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

Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

simulacrum.cc

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 681 posts

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#11

Post by enko »

btilly wrote: post #5

I've got a twist on this basic idea. Fund basic income with a large tax on various CO2 producing activities. With the idea that - on average - people can pay this tax out of the basic income received from it. And people will have direct incentives to find ways to reduce CO2 consumption. Then get rid of silly specific legislation that tries to achieve the same goal in less successful ways. Thus fuel efficiency, Califo…

See Australian politics for clues on why that probably won't be an attractive option for politicians where you are. We implemented a carbon tax. While not perfect, it's a pretty decent stab IMO, yet is very easy to demonise and as such is wildly unpopular with hoi polloi.

It's a real pity that many good legislative ideas seem to be susceptible to simplistic populist attack if you yell loud enough.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#12

Post by nawitus »

btilly wrote: post #5

I've got a twist on this basic idea. Fund basic income with a large tax on various CO2 producing activities. With the idea that - on average - people can pay this tax out of the basic income received from it. And people will have direct incentives to find ways to reduce CO2 consumption. Then get rid of silly specific legislation that tries to achieve the same goal in less successful ways. Thus fuel efficiency, Califo…

This idea seems to incur very high bureaucracy costs. What are CO2 producing activies? How much are each of them taxed? Who measures the tax and is responsible paying for it? Etc.

One selling point of basic income is that there's no loopholes and there's very little bureaucracy costs, therefore a larger portion of the money is actually used for consumption instead of doing unnecessary (for society) work.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#14

Post by alex-g »

joshuaellinger wrote: post #2

It misses the fact that work is fulfilling for (most) people. I've heard talk of the government being the employer of last resort, which has its own problems. But just paying people to breath has problems as well.

Basic income makes it easier to work, because one no longer has to choose between working and receiving benefits. There's currently a huge divide between working zero hours for unemployment benefit, and having to work many hours to get the equivalent in wages. With basic income there's no bureaucratic friction with signing on and off, or having to justify your need for support. Any extra hours worked give you extra money, and they'll be hours "on the books" - no need to hide the fact that you're working - which is a win all round.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#15

Post by nawitus »

joshuaellinger wrote: post #2

It misses the fact that work is fulfilling for (most) people. I've heard talk of the government being the employer of last resort, which has its own problems. But just paying people to breath has problems as well.

>It misses the fact that work is fulfilling for (most) people.

Basic income is not against working, it's point is to let people work in all kinds of situations. Old-fashion social security usually makes the tax rate for certain part-time / freelancing work 100% (e.g. $100 increase in pay can reduce benefits $100, therefore the actual marginal tax rate is 100% and most people won't do that work).

> But just paying people to breath has problems as well.

You can do that in most Nordic countries, and it has many more benefits than disadvantages. For example, you can walk safely everywhere because everyone has sufficient social security. Street robberies and whatnot are practically non-existent.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#16

Post by streptomycin »

speeder wrote: post #6

And where the money to pay for that will come from? I suspect if you just tax the rich like crazy, they will just move out to somewhere else.

I suspect that the rich would rather pay higher taxes than face civil unrest from the ever-increasing fraction of the population that can't find work.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#18

Post by cpursley »

streptomycin wrote: post #16
speeder wrote: post #6

And where the money to pay for that will come from? I suspect if you just tax the rich like crazy, they will just move out to somewhere else.

I suspect that the rich would rather pay higher taxes than face civil unrest from the ever-increasing fraction of the population that can't find work.

Money and business moves to where it's most welcome for the same reason people move to neighborhoods with low rates of theft (after all, taxation and inflationary monetary policy is theft no matter which way it's painted).

The reason people can't find work now is due to the failures of central planning, not the lack of it. Communist and hard-socialist countries all have tried the basic income idea and failed. The only exceptions are where the basic income is funded through resources, not confiscation of wealth - and even this takes wise, benevolent leadership.

When you confiscate wealth to provide a basic income, you create a disincentive to create wealth and an incentive to not work in exchange for basic income. This creates a rapid increase in both, which backfires because you have more people to support with basic income and less revenue because business owners scale back.

It all sounds good in theory, but in practice...

Edit: Interesting on the downvotes without the explanations. Do any of you live in the real world?

Post reply on HN