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Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

businessinsider.com

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Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#141

Post by vorg »

magduf wrote: post #20
dandare wrote: post #7

There are two problems with universal basic income: 1/ Many people think UBI is a great idea but everybody imagines something else. This makes discussing UBI very difficult. 2/ Regardless of what version of UBI you personally support, it is probably not a good idea to give money to those who don't need it. Sooner or later people will realize that what they really want is tax/benefit reform, not universal basic income…

>2/ Regardless of what version of UBI you personally support, it is probably not a good idea to give money to those who don't need it. Wrong. The system doesn't work if you don't give people to money who don't need it: the administrative requirements of assessing who and who doesn't need it, and then policing all this, is just too high. This is the reason UBI was invented in the first place! It's very simple: you giv…

> you give the same money to everyone, even if they're a billionaire. To make up for this, you raise the taxes a commensurate amount on the people who don't need it (and more for the really rich people, because the idea is wealth redistribution

This has already happened in various countries like the UK until the 1970's. In New Zealand the top income tax was 66%, and a "UBI" for everyone 60 and over, regardless of their income, was introduced. Of course those with high incomes paid up to 2/3rds of this back to the govt as income tax. In the 1980's, NZ followed the UK in slashing income taxes to the levels found in the US. The qualifying age for the "Universal Basic Income" was progressively increased to 65, with tentative plans to raise the age even further in the near future.

If the experiment there was to be extended, then the top income tax would have remained at 66% and the qualifying age for this "UBI" progressively lowered in stages down to 18 as the country could afford it. To see why the experiment was cancelled, I think we should look at why the income tax was lowered in these countries. Perhaps the rich lobbied for less taxes, and threatened to shift their businesses to Australia and other countries.

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#142

Post by dragonwriter »

prostoalex wrote: post #18
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #12

These experiments confuse me. Haven't we already seen the result of UBI? Pensions, states that issue money (from state oil income etc), allowances, annuities? The world doesn't come to an end; the people don't all become listless and stop contributing. The currency doesn't inflate uncontrollably; prices don't change at all. The cost of living is unchanged (because economics doesn't work that way). All the FUD produce…

> the people don't all become listless and stop contributing Well, in the US two groups that do get state distributions - residents of Alaska and those on Native American reservations - do have disproportionate rates of substance abuse (mainly alcohol). As far as seniors who get pensions, what is your definition of "contributing"? In many cases they are eligible for those pensions only once they declare themselves re…

> Well, in the US two groups that do get state distributions - residents of Alaska and those on Native American reservations - do have disproportionate rates of substance abuse (mainly alcohol).

Both of which had those problems before the distributions, so this appears to be the worst kind of correlation to causation argument, the pre hoc ergo propter hoc argument.

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#143

Post by dragonwriter »

briandear wrote: post #27
patrickthebold wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US gives social security to nearly everyone, including people who "don't need it". This was intentional. The idea being it's harder to take away a benefit that everyone enjoys, and fairly easy to take away benefits solely for "the poor".

The US doesn’t “give” it to nearly everyone — you get a benefit as a proportion of your contribution. If you never contribute to social security, you don’t get the benefit.

> The US doesn’t “give” it to nearly everyone — you get a benefit as a proportion of your contribution.

It's not proportional to even the wage-indexed total of contributions, because of bend points. (And because it's actually based on qualifying wages, not contributions, and the relationship between the two has not been constant over time.)

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#144

Post by dragonwriter »

Klathmon wrote: post #65
Siecje wrote: post #57

With UBI people say you are not discouraged from working because everyone gets the money no matter how much money they make. But where does that money come from? Once you earn enough surely they will be taxing you more than you receive per month, otherwise the system would not work.

I have really only read comments on UBI so I might be extremely wrong, but I believe the idea is that as we move toward a more "automated" life, the "1%" can make enough to pay for the 99% to have UBI. And since everyone gets the same baseline, even monumentally high tax rates would be tolerable. This is basically a way of redistributing wealth with the added side benefit that you can quit your job without fear of lo…

> I have really only read comments on UBI so I might be extremely wrong, but I believe the idea is that as we move toward a more "automated" life, the "1%" can make enough to pay for the 99% to have UBI.

That's an idea, but far from universal among UBI proponents.

Actually, reducing the concentration of capital by redistributing it's returns is part of it, and in that view preventing control of the pre-redistribution gains by an increasingly narrow class is part of the goal.

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#145

Post by Nomentatus »

brianwawok wrote: post #71
hawkice wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very skeptical of claims that outcomes are discontinuous in policy space. Going one step in direction A should give you information about going further in that same direction, at least on some scale of change. Clearly the people running the experiment agreed, because they designed it with the intent to get that information.

> Going one step in direction A should give you information about going further in that same direction So eating healthy for 1 day/week will change your blood results and tell you that a year of it will make you lose 50 pounds? So going to 1 day of college will make you measure differently on a test that checks critical thinking? Different things take different amount of time to see results. I could see behaving very…

It's more that shorter experiments might tell you whether there are deep downsides even in the short-term. Not great information, not full information, but information; even if it's just a one-way test.

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#147

Post by jdpigeon »

simonsarris wrote: post #79

Studying a UBI pilot with an end date is not studying UBI at all: It is instead studying a misnamed temporary cash payment. By the nature of pilots, the cohort’s behavior cannot reliably change to depend on UBI’s long term existence. No study yet has guaranteed a cohort money forever, and even if it did it would be difficult for a pilot to study the long term effects, some of which may be generations out. What pilot…

Very cool to see you on Hacker News. I listened to your piece on Medium (great narrator btw) and loved it. It's started some lively conversations

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#148

Post by aaron695 »

yardie wrote: post #122
jandrese wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO this is more correct than you give it credit for. Humans need to feel a sense of accomplishment to maintain their mental health over the long term. Just giving them money to survive without giving them something to do leads to high rates of depression and self destructive behavior. A good percentage of the population is not self starters, they'll sit on their ass all day long if nobody forces them to get up. IMH…

I'm not sure what a good percentage is but I know the majority of the population is self-motivated. What that motivation is can very greatly and is affected by resources. I've sat on my ass plenty of times and watched TV simply because I didn't have the money to go anywhere. Will there people who abuse that goodwill? There is in almost every system. Just like you can't design the perfect lock to keep all thieves out…

> I'm not sure what a good percentage is but I know the majority of the population is self-motivated.

This is simply totally incorrect.

If it was close to true we wouldn't need schools or universities. Everyone could self learn through books.

Even MOOCs can't yet work out the motivation issues with drop out rates of 90%

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#149

Post by [deleted] »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #43
dandare wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for proving my point. And now look at the numbers in my diagram, the administrative costs are negligible compared to the cost of giving money to those who don't need it.

You're missing a section on the bottom of your chart. Who will pay for UBI? -- income tax. Raise the per capita income rate an average of £12,000, (£15,000 pounds minus the ~3,000 in savings you calculated earlier). No net impact on the average taxpayer, little impact on the rich and massive impact on the poor.

[deleted]

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#150

Post by dandare »

akvadrako wrote: post #30
dandare wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Becuase you first have to take the money from those who earned it.

You are missing the whole point of UBI - because it's unconditional it doesn't discourage working.

I don't understand your comment, I never said it discourages working.
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