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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

#661

Post by mikemotherwell »

sjwright wrote: post #611
crispyambulance wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like a success to me. I like the concept too, but we have to be careful what we wish for. If, somehow, UBI becomes real there will be a huge push from the libertarians and far-right to dismantle whatever is left of the social safety net. They actually would love the idea of replacing medicare, social security and other programs with a quick 1000/month that would enable even more shrinking of government.

Medicare isn’t going anywhere. Once people get the taste for single payer healthcare, they don't give it up. Social security should be replaced with privately held accounts, just like superannuation in Australia. But in the transition people would need to be paid out their entitlement. So no problem there. But if UBI replaced all normal welfare (excluding disability etc) is that such a bad thing? As long as the UBI i…

> But if UBI replaced all normal welfare (excluding disability etc) is that such a bad thing?

Part of the problem is that some welfare is not about the money, but the support. UBI is less likely to help someone with mental issues than someone who hates working at 7/11 while studying. Generalised, UBI likely helps those who have an impermanent problem over those that have longer term issues.

Society likely would still need welfare services for those people who struggle with the multiple travails of existence.

Personally, I'm less interested in UBI in the first world, where welfare is pretty good already and the negative affects are unknown and complicated. I'm more interested in what affect it would have on the third world, where the downsides - disincentives to work etc - seem far less of an issue. https://www.givedirectly.org/ubi-study/ is a good example.

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

#662

Post by Game_Ender »

munk-a wrote: post #503
graeme wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth isn’t fungible like that. A lot of recent wealth inequality was stocks rising. That doesn’t mean that food production went up, or that more houses get built cheaper, or that new doctors are cloned, or anything of the sort. It just means stocks went up. Most of the economy is people providing stuff to other people, or working to import stuff. If people don’t work, you don’t get the stuff they provide. To a cert…

Oh, so maybe we should fund UBI by just stripping out the capital gains exemptions that allow insanely rich people to get insanely richer. Some people have more money than they need, it can be removed from them - the intricacies of how they got that money should be very carefully considered when it comes to structuring how UBI would be funded - but they clearly have more money in absolute terms. And that wealth is tr…

I think the point is you cannot go infinitely far with that concept. Wealth allows you to get a share of the productive capacity of the world. Giving everyone a billion dollars does not automatically mean we have enough production capacity and land to have everyone live in a mansion.

Now we can certainly say that "hey maybe if these guys all didn't have such a big mansion or as many cars everyone else would be better off", but you have to be explicit about that. It's about taking away things people like and to put that effort elsewhere.

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

#663

Post by [deleted] »

cortesoft wrote: post #397
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.

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

[deleted]

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

#664

Post by prepend »

xzel wrote: post #361
prepend wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand many jobs, but many I thought were bullshit, I changed my mind after learning more about them. I do know that asking people if their job is bullshit is not a good way to truly understand. It’s natural to hate many jobs, that’s why I’m paid to do them. I once shoveled horse stalls. I hated it. It was. Horseshit job. But if the job stopped existing, it would have negative impact. I think it will be c…

I don’t think I’ve said all jobs will be rockstar you’re the boss type of jobs, but there are certainly a huge amount of inefficiencies in lots of business. I think asking people if they feel like their work is needed or could be automated away is probably the only gauge one might have until actually removing them or trying to automate it. I agree it’s not a perfect metric but it’s got to be correct within some bound…

I think the problem with asking people this question is that most don’t understand automation, almost all are biased toward themselves, and employees frequently think their job is stupid given their imperfect information.

I remember years ago I was talking with a friend of a friend who worked for a small 3-4 person software company. In the same conversation ve said ver job was bullshit because the software was written years ago by the two owners, who did nothing now, leaving all customer service to the friend of friend. So the argument was that ve should be paid more since ve creates all the value. So the argument was that the owners had bullshit jobs. There was a counter argument that small bugs had to be fixed, not by owners, but by the friend of friend who thought vis job was bullshit because the owner should fix it since the owner knows the software well.

I think it’s hard to get a straight answer because of this limited perspective as well as the natural falseness in responses to “is your job bullshit and we’ll pay you UBI so you can do something cool?” Or “is your job bullshit and we’ll fire you?”

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

#665

Post by prepend »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #377
prepend wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand many jobs, but many I thought were bullshit, I changed my mind after learning more about them. I do know that asking people if their job is bullshit is not a good way to truly understand. It’s natural to hate many jobs, that’s why I’m paid to do them. I once shoveled horse stalls. I hated it. It was. Horseshit job. But if the job stopped existing, it would have negative impact. I think it will be c…

You mean there are tasks that need to be done, not jobs. In the case of horse shit, for sure it is better if someone cleans it, but that someone can also be the person that trains or rides the horse. There isn't an intrinsic need for a job that performs only that task.

I agree, but think it’s not a very important distinction. Certainly the owner could muck the stall and perform that job. But most owners of horses don’t like to do that and pay someone.

So I think a job is just a task that involves payment. It doesn’t change the argument. Someone has to do the task. If you give the horse owner UBI to free up more time, it’s unlikely to be spent shoveling horse manure.

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

#666

Post by AlexanderNull »

zazaalaza wrote: post #636
learnstats2 wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is no such thing as "permanent UBI", though. UBI is a political decision which is renewed with every government. The perspective of the participants makes sense. Whether they believe their access to UBI will continue or not, it makes sense to up-skill. Besides, we do know how people behave when they are born with a million dollar bank account, and it's relatively very rare that they are criticised for how t…

"UBI is a political decision which is renewed with every government" If this is true than implementing UBI will be more problematic than I thought. All UBI proposals so far call for all other financial safety nets to be removed in order to finance UBI. Managing that will be a nightmare if you can just cut off UBI, then you have to spin up everything else again. I imagine UBI to be something similar to how the pension…

This is why the "Universal" aspect of it is so important. It's ridiculously easy for people to vote for defunding services that "other" people benefit from, and politicians can always whip up support by scapegoating some minority group as the root of all of our problems. But if the benefit is shared by everyone then it becomes near political suicide to suggest cuts to it. How many politicians successfully can campaign to get rid of social security or medicaid? Those are programs shared with a significant percent, but not even a majority, and as such it's really hard to successfully push for cuts to such systems. With a total universal application of basic income it would be political suicide to push for cuts, everyone's life would be planned and organized already around such a program. Look at how hard it is for universal healthcare systems to be cut in nations that have such a benefit.

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

#667

Post by godelski »

CompBrogrammer wrote: post #659
godelski wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unclear to me if you are being obtuse on purpose or on accident. But I want to reiterate that trolling is not allowed on HN and it is presumed that you are going to take arguments on good faith. So I will answer as if you aren't being needlessly obtuse. We're talking about institutional education, not gaining more information. So in this discussion we're not talking about people spending their money to become m…

This hardly seems like responding in good faith. At any rate, I believe the poster you responded to was using hyperbole to equate "history of the Kardashians" with some degree that he or she deems "equally as useless."

I was suggesting that they weren't responding in good faith. Which in this instance was the creation of straw man.

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

#668

Post by odshoifsdhfs »

76543210 wrote: post #514
refurb wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge part of growing up is developing bonds, understanding relationships and getting your kid on a firm footing so they can deal with what the world throws at them. A lot of that develop happens when they are not learning, or at least you don’t think they are.

I've been working full time and my kid gets excited to see me every day. The bond is there. If you really want to turn this around, imagine how dependent a child would be on a parent if they never used a babysitter.

My son never used a babysitter. He was raised by both his mother and me at home 24/7 (she didn't work, I worked from home).

He is hardly dependent on us. More on his grandparents because they spoil him, but the first 4/5 years of his life, he would see them only a few times a year.

You don't need to justify working full time, or your wife/husband doing the same, but there is no way childcare in a nursery/pre school is as good as stay at home parents (assuming normal parents of course).

Heck, it is common for kids that are put in nurseries when very young, to develop very very strong bonds with the caretakers, sometimes more than with the parents. (source: studied/worked as one)

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

#669

Post by lliamander »

godelski wrote: post #642
blackflame7000 wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day it's the most direct and effective way of combating poverty and goes a long way towards closing the wealth gap. Where do you think all this Income is going to come from? The middle class will shoulder the bulk of it which will widen the wealth gap. You will end up with 1k in UBI and 1500 in taxes to pay for it.

Under Yang's plan even if you made $100k/yr (single person household) you'd get an increase[0]. You'd be having to make roughly $140k+/yr to see a decrease in total income (140k results in -$66/yr). (If you were the norm of 2 adults and 2 children your household income would need to be north of $315k/yr to "shoulder" his UBI) So I'm not sure why you think the middle class will shoulder the bulk of the cost. Do you th…

Yang's plan also involves one of the highest deficit spending proposals of any of the UBI plans listed on that calculator.

It's all very well and good to say "look, virtually everyone would see a net income increase!" until you realize that's only possible by literally just printing money.

The costs of such high deficit spending are pretty certain, but the benefits meant to offset those costs are only speculative (and highly speculative, at that).

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

#670

Post by grecy »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #389
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…

I agree. Letting workers leave abusive employment situations is a benefit of UBI. UBI might even totally reorient the idea of work in that now an employer has the incentive to keep workers happy that must be balanced with the profit incentive.

> UBI might even totally reorient the idea of work...

Which is exactly why Employees like the idea and employers hate it.

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