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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

#501

Post by fastball »

marcusverus wrote: post #193
Mayzie wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that everyone receives a basic income, equivalent to a (hopefully) updated minimum wage. Then if people want extra money for luxuries, then you work a job which will pay you on top of your standard basic income. I imagine most people would continue working.

Even assuming that the vast majority of people would keep working to maintain their standard of living, there are major issues with UBI: 1) The incentive to enter the workforce is greatly reduced. Every high-school graduate would have the means to shack up with a few of their buddies and live the college lifestyle indefinitely. I'm currently a productive adult, but only because there was no alternative. UBI is an alt…

1) Everyone that wants to live a college lifestyle past 25 is already doing it, it's not hard where how things are currently (shack up with people, have minimum wage job, drink lots of beer). The vast majority of people want more out of life though.

2) One goal of UBI is to unlock human potential by allowing people to actual pursue things they care about. Smaller scale UBI experiments indicate that this most often means starting some form of small business. If you're doing something you actually enjoy, I think you are more likely to retire later, not earlier.

3) See above about unlocking potential. One of the greatest strengths of the US has always been the inventiveness of its populace. This would potentially be multiplied many times over by a UBI that allowed people to actually pursue things they want.

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

#502

Post by rorykoehler »

twblalock wrote: post #483
slg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Think of UBI as another lever in a countries' monetary and fiscal policies. In fact is it completely insane that this is not already in the mix from a purely pragmatic perspective.

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

#503

Post by timwaagh »

zhoujianfu wrote: post #402
kaffeemitsahne wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every experiment in UBI says otherwise. Has even one of these been a permanent (for the recipients) experiment?

I don’t know why they don’t do this at $1K/mo for life for 30 people (and then study them qualitatively) instead of $250 one-time for 20,000. What is a one-time payment of $250 going to tell us about a UBI?

because it would cost 18 million.

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

#504

Post by fastball »

luckylion wrote: post #192
slg wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you currently only working just to subsist? Because most people on HN work much harder than they need to and make much more than they need to just to subsist.

You currently don't have the option to not work. Most people work more than they need to because they realize that the future is uncertain and having savings will be beneficial if there's trouble at some point in the future. Give the same people a trust fund that takes care of them and that they trust to last for their life time, and most will stop working as hard. They may still work, but much less and most likely o…

> Most people work more than they need to because they realize that the future is uncertain and having savings will be beneficial if there's trouble at some point in the future.

Not really though.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/58-americans-less-1-000-09000...

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

#505

Post by timwaagh »

slg wrote: post #153
cheeseomlit wrote: post #136

If the government starts giving me enough money each month to subsist while drastically raising taxes on my earnings from employment then I'll simply stop working. I would imagine most people would do the same.

Are you currently only working just to subsist? Because most people on HN work much harder than they need to and make much more than they need to just to subsist.

in it there are no 5 hour per week jobs. and cv gaps are frowned upon if you want a new job.

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

#506

Post by sneak »

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 think the idea here is that UBI replaces all of the other government welfare programs, no?

What happens when someone spends all their UBI on whiskey or oxy and consumes it all and is then hungry? Should we keep food stamps around? Why can't we do that part (universal food stamps) by itself?

I don't think the all-or-nothing approach of UBI makes a ton of sense. We can do things today like more free or subsidized food that would work exactly the same way as it would under UBI, with potentially more buy-in.

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

#507

Post by Frondo »

WalterBright wrote: post #163
cheeseomlit wrote: post #136

If the government starts giving me enough money each month to subsist while drastically raising taxes on my earnings from employment then I'll simply stop working. I would imagine most people would do the same.

If the government provided food, shelter, and video games, I expect quite a few people would see no purpose in working. Also the surfers and backpackers.

I wish you'd explain why this is a bad thing, and that you'd elaborate on it. Do you think half of the people in a UBI world stop working entirely and subsist entirely on their pittance? A third of the people?

How few people would be allowed to go screw around instead of working, for this outcome to be okay?

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

#508

Post by delfinom »

Mayzie wrote: post #159
cheeseomlit wrote: post #136

If the government starts giving me enough money each month to subsist while drastically raising taxes on my earnings from employment then I'll simply stop working. I would imagine most people would do the same.

The idea is that everyone receives a basic income, equivalent to a (hopefully) updated minimum wage. Then if people want extra money for luxuries, then you work a job which will pay you on top of your standard basic income. I imagine most people would continue working.

What I'm confused by is what prevents the cost of housing and luxuries from going up and ultimately defeating UBIs increase? Landlords now know people have a minimum amount of money and theres either mega landlords everywhere or all of them play the only going up game (without needing to actually meet and collude).

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

#509

Post by jerrysievert »

jm4 wrote: post #489
hotgoldminer wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

and when we're not running a deficit, we're suddenly running a deficit.

I'm in favor of basic income, but tying it to "profit sharing" is just silly.

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

#510

Post by delfinom »

clairity wrote: post #207

UBI is meant to be a gambit to distract us from seeing that the playing field is so heavily tilted against everyone but the very rich and fortunate. the rich buy this diversion by periodically sliding some pennies down to the rest of us on the other end, while patting themselves on the back for doing such a magnanimous thing. what we really need to do is bring transparency and fairness to labor markets, and squeeze r…

Yea I really fail to see how UBI addresses the real elephants in the room. Mega landlords, investor firms hoarding real estate, and generally "unspoken collusion" where prices will only go up and they'll let rentals sit empty for years. Just throwing UBI money at people now just sits the minimum they can jack rental prices up. And we are back to square one with the rich being richer.
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