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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

#641

Post by tgv »

robotresearcher wrote: post #181
tgv wrote: post #176

So literally a solution in search of a problem. A living income guarantee has my blessing, but UBI doesn't. It's either too low, and there's still need for welfare, unemployment benefit, etc., or so high that the (unpredictable) consequences can completely overwhelm the advantages.

That's a strong claim. What makes you think so?

I suppose the "too low" bit is obvious.

If UBI becomes too high, people will stop working, inflation will rise, and there won't be a safety net of subsidies and welfare left to help. So if e.g. the price of housing rises, the UBI will be eaten up more and more by rent and mortgage, and people with only UBI will be as poor as before, and people will be forced into very low paying jobs.

Furthermore, I've never seen a convincing source of funding for UBI; at the first sight of an economic crisis, UBI will be lowered. At that point, there's no way to revert the UBI, leading to a new poverty trap.

And reality is going to be wilder than my imagination.

If the problem you're fighting is poverty, then provide welfare for poor people, stimulate work for them, make schools accessible (in backwards countries where that isn't the case), etc., but don't try to restructure society. That's just ego.

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

#642

Post by Melting_Harps »

grayfaced wrote: post #619
remote_phone wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alice could get a job and then lose it all on vodka and oxy. I don’t see why UBI needs to ensure that she doesn’t do foolish things with her money. People are going to make bad decisions, unfortunately. You can’t live in a free society if you don’t let people make unfortunate, bad decisions that harm themselves. If you think all people should be protected from their bad decisions then you’re basically sliding straigh…

In the course of their self-harm though they also tend to damage society. The starving addict doesn't just lay down in the street and die. They beg and they steal because they're desperate. They rip copper out of buildings while just harming themselves. And maybe eventually they're arrested and live off the state anyways (at much increased prison rates). How far do you let them sink before you need to step in.

> How far do you let them sink before you need to step in.

Look no further than Skid row or Silicon Valley, specifically the San Francisco area.

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

#643

Post by jariel »

cmendel wrote: post #494
jariel wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

>about 3 Trillion a year. What a coincidence, that is approximately how much we've spent on corporate welfare since the Corona Virus crisis started.

Yes, and it's part and parcel of the worst economic crises since the great depression, and in some ways worse than the great depression, i.e. the worst numbers in the history of the entire US.

So yes, the scale and repercussions of UBI are issues that nobody seems to want to talk about.

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

#644

Post by ramblerman »

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…

No, you are describing a European social state like France (or where they would like to get to). This is anything but UBI.

1) UBI should be cash, the consumer chooses how to spend his dollar, giving him/her control, and keeping markets somewhat efficient.

2) It should be more like a dividend. We are all shareholders in USA inc. and get a percentage of it's GDP handed back to us. Not more bureaucrats and policies to decide what to funnel where.

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

#645

Post by WalterBright »

charlesu wrote: post #594
WalterBright wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's built on people spending money Money is a recent invention, and economies have flourished without it. Money facilitates trade, increases liquidity, and reduces friction in transactions. > This fetishism with "work" as a proxy for the value of the human life which performs the work It is not a proxy for the value of a human life. It is a representation of the value of the labor of that human. Americans are very…

Compensation is a representation of bargaining power. If anything, compensation for labor has an inverse relationship with actual value. Teachers get paid little despite educating future generations, sanitation workers contribute more to the public health than doctors but make peanuts, and stay-at-home parents nurture children and are paid nothing at all. Bargaining power is not value of labor. We are paid what can d…

> compensation for labor has an inverse relationship with actual value.

Value is what people are willing to freely pay for it. Any other definition of it is subjective and fairly useless.

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

#646

Post by luckylion »

slg wrote: post #318
luckylion wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the goal is to only subsist, there is an option to reduce hours worked in exchange for reduced pay. No. You need to factor in the future. The whole passive income/early retirement crowd is a great example of it. They want to create regular income (from projects/businesses or investments) to allow them a simple life for all of their future years, while they go do whatever they please. Few people do that, because…

Maybe I didn't explain my point well enough since you are just talking past it. People generally don't stop once they get to a level that would guarantee them subsistence living for the rest of their life. Most of us could buy a combination of annuities and long term care insurance that could provide for ourselves for the rest of our lives well before we actually retire. Very few people actually pursue this path and…

I know quite a few people who have achieved that level of wealth, all but one have dropped their work load massively, down from 40+ hours/week to 2-4 hours. They still love making money, but they value their leisure time much more and enjoy their largely work-free life, so I have some doubts that people generally continue working as usual when they have enough money to guarantee work-free subsistence for the rest of their life.

Maybe I have a different understanding of subsistence than you? They don't live of the land and sleep in a tent, they live pretty average lives, living in an apartment in the city, buy food from the super market, wear normal clothes and ride bicycles. It does take quite a bit of money to guarantee enough secure long-term passive income (so "just invest it at 15% profit" is not an option) to pay for the basics, I'd put it at 300-500k Euros in my area, post tax.

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

#647

Post by luckylion »

fastball wrote: post #504
luckylion wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

That really says very little. If you live paycheck to paycheck, you're unable to save for the future, because all of your income goes out to pay for rent, food etc.

It's a different story if those 58% contain plenty of SV SWEs who make half a million a year and still only have $1000 in savings. My intuition tells me that there are very few of them in the 58%.

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

#648

Post by luckylion »

viklove wrote: post #247
luckylion wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I could subsist while working only 10 hours a week, yet I usually put in 50+. Can you explain what's wrong with me? Or is everyone similar?

You don't want to starve if your industry becomes obsolete, you have an accident that leaves you unable to work or some other twist of fate changes your ability to work 10 hours a week at your current level.

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

#649

Post by luckylion »

RockIslandLine wrote: post #540
luckylion wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you handle people wanting to move to Alaska? And how do you get Alaskans on board for paying higher taxes to fund it? If you're not asking them to fund it, you're not testing UBI, you're testing "if an external entity provides money to a community without asking for anything in return, will that be cool?"

"And how do you get Alaskans on board for paying higher taxes to fund it?" The APF is funded by severance taxes on oil & mining. I suspect that most people are entirely fine with that tax model. The problem is that it only supports a small benefit.

Yeah, and to increase it 5 or 10 times would certainly require new taxes. I don't know whether oil and mining will still be profitable with a ten-fold increase in royalties, taxes and fees, but I have a feeling that it won't.

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

#650

Post by 0xferruccio »

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…

Everybody should also have a computer and a fast internet connection to access knowledge.

People should also get free books.

People should also get free fitness coaches, so they can be healthy.

People should also be entitled to a job, so they can have a sense of purpose.

We can spend days thinking about what should be a right that everyone should have for free. The only problem is figuring out who should pay for these things and what’s the correct price of things without a market

I wrote some thoughts on why I think free healthcare is just bad: https://ferrucc.io/posts/healthcare/

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