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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

#241

Post by danans »

vorpalhex wrote: post #120
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…

What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor? They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone. Sure, your Hollywood actor is probably driving an exotic sports car and their iphone is diamond studded, but fundamentally, what does it matter? > housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair I agree in the general…

> What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor?

Well, if you didn't know, there's stuff like this:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/college-bribery-scand...

The special access and leg-up in society offered to people with very high wealth (whether an actor, a corporate CxO, or someone who inherits a business empire) is huge, and entire systems are set up to tend exclusively to their needs and the preservation of those advantages.

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

#243

Post by scarmig »

luckylion wrote: post #133
nemothekid wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There is no proof that would actually appease you. There is no way you could measure the effect on inflation wi…

> There is no proof that would actually appease you. That's not a reason to not even try to offer anything though. You could start with a trial of these 120 persons (select from all classes of society), give them UBI and double their taxes to make it realistic, because the UBI has to be paid somehow. If plenty of them would have less money during this trial and still find UBI worth it, that would be a strong signal.…

I agree that having realistic tax rates in addition to a cash grant in the experiment is key to determining people's actual behavior.

What'd be ideal is if you could randomly select a group of people and force them into the system, like it or not. Then observe their behavioral changes. This is likely of dubious legality.

A second option would be to offer people upfront an amount of money equal to the extra taxes you expect them to have to pay. E.g., if someone pays $50k/year in taxes now and would pay $100k/year in taxes under a UBI, you offer them $150k in tax-exempt income immediately to join a three year program, and afterwards they can do anything they like, including changing labor choices such that they pay less than $100k/year in taxes. This would get the microeconomic incentives fairly similar to those under a real UBI.

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

#244

Post by nodesocket »

Sodman wrote: post #235
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)

But you are going to have outrage by people being upset that wealthy people are getting UBI, even though the UBI amount for wealthy people is inconsequential. This is exactly why the COVID-19 stimulus checks were only sent to people making less than $100k.

The media will start writing posts and articles about X millionaire or X billionaire getting a UBI or stimulus check and outrage ensues.

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

#245

Post by koonsolo »

balfirevic wrote: post #202
koonsolo wrote: post #178

Last time I asked this question here, I got downvoted without any answers. So here is my second try, this time specifically for Germany: Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying their entire adult population this amount. And let's assume everyone will keep working at their current job. (Which they won't since at a "Basic Income" pricepoint, lots of people would prefer spending mor…

> Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying their entire adult population this amount. The plan is obviously not that everyone gets UBI-amount more money per month than they do now.

You are talking about the net result. But in the end, the government is going to pay everyone this amount. So let's say government taxes income at a higher percentage, so that the middle class basically gets the same net amount. How high will you need to tax those middle class jobs?

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

#246

Post by totony »

skybrian wrote: post #50
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…

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…

Tax doesn't help if you make no money though? If you make below poverty line, UBI helps you, whereas progressive tax doesn't

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

#247

Post by totony »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #221
TigeriusKirk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which new way of creating value will be immune to automation?

Maintenance of automation objects, although that's not entirely new it will expand at the same rate as the automation itself, maybe slightly lagging behind. Improvements to automation; automation on top of automation. Planetary colonisation planning.

I can see all of those being done better by an AI in the future. Maintenance is already done a lot by machines right now, I don't see that changing.

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

#248

Post by scarmig »

Alupis wrote: post #238
scarmig wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Two points:

1) Even now, plenty of people take into account the possible dissolution of Social Security or (more likely) changes to its benefit formula in their financial planning.

2) Longer time horizons could always have a hypothetical effect. You say a half century of a policy can't predict a hundred years of a policy; someone can just as well say a hundred years of a policy can't predict two hundred years of a policy.

In the long run, though, we're all dead, and the economic landscape is going to be so radically different in a century that it's pointless to predict how a particular policy will fare then. Someone in 1934 making predictions of the effects of Social Security in 2034 would be so far off as to not even be wrong. See, for example, Alf Landon's criticisms of the program then, which don't correspond at all with what its critics today don't like about it.

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

#249

Post by randomsearch »

thisisbrians wrote: post #42
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…

Isn't this like saying that the invention of agriculture will mean society has to start feeding hunter gatherers for free? That's not how it went. People find new ways to create value all the time, and yet every time we invent anything new people keep saying "all the jobs are going away." It has yet to happen in spite of the agricultural, industrial, and now tech revolutions.

I think the problem is that humans sell labour that is either physical or mental. Already lost physical work has been automated (see, eg agriculture). So we retreat into mental work, the knowledge economy. But what happens when we have decent AI that can perform most mental tasks?

It doesn’t feel like a continuation of what’s gone before, it feels like a step change. When the machine dominates man in all employable qualities, then it’s game over and capitalism breaks down for most people.

I wish I were wrong, but I can’t see a way out of that. Perhaps it’s good, ultimately, because people may no longer have to work in the future.

An optimistic view I guess is to work out how we transition to a new economic system that both continues to generate wealth and to share it. That sounds very much like a problem that must be solved centrally, which we are not good at, so perhaps therefore (based on historical patterns) we will have to await such an extreme level of capitalism that a revolution forces complete automation hand in hand with sharing wealth, ie coordination will only happen when all alternatives (corruption, brutal autocratic rule, state capitalism, etc) are proven unsustainable.

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

#250

Post by Alupis »

scarmig wrote: post #248
Alupis wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Two points: 1) Even now, plenty of people take into account the possible dissolution of Social Security or (more likely) changes to its benefit formula in their financial planning. 2) Longer time horizons could always have a hypothetical effect. You say a half century of a policy can't predict a hundred years of a policy; someone can just as well say a hundred years of a policy can't predict two hundred years of a po…

Maybe I mispoke my point.

It wasn't that 40 years of policy won't be enough to convince people to trust in said policy - it's the "promise" of a 40 year policy that isn't enough to convince people to trust in said policy.

Just telling people to trust the policy will be held strong for a least the next 40 years will not automatically convince people to quit their jobs and all the other possible outcomes of UBI. People who've grown up and spent a major portion of their life without UBI will likely remain skeptical, and mostly will not depend wholly on it for income.

Rather, it will, possibly take a generation of people growing up with UBI all their life before we start to see the actual societal changes UBI might affect. By then, it might be too late to make a change since there will be a generation of people who've come to depend on the government's hand for their basic needs.

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