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What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

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Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#451

Post by listenallyall »

mrfusion wrote: post #55
v64 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that if it's known that every American adult collects $1000 in addition to their regular income, prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess, so that the net result isn't that everyone gets an extra $1000 in discretionary income, but that everyone ends up paying that extra $1000 back in inflated prices. Similar logic to how raising tariffs doesn't hurt companies a…

Surely McDonald’s already knows everyone has an extra two dollars but they don’t raise their prices because of it. The thing is people would still shop around for the lowest price. The vendor with the lowest price gets the business. Even opec can’t raise their prices in unison without someone cheating.

You could not be more wrong.

When everyone gets $1000 for sitting on their ass, wages have nowhere to go but up. Why go to work for minimum/low wage, if basic needs are met? Wages go up + inputs go up --> end prices go up --> even the "vendor with the lowest price" is charging much more than before.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#452

Post by tyg13 »

supportlocal4h wrote: post #352
godelski wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess The assumes financial excess. The reason for UBI is that there isn't excess. If 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, then that's not excess. If 63% of Americans can't afford an unexpected $500 bill, that's not excess. You're right that inflation happens when there is excess, but given these stats, I don't buy that part of the…

Disclaimer: I live in a relatively prosperous community. My perspective is skewed accordingly. Your numbers seem fictitious to me. 78% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck? Look at what they are spending their paycheck on. One car per person. 2.1 people per house. 3.2 game consoles per person. A new laptop every 15 months. A new car every 36 months. A new $800 smartphone every 11 months. Every low-income 10 year…

> Show me any random collection of 10,000 Americans and I will show you $2 million/year of disposable income without sacrificing a single smartphone or smart TV.

That's $200/year on average. Not exactly a compelling argument.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#453

Post by jonathanstrange »

pas wrote: post #263
jonathanstrange wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen realistic figures for my country on UBI and from what I've seen UBI at a realistic level does not seem to be affordable. It's insanely expensive. Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. I'd rather see reasonable minimum wages, and higher taxes that are spent on universal health care,…

> Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. Could you elaborate on that a bit? How and why would it do that? What's your opinion on Negative Income Tax? > The current systems in most countries are horrible, because they are designed to punish people who are creative and try to make money on the s…

> > Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now.

> Could you elaborate on that a bit? How and why would it do that?

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on UBI myself and have merely been to a talk+discussion about it, so I'm happy to be convinced otherwise or hear opposing arguments.

I see two problems. First, a realistic UBI would be at an extremely low level, barely exceeding the existence minimum. However, it would diminish employer's willingness to treat people in unqualified low-wage jobs fairly and well (in small companies they do that a lot). They would fire and hire as they see fit, because someone fired supposedly could live easily off UBI. It seems to me that a consequence of this attitude is also that wages for those jobs would sink and some of these jobs might even degrade into unpaid "internships", based on the argument that people with UBI can take those jobs to have a purpose or for personal development, but don't need them to sustain their life. In reality many of them would still depend on those jobs, though, because UBI would be too low.

Second, UBI itself does not prevent massive capital accumulation and the continuously increasing divide between rich and poor, and it does not prevent the spreading of wealth by inheritance (as opposed to merits and work). There is no obvious reason (or at least I cannot see it) why UBI would change the current trend of increasing the gap.

Taking these two issues together, I don't see how UBI can solve society's main problem, which is this increasing gap between rich and poor and all problems that come with it regarding eduction, health care, political power distribution, social mobility, renters vs. land-owners, gentrification, etc.

I'm not an economist, but Negative Income Tax seems much better to me.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#454

Post by pas »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #453
pas wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. Could you elaborate on that a bit? How and why would it do that? What's your opinion on Negative Income Tax? > The current systems in most countries are horrible, because they are designed to punish people who are creative and try to make money on the s…

> > Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. > Could you elaborate on that a bit? How and why would it do that? Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on UBI myself and have merely been to a talk+discussion about it, so I'm happy to be convinced otherwise or hear opposing arguments. I see two problems. F…

Neither am I an expert, so disclaimers all around :)

The problem of too low UBI seems the biggest practical one. And if we do it somehow needs-based, then it stop being universal, which is one of the supposed advantages - that it absolutely eliminates administrative costs/problems/etc. (But of course those are very fine straw men. Rationally none of those matter. Only that we somehow synthesize a long term (eg. sustainable) strategy to solve the problems that every kind of income/wealth redistribution aims to solve.)

Of course with that attitude we're quickly back to where we are now, needs based assistance programs. Plus a lot of recommendations on how to change them. One of them is that we should stop fucking around - to use the expert terminus technicus - and just give poor people money. Yes, they might even spend it on things that give them some pleasure on the very short term. They might even buy drugs. Not that they can't do that now with some extra steps. (Buy a-okay food with assistance program, sell it for cheaper, buy booze.)

And you are exactly right, the inequality is again completely independent of UBI. It depends on taxes, labor's share of income, etc.

UBI is a magical unicorn, it is assumed to provide everything good. Especially because it's so vague most of the time. (That's why talking about NIT is much easier, it's a rather concrete form of UBI.)

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#455

Post by mech1234 »

digitaltrees wrote: post #439
mech1234 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a large risk of inflation under UBI. You cannot make an honest argument about UBI without accepting this risk. 1. On the margin, UBI reduces employment and production. This contributes to inflation. 2. On the margin, UBI increases consumption of consumer staples. This contributes to inflation. 3. On the margin, UBI increases the velocity of money. This contributes to inflation. 4. Under most assumptions, UBI…

1. Early evidence of UBI reducing employment actually shows the opposite. 2. Increased demand for consumer staples, if met with increased supply won't lead to inflation, if suppliers and entrepreneurs see the increase in demand as stable, they will make investments to increase supply. As long as we allow the price seeking mechanism of the market reach equilibrium, inflation will be at most momentary. 3. Velocity of m…

1. Below is a summary of evidence that UBI reduces employment. The reductions of working hours are substantial, even in studies widely spun as "no change". Below that is also HN debate about it.

https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2019/basic_income_reduces...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22493537

2. Assuming that the equilibrium point remains at the same price level is difficult. It requires assumptions about the elasticity of demand and the elasticity of supply. Generally, if UBI has disincentivized work, you would expect less work, less supply, and a higher equilibrium price.

3. Under a constant money supply, increased velocity of money does create inflation. This is fairly standard economic theory. Increased hoarding is definitively a decrease in the velocity of money.

4. Fair enough, but it requires you to trust the politicians to pass a tax that impacts only the extremely wealthy. This is not guaranteed or even likely.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#456

Post by jonathanstrange »

pas wrote: post #454
jonathanstrange wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. > Could you elaborate on that a bit? How and why would it do that? Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on UBI myself and have merely been to a talk+discussion about it, so I'm happy to be convinced otherwise or hear opposing arguments. I see two problems. F…

Neither am I an expert, so disclaimers all around :) The problem of too low UBI seems the biggest practical one. And if we do it somehow needs-based, then it stop being universal, which is one of the supposed advantages - that it absolutely eliminates administrative costs/problems/etc. (But of course those are very fine straw men. Rationally none of those matter. Only that we somehow synthesize a long term (eg. susta…

This is rare on the Internet nowadays, but I totally agree with everything you say. I often annoy economists by pointing out that due to the diminishing marginal utility of money any transfer of money from the rich to the poor increases overall utility. They don't like that at all. :)

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#457

Post by imafish »

dang wrote: post #336
imafish wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, blame the poor for their poverty. Gives a nice tummy feel but does nothing good for society.

It wasn't a particularly deep comment, but your reply breaks the site guidelines. That's heading in the wrong direction. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here. Note this one: " Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. "

Yeah. Fair enough

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#458

Post by zenhack »

jnordwick wrote: post #444
zenhack wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The devil is in the details; a lot of the things they're getting tax breaks for don't benefit the public. Why are they getting tax breaks for building warehouses and data centers for themselves? Stock based compensation for executives? Also, regardless of what breaks are available for what activities, their baseline tax burden ought to be much higher. We should be drawing funding from people who can afford it and use…

> Why are they getting tax breaks for building warehouses and data centers for themselves? Are you fucking kidding me? They get capital construction break like every other company gets. If you don't see that as the literal definition of investment you don't deserve to have an opinion on this.

I don't think we should be giving them tax breaks for investments that are only for themselves. They're going to do that anyway because it expands their business. If they were doing something that had a genuine public benefit, that they otherwise wouldn't do, that would be a different story.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#459

Post by 93po »

manigandham wrote: post #197
93po wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing unethical about a wealth tax. Billionaires made their fortunates on the backs of society and have only maintained that power and wealth through corruption and bribery. They should have never had that money to begin with.

There are several founders of YC companies that are self-made billionaires and they post on this very forum. Do you really think they made it on the "backs of society" through "corruption and bribery" rather than building a company that provides value to those willing to pay for it?

If they made their money in a vacuum with no interaction to society then they would owe nothing to society. That isn't the case. They absolutely made their money on the back of society, including the decades of wealthy lobbying/bribery that came before them that has allows them to keep their immoral gains

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#460

Post by 93po »

manigandham wrote: post #364
claudeganon wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This presumes that societies are run and tax so as to provide equal benefits to all. This is disproven by, I dunno, the history of every society.

Taxes are not equally paid either. I'm not sure what your point is. Do you want to limit wealth? Do you want to ban entrepreneurship? Do you want communism?

>Do you want communism?

Yes

>Do you want to limit wealth?

Absolutely

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