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We're officially launching UBI

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Re: We're officially launching UBI

#101

Post by shkkmo »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #28

Like others have said, pilot programs are a poor trial for UBI. You're creating wealth for select individuals (even a village), so you aren't dealing with economic issues such as inflation. For example, read about Mansa Musa, who gave away so much gold in his pilgrimage to Mecca in the 1300s that he caused devaluation of money (hyperinflation) for nearly 10 years [1]. The huge influx of "free" money caused lasting da…

I'm not sure that an effect on inflation would even really be a problem. The Fed has been struggling to maintain inflation at it's target rates for many years and has had to come up with new and creative tools beyond just adjusting base interest rates.

In my opinion, the only way to introduce UBI at scale is slowly. If UBI does have an impact on inflation, we can scale up UBI during times of economic downturns and hold UBI steady when the economy is growing and control inflation with standard interest rate manipulations.

Re: We're officially launching UBI

#102

Post by ttoinou »

shkkmo wrote: post #81
ttoinou wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people will stop working or spend the money on some wasteful way That's not really the argument. What does matter is where does the money come from. Cf These hand­out incomes are to be given as "an absolute constitutional right," and not to be withheld "under any circumstances." This means that the recipi­ents are to continue to get this in­come not only if they absolutely re­fuse to seek or take a job, but if they t…

Your claim is contradicted by your quotes which specifically calls out people not working and spending their money wastefully.

Then you did not understand the quote. It's not about an objective morality (what is shameful, wasteful etc. to spend on). Spend the money you successfully exchanged with someone else the way you want it.

The morale case with the argument is that citizen should have their say in how their taxes are spend, and that each of one us have different goals so "living in dignity" cannot be accomplished by UBI.

Re: We're officially launching UBI

#103

Post by skybrian »

moduspol wrote: post #63
skybrian wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're sending money then people will spend it (such as on shoes) and increased spending and investment will tend to help local businesses much more than sending goods that compete with them. So I'm not seeing why you think skills will atrophy? It seems like there's more danger of that when people are poorer? (For one thing, education becomes less affordable.)

The shoes don't have to come from Bomet County. Nor does the food, or the electricity, or much of anything else. The poverty rate is just under 50%, per Wikipedia at least. If all the money is coming from the county (presumably it is), then it's going to be coming from the other 50%, and at a rate higher than neighboring (non-UBI) counties. It will be in the rational self-interest of that non-impoverished 50% to leav…

Interesting theory, but they already started a pilot study in one village, and the results were nothing like that, so far. There seems to to be lots of local small business investment.

I also don't see anything about people moving in or out.

https://givedirectly.org/blog-post?id=1423924916713458127

Re: We're officially launching UBI

#104

Post by ttoinou »

burkaman wrote: post #76
ttoinou wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, will it happen ? Are laws implemented according to the proposals ? Of course the most urgent thing will be to implement UBI. And then to raise it. No one will think about deleting previous welfare benefits

Where do you live that politicians aren't constantly trying to remove welfare benefits?

France. How are politicians incentivized to reduce welfare ?

Re: We're officially launching UBI

#105

Post by smacktoward »

rafiki6 wrote: post #85

There seems to be lots of confusion about what constitutes UBI here. This isn't talking about America or developed nations. And government led UBI experiments in developed nations were always doing UBI in place of other social welfare benefits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_pilots The argument isn't about if UBI is good or bad. It's if UBI is better than the current social welfare structure. The question…

But the "U" in "UBI" stands for universal. In other words, UBI means everyone gets a basic income, not just the subset of everyone who currently receives welfare benefits. You get it whether you need it or not.

This distinction actually has political significance. One of the explanations that has been offered for why Social Security in the U.S. has proven so impervious to cutbacks or other political meddling is that it is universal in this sense as well; there's no maximum income at which you no longer receive Social Security benefits. This universality has helped Social Security escape the "for poor/minority/lazy people only" stigmas that peoples' prejudices attach to more selective welfare programs.

None of which is to say that you can't have a basic income project that isn't universal, of course; just that such a project is not a UBI.

Re: We're officially launching UBI

#106

Post by jlg23 »

chatmasta wrote: post #22

How can you meaningfully experiment with UBI if the “BI” is not even universal ? My understanding is that many of the criticisms of UBI are based on externalities that would only become manifest in a meaningfully large population. For example, price increases and inflation might arise from everyone having extra money. If you’re only testing UBI on a small population, then 1) it’s not even universal, and 2) there will…

> If you’re only testing UBI on a small population, then 1) it’s not even universal, and 2) there will not be enough “beta testers” to (in)validate these criticisms.

Your point holds until history has proven who is right. Of course, any experiment on UBI that is constrained by a financial reality of whoever conducts the study needs to limit eligibility and therefore lose the proof of universality.

But: Do you have a better design for UBI experiments, given actual constraints?

Re: We're officially launching UBI

#107

Post by shkkmo »

moduspol wrote: post #89
shkkmo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post I was responding to wasn't citicizing UBI, but rather criticizing this specific type of program which DOES inject money into the local economy from outside doners. > And if solving economic problems were as simple as "just take more money from the rich people and give it to the poor people," this problem would have been solved centuries ago. When in history have we tried anything like UBI? How can we know if…

We've provided subsidies and guarantees to try to help poor people and manipulated markets with predictable results countless times. In the US, higher education loans and urban housing are modern day examples of this. UBI isn't inherently different. It's trying to pretend you can manipulate a market with no detrimental side effects, but it's been tried many, many times.

The whole point of UBI is that markets are being manipulated as INDIRECTLY as possible. You aren't subsidizing people to not work (unemployment benefits), subsidizing people to work (minimum wage), subsidizing particular goods (housing, education loans) or inflating demand for a specific set of goods (food stamps).

You seem to be of the opinion that nothing can be done to eliminate poverty, so why even try?

Re: We're officially launching UBI

#108

Post by shkkmo »

vilmosi wrote: post #95
ucaetano wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Increased demand solely from cash injections in an economy will increase prices without an increase in investments, since those investing can't know if the cash injections will continue or not. So it will lead to short-term inflation, and without the long-term investments in production, that inflation will continue for as long as the injections continue. As the cash injections aren't universal, those…

Well cash injection by definition create inflation. However it could be a neutral effect if, for instance, you get rid of unemployment benefits at the same time.

No. Price increases, by definition, create inflation.

Cash injections CAN lead to inflation as an effect, but this is not a tautology (i.e. by definition).

Re: We're officially launching UBI

#109

Post by lucozade »

whb07 wrote: post #32

I wonder what the differences are between UBI and the day to day life’s of people who get straight cash payments for being citizens like: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Native American tribesmen with successful casinos etc. To my knowledge, it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows (technical term) for them either. They suffer stagnation, heavy dependency into oil money(for those in the Middle East), and it’s dsfinitely a time bomb whi…

I'm only really familiar with Abu Dhabi but there, idleness is a concern.

It's directly evident in schemes such as paying school children to exercise.

However, it is masked somewhat in the adult population as foreign companies are required to employ natives in senior positions. Anecdotally, the incumbents aren't famous for their work ethic.

But it's hard to argue that it's not overall positive for the local population. Healthcare, education, services etc are all excellent.

That being said, I don't think these are useful comparators. The elephant in the room is who is paying? In the case of Abu Dhabi, it's the buyers of their oil. As such, you don't have an internal tension between the net tax consumers and net tax generators. Nor do you have a significant allocation of resource issue when there is a surfeit of resource.

And I think it's the latter issue that is a critical one for UBI.

Although not equivalent, I think the example of UK child benefit is instructive. It was a universal benefit in the sense that it applied to all children regardless of parental income (it differed by birth order but that's not material to the point). While the economy was doing well, the money flowed. Post crash, the economy tightened and it was an immediate target and became means tested.

It's not clear to me that, even if you managed to get UBI implemented, it would be stable. I would expect that it would need to show tangible, widespread benefit in about one economic cycle. Otherwise, as soon as things started to slow, you'd be seeing stories about the wasters and layabouts. It wouldn't matter if there were many cf the refugee "deluge" or similar triggers.

In other words, I can see UBI lasting only if a number of other, very significant economic (cycles) and societal (selfishness) issues are resolved. Tricky.

Re: We're officially launching UBI

#110

Post by shkkmo »

ttoinou wrote: post #102
shkkmo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your claim is contradicted by your quotes which specifically calls out people not working and spending their money wastefully.

Then you did not understand the quote. It's not about an objective morality (what is shameful, wasteful etc. to spend on). Spend the money you successfully exchanged with someone else the way you want it. The morale case with the argument is that citizen should have their say in how their taxes are spend, and that each of one us have different goals so "living in dignity" cannot be accomplished by UBI.

> Then you did not understand the quote.

Perhaps you picked a bad quote then. That quote pretty explicitly contradicts your claim.

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