Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

lareviewofbooks.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 162 posts

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#131

Post by tgv »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #126
tgv wrote: post #11

Did it really? I remember strikes against "austerity" measures and such, but a wave of basic grant militancy? > Pilot programs have been set up in several cities and countries — Utrecht There is no such thing. They relaxed the rules for the bottom rung of welfare, which basically scraps the obligation to apply for jobs. Doesn't bode well for the article.

>Did it really? I remember strikes against "austerity" measures and such, but a wave of basic grant militancy I know nothing about these events, but it's not hard to believe a large number of people came to support UBI during a period of frequent strikes. With huge groups working together for a common goal, you'd expect some of them would start supporting more radical ideas >There is no such thing. They relaxed the r…

> The word "Utrecht" that you quoted links to the ongoing pilot program

That's what I commented on. The link is nearly 5 years old, and the policy is nowhere near UBI.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#132

Post by akvadrako »

evolve2k wrote: post #43
rodolphoarruda wrote: post #38

Quick conceptual question from a noob in the subject: does the UBI entirely replace social security for elderly individuals or is it added on top of it?

UBI sets an income ‘watermark’ of basic income for all. I would say they interact. It would eliminate the pension where desired/planned pension funds were at a similar watermark.. if the pension needed to be more then it would supplement towards this.

What you are describing sounds like guaranteed income. UBI doesn’t phase out quickly so it would stack with similarly sized pensions. Larger pensions would see little extra money.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#133

Post by akvadrako »

zozbot234 wrote: post #65
ineedasername wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all depends on who gets a UBI payment. If it served to "top up" people to a minimum income level, then those receiving the payments would by definition have been paying little enough tax that it wouldn't have covered the UBI they receive. So in those case, yes, they're probably more happy to receive the UBI than to have the tax waived. UBI doesn't require it to avoid means-testing the benefits, it simply sets a…

Typical UBI proposals are "means tested" in the form of a "negative" income tax (NIT), or as we call it nowadays, a refundable tax credit. If you make 0 taxable income, you get a "full" UBI payment. Then some percentage of your earned income (typically 60% or so) is clawed back from the UBI, until the break even point is reached where you get nothing as UBI, but also no further earned income is clawed back. This give…

60% is absurd. That’s effectively a 60% income tax on the bottom bracket and will certainly decentivize work.

I’ve only seen such a number suggested by South African UBI proponents.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#134

Post by akvadrako »

CuriousSkeptic wrote: post #110
rriepe wrote: post #21

Once we implement UBI, what's the argument against doubling it?

An UBI based on dividends such as from a land value tax, or a carbon trading, would follow GDP more or less. No reason not to double it if possible in a sustainable way.

LVT is great. You could go even further and nationalize all natural resources (oil) and sell/rent them at market rates.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#135

Post by akvadrako »

karpierz wrote: post #45
jedberg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most reasonable UBI proposals draw the funding primarily from a VAT and a reduction of benefits that it replaces (like food stamps and welfare). The beauty of a VAT is that while normally regressive, by redistributing the funds as a UBI, you essentially make it a tax on only upper-middle-class/rich people. For example if the VAT is 10% and you give people $1,000 a month, they would have to spend over $10,000 a month…

VAT+UBI is still regressive, you're just subtracting a constant factor. So instead of hitting the poor the hardest, you're hitting the middle class the hardest and creating a valley around where the break-even point is. In addition, since VAT taxes don't apply to capital transactions (as there's nothing added when you buy or sell a stock), the vast majority of transactions conducted by the upper class won't be hit by…

Which is add it should be. VAT is a tax on consumption which is how resources get used up. Capital transactions just move money around.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#136

Post by refurb »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #124
refurb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not in the US either. Health care is intensely regulated.

Not the pricing and billing practices. At least not in a way that’s beneficial to the patient.

Oh it most certainly is regulated, but I would agree not to much benefit for patient.

Although the reason you pay $0 co-pay for preventative visits is because the govt says insurance companies have to.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#137

Post by erpellan »

zozbot234 wrote: post #83
mcv wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is, if you compare health care costs across various wealthy countries, it's pretty clear that socialised health care is cheaper than privatised health care. Netherland has universal but privatised healthcare, and has one of the most expensive health care systems in Europe, costing more than half that of the American health care system. And it's not particularly better than the more socialised healthcare…

> it's pretty clear that socialised health care is cheaper than privatised health care Causation goes the other way. If your healthcare is cheap, you might as well socialize it, and it will mostly be OKish; if it's too expensive (as in the U.S.) you have no chance of running a satisfactory socialized system. Switzerland has largely private healthcare and mandatory ("universal") health insurance, but its costs are not…

The mistake we all make is thinking the market includes us, the patients. If there is anything resembling a 'normal' (price discovery) market, it's between hospitals and other care providers and the government. The entity with the funds can foster healthy competition between the entities with the product/service. If you need medical attention, you need medical attention. A treated patient is not the customer, they are the output.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#138

Post by erpellan »

mikedilger wrote: post #42
lostlogin wrote: post #15

Below is an article arguing that New Zealand has been testing a UBI for decades with its pension scheme which is available to everyone aged over 65. Be warned - Gareth Morgan has some interesting politics. http://morganfoundation.org.nz/already-ubi-nz-super/

UBI to people outside of the workforce is entirely different. My argument against UBI is that it erodes the desire to work, and we still need nearly everybody of working age to work... until the robots catch up (they still have a lot of catching up to do).

It can be structured as an income tax that starts out negative. Everyone of working age is paid the UBI, which is designed to act as the safety net. This frees up a ton of overhead as means-testing, benefit fraud, etc. all goes away.

Then when you get a job, the UBI starts to reduce, at a rate LESS than the money you are earning. So if you're paid $1000 monthly UBI, and get a $1000 job, it might reduce UBI by $500. So you're always better off working. You'd probably want a sliding scale so maybe the first couple of hundred only reduces your UBI by 0.20 per dollar, or whatever. It can be structured so the net tax take for the government is the same. Yes this probably means people earning more than say $100,000 pay a bit more in tax. I'm okay with that.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#139

Post by Kaiyou »

zhoujianfu wrote: post #57
craigsmansion wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'd say: No UBI without good affordable health care for all. No UBI without good affordable education for all. No UBI without humane unemployment benefits for all. No UBI for all, because you already managed it.

Wouldn’t a (high enough) UBI mean the free market would create “affordable” education and “affordable” health care and obviate the need for unemployment benefits?

Money is a representation of wealth, if you print more of it, the money loses it's value to match the wealth. We call this inflation. You cannot give away wealth that you do not have.

If we truly had a free market, we'd have none of these issues, since wealth aggregation wouldn't be prevented through regulations.

For example, you can already get free education of mostly everything from the Internet, but without getting a piece of paper at the end with the stamp of some university. It's a form of regulation, since without that piece of paper you'll have a hard time selling your services. Similarly, you can get all the information you need to lead a healthy life style, making it less likely for you to even need health care. But still lots of people just eat till obesity ruining their own bodies. In Japan there's a system where your company does yearly health checks and if you gain weight, you have to pay more in taxes or some such scheme. Curiously nearly nobody in Japan is obese.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#140

Post by Kaiyou »

erpellan wrote: post #138
mikedilger wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI to people outside of the workforce is entirely different. My argument against UBI is that it erodes the desire to work, and we still need nearly everybody of working age to work... until the robots catch up (they still have a lot of catching up to do).

It can be structured as an income tax that starts out negative. Everyone of working age is paid the UBI, which is designed to act as the safety net. This frees up a ton of overhead as means-testing, benefit fraud, etc. all goes away. Then when you get a job, the UBI starts to reduce, at a rate LESS than the money you are earning. So if you're paid $1000 monthly UBI, and get a $1000 job, it might reduce UBI by $500. S…

Working 40h weeks for an extra $500 isn't a good deal. As long as I can sustain life without working, not working at all will always beat getting some scraps. If there aren't repercussions for not working, than why bother?
Post reply on HN