroit, spurring economic development.

Widespread remote work could achieve a similar result, having people live and spend in Detroit but earn money elsewhere; but currently it is not widespread and so doesn't make a meaningful impact.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#420

Post by kwhitefoot » Sat, May 13, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

moxious wrote: post #349

the_gastropod wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best explanations I've heard effectively make the assertion that a country's land is collectively owned by its citizens. Its citizens can then charge rent (via taxation) to individuals or corporations using the land. UBI is the distribution of that rent.

In what way is the land collectively owned? The business would show a deed and prove they already own the land. Also, if I already own a house privately, I would pay the commons rent on what I already own? This seems to pervert the notion of ownership.

As the land is not something that you created your 'ownership' of it is simply a grant from the commons. Unless I am misinformed this is explicitly the case in the US as far as many tracts of land in the mid-west are concerned, the federal government granted parcels of land to those who would settle there.

The point is that because it is a grant from the commons there is no natural law that says that that grant cannot be handled in a different way than it is now.

If society as a whole decides that this grant is no longer to be regarded as absolute then there is no barrier to taxing the occupier of the land.