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

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

yahoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 746 posts

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

#481

Post by d0100 »

foobar_ wrote: post #397
barrenko wrote: post #381

UBI is inevitable. Like software development, whoever makes it first will win and bring us closer to our Star Trekian furute.

Are you sure were are not heading towards The Expanse ;P Here's one counter argument for UBI. Who will do all the boring work needed for building a dam / apartment ? If we are honest about it, most of this boring, physically harmful and repetitive infrastructure work is only done by the working class that chooses to do it because the alternative is begging. It's because of the threat of extreme poverty and unemployme…

UBI shouldn't cover the American Dream. That should only be a reality throught work.

UBI should cover a room to live, bread to eat, healthcare and internet access (to participate in the democracy, voting, etc).

Wanna buy a car? Go out? Eat some candy? Build that dam / apartment.

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

#482

Post by somethoughts »

d0100 wrote: post #477

UBI should cover government-regulated and government-provided essentials to living. Ex.: * Government housing: $500 * Government basic food package - daily (1500kcal): $300 * x kJ electricity, x m3 water, x m3 gas, x bps internet connection: $500 * Clothing, hygiene, cleaning supplies: $50 * Universal healthcare: free (and free condoms) * Free education (from abc to PHD) This is not a comprehensive list, or even the…

I tend to agree - it should be Universal Basic Stuff (UBS). Particularly if housing is in a low cost of living area, then everything should get cheaper through automation. High End Manufactured housing [1], MOOCs, Telemedicine, Consumer Products will all get cheaper. Entrepreneurs in SV can create robots to automate the production of these things so even more UBS categories can be added. UBS assurances will avoid the inflationary effects of UBI.

[1] Factory OS is revolutionizing home construction. https://factoryos.com

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

#483

Post by twblalock »

slg wrote: post #139
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?

Because replacing all other forms of social welfare is completely impractical from a political standpoint in either the short or medium term. It would involve huge societal changes that would require most people to rethink how government works. That isn't something that would happen quickly. If you are a UBI proponent, you can either spend multiple decades fighting that fight before you see any progress or you compro…

If you aren't going to replace existing welfare systems, why not improve them, instead of adding yet another system to the mix?

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

#484

Post by osdiab »

eanzenberg wrote: post #202
jedberg wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every experiment in UBI says otherwise. Direct cash grants usually lead people to do more work, because now they can do the work they enjoy. Also, look around groups of wealthy people. The ones who don't have to work anymore. Sure, some of them live a life of leisure, but many of them still work, because they get bored otherwise.

>>Every experiment in UBI says otherwise. Direct cash grants usually lead people to do more work, because now they can do the work they enjoy. But probably less "meaningful" work, in however society defines meaningful. >>Also, look around groups of wealthy people. The ones who don't have to work anymore. Sure, some of them live a life of leisure, but many of them still work, because they get bored otherwise. This is…

I think that the work that needs to be done, will still get done but it'll be better rewarded (ie it'll be more expensive) - jobs that people don't want to do need to get paid more because employers can't just rely on economic coercion of the poor to force them to do dangerous or boring jobs, they need to remunerate them accordingly - which IMO is how the system should work. Result would probably be that businesses whose only value prop is predicated on cheap labor, will suffer, and businesses whose value prop is predicated on quality, will be rewarded.

EDIT: I do think there is risk that the coercion will become more intensely focused on illegal immigrants and foreign labor to fill in that niche, however, so better safeguards for illegal exploitation probably need to come along with UBI.

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

#485

Post by osdiab »

BurningFrog wrote: post #243
jedberg wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every experiment in UBI says otherwise. Direct cash grants usually lead people to do more work, because now they can do the work they enjoy. Also, look around groups of wealthy people. The ones who don't have to work anymore. Sure, some of them live a life of leisure, but many of them still work, because they get bored otherwise.

People will always to things they enjoy. No one questions that. We have paid employment to get people to do things that need to be done !

Posted above but I'll copy here:

I think that the work that needs to be done, will still get done but it'll be better rewarded (ie it'll be more expensive) - jobs that people don't want to do need to get paid more because employers can't just rely on economic coercion of the poor to force them to do dangerous or boring jobs, they need to remunerate them accordingly - which IMO is how the system should work. Result would probably be that businesses whose only value prop is predicated on cheap labor, will suffer, and businesses whose value prop is predicated on quality, will be rewarded.

EDIT: I do think there is risk that the coercion will become more intensely focused on illegal immigrants and foreign labor to fill in that niche, however, so better safeguards for illegal exploitation probably need to come along with UBI.

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

#486

Post by wturner »

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?

Their are two main factions of UBI. On one side you have free market libertarians and conservatives that would cut social spending to pay for it. On the other hand you have a "progressive" version of UBI that is founded on Modern Monetary theory and would simply make UBI an addendum to social spending. Modern monetary theory holds that a government that issues it's own currency can never go insolvent. If you haven't heard of MMT I suggest you google the topic and listen or watch some material by Stephanie Kelton on the topic.

Edit:

With the corona virus "stimulus" people are getting a taste of modern monetary theory. They are starting to realize how little the nation debt matters and that what really matters is the result of the spending and the actions it invokes.

Some people are wondering why the stimulus checks are so small. I believe that if they were any bigger people might get used to the idea of living decent lives without economic anxiety thus the cats out the bag for the corporate big wigs, corporate democrats and republicans.

It might lead to a domino effect of a new standard of living and a new collection of cultural assumptions regarding money

Also, generally Andrew Yangs version of UBI would cut social spending and is not founded on modern monetary theory axioms.

Edit again,

I should mention Stephanie Kelton does not support UBI perse', she supports a federal jobs program but the economic assumptions still hold true.

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

#487

Post by hotgoldminer »

d0100 wrote: post #477

UBI should cover government-regulated and government-provided essentials to living. Ex.: * Government housing: $500 * Government basic food package - daily (1500kcal): $300 * x kJ electricity, x m3 water, x m3 gas, x bps internet connection: $500 * Clothing, hygiene, cleaning supplies: $50 * Universal healthcare: free (and free condoms) * Free education (from abc to PHD) This is not a comprehensive list, or even the…

UBI needs to be framed more as a dividend. It isn't the safety net. It is profit sharing.

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

#488

Post by fastball »

somethoughts wrote: post #475
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?

Just happened to be reading about how the current stimulus checks are being used this morning. Perhaps its a bit of click bait, but interesting to ponder nonetheless. It does seem like using UBI to play in the stock market would not be the intent of UBI and be hard to prevent. "Many Americans used part of their coronavirus stimulus check to trade stocks" https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/many-americans-used-part-of-...

Isn't buying stock a great way to help the economy recover?

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

#489

Post by jm4 »

hotgoldminer wrote: post #487
d0100 wrote: post #477

UBI should cover government-regulated and government-provided essentials to living. Ex.: * Government housing: $500 * Government basic food package - daily (1500kcal): $300 * x kJ electricity, x m3 water, x m3 gas, x bps internet connection: $500 * Clothing, hygiene, cleaning supplies: $50 * Universal healthcare: free (and free condoms) * Free education (from abc to PHD) This is not a comprehensive list, or even the…

UBI needs to be framed more as a dividend. It isn't the safety net. It is profit sharing.

What profit sharing when we run a deficit every year?

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

#490

Post by techbio »

zaroth wrote: post #464
habitue wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it's often formulated as a negative income tax

Wouldn’t a negative income tax mean that the credit gets progressively larger as you earn more money? This would not be the desired effect. I think the desired effect is simply a refundable tax credit, and then you can adjust the existing progressive tax rates as needed.

Interesting questions, but I think GP used the shortened form of "negative income tax bracket".
Post reply on HN