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Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

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Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#121

Post by renewiltord »

sokoloff wrote: post #77
toohotatopic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't said 'find a rich benefactor', but 'be the benefactor'. There is no need to be rich. Spouses stay at home and are not worried if their partner has a regular job. It doesn't have to work for everybody. For starters, find somebody who can handle the risk of you losing your job. Of course people are happier if they get rich. But that's not what UBI is about. The question is: do people need a monetary buffer to…

Anyone who is contemplating durably changing their life predicated on the receipt of basic income is in the situation of “find a benefactor”.

Sure, but by flipping the direction, you can just pick an arbitrary person, set up a trust fund that only disburses a certain amount and set this person up for life. If you have 10 people, each contribute $100k, that's a $1 million fund. Fund a person in Nebraska for life with the fund for $36k a year with an annual rate of return of 4% (fairly conservative).

That person is guaranteed the durable benefactor and you can see if their behaviour changes and if they are enhanced through this.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#123

Post by starpilot »

gist wrote: post #116
dang wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's Yang's answer about that? If he had a FAQ that would certainly be on it.

As a landlord [1] I can answer that question. Btw, I have not found any UBI proponent addressing it either (they tend to avoid that with economic speak if at all) [2] Rent will go up. All you have to do is look what happens in 'hot' markets (SFO/NYC/Bay Area) where there are so many dollars floating around. [1] Both commercial and residential but not in a hot market a 'normal' market. [2] Including Yang

By how much? Do you assume that the full UBI amount will be available for tenants to pay rent, and that no other prices will increase? I imagine that landlords in aggregate would understand that it would not be in their benefit to raise all rents by an amount equal to the UBI if they want to keep tenants.

Yang's campaign estimated that prices would go up about 12%, so for higher income (like many on HN) this would be net decrease in spending power. For someone in poverty, going from $12k to $24k per year, this could be life changing.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#124

Post by oldsklgdfth »

LarryDarrell wrote: post #68
ravenstine wrote: post #44

I don't understand the optimism around UBI. UBI is a band-aid and a sign that a system is actually failing. I get why some people, especially intellectuals, want UBI, but they seem to believe that UBI is free of consequence. If society "needs" UBI, that means that not enough people can build wealth or that the welfare system isn't effective. Handing people money isn't going to change the fact that too much of the eco…

The optimism comes from a desperate desire not to confront the need for universal healthcare or land reform. As long as real estate is an investment and health care has a middle man, UBI is just a subsidy for those sectors.

Real estate can either be affordable or it can be an investment, but it can't be both.

I think something similar applies with healthcare.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#125

Post by ravenstine »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #82
LarryDarrell wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The optimism comes from a desperate desire not to confront the need for universal healthcare or land reform. As long as real estate is an investment and health care has a middle man, UBI is just a subsidy for those sectors.

Yep UBI is more guaranteed money into the hands of rent seeking landlords and co.

Much like how government backed student loans turned into guaranteed money for tuition seeking educational institutions.

People don't take into account that the value of money largely comes from the confidence that said money will have value in the future. If cash flow becomes guaranteed, the confidence that the business can demand more money from its customers goes up, ultimately lowering the value of said money for the customer while allowing the business to have greater investment opportunities.

There's a bit of irony in that, since the value of the US dollar largely comes from the confidence in the guarantee that the government will honor the value of treasury notes. The Chinese Yuan is comparatively worth much less than the US dollar, not just because of the dominance of the US, but because the perception of China is that it is far more corrupt and not as reliable than the US in terms of paying back its lenders, lowering the confidence that exists for its currency.

So I guess it comes down to this:

Business confidence > Customer confidence = monetary value decreases

Customer confidence > Business confidence = monetary value increases

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#126

Post by jason5543 »

snarf21 wrote: post #114
mberning wrote: post #100

I seriously don’t know why people believe this will work and unlock the latent poet or artist within the average joe. As far as I have read most experiments have had mixed results, and we don’t really know what the full impact will be if implemented in a nation of 350MM people. My suspicion is in a couple years people will notice that housing, food, and transportation has gone up commensurate with their “basic income…

I agree, there is just no way for it to work. We'd be better off with less overhead versions of existing programs and higher tax breaks for the poor, maybe no federal taxes under 200% of poverty. Add in Medicare for all in the same bracket and we meet most of the "upside" in a simpler and sustainable plan. I've spent some time trying to envision the goals of UBI from the other side. Could you supplement volunteers an…

I think Medicare for all people under 200% of poverty could easily be achieved if we hiked up the corporate tax rate to what it used to be 50-100 years ago.

But you have to stop the birth tourism, stop handing out citizenship to anyone not in America for 4+ generations, and deport all of your illegal aliens. Coastal, liberal americans want to have it both ways - expensive government services for the poor, and the continuous importation of a serf class from the 3rd world.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#127

Post by frogpelt »

jdc wrote: post #113
Press2forEN wrote: post #110

Years ago, proponents of UBI claimed that it was a replacement for all other forms of social welfare. Now it appears by most proposals to be yet another means-tested add-on. What happened?

Yep and as a replacement, it was supposed to drastically cut administrative costs.

It definitely should. But one real problem with bureaucracy is that it tends to go to great lengths to justify itself. It also self-replicates like a virus.

So, in practice, I imagine there would be lots of offices and agencies, services and interdependent liaison offices and agencies along with the requisite inspector general offices and agencies and the necessary committees, subcommittees, and working groups that would have to be created.

In the land of government bureaucracy, the rapidly increasing fixed-pie of current and (hopefully) future taxpayer revenue gets divided up into more and more slices every day.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#128

Post by ycombinete »

bt1a wrote: post #120
hadtodoit wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here but I really wish he wouldn't kowtow every time some wackjob group is screaming at him. He took a very moderate and reasonable stance on a lot of contentious topics during his campaign then rolled them back within a day of getting lit up by twitter trolls. I think he lost a large section of centrist voters by appearing spineless. He took the best policies from the left and right, but also seemed obligated t…

Yang definitely waffled on MFA and appeared to not support it towards the end. That was something of him that I was disappointed - I couldn't understand why he didn't realize that MFA is the way to go. I do wonder if he waffled on it to retain support from people further to the right. That said, I actually think Yang's ideas are going to reverberate throughout political discourse over the next decade. Similar to how…

What is MFA?

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#129

Post by jimbob45 »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #103
jimbob45 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the US Coronavirus payouts not a small-scale test of UBI in themselves?

No more so than the 2008 stimulus checks. Both programs were non-universal and under both the number of dollars sent to eligible recipients depended on their incomes.

Oh maybe I'm mistaken. I was under the impression that the COVID payouts were universal.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#130

Post by boomboomsubban »

Press2forEN wrote: post #110

Years ago, proponents of UBI claimed that it was a replacement for all other forms of social welfare. Now it appears by most proposals to be yet another means-tested add-on. What happened?

Most proposals are temporary relief in response to the crisis, small scale trials, or campaign promises kept intentionally vague.
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