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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

#351

Post by pharke »

smalltalks wrote: post #217

Technically speaking , many European countries already have "Basic Income". ( France , Sweden , Norway...) They are reserved for individuals "Not Active" though ( Unemployed and not looking for a Job ) over a certain age. Those "BI" massively lower poverty , which usually massively reduce crime-rate , drugs related usage etc... With 700€/Month you aren't gonna far anyway, you have enaugh for food and rent , and that'…

>In France few workers drop off the "Industrial" economy , they buy a Farm and live of "BI" and their own agriculture and go back to the city to buy commodities ( Gas , Cosmetic etc... ), it's common in Italy and Spain as well IIRC.

Maybe this would actually be a better implementation. Rather than pouring resources into deciding who qualifies for BI you could just establish "havens" for people who cannot or will not work within the current system. The only qualification then is to move to that haven after which you will be provided with a place to live, an optional job, food, clothing, etc. but limited to only what's necessary. Essentially establishing small scale communes within the larger body of a capitalist nation. It could provide an escape for people who don't want to partake in the rat race and just want to exist quietly and pursue their own interests while living spartan lifestyles. You could even go the other way and provide other special zones for unfettered capitalism with 0 taxes and no publicly funded institutions. As long as people can choose where they want to live and can leave when it no longer suits them I don't see why this couldn't work to some degree.

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

#352

Post by moduspol »

zozbot234 wrote: post #346
moduspol wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't yet seen a UBI experiment that replaced someone's pre-existing means for food, shelter, or other necessities. But maybe I missed it. I don't think anyone doubts that often people will spend additional money they are given productively.

Why shouldn't cash be the benchmark when it comes to aiding poor folks? If giving food or shelter really is more helpful than just giving the equivalent cost in cold hard cash, that will be quite interesting. But let's see the proof of that.

They don't have the financial literacy skills to manage it properly.

I'm not trying to be unreasonably judgemental, and I don't mean things like bond rates or yield curves. Things like making sure you have enough dollars at the end of the month to make a rent payment. Making sure the check gets written so it actually happens. Keeping track of automated withdrawals and ensuring the number stays above zero with the timing of all of them.

This is not trivial at all for a huge chunk of the population that is served by social welfare programs. You can't just expect it to work out giving them cash instead.

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

#353

Post by hadtodoit »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #322
hadtodoit wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people actually survive on that one check. Alaskans are fiercely independent for the most part, and those living outside the main cities are typically self-sustainable. They own their land, hunt for their meat, grow their veggies, trade for what they don't have, and spend whatever money they do have on the essential tools to sustain that.

You need a lot of available land to live off the land. This may work in Alaska but in other states this can’t be done on a large scale.

You really don't need much land to get by. Alaskans who are self-sustainable usually have small greenhouses they only farm in during the summer months. In a place like California where you can grow things year round, a quarter acre plot would be plenty for a whole family. Thanks to marijuana farms, indoor hydroponics equipment can be had for cheap. If you have a space to setup, you can grow fresh vegetables indoor year round.

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

#354

Post by radiantmonk »

admn2 wrote: post #158

This is totally unrelated to the article but I keep thinking about this lately: does anyone know what happened to Noah Glass who was a part of the original founding team?

I watched an interesting, somewhat, kind of related video on this today. Although it doesn't quite answer your question about what happened to him, interesting watch nonetheless and quite informative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8N0xN0ihMA

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

#355

Post by mensetmanusman »

I could see UBI as an alternative to federal government spend.

E.g. every time I hear about the U.S. sending billions to the middle east, I wonder how much more effectively it could be spent in the hands of thousands upon thousands of americans.

It’s almost like implementing something closer to direct democracy instead of representative republic democracy in regards to spending...

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

#356

Post by mydongle »

jedberg wrote: post #231
smalltalks wrote: post #217

Technically speaking , many European countries already have "Basic Income". ( France , Sweden , Norway...) They are reserved for individuals "Not Active" though ( Unemployed and not looking for a Job ) over a certain age. Those "BI" massively lower poverty , which usually massively reduce crime-rate , drugs related usage etc... With 700€/Month you aren't gonna far anyway, you have enaugh for food and rent , and that'…

People keep forgetting that a UBI won't cover immigrants. Immigrants would end up doing all the jobs that citizens don't want to do. That's the biggest problem with UBI. It creates a default class system.

I don't know what immigrants mean here. Like migrant workers or illegal immigrants?

Otherwise, we are a country full of immigrants who have become citizens or legal residents and would benefit from UBI.

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

#357

Post by kenhwang »

Avicebron wrote: post #345
kenhwang wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a double edged sword. Encouraging people to minimize their COL and spend the money on underinvested areas of the country is fantastic for decreasing the wealth gap. But the other likely outcome is drastic COL inflation in low COL areas which adversely impacts them significantly more.

But if everyone including those in the low COL area was getting UBI then it should equalize no?

I believe so, but the economic impact isn't well understood yet.

The UBI experiments so far have shown that it does have an inflationary effect (which causes COL to go up), and at the same time, incomes decrease as secondary earners opt for UBI instead of working. People overall are much happier, but their financial situation gets worse.

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

#358

Post by jedberg »

mydongle wrote: post #356
jedberg wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep forgetting that a UBI won't cover immigrants. Immigrants would end up doing all the jobs that citizens don't want to do. That's the biggest problem with UBI. It creates a default class system.

I don't know what immigrants mean here. Like migrant workers or illegal immigrants? Otherwise, we are a country full of immigrants who have become citizens or legal residents and would benefit from UBI.

Immigrants means anyone in the US that isn’t a citizen.

Legal residents would not get UBI until they become citizens.

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

#359

Post by mydongle »

wyre wrote: post #279
mydongle wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, that's angle I've never thought about before. We support children for years and all we expect them to do is go to school. While a lot of kids could decide to just not work and be taken care of by their family, the vast majority want to work anyway, if only for the fact they want to move out and build their own family. This may be the key. UBI + Making people go through further education so that they can have the…

UBI+further education sounds like a great idea. After graduating people won't be stressed about finding a job to help pay for their mounds of student loan debt and will have the knowledge to work on projects that they find meaningful.

That's right. People hear about UBI and lament how people are going to become lazy and quit working, but they don't ask themselves why some people would stop working. They don't think that maybe some jobs are not worth doing unless you are at the threat of poverty and homelessness from not working. We need to reevaluate if we want to continue this horrible system where a class of people are denigrated to working slave tier jobs with poor wages and working conditions so that the classes above them can enjoy their first world lives.

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

#360

Post by cableshaft »

arcticfox wrote: post #282
bananabreakfast wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... basically people who lost their jobs to COVID are winners in your mind?

It's not bad, it just misses a lot of the benefit of 'basic' income. For example, my wife had just finished her education and was looking for a job when COVID hit. She's randomly just as hosed as everyone that actually lost an existing job, but qualifies for none of the same relief. The benefit of the 'universal basic' part of UBI is that it just washes away all edge cases, and it's pretty hard to feel like you've be…

Andrew Yang's Humanity Forward organization is not the nation's government. They don't have the resources to make something universal. That's one of the reasons he ran for president, was so he could do that. The people weren't ready this time, but maybe in 4 years, when he's probably going to run again, they'll be more willing to give him a shot.

But right now he is doing what he can and working with much, much more limited resources, so it only makes sense to target people who are in immediate need because of the crisis.

There are a lot more people than even that 20,000 that are struggling right now (40 million people have lost their job since the start of the pandemic, in the US), but if he divided $5,000,000 by 40 million people, it'd only give each person 12 cents, which doesn't help any single individual enough to make any difference, while simultaneously turning into a much more of a logistical nightmare.

For example he had Sam Harris on his Yang Speaks podcast recently, and Yang said that to a certain extent he sympathizes on how long the stimulus checks are getting out to people because he's been giving money out himself and it's been difficult to pin down current addresses for the people most in need.

So what is it you're expecting him to do with that $5 million instead, that would make it more universal?

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