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

111–120 of 681 posts

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

#111

Post by danielweber »

effn wrote: post #57
derefr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, however, say that going forward, people will pay into basic income instead of social security; and that no one born after [policy-change date] will receive social security in the future (since they never paid into it.)

Possible in theory. But then you have to explain to people why they are paying the same amount of tax as people one year older than them, but will still receive a lot less when they retire.

That's coming anyway.

For the record, you have zero ownership rights in your SS benefits. They can be changed at will.

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

#112

Post by danielweber »

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…

It might be best just to have some portion of people become an idle class and another class of people become the productive class. (But allow people to move between them.)

I don't think it's compatible with universal suffrage, though. It ends up a lot like an aristocracy, albeit an aristocracy that people can join at will. Is that acceptable? I dunno.

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

#113

Post by vixen99 »

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?

For what it's worth Britain has around four million adults living on benefits (else they'd starve) who have never had a full- time job in their lives. No idea what they do with their time but aside from the odd part-time job, they depend on someone else working on their behalf. That is a truism not a criticism. Sounds like a pretty good experimental group for testing the suggestion mooted here.

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

#114

Post by danielweber »

grecy wrote: post #55

Australia already has essentially this setup. Every person in the country can be paid $492.60 every two weeks ($12,800 yearly) and up to another $121 every two weeks ($3,146 yearly) to help with rent. Everyone qualifies, forever, irrelevant of past job history, education, family status, etc. etc. There is no time limit for the payments. The only difference between this and the article, is that if you get a job, whate…

The only difference between this and the article, is that if you get a job, whatever you earn is deducted from your payments.

What you described is a 100% marginal income tax on your first $12,800 of income.

We don't want people at the bottom end of the earnings ladder completely discouraged from trying to move up it.

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

#115

Post by JonSkeptic »

The author of this is article is more than a little bit out of touch. To be honest, HN is the only place I have ever even heard people discuss the concept of an Unconditional Basic Income or call Bitcoin a "radical economic ideology". Most people in the US have never even heard of Bitcoin or an Unconditional Basic Income.

The author is so far removed from reality that it's almost humorous. He cites an example where Instagram has apparently replaced Kodak, an example as ignorant as it is misguided. Having known one of Kodak's chief inventors from before the company began its steep decline, it is evident that Kodak collapsed from a series of bad decisions and a failure to secure its territory in IP space. Comparing that to Instagram isn't a comparison of apples to oranges, it's a comparison of oranges to a desk lamp.

I could go on, but there's no need. This article is crap factually, logically, and intellectually. I understand that the title panders to the closely held ideologies of many on these boards, but if you have to look this hard to find arguments for why we're moving toward a UBI, then we're probably not moving toward it at all.

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

#116

Post by JonFish85 »

crazygringo wrote: post #76
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…

I don't think so. If you're only on the basic income, then to put it roughly, you don't "deserve" to live in San Francisco or Manhattan. People move to cheaper parts of the country all the time, to fit their budget. I don't know why this would be any different.

This would never work. You're telling me a grandmother who lives in Manhattan will be forced to leave her family and move to a small apartment in Kansas? That's political suicide to suggest anything like that.

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

#117

Post by dllthomas »

BWStearns wrote: post #49
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…

>> 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 expensive area while actually living somewhere cheaper. Good hack. >> some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos. This is basically the direction we're already headed in already.

>>> some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos.

> This is basically the direction we're already headed in already.

A flat basic income would make this better not worse, as there would be more money available serving the needs of people in these poorer areas.

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

#118

Post by dragonwriter »

brador wrote: post #19

With basic income, wouldn't the economy adapt to the fresh money supply and rents and other costs raise to account for it? It would effectivly be additional currency inflation by a different name?

If the range of current monthly incomes in society is from $M to $N, and you add $X to all incomes, you'd expect price levels for goods to rise by varying ratios depending on the good but generally somewhere between (N+X)/N and (M+X)/M, meaning that goods would generally become more affordable for those on the lower end of the scale and less affordable for those on the higher end of the scale.

EDIT: Fixed parens

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

#119

Post by JonFish85 »

alexvr wrote: post #40
brador wrote: post #19

With basic income, wouldn't the economy adapt to the fresh money supply and rents and other costs raise to account for it? It would effectivly be additional currency inflation by a different name?

Maybe instead of giving everyone cash, the government could provide people with a default shelter, food plan, etc.

How's the government going to decide where to put people? The poor people get to live in the richest neighborhoods in NYC? Or do they get pushed out to the cheaper areas of Harlem? In the first scenario, the costs are insanely high. In the second, you're forcing the poor into a bad neighborhood.

Food: who decides who gets what? Vegan options OK? Food allergies? Only organic?

Whenever personal decisions are left to the government, things get bad.

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

#120

Post by dllthomas »

pieterhg wrote: post #38

Can somebody explain to me how basic income can work in terms of the cycle of spending? If companies have to pay for all of people's income through a taxable percentage of their income, then these companies will only receive a share of that amount back through consumer spending? So the economy will shrink in a vicious cycle, right?

Money doesn't disappear.
Post reply on HN