Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#151

Post by alex_young » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

hcurtiss wrote: post #148

alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

I haven't listened to those lately, but I don't recall them calling for a UBI. Didn't they redistribute it back to the carbon taxpayers?

Yeah, the carbon tax is just equally distributed back to everyone. Just like UBI.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#152

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

bluedevil2k wrote: post #12

I can’t help but think that UBI would distort job markets. Let’s pick an example of a “sucky job” (and I say this as just an example, I realize these guys work hard and are vital). A garbage man. He get’s paid $42k a year because they have to find people who would be willing to do this sucky job and need to pay higher than minimum wage to do so. At some point of income, people would be willing to accept the suckiness…

Yes, distorting job markets is one of the goals. For example, driving up wages for unpleasant jobs is a good thing.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#153

Post by thephyber » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

The elephants in the room are the extremely cheap labor that already undermines the legit goods and services:

  - extremely cheap prison labor
  - undocumented laborers who have (almost) no legal rights and who take difficult jobs
  - ex-cons who have to pay a portion of their wages to employers who are willing to hire them
  - jobs where wages must be subsidized by government programs (eg. WalMart encourages their lowest paid workers to sign up for SNAP)

UBI is nice, but the markets are already distorted and without addressing these issues, UBI just distorts the markets more.

That said, even if we can't address these issues, I'm happy to support modernizing the American (federal, state, and county) welfare programs -- including giving recipients the option of taking the cash value.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#154

Post by hcurtiss » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

kingbirdy wrote: post #24

bluedevil2k wrote: post #12

I can’t help but think that UBI would distort job markets. Let’s pick an example of a “sucky job” (and I say this as just an example, I realize these guys work hard and are vital). A garbage man. He get’s paid $42k a year because they have to find people who would be willing to do this sucky job and need to pay higher than minimum wage to do so. At some point of income, people would be willing to accept the suckiness…

If I have to pay higher taxes but it means everyone is working in a job they love that seems like a worthwhile trade.

So, no garbage men?

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#155

Post by jariel » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

"It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it."

Just the opposite, it's hard to find any rationality for doing it at all.

If a 'carbon tax' is really just going towards reducing carbon, but not going into R&D for carbon reducing technologies, then it's probably just as efficient to simply limit carbon use in a variety of areas. Taking vast amounts of money from businesses is an indirect way to stimulate R&D on such things.

The simultaneous effect of severely limiting productivity, with a gigantic wealth transfer to those at the lower end of the economic spectrum, would be a 'double inflation whammy'.

A more extreme version would be: "No more cars or busses, and by the way, we're now going to grab your wealth and transfer it over to those people over there"

It's best to consider them as separate activities.

Solve the climate problem with effective technology and regulation, solve inequality by getting people into the workplace and by helping to more evenly distribute surpluses.

In particular, low interest rates are causing massive inequality in wealth due to home appreciation, which is absurd.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#156

Post by alexmingoia » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

thephyber wrote: post #120

alexmingoia wrote: post #82

Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…

The most likely implementation in the existing US federal government is a negative income tax. > I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. You aren't alone, so your $1200 would not go as far in that future as it does now. There would be some inflation (perhaps only localized increased costs to some industries), but I'd suspect that people working less would be a featu…

“There would be some inflation”

Which serves as a reason to regularly increase the amount.

“UBI doesn't make people not want to work at all“

Speak for yourself. Work is a means to an end. I have no desire to work if basic income takes care of my basic necessities. I have no intrinsic desire to get up every day at the same time and do what my employer tells me to do. And to be clear, when I say work I mean the necessity of doing things in exchange for money. Cultivating my garden, writing software nobody uses, or music nobody pays for, isn’t what I mean by work.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#157

Post by squidproquo » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

alexmingoia wrote: post #82

Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…

Reducing the number of hours/jobs that people currently work would reduce the labor supply and wages would rise (Econ 101). I don't see how these "consequences" are a bad thing.

Furthermore, "unforeseen consequences" are effects that we don't know will happen because they lie beyond our ability to predict them. There will always be unforeseen consequences of any major policy decision.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#158

Post by ponker » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

As a rich person I am happy to pay for UBI as it lowers the likelihood that I will be the victim of a possibly violent crime by someone with not enough to lose. The one modification I’d make is that a violent felony conviction docks 5 years of UBI and a second conviction nixes them permanently.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#159

Post by kentosi » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

drummer wrote: post #62

UBI is extremely dangerous as long as governments exist. Take what China is doing with their citizen score and it's not hard to imagine what could go wrong. "...imagine how easy it would be for such a government that was also providing a basic income to its citizens to manipulate their citizens based on that basic income that they depended on. If they can deny citizens access to things like public transportation base…

This is an interesting angle I never considered. I think that a lot of us are seeing UBI as a flat rate everyone gets.

I never thought of it evolving into different levels for different categories of people.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#160

Post by TimJRobinson » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 2:37 AM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

OP here - I love this idea!

I also think most environmental problems can be solved with a tax on the product doing the damage, that pays for the cost of undoing the damage.