Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#911

Post by michaelmrose » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #710

bakuninsbart wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. Charity - let's say we actually give every person enough money for food, housing, and utilities. Some people will mess up. They could spend it all on an addiction or just make a bad investment. Even with UBI they could still end up hungry or homeless. Will we help them? Or will we say "you had your UBI, the rest is on you". This changes the morals of how we treat people in the worst times. I think it should be p…

The parent comment said "spend it all on an addiction or just make a bad investment". What do we do with the person that gets e.g. their 1000€, spends it on a night with champagne and then has nothing to eat or pay their rent? Too outlandish for you? How about if they spend it on a new TV instead of rent, a new smartphone or a couch? There's a reason why some people get into debt because of consumption: they don't pl…

Most of the people who are poor are more careful with their money than you are. The poor aren't poor via consumption. They are poor because they lack the skills needed to earn a better living.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#912

Post by drummer » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #130

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…

That’s literally the “universal” part of it. If you don’t have that, you don’t have UBI. The fact that the government has the physical power to withhold a hypothetical UBI might be an issue, of course, but every government has the physical power to do pretty much anything to any citizen, so there’s nothing unique there.

A very good example of how bad and wrong things can go with governments is comparing what the founding members of the USA fought for, with the status quo. Basic rights that they fought for back then are almost completely gone today, including freedom of speech, where you can get cancelled for simply speaking your mind and even the truth. Not to mention personal taxation which brought everyone back to slavery -- something they warned about 200 years ago. It is not difficult to see the train coming at the other end of the government supported UBI tunnel.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#913

Post by urban_strike » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #747

Universal Basic Income does not address ANY of the underlying reasons for wealth inequality - it is license for the economic abusers (exploitative capitalists) to continue business as usual, but with every mark they play now having more disposable income for them to fraudulently take.

Seriously. If a group of vampires have been sucking so much blood that everyone's anemic, the solution isn't to have "universal basic transfusions" to make sure all the victims aren't tapped out and die when the next extraction rolls around.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#914

Post by biffstallion » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

Here come the taxes... peoplorget that non of this is "FREE".

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#915

Post by biffstallion » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

deeblering4 wrote: post #210

Great idea. Please rebrand UBI in a way that makes it palatable to capitalists.

"Rebranding"... or "Lying" is lying, thank you.

Much like the architect of Obamacare (Gruber) admitting that it really was a tax.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#916

Post by michaelmrose » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

timwaagh wrote: post #877

habosa wrote: post #526

I like the simple argument made here about UBI enabling efficient consumption. I worry about three things with UBI though and they're more social than economic. 1. Power Divide - society will be easily divided into two groups: those who depend on the UBI to live and those who don't. The former will be absolutely at the mercy of the latter. We can see this a little bit with the coronavirus relief packages. 2. Predator…

The first thing will be forced by economic factors, not just landlords doing their job. everyone just takes a permanent vacation because work sucks. At the very least a lot of them will work less. This is an intended outcome. Supply hence falls through the floor because full automation doesn't exist. As supply is constrained and demand is just as high (if not higher) this in turn starts triggering higher prices which…

Paying people 1200 a month isn't going to inspire them to take a permanent vacation because while it might be enough to survive on its not enough to live well on and people want to be needed and purposeful. Supply might tighten but it wont fall "through the floor". Furthermore demand right now in the US isn't just as high if not higher its crap and its going to be crap through 2020.

Instead of basing it on bad armchair psych how about provide a credible analysis from an actual economist that shows the conclusions you are suggesting.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#917

Post by michaelmrose » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #725

infogulch wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some governments give poor people vouchers for rent ... targeted by slumlords who find a way to give you as little as possible for them This seems to be a problem because the vouchers are only redeemable by government-granted monopolies, and thus neither tenant nor landlord are participating an open market. If the tenant could go anywhere else with their money a la UBI nobody would choose those terrible living quar…

An open market will always favour the landlord, so you'd end up with more homelessness, or more slum housing and ten-people-to-a-room at the very best. We've been trying these approaches for centuries now, and they always end the same way. There has never been a "free" market which hasn't vastly increased inequality of opportunity across the population as a whole. Why is it so hard for proponents of "free" markets to…

>limits to advertising that promotes selfish greed and consumption

Poor people aren't poor because they consume too much.

>regulation of the press to eliminate the deliberate dissemination of obvious fake news

How do you stop this from being used to mandate the dissemination of fake news?

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#918

Post by x87678r » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:24 PM 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…

Look for the U in UBI.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#919

Post by x87678r » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

sdunwoody wrote: post #761

I really don't think enough thought goes into the affordability of a UBI when it comes up in discussions. Just a quick estimate, assuming that we're talking about the UK here The UBI pays out to 53,000,000 people (very roughly the number of people 18 and over). The amount the UBI pays out is £1,000 a month (whether you could really live on this is debateable, but it's certainly not possible in most of London for exam…

This is a huge point, people debating UBI are often talking about different numbers. 1000/mo is probably too high, 400/mo is probably a better level and you're right its hard to live on that in a big city, you'd have to move out.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#920

Post by doh » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

I'm all for UBI. However the cash UBI suffers from significant flow, where the surplus is captured by landlords.

That means if everyone gets $1,000/month, then the rents go up by the same amount, which pushes prices of real estate and thus the mortgages. So after some period of adjustment, the money would be lost again.

I have not found an answer, but my gut says that it has something to do with the base of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Meaning that UBI should somehow provide shelter, security and food.

It might be easier that it seems. Most nations already have monopoly on violence (police).

Food is more tricky. We already do subsidize farmers, so maybe this could be extended and basic food could be provided by the government (bread and such) or subsidized in full by it.

Shelter is the trickiest. There are some interesting cases across the World where governments have strong regulation around housing. One idea could be that every new development of multi-family housing or condos has to "donate" 10% of them to the municipality. These are then held by the city, that can "rent" it out to people who need them. They can't sell it. This would push the cost of these developments by 10% but it would essentially wipe out homelessness.

There are some ideas that I thought through over the years. As I said, I unfortunately don't have the answers.