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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

#231

Post by Sodman »

tuna-piano wrote: post #107

Am I the only one who hates both the term, the idea and frequent discussions of "Universal Basic Income"? -The term feels like just a rebranding of slightly-modified concepts that have been around forever -The term also says "income" when it's really just "Forced Redistribution (FR)". ... why does the term focus on the money people receive and not the money people pay? -The discussions in favor of UBI/FR generally re…

> Why do people support a government policy that they wouldn't support for their own children? Most of us have known of or heard of rich families where the kids got all the money and resources they need into adulthood vs those who were forced to earn their own way... it's obvious which parenting strategy turns out better.

UBI is about providing a floor for people. Most people like the idea of their children having access to food, shelter, healthcare and education. From the article, the amount here is "just above Germany's poverty line", so it's not fair to compare it to "rich families where the kids got all the money and resources". People earning this UBI have enough to survive, but not much more. This isn't enough money to go on family vacations, buy fancy cars, live in lavish homes, etc. There is still a strong incentive to work and improve your personal circumstances, the main difference is that losing your job, or having a medical issue, shouldn't be enough to put you or your family on the street.

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

#232

Post by o_p »

kpsnow wrote: post #198

I don’t have a very good grasp of economics, but can anyone explain why it makes sense to give someone $1000 to do nothing when you can pay them $1000 to do something productive, like build a road? Ideas like negative income tax, government supplemented minimum wages, or increasing EITC makes more sense to me.

They do a fundamental activity for the economy which is consuming. Consuming produce jobs and investment.

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

#233

Post by gwright »

tfehring wrote: post #77
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 enabli…

And what about the people who don't want their earnings to be taxed to pay for people who can work but choose not to?

To be fair I don't think UBI is unique in this problem. Even traditional assistance programs struggle with this problem. It would be wonderful if we had some mechanisms that helped people become self-sufficient but that seems to be a very much unsolved problem.

I don't think UBI will be much better at this but the argument that it could be more efficient (i.e. provide the same level of support to more people at the same cost when compared to traditional assistance packages) is what continues to intrigue me about UBI.

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

#234

Post by Alupis »

scarmig wrote: post #229
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…

> 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 provide lower bounds on the amount of time you can offer a guaranteed income without adverse effects on people's employment. Going to an extreme, if you offer people a 40 year UBI and they don't quit, then that's pretty damn strong evidence. 3 years offers som…

> if you offer people a 40 year UBI and they don't quit, then that's pretty damn strong evidence

I think that isn't a correct assumption either.

40 yeas is a long time. Longer than many HN readers here have been alive.

In the last 40 years, how many times has the government performed an about-face on some economic policy or whatever? Too many times for someone to just throw away their career until sufficient time has passed that is becomes part of society. That may take an entire generation (see Social Security in the US, which now is a permanent fixture).

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

#235

Post by Sodman »

nodesocket wrote: post #223

I've said this before here on HN, but Naval Ravikant (of AngelList) nailed the problem with government pay subsidies and universal basic income on a podcast with Joe Rogan. "A slippery slide transfer straight into socialism. The moment people can start voting themselves money, combined with democracy it's just a matter of time before the bottom 51 votes themselves into the top 49. By the way, the slippery slope falla…

> The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class citizen.

This is why the "Universal" part of UBI is important. Having everybody get it reduces the social stigma. (Also providing the bonus side-effect of reducing the admin overhead that comes with means testing)

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

#236

Post by scarmig »

Alupis wrote: post #234
scarmig wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 provide lower bounds on the amount of time you can offer a guaranteed income without adverse effects on people's employment. Going to an extreme, if you offer people a 40 year UBI and they don't quit, then that's pretty damn strong evidence. 3 years offers som…

> if you offer people a 40 year UBI and they don't quit, then that's pretty damn strong evidence I think that isn't a correct assumption either. 40 yeas is a long time. Longer than many HN readers here have been alive. In the last 40 years, how many times has the government performed an about-face on some economic policy or whatever? Too many times for someone to just throw away their career until sufficient time has…

By the same token, even passing a law that implemented an all-population UBI isn't a good test for a UBI, because people might not trust that the government will continue funding it.

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

#237

Post by mrow84 »

ghostwriter wrote: post #209
mrow84 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because no one owes you nothing by their unalienable right to be in charge of their own life The question isn't whether people are obliged to provide for others, but whether or not it is necessarily unfair for them to do so. Your statement only addresses the former case, not the latter (irrespective of whether it is labelled "the fundamental moral principle of fairness").

> The question isn't whether people are obliged to provide for others, but whether or not it is necessarily unfair for them to do so. sure, let's take a practical exercise and see how you feel about spending your days at cotton fields working for free. Doesn't have to be forever, just a few years, to get a meaningful conclusion about the level of that "necessarily" that you doubt about.

As a reminder, this is the original claim:

> Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair.

I had asked for an explanation of why this should be so. Your example, "being forced to work in the cotton fields for free", is only rhetoric - it does not actually address the question. There are an infinity of circumstances that would involve "everyone getting the same amount just for existing" that do not involve "being forced to work in the cotton fields", "being forced to work", or indeed "being forced (to do anything)".

I find it interesting that in all the replies to my query, none have really been able to provide anything approaching an answer. The closest (in my opinion) is [0] by aeternum, but that boils down to saying that it is unfair if things don't progress as quickly as they could, but doesn't explain why - this in itself seems pretty radical, when made explicit (hopefully I haven't done too much of an injustice in my paraphrasing). These claims are made boldly, but the rationale seems more difficult to tease out.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24215835

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

#238

Post by Alupis »

scarmig wrote: post #236
Alupis wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you offer people a 40 year UBI and they don't quit, then that's pretty damn strong evidence I think that isn't a correct assumption either. 40 yeas is a long time. Longer than many HN readers here have been alive. In the last 40 years, how many times has the government performed an about-face on some economic policy or whatever? Too many times for someone to just throw away their career until sufficient time has…

By the same token, even passing a law that implemented an all-population UBI isn't a good test for a UBI, because people might not trust that the government will continue funding it.

Until it becomes an "institution", like Social Security has in present day US.

That could be a generation or longer before knowing the actual effects, and by then (as-with Social Security) it'll be practically too late to make a course correction.

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

#239

Post by danans »

baconandeggs wrote: post #145
Fargren wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abo…

> Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. You are redefining fair to mean equal. I don't want equal at the expense of fair. Inheritance is a made up rule, and as such can be unmade without having to change the definition of fairness. But second, age is thing, older people tend to have accumulated more wealth than younger people, even without inheritance. Younger people tend…

> I don't want equal at the expense of fair. > An equal playing field in the way you describe it will never be achievable by humans.

Extreme economic inequality drives unfairness by tipping the scales towards the very wealthy. Nobody is suggesting that we somehow enforce biological equality, whether between individuals of the same age, or among individuals of very different ages. To suggest so is a strawman intended to distract from the real problem of growing economic inequality.

Also, you don't need to abolish inheritance to increase fairness, but in the context of growing inequality, you must limit the extent to which it drives unfairness by phasing it out as wealth grows exponentially.

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

#240

Post by grimjack00 »

sdenton4 wrote: post #182
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…

It's not about fairness at all: it's about poverty traps, and getting people out of them. With the learned understanding that if you give things to the poor, you also have to give them to the rich, because the rich are unable to look at any pie they can't have a slice of without wanting to destroy it.

> you also have to give them to the rich because that's what "Universal" means.
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