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People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

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Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#391

Post by falcolas »

eru wrote: post #60
falcolas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As self reported by many truly rich folks, money is not a motivating factor in their daily lives. If they want a good burger, they'll get one and not care if it's $1 or $1,000. Such an attitude would certainly apply to their reasons for working.

If you factor in the opportunity cost of a rich persons time, the cost of the burger itself matter proportionally less.

Well, the rich almost always make most of their day-to-day income from investments. The opportunity cost calculations change pretty dramatically when a person's labor provides little to no monetary value (especially given the context of going out for a burger).

After all, there's a practical limit on the value of a person's labor - let's postulate that it's around $7,000 a day - there's no such limit on what investments can return in a day.

* $7,000 is Elon Musks's $2.2M salary from 2019 divided into 340 working days.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#393

Post by [deleted] »

nennes wrote: post #229
sabarn01 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should fear being destitute its the natural human condition. Learning skills is the only way to make wealth.

That's a common argument to justify inequality. If learning is the key, then why is there such a huge income disparity between men and women? Are women lazy and don't learn?

[deleted]

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#394

Post by a0zU »

loa_in_ wrote: post #261
a0zU wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are absolutely people who would contribute to society in other ways but there are also people who would not work, not contribute and, sit in their rooms all day not having the will to do anything but debate with strangers on internet forums(lol). In my opinion the problem with UBI is that it would take away the necessity for people to do something to survive and it would make a significant minority of the popul…

There is a lot of things to do other than consume. Even if it's learning to write poetry

Absolutely, there are plenty of things to do other than consume and there are definetly people who would discover that they had a talent at writing poetry, but doing those things require effort that a significant minority would not be ready or willing to make, and consummation is incredibly appealing to those who aren't strong enough to put effort into anything else.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#395

Post by Shacklz »

bluGill wrote: post #336
chickenpotpie wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, we are faaaaaaaaar from equal opportunity. One of the largest predictors of one's ability to accumulate wealth is still the wealth of their own parents. The U.S. is one of the countries with the highest link between parents' and a child's wealth.

Citation needed. I hear this often, but no hard evidence that isn't easy to show is false.

> Citation needed.

Here you go: "The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940", Raj Chetty et al. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6336/398

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#396

Post by danenania »

Aunche wrote: post #374
danenania wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is a limited amount of capital in the world." You've already lost me. This is provably false, as any programmer should know: if you sit down and code something useful today, you've just increased the amount of capital in the world. Out of thin air. A carpenter who buys a bunch of lumber and turns it into a thousand-dollar piece of furniture does the same. The more people can learn to add value to the world, an…

I mean that there isn't enough capital to distribute to everyone in the world, not that it's fixed forever. You can grow it. That's my point. It's better to increase capital than redistribute it. > Investment distributes wealth primarily from the elite to the slightly-less elite. If you've seen how China changed in the last couple decades, you'd see how this obviously isn't true. Basically all electronics are manufac…

Yeah, so now instead of barely getting by on subsistence farming, they barely get by working 16 hour shifts in dangerous conditions with no rights. While the workers may be mostly better off than they were before, they still have to spend almost all their time and energy on meeting the basic needs of survival. The people who benefitted by far the most from all that investment were the owners, executives, and shareholders of the companies that run the factories. So I would say that distribution of capital was still quite lacking in terms of where it could have the most leverage to increase opportunity.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#397

Post by cortesoft »

sabarn01 wrote: post #216
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #170

From my personal point of view, basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc. Because in the current economy, a lot of people have to work unreasonable hours, multiple jobs, and have all people in a family work to make ends meet, at the cost of personal health and well-being, personal time, having children at all or having more children, getting married and buyi…

People should fear being destitute its the natural human condition. Learning skills is the only way to make wealth.

Dying young from curable diseases is also the natural human condition... should we not use antibiotics?

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#398

Post by theuri »

Very promising to read this. Feels like many more studies needed and more data to be collected in order to figure out what is indeed effective and what's not.

Just like the early hype with microfinance decades ago - there was an initial hype cycle, then broader cynicism in the academic community, and ultimately, a data-driven informed understanding of what in fact works (on a more nuanced level - by country, income levels, program design, etc.)

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#399

Post by camelNotation »

naravara wrote: post #65
camelNotation wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations. You can move to places with cheaper land and healthcare systems with less overcrowding. You can work less lucrative jobs in those locations and find customers for your work because everyone including the local residents of those rural areas, will have new money to spend. Local regions would see an influx in cash, allowing for small busin…

>If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations. Not disputing this, but there are some caveats that would need to be true for this hypothesis to hold. The main one being that people's reluctance to move comes down largely to career opportunities and moving expenses rather than access to amenities or proximity to family/community.

The primary reason people leave rural areas and move to large metropolitan areas is work. Most people in rural areas are already near their families, that's why they are there to begin with.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#400

Post by undersuit »

free652 wrote: post #379
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #170

From my personal point of view, basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc. Because in the current economy, a lot of people have to work unreasonable hours, multiple jobs, and have all people in a family work to make ends meet, at the cost of personal health and well-being, personal time, having children at all or having more children, getting married and buyi…

No, you wouldn't pay for basic income from your taxes. Where did you get that? It's an extra tax that you are currently not paying.

Yeah, taxes.
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