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Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#211

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

matz1 wrote: post #191
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You should be producing value because producing value make you happier That is your opinion, and to some degree it’s an opinion I agree with. That doesn’t mean the opinion has any basis in reality however.

Can u clarify, How is it not have any basis in reality ?

I mean I would expect you to back up your claim with some kind of scientific study that humans in general opt to produce value for society purely altruistically.

I highly doubt that’s the case, but I have an open mind and I’d be delighted to be proven wrong.

As I understand it, most societal benefit and technological advancement has come from humans acting selfishly. You develop an idea while seeking profit — not necessarily money; this behaviour far predates money — and society benefits as a side effect (if the development of that idea is in some way beneficial).

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#212

Post by bryondowd »

munk-a wrote: post #185
savanaly wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are efficient enough in our use of land, the demand relative to the supply will shrink enough that it's no longer scarce. I suppose lots of people enjoy owning their own land-- large tracts of it in fact, and not sharing it with anyone. That's a little tougher to conceptualize as post-scarcity as there's a limit to making land enjoyment more efficient with advanced technology. But in a world where other resourc…

Land will always be scarce because it isn't quantity of land (though that too can be a separate issue) but quantity coupled with positioning of land. Most people could afford to purchase four acres of land in Alaska or VT's north east kingdom, but four acres along central park is quite expensive because, due to the location of the site relative to all the services of NYC and the access to greenery, it is rather exclu…

Presumably, if you have unlimited resources, you can create most, if not all, of what makes that land in NYC valuable. You could create enough city districts to meet demand.

There's lots of factors that go into the value of land. Available amenities, jobs, being near other people, quality of schools and other resources, transportation, etc. But those all seem to boil down to scarce resources being pooled in one area. If you could mass produce amenities, buildings, school supplies, etc, then NYC wouldn't have any inherent value, because its equal would exist everyone someone cared to plop one down where there was enough demand to fill it with people.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#213

Post by fucking_tragedy »

tracker1 wrote: post #160
Reedx wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there been any exploration of a version of Basic Income in exchange for community service? There's a virtually endless amount of unskilled work that could be done to improve the environment and people's lives.

I think it'd be a great idea.. you either are on disability, work an average of at least 20 hours a week at a paid, taxable job (under the table work won't count), or you volunteer for registered services programs for 20 hours a week. 20 hours a week is just my suggestion as a minimum that would allow for people to still job search if they choose to and could be averaged over a quarter or year or similar. Exceptions…

> Note: I think if UBI were implemented that Medicare and a lot of other programs should be replaced by it.

Medicare is a program that solely exists for the retired who over 65 and disabled people.

Medicaid, on the other hand, is available to those who live in states that accepted federal funding via the ACA and are within a certain percentage of the federal poverty line.

Those who don't qualify for Medicaid, but are under a certain income level, have their health insurance premiums subsidized via the ACA.

If you plan on eliminating Medicaid, you'll need to acknowledge the fact that even people who earn many multiples of the federal poverty level are still eligible for subsidized health insurance due to burden of costs. If people who are not poor by federal standards need to have their health insurance costs subsidized, that means people whose income is derived from UBI-esque make-work programs will have a hard time affording health insurance if they're considered eligible for Medicaid, but it was eliminated.

This is why many proponents see UBI as an adjunct, not a replacement, for existing programs.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#214

Post by JAlexoid »

savanaly wrote: post #177
Retric wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scarcity is beyond just stuff. Land for example is a finite resource.

If we are efficient enough in our use of land, the demand relative to the supply will shrink enough that it's no longer scarce. I suppose lots of people enjoy owning their own land-- large tracts of it in fact, and not sharing it with anyone. That's a little tougher to conceptualize as post-scarcity as there's a limit to making land enjoyment more efficient with advanced technology. But in a world where other resourc…

The idea of land ownership is as mythical as Thor's hammer. You don't own land - you own a right to do certain things on that land to the exclusion of others. Only sovereignty gives actual ownership of land - transferring it to another jurisdiction, setting up your own laws, destroying said land and doing whatever the fuck one would do when one is literally "law onto oneself".

Also - money is no longer representative of a thing you can hold. Money is a share of wealth of a nation, which includes trust, culture, people, land and buildings.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#215

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dragonwriter wrote: post #204
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is and it isn't. Land in Manhattan is scarce. Land in the non-coastal western US or most of Canada or Australia is theoretically scarce too, but not so much in practice.

> Land in the non-coastal western US or most of Canada or Australia is theoretically scarce too, but not so much in practice. If the acquisition cost is >0, it is scarce in practice as well as theory.

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is."

Land in these places can be something like $500/acre. That's not zero, but compared to the land prices people are more familiar with, it's as close as makes no difference in practice.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#216

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

simonsarris wrote: post #145
mises wrote: post #48

I still see some big issues with universal basic income, and would appreciate one of its supporters responding to some of them: Cost. $3.8 trillion by many estimates. That's nearly 20% of America's GDP. How is it possible to pull this much money out of the American economy without crashing it? Scope. I am of the opinion that one of the beauties of federalism is that policies can be tested first at the state level bef…

Never-mind the money, I fear that even if we can implement it and pay for it, there will still be a host of social problems that UBI advocates do not want to grapple with. There's still no answer to questions like "what if it starts to entrench a permanent underclass and make inter-generational wealth worse, as people who stop working bear a generation of people who have never worked, and they bear children, etc". ht…

> people who stop working bear a generation of people who have never worked, and they bear children

Discourage bearing of children by pushing contraception and providing the poor and unemployed with free internet access, with streaming and online gaming, in order to occupy their time. Birthrates are already going down in the West, and probably a further push can be made here and there so that people are even less interested in children. Then, that underclass status won’t be passed on to another generation, it will stop with the first generation.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#217

Post by JAlexoid »

kardos wrote: post #181
savanaly wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are efficient enough in our use of land, the demand relative to the supply will shrink enough that it's no longer scarce. I suppose lots of people enjoy owning their own land-- large tracts of it in fact, and not sharing it with anyone. That's a little tougher to conceptualize as post-scarcity as there's a limit to making land enjoyment more efficient with advanced technology. But in a world where other resourc…

Not really. Even if we triple land use efficiency, population growth will increase the demand to compensate

If you increase education, you'll learn that population will not grow that fast.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#218

Post by snarf21 »

icebraining wrote: post #144
Reedx wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there been any exploration of a version of Basic Income in exchange for community service? There's a virtually endless amount of unskilled work that could be done to improve the environment and people's lives.

Paying people in exchange for work is called a job, not UBI.

Kinda except you get to pick any "job" you want, work any amount of hours you want but still know you will get paid exactly the same amount. People might be happier reading to seniors 10 hours a week but not for minimum wage.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#219

Post by mindslight »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #183
psadri wrote: post #129

Handing out free money will most likely just cause inflation and defeat itself. The inflation will make the amount paid out in basic income insufficient to live on. The alternate to basic income for the purpose of housing, health and food, is to provide a basic version of those resources at zero cost.

> Handing out free money will most likely just cause inflation and defeat itself. The inflation will make the amount paid out in basic income insufficient to live on. I may start calling this the "it is impossible to reduce inequality" fallacy. If you gave everyone money, would things cost more? Maybe some things. Not everything, and not by 100.0% of the amount of money provided. Because some of the money gets saved…

Saying that inflation is low is referring to a broken metric. Inflation in housing, healthcare, and education have significantly contributed to the current problem in the US. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19106964

I would say the root problem is all that debt, specifically the ongoing costs of servicing the debt. Staying alive does intrinsically require ongoing expenses for food, energy, shelter upkeep, personal grooming, etc. But the cost of these is dwarfed by the amount spent on rent (aka debt) for the space on which the shelter resides.

Basic income is really just a natural progression of the last several decades's policy of overwhelming monetary inflation. If the BI mostly goes towards just servicing debt then it's only increasing the speed of that debt treadmill and making people's financial position ever-more precarious - they then depend on both continuing to hold down their job, and conforming to whatever conditions will be placed on the BI.

The one sensible thing BI would do is allow people to have income in areas with low economic activity, which is great for those willing to "retire" to such areas. It's just not going to alleviate the pain of the average person having to "make rent" as everyone seemingly envisions.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#220

Post by snarf21 »

rixrax wrote: post #89
ThomPete wrote: post #76

It's a general misunderstanding that Basic Income is some sort of job program, it's not. It's a job replacement program for a society where there aren't enough jobs for everyone because technology have taken over most. Basic Income should provide fundamental living cost support in a society that has no jobs so there is no "but" in there. Edit: Keep in mind we already have Basic Income it's just conditional. UBI is di…

And while doing that, cut the bureaucracy and stigma of having to continuously apply for welfare, food stamps etc. Not that this would offsets the cost of basic income. If we picture a dystopian future where due to the rise of automation, increases in population, lack of education and ability, ~90% of people cannot realistically work in a productive jobs, I think it's a good time to experiment now what and how to kee…

Don't forget that all that bureaucracy is the source of thousands of good paying jobs that now also are worse off even when they get added to UBI. Also, don't forget that now that they have less money, their collective reduced spending means the business they used to patron will have to lay people off. Now those people also need UBI. This doesn't spiral to infinity but their is a huge ripple effect.
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