Universal basic income to be tested in Wales • Hacker News Board

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#121

Post by nvoid » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:33 PM UTC

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #70

Nobody has yet to explain the incentive for minimum paid workers to go to work once UBI payments becomes equal to a minimum paid job.

I don't see anyone one here talking about this. It is already happening with the furlough scheme. Isn't that the experiment already run already? If the furlough scheme meant (some) people don't want to go back to work because they are already earning enough to live comfortably whilst doing nothing, then why would we want UBI?

Another problem is the risk of inflation. If everyone in the country has a certain amount of money coming in then shop-keepers are just going to raise their prices. Why wouldn't they? After a few years of this, we are back to square one and the only solution would be to keep raising the UBI.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#122

Post by pjc50 » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:33 PM UTC

kebman wrote: post #62

gandalfian wrote: post #40

In practice the UK already pays the price for a universal basic income. Most poor people get some sort of tax credit and/or housing benefit. What we don't do is allow people to use it to rise out of poverty. A disabled lady thought saving some of her disability was the responsible thing to do, despite further impoverishing herself, once she built up some savings she was prosecuted for fraudently claiming benefits whi…

The laws are like that, because someone feels that it's not in their interest that people actually get out of poverty. The logic behind that interest is simple. You can't make people dependent on you if you simultaneously give them the tools to achieve independence. And these guys love dependent people, because it gives them power. However this attitude is ruining most Western societies.

The drive from this comes out of the right, who believe that work is the only valid route out of poverty. Regardless of actual capacity to work.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#123

Post by cbmuser » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

lexicality wrote: post #110

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #70

Nobody has yet to explain the incentive for minimum paid workers to go to work once UBI payments becomes equal to a minimum paid job.

That's a very interesting way of phrasing that question. Do you think the fact that no one would want to do these jobs for minimum wage if they aren't being forced to by threat of poverty might suggest that we need to approach those jobs differently?

> Do you think the fact that no one would want to do these jobs for minimum wage if they aren't being forced to by threat of poverty might suggest that we need to approach those jobs differently?

So you want to pay your cleaning personnel the same wage as a heart surgeon?

Don’t you think that such high wages will eventually just raise prices?

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#124

Post by nemo44x » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

ItsMonkk wrote: post #63

Housing can’t be both affordable and a good investment. The price of a home should therefore equal its replacement cost. If the market value of the home with the land is $1 million, but the cost to build the home is $200k, raise taxes on the land until the new market value is $200k. Tada, Land Value Tax. Why am I mentioning LVT in a Universal Basic Income thread? What should we do with the money we earn through a LVT…

No matter what you’ll run into a situation where more people want to live in a place than there is space. So an auction must take place.

If you raise the property taxes you aren’t making it more inclusive but really more exclusive. The person hurt by this is the person holding the land when the tax change goes into effect.

In most markets the cost of a home is a factor of interest rates, property taxes, and what’s “left over” - meaning what people are willing to pay each month. When interest rates and/or taxes go up then the “left over” part gets smaller. The banks and government get the bigger slice of the pie.

But as interest rates have fallen and property taxes staying steady then the “left over” part is larger and this benefits the property owner.

This is good.

Inflation adjusted the cost of owning a home is the same as it was 30 years ago in most markets. Interest rates have fallen massively in that time. Some markets (like major cities) have become more competitive though.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#125

Post by vageli » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

waheoo wrote: post #85

leadingthenet wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, no. Only a small minority of people are on Universal Credit. I don’t get how this follows, at all.

What don't you get? They pay the price of it but don't get it, may as well pay the price of it and get the benefits it provides.

All things being equal, wouldn't that greatly reduce the benefit amount per person?

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#126

Post by danShumway » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

jokethrowaway wrote: post #108

qwytw wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd get both the UBI + wage/salary, I'm not quite sure how that translates to "basically paying the company to work".

If I get enough money with ubi I won't waste my life working on something I don't care about. The amount of people who would continue their job if it wasn't for the money it's slim I definitely wouldn't waste my time building someone else product and creating value for society. I'd likely build something fun I want to build which is unlikely to be useful for society or make money. A large part of the populatin on wou…

You'll still get paid for your normal job. It's not like that money would be thrown away, you're not working for free. You go to your job and work because you want more money.

I think UBI is largely untested and its proponents should proceed with caution. But I also think people are overconfident in assuming that people wouldn't work; the reality is that we don't have a ton of data in either direction.

If the 20th-21st century has taught us anything, it's that consumerism is a very powerful motivator. People like to have money to buy luxuries, most people don't want to sit on subsistence levels of income their entire lives. People want things. They want to buy videogames, and XBoxes, and nice houses, and cars, and iPhones, and to go to fancy restaurants.

Whether consumerism is a powerful enough motivator... I just think people are very over-confident talking about what is definitely going to happen in a system that has basically never been tried before.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#127

Post by jokethrowaway » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #42

LatteLazy wrote: post #3

[flagged]

If people are not forced to take low-paid jobs to survive, the surplus skimmed by tory-voting classes disappears.

It's not the 80s anymore, rich people are mostly liberals these days (especially the ultra wealthy)

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#128

Post by cbmuser » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

Mordisquitos wrote: post #32

jpxw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t. But UBI-supporters don’t let that get in the way.

That's a good point. We've already carried out enough small-scale tests of UBI to know that it has no obvious drawbacks, and carrying out even more small-scale tests will not provide us with much new information. What we need now are state-wide implementations of UBI, as they are the only way that UBI-sceptics may be forced to accept it if the results are positive.

A small scale test doesn’t have any impact on market prices and thus does not reflect reality.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#129

Post by moshmosh » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

jokethrowaway wrote: post #98

turbinerneiter wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]” The answers to this are: provocative: work is already optional for holders of large capital - if it works for them, why not the rest of us? humanitarian: everyone deserves decency (and we have enough to go around) utopian: we are/will be rich in everything we need, so we do not need to work for basics - we will only…

It's not up to you to decide what to do with other people's money. Feel free to donate all your money to the poor who deserve better; if you will use threat of violence to get someone else money (no matter the cause) I'll call you immoral.

The threat of violence enforced the system that let them get the money (with a democratic government's name printed on it, mind you) to begin with. Was violence immoral when it enforced a system that shaped wages and the returns of capital in such-and-such way?

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#130

Post by tomcam » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

janandonly wrote: post #6

Interesting how political parties are for or against this pilot project before the results are known. What happened to gathering evidence first and then making up one's mind? There have been other projects in Canada, Finland,Kenya and the Netherlands, all with “positive” results. It is useful to ask what you are trying to achieve with an UBI? * lift people out of poverty? * save money on other social schemes, like pe…

My suggestion is to blog or vlog under a pseudonym because almost no one on either side of the political spectrum will be able to approach your situation rationally.