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Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

businessinsider.com

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Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#171

Post by anovikov »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #157
anovikov wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously there is NO WAY in the world an UBI will cover the rent - even the rent alone - in any place where it makes sense starting a business. I would imagine an UBI will be mostly used by people to exclude themselves from active workforce to "retire" in low-cost destinations. Because that will be the only thing it will really allow doing. Say you impose a super huge 30% income tax (anything above that will cause a…

How are you accounting for the increased economic velocity of a sustained cash injection across the entire country?

But there will be less injection that now right, in case UBI is implemented? No "new" money will appear (unless you suggest printing more and more trillions). This is the same money taken away as taxes. Except now it goes to those in need, instead it will go to everyone: now almost all of that money is consumed and so is indeed a "cash injection", instead the portion of the money - that goes to those already doing OK - will be saved.

Providing a "cash injection" doesn't require the UBI. It only requires taxing the rich. But the rich - yes, they mostly CAN actually leave the country to escape taxation, and operate from elsewhere, they can move their assets - increasingly virtual such as intellectual properly - onto offshore entities too... So there's really no option of taxing the rich.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#172

Post by commandlinefan »

intuitionist wrote: post #26

Altman and Yang are a natural fit because they’re both very invested (Altman literally so) in the narrative that automation is coming for huge numbers of jobs. But the economic statistics just don’t back this up. Total factor productivity, a (rough) measure of the technological contribution to economic production, is growing considerably more slowly than it was during the early 2000s, and much more slowly than during…

Yeah - the only thing I can think of worse than not having a plan in place for a future world where all work is automated is implementing that plan before all work is actually automated.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#173

Post by moralsupply »

charlesu wrote: post #166
moralsupply wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you tax corporations, they don't simply make less profits, they embed the tax losses in their prices and pay less to workers. You, as a consumer or employee, end up paying that tax.

I think you're oversimplifying how companies determine prices and wages. Yes, corporate taxes are one consideration. There's also competition, regulations, distribution costs, and commodity prices. Passing along your costs directly to consumers is a great way to give up market share to a more efficient or creative competitor.

If taxes are applied to all corporations, competition is not a factor to be considered.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#174

Post by AnthonyMouse »

anovikov wrote: post #148
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI just doesn't solve that Doesn't it though? You create a floor, so that anyone with a miserable job can say "screw you" and quit and go start their own business without having to worry about how they're going to make rent before the new business starts making money, and you get a lot more competition. More smaller companies instead of fewer bigger companies. And the big companies would have to pay more to get so…

Seriously there is NO WAY in the world an UBI will cover the rent - even the rent alone - in any place where it makes sense starting a business. I would imagine an UBI will be mostly used by people to exclude themselves from active workforce to "retire" in low-cost destinations. Because that will be the only thing it will really allow doing. Say you impose a super huge 30% income tax (anything above that will cause a…

> Seriously there is NO WAY in the world an UBI will cover the rent - even the rent alone - in any place where it makes sense starting a business.

You can get a one bedroom in Austin for less than $800/month, to say nothing of arrangements that involve roommates or shared facilities or couples who would then have a second UBI.

> I would imagine an UBI will be mostly used by people to exclude themselves from active workforce to "retire" in low-cost destinations. Because that will be the only thing it will really allow doing.

You're forgetting the possibility for supplemental income. Combine the UBI with a part time job and you could live just outside of New York City and spend the other half of your time on the business for as long as it takes until it makes enough for you to quit the part time job.

There is also a whole lot of work that really doesn't care about location at all. You can do software development in Kansas if you want to, as well as anything else that involves selling your product over the internet.

> Say you impose a super huge 30% income tax (anything above that will cause a revolt in the middle classes, and mass exodus in upper classes)

The marginal rate isn't what causes revolts, it's the effective rate. Middle class people don't care about paying $12,000 in tax if they also get a $12,000 UBI. Upper middle class people aren't going to revolt over a difference between the two of an amount similar to what they pay already for the existing welfare system we would no longer need.

And the whole point of using VAT is that billionaires and international corporations can't avoid it.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#175

Post by danharaj »

o_p wrote: post #97
kyledrake wrote: post #50

"Altman, who favors UBI, said in exchange for a floor, he’d like to see no ceiling on earnings, as some, like presidential hopeful Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, have suggested. And like Friedman, Altman suggested tying the amount of the basic income to a fixed percentage of GDP. “Right now, because people are rightly angry that there's no floor, and that most people have no real chance to be super successful, we sort…

>A system that will concentrate that much power will be inherently evil, it will and does serve the needs of that few over the needs of the many. This defines pretty much every social system we ever had, unless you propose some sort of decentralized utopia, you need to trust power in the hands of a few. Money is just a vehicle of this particular system.

Decentralized industrialism is the crux of a large swathe of left libertarian ideology, such as anarchosyndicalism.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#176

Post by danharaj »

JorgeGT wrote: post #135
grecy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if automation isn't coming for people's job, isn't it time we moved away from this idea that every single person has to work for 40 hours a week for 50 years of their life just to survive? What about spending time with family, or learning a new language or just enjoying one's time? When do we reach that magical future where we actually have leisure time and can enjoy the fact we're more advanced than we were a h…

Answer is: never. The average person in the West has already surpassed the comfort and standard of living of the average monarch a couple centuries ago, but instead of settling we want more: traveling, more and more advanced tech, vast amount of entertainment, etc. Consider the multi-billion dollar media productions (games, TV series, movies, music, books, etc.) that you can access at the command of your voice vs. th…

If you think you have it better than a monarch because you have things and other people are dissatisfied and you dont know why maybe it isn't more stuff that people want.

The point of being a monarch wasn't to have the shiniest toys.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#177

Post by Unsimplified »

atq2119 wrote: post #144
Unsimplified wrote: post #133

My problem with UBI is 1. It's not fair work-sharing, if people can live on it. 2. There's no economic mechanism that guarantees we'll have enough money to fund it every month. I propose another solution. Accessible, high paying jobs. If someone is unskilled, train them. Once they are skilled, guide them to useful work.

> 2. There's no economic mechanism that guarantees we'll have enough money to fund it every month. This isn't true, since the state can always just create more money. The real limitation is in real resources and production capacity, and if a UBI was implemented by creating more money than the existing production capacity can sustain, it would likely drive up the rate of inflation. If the UBI is set to a fixed nominal…

Agreed money printing solves the gross income promise. I meant real income as the problem as well.

UBI, guaranteed jobs, seems all these solutions fundamentally require sufficient money flow to work. People spending slowly (rich or poor) means low tax/biz revenue causing program failure. I think the key problem is how we can guarantee the economy to sustain X velocity of money.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#178

Post by kingkawn »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #154
kyledrake wrote: post #50

"Altman, who favors UBI, said in exchange for a floor, he’d like to see no ceiling on earnings, as some, like presidential hopeful Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, have suggested. And like Friedman, Altman suggested tying the amount of the basic income to a fixed percentage of GDP. “Right now, because people are rightly angry that there's no floor, and that most people have no real chance to be super successful, we sort…

how exactly is a ubi not solving rampant poverty? Maybe someone's implementation is flawed but to make an extraordinary claim like UBI can't solve poverty will require extraordinary proof. Likewise, how is ubi regressive? What would a progressive solution to poverty be?

If the introduction of UBI is coupled with the dismantling of existing social safety net it is effectively the privatization of public welfare, and will result in all the related pitfalls.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#179

Post by etripe »

wardnath wrote: post #123
datashow wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with having a handful of people be billionaires and trillionaires is that money is power, and with that amount of money you have nearly unlimited power and influence over everyone and everything. A system that will concentrate that much power will be inherently evil, it will and does serve the needs of that few over the needs of the many. It is kind of right but essentially wrong. In any society with th…

Completely agree. I would rather have hierarchies determined by free-market forces rather than a state-organized system. Corporate monopolies should be deterred by the state, but trying to cap individual success via something like a wealth tax would cause problems for the whole market.

All you're really saying with your post is you'd rather live in an oligarchy (free market players) than a democracy (the state). The free market is in no way fairer or less corrupt than elections, but it is more single-mindedly incentivised by the profit motive. I fail to see the inherent moral victory.

Many people add on the mistake of thinking they will belong to the class of enlightened despots. You haven't said enough for me to tell if you're one of those.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#180

Post by freehunter »

shrubble wrote: post #167
rpedela wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of places in the US with rents in the $100s and you could start a business whether that business is a hotdog stand or a software business.

Could you name them, please? Rents in boring Ohio cities for example, are still $650 for a 1 bedroom unit.

I think they meant "in the hundreds" not "between $100 and $200". Rent for less than $1000.
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