381–390 of 681 posts
I read this thread his morning and I'm having a really difficult time figuring out how the discussion has changed since then. Which comments are new? Which comments are valuable? Does anyone else have this problem on HN? Any solutions?
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...
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The other problem with "targeted social welfare programs" is that it is very easy to dislike programs that someone else (particularly someone that you don't like) benefits from. A program that you yourself benefit from tends to be less likely to get eroded by future politicians. Compare welfare and social security for a classic example of the difference.
> A program that you yourself benefit from tends to be less likely to get eroded by future politicians. This could be bad. Very popular programs never get reconsidered, even if they have bad effects.
There was a time when people spent nearly half their income on food because food production was an incredibly inefficient process. Eventually much of food processing became automated and advances made it much more plentiful. What had a larger impact on the economy? The millions of people no longer needing to spend valuable time producing food, or the fact that people now had much more disposable income to spend on other things?
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From the author of the overtly racist Bell Curve.
Care to explain?
Reading the summary at the top of the Wiki entry, it's already not surprising the book has been labeled racist. Any book that discusses race, inheritance, and socioeconomic class always gets called racist.
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> A program that you yourself benefit from tends to be less likely to get eroded by future politicians. This could be bad. Very popular programs never get reconsidered, even if they have bad effects.
Just to help me better understand what you're saying, can you give an example of a program that's very popular, and which has bad effects?
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No he didn't. The national Republican Party is outspoken about raising taxes on lower income people, in "broadening the base". In the election-year expose of Romney's secret fundraising speeches, we learned about "the 49%" of Americans who don't pay taxes. Well, we didn't learn about it, it's a very common trope for conservative politicians. It's no secret that Republicans largely support "base broadening", as well a…
Yes he did. Your comment and jellicle's comment are not quite the same thing. Even then, you are painting some of the party's platform in a negative light without showing why exactly that is their platform to begin with nor why you consider them terrible ideas. Some of their reasons may be bad, but that doesn't mean all of their reasons are.
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No he didn't. The national Republican Party is outspoken about raising taxes on lower income people, in "broadening the base". In the election-year expose of Romney's secret fundraising speeches, we learned about "the 49%" of Americans who don't pay taxes. Well, we didn't learn about it, it's a very common trope for conservative politicians. It's no secret that Republicans largely support "base broadening", as well a…
Yes he did. Your comment and jellicle's comment are not quite the same thing. Even then, you are painting some of the party's platform in a negative light without showing why exactly that is their platform to begin with nor why you consider them terrible ideas. Some of their reasons may be bad, but that doesn't mean all of their reasons are.
I don't understand how people oppose unconditional basic income without also opposing the fact that automation decreases the amount of working hours available for a person(or in other words, the amount of jobs ), and thus decreases the amount of income per person, while maintaining productivity stable if not increasing it, thus making all sorts of goods cheaper. Someone enlighten me. These discussions always seem so…
Also, health care will still need to be covered separately.
BI is a great concept, and I hope some country will make it work, but it's not going to be the US, that's for sure.
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A certain percentage of the population would stop working entirely since they no longer need to. True. The problem is, as things are now, a certain percentage of the population will be forced to stop working as they are made obsolete by increasingly efficient globalization and automation. As that percentage increases, eventually either society will collapse or something fundamental will have to change (such as implem…
What evidence is there of that? Because we've had a slow recovery from the last recession? That couldn't possibly be because of bad policy, no?
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The question is: how many people currently working would stop working if they didn't need to? (particularly in the areas vital for the basic functioning of society) That question is so impossibly difficult to answer that I don't think any system we come up with won't have potentially disastrous consequences. I don't think it's all that difficult to answer. When I leave the office building I work at the end of my day,…
> When I leave the office building I work at the end of my day, the janitors are just showing up. They probably already only get paid the basic livable wage (probably less), so why would they show up to work if they were getting the paycheck anyways? There's something that deeply bothers me about the notion that the above is a bad thing. Yes, you would no longer have access to low-wage janitorial services. But that's…
Thanks for proving my point. No, I highly doubt he wants to scrub a toilet for a subsistence wage. I think a janitorial job would go empty for a long, long time. So now, instead of me focusing on my job, I have to take time out of my day to do something I'd pay someone for.
It would be better if you get your basic livable wage but still have to work (exceptions made for childcare, students, disability, etc.) and depending on the job you get what the market deems as extra. So, if you get $20k per year as a livable wage (figure just chosen for easier math) and a job would've paid $25k, you get the $5k difference in your paycheck. This would help keep the low-interest, but easy, jobs staffed.