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Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

businessinsider.com

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Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#71

Post by mrtksn »

elchin wrote: post #61

https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/gehaltsrechner-geh... An article in German, but 1943 Euros a month in Germany is the median income. And it takes only around 6100/month to be 1%.

It strikes me how little is the salary gap in Europe, even in the UK.

In Turkey, it starts with 2K and easily goes up to 15K as you advance in your career or have a profession that is on demand. This leads to drastically different lifestyles among regular people. The 3-4K people almost don’t meet the 8-9K except in work environment and there are a lot of both.

Restaurant and other venue prices almost act as gate keepers between workers of different classes. In Europe that might be said for super rich but mostly any place can be occasionally afforded by anyone.

The most striking that I’ve seen was in Cuba. In restaurants where regular people eat, a meal would cost about 0.5CUC, in restaurants where tourists and the ruling class eat a meal would cost 15CUC, which is about half of the salary of most people.

Also, Cubans with access to tourism are orders of magnitude more well off(bribes, contraband, dealing with tourists easily brings more than a salary per dealings).

Both in Turkey and in Cuba, drastically better income brings you closer to the western lifestyle, so the range usually means the difference between living like a middle class in a western country v.s. living a century behind in terms of tech and comfort.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#72

Post by austincheney »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #4

Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later. Now the only question is: how to you phase in UBI while still rewarding extra productive people to keep creating/innovating? Some will say "those people will innovate out of love". This is not always the case, many people are good at what they do and create many awesome things but given the chance they would rather do some…

There is no evidence to come to such a conclusion.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#73

Post by baconandeggs »

mmhsieh wrote: post #68
missedthecue wrote: post #2

These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…

"What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions." Yes, but some skeptics really do object to UBI on moral-based reasons - indolence, buying drugs, laziness, and…

Will it? People will just say we need better mental health treatments.

I don't think there is a good argument against UBI that they'll accept. But of course, they don't answer the real question which is who's gonna do all the producing?

The ones producing are clearly gonna be the ones being taken advantage of on UBI, even if it works 100% as expected.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#74

Post by pitaj »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #66
pizza234 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later. > Now the only question is: ... "Most jobs will get automated" is actually very questionable. It's called "Lump of labour fallacy", although (I suppose) either not everybody subscribes to it, or it's something that tends to go unnoticed.

Fair point, but for example if trucks get fully automated: the USA has 3.5 million truck drivers. Where are they gonna find a job? My fear is that little by little people will be running out of jobs to find and the middle class will shrink more and more because of this. At which point will the "automation tipping point" happen where the society acknowledges that it's simply not possible to find meaningful employment…

The first automated trucks won't be able to handle everything. There will still need to be a "driver" to ride along with it, at the very least to handle paperwork. Many truck drivers own their own trucks, and I imagine many of these people would be the first adopters of the technology.

The point is that change will still happen gradually, and people will still be necessary.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#75

Post by nemothekid »

thelean12 wrote: post #38
slg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is how a decent chuck of macroeconomics works. There are some things that exist at such a scale that you can't accurately experiment with them. You can only theorize, run models or simulations, and observe real world results after implementation.

The problem is that anything besides regulated capitalism with some social features built in has utterly failed. And when it fails, it fails HARD. So implementing something so drastic without knowing if it'll work is extremely risky.

Why is UBI the thing that plunges us into full blown socialism, and not the myraid of other social safety nets?

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#76

Post by skybrian »

adamsea wrote: post #59
skybrian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities, depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are certainly feasible because the net effect is small. UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of e…

> But from an economics standpoint it’s not a complete plan ... I don't know much about the economics. Curious, how so? > UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of equality are important. IMHO, what you described is justice. Equality. Not kindergarten-level, or, rather, I guess it is, in the sense of it being fundam…

“In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.”

Most apparently-equal rules aren’t actually equal in their effects. Charging everyone the same amount usually hurts poor people more. UBI is one of the few apparently-equal policies that would likely help the poor more than the rich.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#77

Post by tfehring »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #4

Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later. Now the only question is: how to you phase in UBI while still rewarding extra productive people to keep creating/innovating? Some will say "those people will innovate out of love". This is not always the case, many people are good at what they do and create many awesome things but given the chance they would rather do some…

UBI isn't socialism. The incentive for productivity under UBI is called capitalism, and it means that the people who want to live more than slightly above the poverty level will continue to work, and the people who want to get rich will continue to innovate and start companies. There are plausible (though obviously untested) arguments that UBI will increase innovation by getting people out of bullshit jobs and enabling entrepreneurs to pay their bills until their companies are profitable.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#79

Post by Fargren »

baconandeggs wrote: post #64
skybrian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities, depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are certainly feasible because the net effect is small. UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of e…

And that is why it will fail. Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.

Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. People who are born in wealthier families are not playing under the same rules (just imagine if a person playing Monopoly started with ten times the initial amount of money).

I prefer a definition of fairness that is actually achievable[1]: everyone has at least the bare minimum, regardless of fitness and deserving. You can quibble about what the definition of bare minimum, but to me it should include housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair, as people who don't have access to those don't have the minimum to compete with those who do.

We can't have an equal playing field. But we can perhaps make the bare minimum livable.

[1]This is almost impossible, as opposed to entirely impossible

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#80

Post by mason55 »

skybrian wrote: post #76
adamsea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But from an economics standpoint it’s not a complete plan ... I don't know much about the economics. Curious, how so? > UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of equality are important. IMHO, what you described is justice. Equality. Not kindergarten-level, or, rather, I guess it is, in the sense of it being fundam…

“In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.” Most apparently-equal rules aren’t actually equal in their effects. Charging everyone the same amount usually hurts poor people more. UBI is one of the few apparently-equal policies that would likely help the poor more than the rich.

> In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

Yes and on top of the obvious absurdity of this statement, there is a second level. As long as we punish things with fines they are effectively legal if you're rich enough.

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