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

81–90 of 681 posts

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

#81

Post by dllthomas »

jpwagner wrote: post #66
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…

Neat idea! but I'd prefer we change one systemic variable at a time so we can account for the results...

I'm not sure this makes sense.

Consider a tower of blocks with two legs, of equal height, and a problem that the tower is too short. If you lengthen one of the legs and not the other, the tower tips over. But that's not a necessary result of the tower being taller; it's a result of the tower being off balance. If you lengthen both legs by the same amount, the tower stands.

You can of course argue that tower height and tower balance are the systemic variables, with length of tower legs being incidental - and this is a perfectly reasonable point of view, but how would you propose we determine how to draw those lines in public policy? If we're free to draw them wherever we please, discussion by discussion, this seems like a fully general counterargument (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Fully_general_counterargument) against any potential change: we can't raise the height of the tower, because that involves lengthening both legs, and I prefer to change one thing at a time; we can't lengthen one of the legs, because that changes height and balance and I prefer to change one thing at a time.

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

#82

Post by szabba »

cpursley wrote: post #18
streptomycin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 onl…

You sir, are mistaken.

Communism didn't offer a basic income. People were paid for doing works at jobs. Which everyone had. The constituion of communist Poland even listed having a job as a citizens duty.

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

#83

Post by btilly »

effn wrote: post #23
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…

Your suggestion has the same problems as most basic income proposals. 1) The numbers don't work out. Even a very steep CO2 tax will produce too little revenue for any form of meaningful BI. 2) The money collected on the CO2 tax could also be used for a general tax cut. So you still have the political problem of explaining to working middle class why their money is being handed out to lazy bums.

1) The numbers don't work out. Even a very steep CO2 tax will produce too little revenue for any form of meaningful BI.

The USA currently consumes about 450 billion gallons of petroleum products per year, which is about 1.5 trillion pounds. We also mine about a billion short tons of coal per year, which is 2 trillion pounds. We have about 300 million people.

Taxing $0.75/pound on carbon fuels would generate a bit over $6k/year per man, woman and child. That's $4.5/gallon. This is enough to put a family of 4 at about $25K/year in basic income, which is just above the poverty line this year.

There is enough revenue. You just have to accept a higher tax.

2) The money collected on the CO2 tax could also be used for a general tax cut. So you still have the political problem of explaining to working middle class why their money is being handed out to lazy bums.

The middle class receives the money as well. This kind of program - where everyone pays and everyone receives - has proven very popular in the past. See social security for a demonstration.

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

#84

Post by alex-g »

cpursley wrote: post #29
summerdown2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Communist and hard-socialist countries all have tried the basic income idea and failed. I know of a few short lived experiments, but I'm not aware of any country that has implemented a basic income, let alone failed at it. Could you let me know where you're thinking of? > It all sounds good in theory, but in practice... ... where has it failed in practice?

You're looking at the effect, and not the cause. What caused the global banking crisis? 1.) Cheap money via gov't Fed Policy (created the artificial boom) 2.) Government mandates in mortgage lending (caused a lot of people to buy homes when they weren't in a realistic position to do so)

3) overleveraged banks with colossal principal-agent problems and insufficient transparency or supervision

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

#85

Post by [deleted] »

khill wrote: post #39

Wouldn't the basic income value need to vary across regions? For example, the notion that: "Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is enough to live comfortably on" would mean a different value in San Francisco than in Grover, NC. If the government adjusted the basic income to account for regional cost-of-living, I imagine it would be popular to maintain a fake residency in an expen…

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by summerdown2 »

cdoxsey wrote: post #59

I think in the end this wouldn't work. It'd play out something like this: A certain percentage of the population would stop working entirely since they no longer need to. (Particularly when politicians push the basic income amount up to placate constituencies) Because workers bow out of the system certain industries lose productive capacity. Maybe we stop producing enough food, or enough fuel. Prices rise (assuming a…

> A certain percentage of the population would stop working entirely since they no longer need to.

Everyone I've ever seen argue this has had strong opinions about how other (more greedy and venal) people would act. They, of course, would still work, but the great unwashed masses would sit on their backsides and take the money.

I suggest, instead, we try specifics. Given a basic income, I wouldn't be lazy. Nor would anyone I know, which includes some very poor people who would love to work if they could only do better than on benefits.

I suspect (though I don't know), that you wouldn't be lazy, either.

Also, the evidence of limited trials is that this increases work, not idle people:

eg http://www.bignam.org/BIG_pilot.html

> The BIG is a form of social protection, which reduces poverty and supports pro-poor economic growth.

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

#88

Post by dllthomas »

mikekij wrote: post #53

Do you have any idea how many people would just not work, sit at home, watch TV, and collect their BI check?

If the BI is high, quite a number.

The question is whether there's (1) something they can do that's more valuable than watching TV and (2) some reasonable way we can motivate them to do so.

If (1) and if a lower BI is an effective way of motivating that behavior, then that's a good argument for a lower BI. It doesn't follow that the optimal level is zero. I don't expect the number that would stay home and collect their $1 of basic income would be substantially greater than the number that currently stay home and collect their $0.

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

#89

Post by bobo13579 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #48
cpursley wrote: post #17

Please keep the do-gooder central planning away from my bank account. Thanks.

Says the founder who has a business based off of a major component of US central planning (housing).

This is the most ridiculous thing I've read on HN. Also, the personal attack was real classy.

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

#90

Post by sageikosa »

cdoxsey wrote: post #59

I think in the end this wouldn't work. It'd play out something like this: A certain percentage of the population would stop working entirely since they no longer need to. (Particularly when politicians push the basic income amount up to placate constituencies) Because workers bow out of the system certain industries lose productive capacity. Maybe we stop producing enough food, or enough fuel. Prices rise (assuming a…

Yes, market forces can only be controlled by getting rid of the market. At that point social forces will only be materialized through physical force.

The difference between a socialist and an individualist is in how they think the physical force equation (applied to the society in which they live) will work out for them.

Post reply on HN