European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#131

Post by oblio » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

Scandiravian wrote: post #129

oblio wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about savings? What about salaries? Hyperinflation absolutely wrecks the lives of regular people.

What about them? You're just listing questions without contributing with any alternatives or reflection on what has been said by others Hyperinflation is an extreme case and others have already posted several answers to this, which you have chosen to ignore

Is there any country that defaulted and didn't suffer from hyperinflation? I can't think of any.

I've chosen to ignore the rest because everyone treats hyperinflation like a rare occurrence, under the circumstances.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#132

Post by emteycz » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

username90 wrote: post #125

Scandiravian wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point A nation doesn't issue bonds to cover the cost of its spending, but to remove money from circulation. It's simply a way of saying "hey, there's too much money around. If you let us remove some of it now, we'll give you back more in the future" There's literally no situation where a sovereign nation would not be able to pay out the bonds it has issued. It's simply a matter of making th…

> In the most broad terms, the only difference between realising bonds and simply printing the money is the lag time. Another significant difference: Printing money transfers wealth from the rich to the poor, borrowing transfers wealth from the poor to the rich. So countries which cares for their poor and low corruption among politicians see low government debt rates, while countries like USA where politicians are ve…

99% rich people store their wealth in assets - which are not affected by inflation at all (in fact, the value appreciation often beats it - even during a pandemic). Only the poor people have to store their wealth in cash because they don't have enough of it to buy a diversified range of assets, and the short term risk is unbearable to them (while rich people will simply hodl a little longer). Additionally, poor people usually don't have the means to renegotiate their salaries often enough to keep up with inflation, much less to beat it.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#133

Post by mytailorisrich » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

Scandiravian wrote: post #130

mytailorisrich wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " A nation doesn't issue bonds to cover the cost of its spending, but to remove money from circulation " Another patently false and strange claim... I am puzzled by where you might have got all of these "theories" from.

Here's a working paper from the levy institute, which covers the issue http://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/can-taxes-and-bond... Or you could simply spend some time reading the Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory?wprov=s... Since you now twice called my statements "patently false", without offering any evidence to your argument or even explaining them, I'd like you to provide so…

Ah, "alternative theories"...

The sources to support my claims are everywhere. You are claiming that I am not providing sources that water is wet.

Just look up information on your country finances and borrowing, these are usually public information. Look up treasury bond, guilt, etc. These are all extremely basic stuff... Econ 101.

Even the simple existence of bonds and bond auctions demonstrates that foreign nations do use financial markets to borrow and that they do have creditors.

It seems to me that it is used to provide a backing to political agendas by those who have exhausted other, failed, ideas. When the UK government (and most governments at this point) increases borrowing to record level to pay for the Covid crisis this demonstrates that borrowing is used to pay for spending.

If the money borrowed goes into spending it cannot be that it is to remove money from circulation...

What I called out as patently false is indeed patently false.

I'd be also wary of any theory that calls itself "modern". That's a classic rhetorical trick to imply correctness and that those who do not agree are not modern...

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#134

Post by Scandiravian » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #131

Scandiravian wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about them? You're just listing questions without contributing with any alternatives or reflection on what has been said by others Hyperinflation is an extreme case and others have already posted several answers to this, which you have chosen to ignore

Is there any country that defaulted and didn't suffer from hyperinflation? I can't think of any. I've chosen to ignore the rest because everyone treats hyperinflation like a rare occurrence, under the circumstances.

You're just listing more questions now

I don't see how the number of defaulted countries that experienced hyperinflation is relevant to whether MTT is an accurate model for describing economical systems

I also can't find any responses to your post that states hyperinflation is a rare occurrence. On the contrary, there's answers to most of the questions you've asked me

I'm not interested in convincing you of one thing or another. I want to broaden my horizon through discussion, so if the only thing you bring to the table is questions that could be easily googled, I'm not interested in continuing this conversation

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#135

Post by scotty79 » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

mantas wrote: post #126

scotty79 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just fixed amount of money that may or may not cover for your specific needs and preferences. Variability in those needs are taken care of outside of UBI. You can still have a separate funds for medical equipment and you can still have prices of pads subsidized by goverment to promote hygiene.

The original idea of UBI was to drop all welfare apparatus, add saved moneys to welfare budget and then give it away equally. But now it's turning into a beast that doesn't remove much of existing complexity and adds additional welfare. Money source for a meaningful payout be damned.

You can drop a lot of means tested support for the poor. But I don't think it was to abolish all welfare for special needs groups.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#136

Post by belorn » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

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'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 have massive doubt about that statements from a social and behavior perspective.

Imagine you were transported to a society where housing, food health care, and entertainment was free, but you belong to the lowest social economic status group that existed. Everyone else are above you in term of status. While cultural rules and norms dictate that people still treat you nice, they will not see you as their equal. Members of the other sex will, for reason which is not needed to be specified, select others with higher status. Your social circle will be much smaller, possible zero. Siblings and family members might treat you differently than those of higher status. Your stress levels will be on average higher than of other people, and your health lower.

Would you be happy? Housing, food, health care and entertainment is after all still free.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#137

Post by Scandiravian » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #133

Scandiravian wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a working paper from the levy institute, which covers the issue http://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/can-taxes-and-bond... Or you could simply spend some time reading the Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory?wprov=s... Since you now twice called my statements "patently false", without offering any evidence to your argument or even explaining them, I'd like you to provide so…

Ah, "alternative theories"... The sources to support my claims are everywhere. You are claiming that I am not providing sources that water is wet. Just look up information on your country finances and borrowing, these are usually public information. Look up treasury bond, guilt, etc. These are all extremely basic stuff... Econ 101. Even the simple existence of bonds and bond auctions demonstrates that foreign nations…

Back when the financial system relied entirely on physical assets like metals, the government needed to have those metals available to produce money

Today the overwhelming majority of money is digital and producing more doesn't require the government to have enough metal to mint coins. They simply need to change numbers in a spreadsheet

The "borrowing" you're referring to is not a transfer of physical assets. The money doesn't "go" anywhere, because they only exist as abstract representations in a spreadsheet

The government of the UK has chosen to only spend an amount equal to the one removed from selling bonds, but there's is literally nothing preventing them from doing it without that step

If the government want to spend more money than they get in through bonds and taxes, they can just do it

If they wanted to remove money from circulation they would simply issue bonds and not have an equivalent spending at the same time

It's two independent operations, that seems connected if you have a mental model that a government runs a household budget

That the UK base economic decisions on that assumption does not change the underlying mechanics of the transactions or invalidate MTT as a model for describing economical systems

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#138

Post by username90 » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #132

username90 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the most broad terms, the only difference between realising bonds and simply printing the money is the lag time. Another significant difference: Printing money transfers wealth from the rich to the poor, borrowing transfers wealth from the poor to the rich. So countries which cares for their poor and low corruption among politicians see low government debt rates, while countries like USA where politicians are ve…

99% rich people store their wealth in assets - which are not affected by inflation at all (in fact, the value appreciation often beats it - even during a pandemic). Only the poor people have to store their wealth in cash because they don't have enough of it to buy a diversified range of assets, and the short term risk is unbearable to them (while rich people will simply hodl a little longer). Additionally, poor peopl…

The government printing bills that they then buy stuff with for the poor transfers those things from the wealthy who owned it in the first place to the poor people who got it. As the poor gets more money demand for stuff they buy increases which raises prices and leads to inflation, meaning that said inflation is a direct result of the original wealth transfer and therefore can't possible be a reverse wealth transfer as you described.

On the other hand if we do the same thing with borrowed money demand for goods for poor people will still increase, prices will still go up, just that now it all has to be paid back in taxes or other transfers in the future. So the main effect is that poor people now pay more for goods they pay for with borrowed money and rich people got both interest from the governments loan and can sell their goods to the poor for more.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#139

Post by mytailorisrich » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

Scandiravian wrote: post #137

mytailorisrich wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, "alternative theories"... The sources to support my claims are everywhere. You are claiming that I am not providing sources that water is wet. Just look up information on your country finances and borrowing, these are usually public information. Look up treasury bond, guilt, etc. These are all extremely basic stuff... Econ 101. Even the simple existence of bonds and bond auctions demonstrates that foreign nations…

Back when the financial system relied entirely on physical assets like metals, the government needed to have those metals available to produce money Today the overwhelming majority of money is digital and producing more doesn't require the government to have enough metal to mint coins. They simply need to change numbers in a spreadsheet The "borrowing" you're referring to is not a transfer of physical assets. The mon…

I think you are very confused, and I write this in a friendly way.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#140

Post by mantas » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #135

mantas wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original idea of UBI was to drop all welfare apparatus, add saved moneys to welfare budget and then give it away equally. But now it's turning into a beast that doesn't remove much of existing complexity and adds additional welfare. Money source for a meaningful payout be damned.

You can drop a lot of means tested support for the poor. But I don't think it was to abolish all welfare for special needs groups.

The very initial idea in libertarian circles was to abolish literally all welfare.

The problem is once you start looking into leaving safety nets, bureaucracy is no longer reduced and budget savings no longer happen. Then you need to find a ton fo extra €€€€ to fund UBI. Suddenly „yay no nanny state“ becomes „yay more taxes“...