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

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581–590 of 746 posts

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

#581
post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic system enabled the extraction of fossil fuels in the first place. Capitalism predates the industrial revolution.

Non-capitalist societies that industrialized also saw enormous gains in wealth. The difference between the US and the USSR was much smaller than the difference between pre-industrialized Russia, and the USSR.

In what decade? By the 1980s, the U.S. had far outstripped the U.S.S.R. in economic performance by every single measure. Here's some clips of a Soviet grocery store:

http://www.strangehistory.net/2017/08/11/joys-supermarket-sh...

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

#582
post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a representation of the value of the labor of that human. By withholding economic power until someone provides "labor" as defined by the state, and leaving them embedded in an economy which requires money to survive, you are directly tying the value of the human life to the value of their labor. > giving to charities Interesting, probably has a lot to do with the low taxes and high amount of disposable income…

> probably has a lot to do with the low taxes and high amount of disposable income. A young lady I used to know was the kindest person I ever met. She didn't have much, but would donate a few dollars to every charity that called. They had her number, and called her all the time. She was the real deal, not one of those people who are only generous with someone else's money. > you are directly tying the value of the hu…

If "plenty of people" can be organized to consent to giving up money, maybe we can organize some kind of centralized method to collect funds and distribute resources to those in need. We can probably set up something through the government for this. Come to think of it, shipping food around is a lot harder than just giving money to them to go buy their own. Why don't we make it so the government hands out money to everyone who needs it, so that we can coordinate the good deeds of many to serve the needs of many more?

I hope you see where I'm going with this.

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

#583
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 should cover government-regulated and government-provided essentials to living. The reason you don't do this is that the government is not better at making diapers and laundry detergent than Procter & Gamble nor better at manufacturing Tylenol than Johnson & Johnson nor better at growing tomatoes than local farmers. If you give people $300 then they can buy $300 worth of food. if you give people $300 worth of "…

You are misunderstanding me.

The government gives you $300 and makes sure that enough healthy food is available for those $300. You don't get $300 worth of food. You get money. Cold hard cash. And the option to buy cheap food from the government.

Companies can also make cheap food targeting those $300, and I'm sure there already exists non-government government cheese.

About education and healthcare. The government just needs to provide the bare minimum. Broke an arm? Goverment will cast it. Still crooked? Get in the wait line or go work for money and get an insurance or pay for the surgery. Want a better education for your kids? Homeschool if you can, or just work for more money and pay for one.

UBI should be:

survival -> socialism

good (material) life -> capitalism

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

#584
post #541
post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree very strongly with you, but I don't think that's where the parent poster was going. Imagine we have a UBI, and we do all kinds of other smart things -- end the War on Drugs, establish Bismarck-style national healthcare[1], all that. Let's do a thought experiment. What happens when Alice blows all of her UBI on Lady Lee Vodka and Oxy. Nothing left for rent, food, the rest. Nobody else in the picture to help: n…

I'd wager that UBI will be a huge boost for mental health. It allows someone to retreat and heal, or just go slower, without the $$$ pressure.

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

#585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI should cover government-regulated and government-provided essentials to living. The reason you don't do this is that the government is not better at making diapers and laundry detergent than Procter & Gamble nor better at manufacturing Tylenol than Johnson & Johnson nor better at growing tomatoes than local farmers. If you give people $300 then they can buy $300 worth of food. if you give people $300 worth of "…

this whole school choice and insurance choice neoliberal mantra is what has gotten us into this mess to begin with. The entire insurance sector is a huge waste of manpower and essentially just huge dump for the surplus of white collar university graduates that have nowhere to go. There's not a single person on the planet who derives benefits from navigating the trade-offs of byzantine insurance plans, and school choi…

> The entire insurance sector is a huge waste of manpower and essentially just huge dump for the surplus of white collar university graduates that have nowhere to go.

US health insurance is garbage specifically because it's tied to employers and employers have strong tax incentives to use insanely inefficient low-deductible plans that both destroy price sensitivity and involve the insurance bureaucracy in small time medical procedures.

> There's not a single person on the planet who derives benefits from navigating the trade-offs of byzantine insurance plans

The cost difference between different insurance plans is thousands of dollars a year. It's one of the most financially impactful choices most individuals can make. Meanwhile if you don't want to make it then... don't? The government could easily recommend a specific plan and anybody who doesn't want to spend a few hours choosing for themselves a thing that could impact them to the tune of $100,000 over their lifetime could just choose that one and be done.

> school choice is a good way to speed up social and racial segregation

Sending kids to schools based on racially segregated school districts is the status quo. You're saying giving those parents the option to send their kids to the same school as the white kids is going to increase segregation? How is that supposed to work?

> enabling quasi fraudulent religious schools that teach people nonsense.

Those "schools" already exist. If they're dangerous enough to deny parents the right to use what is really their own tax money to send their kids to then they're dangerous enough to shut down entirely, right?

Unless you run into some questions of free speech and religious freedom doing that, but then I'm not sure how you were expecting to avoid them to begin with when using "we need to deny them the ability to do that" as an argument.

> I moved from Germany to the UK years ago, and I've never enjoyed anything more than the NHS because I literally do not have to waste a minute of my life on health insurance any more. I pay X amount of taxes, I go to the doctor, I get treated, I go home.

So buy a low deductible insurance plan that covers everything. It costs more than making individual choices, if you don't like to do that. But the cost comes either way -- either you pay with time or you pay with money.

(The status quo in the US is ridiculously broken because you pay with time but then it's still costs a ton of money for multiple independent reasons. Nobody thinks the status quo in the US is a good idea.)

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

#587
post #530
post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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"

Perhaps, but many of the major problems we have today are tragedy of the commons situations, and that's precisely when we need government to step in, not just leave it up to individuals.

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

#589
post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poverty is literally only solved with money. That's a big statement, with a lot of evidence against it. I recall an experiment where a homeless man was given $100,000, and was back on the streets in no time. The idea that you "solve problems with money" seems to be an American disease. That we just haven't pumped enough money into the machine to make it work. Homelessness and poverty are big, complex problems. Mone…

The psychology of a large one time payment versus a passive, smaller one is absolutely immense and should not be equated. Native tribes have oftentimes given their youth large payments that get spent on expensive consumer goods that wind up back in pawn shops, but UBI experiments in Kenya and in low income areas around the world have shown dramatically different results with the hallmarks of upward mobility presentin…

There must be some data on lottery winners taking one lump sum and small payouts over time.

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

#590
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which means employers will have to pay more for those jobs Yeah no kidding so there will be hyperinflation. Making the net effect of UBI almost zilch. What use is $1000 bucks when toilet paper is $100 a roll. > 3) Because of (2), more research effort and investment will go into automating and otherwise reducing the number of humans required for unpleasant jobs. And with UBI, that becomes an unmitigated good, with n…

There would still be markets and competition. There would be some baseline price increase when people stop being exploited. At a certain point equilibrium will be met and someone will come along with cheaper toilet paper. The difference will be there are more consumers in a safe position to make purchasing decisions.

You don't get it. The cost of labor would rise. You would have to pay paper factory workers more when they could just not work at all. The truck driver also needs to get paid more. The shelf stocker also needs to get paid more. The security guard needs to get paid more. Eventually you get $100 toilet rolls.

> At a certain point equilibrium will be met and someone will come along with cheaper toilet paper.

Yes, from overseas, where they have no UBI. That's one of most insidious parts of all of this.

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