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Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

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Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#681

Post by CraigJPerry »

tekknik wrote: post #669
thegrimmest wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, poor people generally don't buy football tickets. If their TVs were made by UBI workers, then they wouldn't be able to afford those either. Material things would become scarce again due to the artificially inflated cost of labour. You're basically rewinding all of the gains in productivity we've made by imposing a high floor. CEOs aren't paid a lot because the assume risk, they're paid a lot becaus…

> Believe it or not, poor people generally don't buy football tickets. If their TVs were made by UBI workers, then they wouldn't be able to afford those either. This is not my experience at all. I once had a job setting up home PCs and internet for low income people in my community. Almost every single home had a projection TV (the top of the line at the time) and a recent mercedes in the driveway. They’re able to af…

>> They’re able to afford these things because they are actually receiving income, it’s just not reported

Everyone’s a drug dealer? Doesnt sound plausible. Or at least They’re getting so much income they can afford to run a fancy car (debt free because who’s lending to a person with minimal documented income).

I mean is that a poor person when they have $50k laying around to go buy a fancy car outright?

Something about your proposition doesnt add up in a really basic obvious way.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#682

Post by CraigJPerry »

tekknik wrote: post #670
zozbot234 wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this is exactly what happens in high-productivity locations. Local, labor-intensive services like haircuts, waiting tables at restaurants etc. are paid more, because the workers have alternative opportunities in high-paying sectors. The flip side is that quality tends to improve as well due to efficiency-wage effects. It's hardly a disaster.

So this makes everybody poorer. Nobody is being lifted up here. If things cost more then your money doesn’t go as far. That’s called inflation. UBI seems like a great idea on paper but you’re pointing out its problem as a feature.

>> everybody poorer

The people who are currently not able to make ends meet are suddenly succeeding. So not everyone is poorer.

You’re confusing “things will be vastly different” - which is not disputed. The richest today will be relatively less rich.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#683

Post by CraigJPerry »

tekknik wrote: post #664
CraigJPerry wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about them? Comparatively enjoyable jobs will pay less, horrible jobs will pay more. Want to “work” as a golfer? Cool, enjoy living on UBI because no one will be topping up your salary for that. The person who cuts the greens earns wayyyy more than you though. Want to play lots of golf? You’re going to run out of UBI to pay for all those greens fees. Maybe you need to think about taking on a side gig in a comfor…

So if there are no golfers, then why are the groundskeepers making so much? Golfing gets more expensive because you have to pay the lawn mowers literally sitting on a vehicle all day, so less people do it, then the groundskeeper is out of a job? Now what?

>> So if there are no golfers

Why are there no golfers? If everyone has basic needs met, shelter, basic food, healthcare, you’re telling me no one is going to make use of some time to go play some golf? Why?

>> why are the groundskeepers making so much?

Golf courses dont magic out of thin air, ubi can do a lot but it’s not magic. You’re going to have to pay someone enough that they choose to specialise then take on that career. They’re going to need capital for equipment etc etc but there’s a lot of people would like to play golf. A golf club won’t look anything like those of today though. Ubi would have such a drastic change in society given sufficient time that perhaps even the game of golf itself would change.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#684

Post by dragonwriter »

kukx wrote: post #526
jakelazaroff wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that scenario, you’d still need to work. Basic income increases workers’ bargaining power because they can quit without losing their entire income.

And their income will grow on trees. It will fail unless the government gets easy money from eg producing oil like Emirates. Otherwise someone needs to produce stuff. We already have a big inflation problem that is directly related to policies that rain money on those not working. Let's not make things even worse, please.

> We already have a big inflation problem that is directly related to policies that rain money on those not working.

We have inflation because of sustained fiscal and monetary stimulus through a period of sharp restrictions on economic activity being sustained after most of the restrictions ended; the fiscal stimulus has already been withdrawn, and monetary stimulus is slowly unwinding.

But that really doesn't have much bearing on a tax-funded UBI, which—unlike deficit-funded airdrops—is redistribution, not general stimulus.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#685

Post by CraigJPerry »

tekknik wrote: post #667
CraigJPerry wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> then I don't see why the supply of those jobs would change Are you not underestimating just how radical a change UBI would be? You’re going to radically change which jobs are viable. For example, if you pay every teacher UBI, is it a stretch to imagine more than half decide not to go into work tomorrow? It’s not just a case of paying teachers more when they can afford to say no to your job. You’re talking about co…

> There’s going to be zero room for unruly kids in that classroom. How come multiple times now people point out UBI as being a way to deal with the entitled people running around right now? And with more entitlements we’ll have more of an issue with entitled people.

>> And with more entitlements

With more money in some cases and less in others. Entitlements, that’s far too broad an umbrella.

What exactly would you be entitled to beyond sufficient money to make a basic living and pursue the free pleasures in life (which are generally among the best available in life).

What’s more fulfilling, spending $130k to ride the vomit comet for a couple of hours - i say this as someone who would LOVE to do that - or hiking to the top of a local mountain with a loved one to watch a sunrise? Vomit comet is COOL but it’s not fulfilling. Not in the meaningful way that time spent with a loved one enjoying the beauty of life is.

But back to the entitlements - why is a teacher going to agree to teach an unruly kid? They don’t need this job. They’re here because it’s a passion in life, they’ve chosen a career not of necessity but of interest.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#686

Post by laserlight »

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #594
laserlight wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that inflation is worse than wage slavery?

I don't think this is a coherent question unless you specify how much inflation, and how much wage slavery, we are talking about.

We don't do the same for non-wage slavery, do we?

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#687

Post by CraigJPerry »

tekknik wrote: post #663
CraigJPerry wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t ring true. If you had the capital to make the decision not to work a crap-corp and instead pursue your dream “job” of being painter, musician, rock climbing explorer, artisanal fisherman, etc etc

> rock climbing explorer, artisanal fisherman I can’t wait to see the GDP “growth” charts…

Why do we need GDP growth? Is there no other point on the spectrum which is sustainable?

E.g. instead of “grow” - which is inherently unsustainable, you run out of materials and labour to feed the economy - i mean we can continue to kick the can down the road for a few generations yet and pretend we don’t understand what “grow” means in the context of finite resources. Instead of “shrink” which is also unsustainable. Is there some other viable point?

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#688

Post by jbverschoor »

snapcaster wrote: post #559
jbverschoor wrote: post #396

Duh. Working is fun. Working is progress, pride, a social place, sparks your mind, etc.etc.

I'm going to guess you don't work as a janitor?

Actually thought of doing that for a while. What's wrong with that? It can be rewarding.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#689

Post by rocqua »

missedthecue wrote: post #227
teucris wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the systems I’m referring to do not suggest taxing the hard work of people. They propose taxing the work of automation.

Why would we want to create tax policy that discourages automation investment in favor of human labor?

Because the benefits of automation are highly capital intensive, concentrating wealth in ways that are bad. Taxing this make the benefits for those with capital less, but it probably still means automation is a great investment.

This tax just prices in the negative externalities of job-loss into automation. Job-loss really is a drag on an economy (you need consumers to keep an economy going). Moreover job-loss causes poverty, and poverty is bad in and of itself. UBI should make poverty less bad. Funding that partially by automation makes sense if that automation is partially the cause of the poverty (through job loss).

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#690

Post by rocqua »

missedthecue wrote: post #331
jjk166 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are opposed to people not working, and you're opposed to people working?

I'm opposed to paying people not to work. Humans and automation coexist. It's not as if all the engineers that used slide-rules and graphing paper went homeless when AutoCAD was invented. Same with farmers and the tractor. Society gets richer as automation makes our labor more efficient.

Note that UBI should not be 'paying people not to work'. It is paying people regardless of whether they work. The key to UBI being succesful (imho) is that everyone gets it and everyone gets the same amount (maybe excepting people under 18?). This makes the system so much simpler to administer.

It also prevents weird traps where doing something unintentionally costs you your UBI. (e.g. people who start working and earn too much to qualify for food-stamps / benefits / some other program, thus having them end up with less money each month).

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