Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

eci.ec.europa.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 156 posts

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#71

Post by i_cannot_hack »

dusted wrote: post #58

I've been a proponent of this idea until now that I am in a position to vote for it. Now I'm not sure if I'm convinced that people are ready for it. I've invested significant effort in working and having a job, and, I wouldn't have have done that if I knew I could have still "gotten by" without, I'd definitely not be where I am today without that outside pressure to _not_fail_. I'd be probably dead or at least morbid…

> I'd much rather give people what they _need_ to survive, anything beyond that (tobacco, alcohol, entertainment, fashion clothing, cars, etc..) should be the privilege earned by working.

How would not having a car affect their ability to get to the job interview? And how would not having a fashionable formal attire affect their ability to do a good impression on the interviewer? How would not having access to entertainment affect their mental health?

People probably know more about what they themselves _need_ in their situation than you do. Give them the opportunity to divide resources on their own.

And investing in people beyond merely keeping them alive will generally pay dividends and be a good investment in the long run.

Vaguely related: Unconditional cash transfers in charity are generally successful and have a strong multiplier effect leading to increased long-term income (must people don't just spend them on alcohol and drugs, as some would believe) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438781...

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#72

Post by mytailorisrich »

chous wrote: post #63
mytailorisrich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It illustrates, if needed be, that handing meaningful amounts of money to all or most of the population in a recurring way is not sustainable. The responses to the covid lockdowns, which are incredibly expensive, were only considered because they were one-offs and time-limited. If payments are restricted to a minority, the poorest, then it boils down to what already exists in most European countries and the question…

Most people are getting poorer. Their only way out is fighting for a job, but jobs are scarce, and the situation will get worse exponentially due to technological unemployment. That's not an ideologically-constructed problem. It's pure logic. What is ideologically-driven, in my opinion, is claiming that "other jobs will be created, so no need to worry". Which implies, on the other hand, that the poor deserve being po…

This not pure logic. This is a logical fallacy and a strawman argument.

You do not put forward any argument to my previous comment, and in fact illustrates my point.

At the moment there is an economic crisis due to the covid pandemic. This is a specific, time-limited issue and welfare has stepped up to help people, at an extreme cost. This is not sustainable and only considered because it is an emergency in nature.

If jobs dry up due to automation then there will indeed be scope to discuss UBI based on taxing 'robots' (so a clear and plausible way of financing it) . This is not what UBI as proposed now is about.

No-one has claimed that the poor deserve to be poor and/or do not deserve help. There are plenty of welfare schemes in Europe and quite a few of them result in effective UBI, but only for the poorer who actually need it.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#73

Post by scotty79 »

enaaem wrote: post #35
jdmoreira wrote: post #17

What I would like to support is a large and long term study involving multiple families in multiple European countries with multiple values.

I don't think the outcome is very interesting. There are all ready subgroups in society who have some kind of UBI like pensioners and trust fund babies. I want so see the effects on the total economy. If for example UBI leads to massive inflation it would completely nullify the UBI. How about productivity? Saudi Arabia is an interesting example, since their economy pretty much runs on free oil money. Saudi nationals…

> If for example UBI leads to massive inflation it would completely nullify the UBI.

I think it will lead to inflation of rents untill landlords capture most of BI value. Unless it's specifically prevented by rent controls or progressive real estate tax that's fed straight back to BI funding.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#74

Post by username90 »

Aqua wrote: post #48
js8 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a petition. If it succeeds, the only thing EU has to do is to discuss it, and these things can be discussed. Personally, I would like UBI to be tied to GDP per capita, like say 10% of the GDP would be redistributed to every person. It would help to solve the wealth and income inequality problem that causes huge misallocation of resources (for example, EU has twice as many empty apartments than it has homele…

So you're advocating for stealing these empty apartments from their owners and giving them to the poor, obviously, for free?

Do empty apartments incentivize creativity and innovation? No, there is no reason to accommodate them, anyone who makes money by making life worse for others should expect society to take their stuff sooner or later.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#75

Post by js8 »

Aqua wrote: post #48
js8 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a petition. If it succeeds, the only thing EU has to do is to discuss it, and these things can be discussed. Personally, I would like UBI to be tied to GDP per capita, like say 10% of the GDP would be redistributed to every person. It would help to solve the wealth and income inequality problem that causes huge misallocation of resources (for example, EU has twice as many empty apartments than it has homele…

So you're advocating for stealing these empty apartments from their owners and giving them to the poor, obviously, for free?

No, I am just pointing out that there is a resource misallocation, and people don't have to suffer poverty.

And I also think that people simply deserve some equity (large portion of total economic assets in our society was created by our ancestors), just by virtue of being part of the society. UBI is just a dividend from that equity.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#76

Post by imtringued »

oblio wrote: post #22
Scandiravian wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National debt and private debt are two very different creatures. National debt is for the most part a good thing, since it's a measure of the amount of a national currency is in circulation Modern economic theory proposes that nations, with full control over their currency, have infinite spending power (aka can go into infinite debt) without any issues, as long as full-employment hasn't been reached This is of course…

I don't know what kind of economic books you've read, but mine had terms such as "hyperinflation" in them :-) If anything, stuff like global currencies ($, €) bail out their respective owners because they're world reserve currencies. Some of the smaller Eurozone countries would have definitely defaulted, had hyperinflation, etc, without the Euro. Now they're in recession instead, which sucks a lot but still less than…

>I don't know what kind of economic books you've read, but mine had terms such as "hyperinflation" in them :-)

You don't have to issue more currency/debt once you have reached the target inflation rate because if you manage to hit the right inflation rate every year you have already executed your stimulus properly and are reducing unemployment. Consumer inflation is a proxy for worker income because most of the goods or services that are indexed are the product of labor. If the stimulus arrives in the hands of workers first it will mean that worker salaries will grow ahead of inflation.

>If anything, stuff like global currencies ($, €) bail out their respective owners because they're world reserve currencies. Some of the smaller Eurozone countries would have definitely defaulted, had hyperinflation, etc, without the Euro. Now they're in recession instead, which sucks a lot but still less than the alternative.

They are in recession because of a lack of demand for domestic workers which is basically the problem that moderate inflation would solve.

Just look at these charts:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/225698/monthly-inflation...

Inflation is high in Poland and Hungary. Does this mean they suffer from problems? Actually no it's the opposite.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/268830/unemployment-rate...

Poland has the second lowest unemployment rate and Hungary is still well below the EU average. Please bear in mind that this chart only shows the inflation rate in August. I chose this chart because it is a easy to read bar chart. Some numbers may be outliers but the general trend will be the same no matter what chart you look at.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#77

Post by username90 »

eecc wrote: post #29
Ekaros wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And should they? Or is it reasonable to expect that those unable to work temporarily move to some low/reasonable cost area of living? Or find solution sufficient solution with the ubi they get.

That’s problematic. You don’t just move your residence on a whim like it’s picking a different pair of socks on an online store. In EU at least, people tend to hold onto their network more strongly and uprooting is a highly stressful and somewhat traumatic experience. Not to mention that moving in a “cheaper area” reduces opportunities and becomes an income local minimum you can’t escape that easily. I don’t have an…

The duality of UBI discussions:

> UBI will make people stop working, why work when you can get money for free?

> I wouldn't be able to live the luxurious life I lived as a worker if I went on UBI, how is that fair?

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#78

Post by Scandiravian »

js8 wrote: post #27
Scandiravian wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National debt and private debt are two very different creatures. National debt is for the most part a good thing, since it's a measure of the amount of a national currency is in circulation Modern economic theory proposes that nations, with full control over their currency, have infinite spending power (aka can go into infinite debt) without any issues, as long as full-employment hasn't been reached This is of course…

In addition to the above, which I agree with, you might also view money not as a resource, but a vote in economy. If we assume that people are motivated by money, they will still work even on UBI, because what UBI shifts is just who is voting (who is making the decisions to produce stuff). So having an UBI is not really that different than change in demand from one set of products to another, which the economy should…

I've never thought of it that way. It's an interesting idea, that I want to understand better, so I'll spend a few hours reading up on this today.

Your post taught me something new, which I probably wouldn't have found out on my own. Thank you :)

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#79

Post by akvadrako »

Barrin92 wrote: post #57

I dislike UBI a lot. (coming from the left side of the European political spectrum for what it's worth) for a few reasons. The first one is that I think work is a fundamental aspect of personal life and people feel deeply rewarded for being compensated for it. UBI is underpinned by a sort of Wall-E philosophy of human nature. It in a weird way presents itself as humanistic but is deeply apolitical and anti-social. Se…

> The first one is that I think work is a fundamental aspect of personal life and people feel deeply rewarded for being compensated for it.

That's a reason to like UBI.

(1) It allows more people to work. Current social programs discourage work because earned income reduces benefits; not so with UBI.

(2) It allows more meaningful work. People aren't so desperate they need to take any job and we can safely drop minimum wage, making it affordable to hire people for less commercially viable tasks.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#80

Post by username90 »

mantas wrote: post #18
oh_sigh wrote: post #12

How does UBI work with different costs of living? Do city dwellers get more than rural folk?

Also, how does UBI work with different life circumstances. Does a disabled person get extra to cover wheelchair maintenance? Does allergic person gets more to afford allergy-OK food? Does woman get more to cover pads/tampons?

> Does woman get more to cover pads/tampons?

Not sure why people repeat this so much when men's extra need for calories to fuel their larger bodies greatly outweighs that.

Post reply on HN