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

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

#521

Post by gwillz » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #506

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 foo…

> "What happens when someone spends all their UBI"

I think that's the most important question.

I believe the story is that one will abuse whatever welfare they get. Whether it's stamps, credits, services or money.

Here in Australia they've been trialing a cashless debit card to control what people spend their welfare money on. Somehow, it's still costing _more_ than just giving people money and the recipients aren't happier either. Some are using the card to buy things like batteries and re-selling them to then buy their drugs and alcohol. So there's money spent to restrict the money, but the money is still abused. So why not just give them the money?

In the end - money is money. Poverty is literally only solved with money. Surprisingly, the cheapest and easiest way to solve someone's poverty is to just give them money. If they abuse it? Fine. They were going to do that anyway.

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

#522

Post by nexuist » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:07 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #506

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 foo…

> What happens when someone spends all their UBI on whiskey or oxy and consumes it all and is then hungry?

What's the difference between that and the current reality? Food stamps can be sold and bought on the black market in exchange for drugs and alcohol; people who want whiskey will be able to get it. Whatever money is spent on enforcing the "sanctity" of food stamps could just go to more people directly.

And this is really the main point: the administrative burden all of these social programs incur, especially in terms of labor and office space, means that a very large sum of money is going into these programs that will never be seen by the people who need help. Just give everyone a check and be done with it.

To answer your main question: the person who blows their UBI suffers. They will be hungry for the rest of the month, and not many people will have sympathy for them because they already got their check. All mentally sane people realize this reality, and that is enough to prevent them from spending their UBI poorly. For the minority of people who are sadly physically addicted to drugs, there can be social programs specifically aimed at recovery and rehabilitation. This was another one of Yang's policies. UBI would help here too: let's say you spend 8 months at a government funded rehab facility while you kick your addiction to meth or heroine. At the end of the 8 months, you have $8000 waiting for you - to go forward, get a job, rent an apartment, and rebuild your life.

This is much cheaper than a bloated social program that ties your aid to measurable checkpoints, like how you have to prove you're looking for a job in order to keep receiving unemployment. Under UBI, the Fed just runs some script every month to raise a double somewhere by $1000; under unemployment they have to hire people to process your application, approve/deny it, review your weekly application submissions, hire someone else to distribute the money, hire a manager for all these people, pay an office to give these people a workplace, pay pensions and benefits for all these employees, etc.

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

#523

Post by RockIslandLine » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #339

zozbot234 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many experiments have been done that involve giving UBI-like grants (and even large, one-time-only cash grants) to people in extreme poverty. The money gets spent in sensible ways, by and large. Investing in one's shelter (e.g. replacing a leaky roof), paying for children's education or buying assets for a profitable business venture are extremely common choices. Regardless of their "financial literacy" (people in ex…

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.

The Canadian Manitoba Mincome experiment is probably as close as has been done for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

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

#524

Post by istorical » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:13 AM UTC

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?

who is? the human race or national governments? those two are not the same.

wealth and GDP is growing faster than the cost of living in absolute terms.

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

#525

Post by Reedx » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:17 AM UTC

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.

Andrew Yang had the right idea with the Freedom Dividend. That's a smart way to frame it, and Alaska is an example of it working with an annual payout to residents ("Permanent Fund Dividend").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanen...

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

#526

Post by nexuist » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:18 AM UTC

zelly wrote: post #387

Reedx wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't replace people making things, though. You'd still want to work and create value to improve your situation. It'd just function as a floor and provide some stability. Bearing in mind the increasing rate of job destruction and creation. We're no longer in a world where you can rely on being able to have the same profession your whole life. Having that floor would be useful to smooth those transitions out, and…

There are countries with a permanent dole. See the UK and other Northern Euro nations. You just have to fake an autism diagnosis to get $3k euros a month in cash alone (not counting all the other programs). Why isn't that the entrepreneurship capital of the world? Why is Europe still so poor? Why is America--the only place where there isn't a safety net and you can literally die on the street if you make too many bad…

> You just have to fake an autism diagnosis to get $3k euros a month in cash alone (not counting all the other programs).

Do you think the type of person who would fake an autism diagnosis for $3k a month is the same type of person who could successfully run a profitable enterprise?

My parents came to the USA $500 in debt. They had no place to stay and a 6 month old baby to raise. They refused all welfare programs out of pride except for Medicaid, because they needed a doctor to vaccinate me. 21 years later and we are comfortably living as an upper middle class family. They didn't get here by swindling bureaucrats, they got here through honest work and a quarter of a lifetime of pain.

Most criminals stay stuck on the bottom rung for this reason: of course you might be able to sociopathically hustle your way to the top a la Theranos or Enron, but to do that you have to believe you are capable of honest work. Hustlers don't believe in anything except for their next hustling opportunity. For every successful hustle there are another 1000 failures that never got anywhere.

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

#527

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:23 AM UTC

Reedx wrote: post #517

zelly wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are countries with a permanent dole. See the UK and other Northern Euro nations. You just have to fake an autism diagnosis to get $3k euros a month in cash alone (not counting all the other programs). Why isn't that the entrepreneurship capital of the world? Why is Europe still so poor? Why is America--the only place where there isn't a safety net and you can literally die on the street if you make too many bad…

Well, I think you can overdo it. Yang's proposal was $1k/mo, which seems more like the sweet spot.

It'll never stay $1k a month because voters will vote in politicians that will increase it, year after year.

We've already seen this happen with the US Social Security program. Why repeat something that is known not to work?

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

#528

Post by RockIslandLine » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

jariel wrote: post #459

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…

"every time some wackjob group is screaming at him" "He took a very moderate and reasonable stance " No, you don't get to label anyone who disagrees with a risky, existential upheaval as a 'whackjob'. UBI is a fairly extreme ideology, partly because of the social welfare application, but mostly because of the cost - which its proponents tend to ignore. We can argue a little bit over what 'free money' means for people…

"The UBI discussion really needs to start with 'where do we get $350B a month'?"

Congressional appropriations create money. That's how fiat currency works. We're not on the Gold Standard, we don't need to trace who holds how many Pretty Yellow Rocks.

The real question is "What is the inflationary impact of that spending?", and thus what level taxes have to be raised to destroy enough money to negate the inflation.

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

#529

Post by im3w1l » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #506

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 foo…

If you pay it daily, then they will not go hungry for long.

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

#530

Post by jms » Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:26 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #506

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 foo…

So what if someone spends it all on whiskey or oxy? They're maximising their own preferences. If they were addicted to alcohol, sudden withdrawal can kill.

One of the big reasons for UBI is the belief that an individual can better assess their own needs and wants, and procure them more cheaply than the government.

This is partly a moral/philosphical stand - the tension is between giving individual freedom in the form of money, or giving freedom via paternalistic methods where the government decides what is best for you. It can be argued either way.

I do agree it would be wise to have systems in place to trickle the money in daily instead of monthly - this would help your concern of people blowing all their money at once (but not prevent them spending on what was most important to them).

I also think that just UBI will never be enough - there is a place for targeted government support - healthcare, addiction (part of healthcare), mental health (also part of healthcare).