Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by jotm » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:34 PM UTC

jsnk wrote: post #351

zxcdw wrote: post #313

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…

Historically speaking, automation in various fields greatly increased number of jobs, productivity and quality of life.

But that curve will start going downwards as soon as machines can fully replace people and most countries start using said machines.

It's kind of like slavery - you could have 1000 working citizens do the work of 50,000 people (because slaves were basically "free labor", like a robotic arm is nowadays)... Except slavery went away (thankfully), and automation will not (hopefully)...

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

#392

Post by jerf » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:34 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #202

tokenadult wrote: post #174

I see no one in this active discussion has mentioned yet Charles Murray's book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236 in which Murray goes into detail about how much a program of guaranteed income for everyone would cost in the United States, and some probable effects that would have on everyone's everyday behavior. I read the book a year or two after it was publi…

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.

This is my biggest concern with the idea, which I don't see being addressed (checked the entire conversation on this post to date). I don't think having the vote and having the basic income is compatible with each other. Why aren't people going to vote themselves larger basic incomes every year? How can you both have the (modern conception of the) vote, and a basic income at the same time?

Attempts to answer this question also need to deal with human beings as they are, not as they could be if we were all just really good and pure and all motivated by selfless interest only in the good of humanity as a whole or something, because presumably this is being proposed as a real policy for real people and not some fantasyland.

(Also, I do not consider "well we already have some programs like that today" to be a defense... I'm not entirely convinced that's just going to turn out peachy keen in the end either. I'm personally pretty convinced we've already passed a threshold at which a significant chunk of our government is actively pursuing government dependency as a conscious policy, and that's not going to end well either, as the same mechanics take sway... there is always a reason to grow benefits, it's always evil to cut them, and there's no feasible way to bound the growth of promised benefits to real growth, other than the really, really hard one of simply running out of resources.)

While this is a criticism of mine, and I am not trying to hide my general skepticism as seen in my second paragraph, I am posting this also in a genuine spirit of inquiry about what answers to this question may have been developed. I acknowledge the problems the BI idea is trying to solve, and I acknowledge that I have no answers (including, alas, BI, unless someone can convince me here).

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

#393

Post by recusancy » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:34 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #380

recusancy wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the author of the overtly racist Bell Curve.

Care to explain?

He wrote a book arguing the black people, as a race, are less intelligent than white people.

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

#394

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:36 PM UTC

ticviking wrote: post #275

king_jester wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medicare and medicaid wouldn't really apply so much to this as there are systemic problems that make spending money on healthcare not such a good idea. Rather, with a BI we should also include a universal health care option to avoid the issues with consumer healthcare spending and marketing.

Let consumers face those issues and watch as the market responds to consumers who are paying cash.

I love how every other first world country has universal healthcare, but the US still would rather try this first.

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." - Winston Churchill

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

#395

Post by wwweston » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:38 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #362

wwweston wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything, taxing corporations is regressive -- the taxes ultimately get passed on to consumers through higher product prices, regardless of their income levels. This has never seemed like a strong argument or an accurate description of what actually happens to me. If it's true that businesses just pass along taxes, then: 1) I'd think businesses wouldn't be so concerned with minimizing/fighting taxes. What we see…

On point 1, tax avoidance is more strongly incentivised if the costs are passed on to customers. Higher prices are a huge competitive disadvantage. A single company avoiding their taxes can undercut their competition and dominate the market, forcing all of their competition to follow suit.

In other words, businesses can't/don't "just" pass on costs to consumers.

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

#396

Post by talmand » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:39 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #220

crazygringo wrote: post #73

> "How would we pay for it? We could start by getting corporations to pay their taxes." I don't know why people keep harping on corporate taxes. If anything, taxing corporations is regressive -- the taxes ultimately get passed on to consumers through higher product prices, regardless of their income levels. Taxing corporations doesn't produce magic money -- it's still taxing people in the end, but it's the consumers.…

>> If anything, taxing corporations is regressive -- the taxes ultimately get passed on to consumers through higher product prices Tax on corporate profit does not need to have this effect, because it only applies to profits, not to revenue. Sure, if a corporation wants to keep the same amount of profit after a tax hike it has to put its prices up. But because we're only taxing what's happening after deduction of cos…

But most businesses need those profits to expand and innovate. If they require a certain level of profits to accomplish those goals then the recourse is to raise their prices for the next round of profits in the hopes being to accomplish those goals.

Now, if we're talking about a company that just puts all those profits in the pockets of their upper management then I suppose who cares. But the smaller companies, those that survive on razor thin margins and need every penny they can get to keep going, those are the companies that have to constantly adjust their prices to deal with tax liabilities.

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

#397

Post by talmand » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:39 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #387

talmand wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GOP Platform: "I've got mine, f * you."

"but instead I got a gratuitous, tired, over-used, boring, ad-hominem about Republicans that added nothing to conversation"

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

#398

Post by Tichy » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:41 PM UTC

recusancy wrote: post #393

speeder wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain?

He wrote a book arguing the black people, as a race, are less intelligent than white people.

Have you read it?

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

#399

Post by Zimahl » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:41 PM UTC

Artistry121 wrote: post #289

Zimahl wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Basic income is just that - basic income. Some people who want to have more than that will work. Janitors still want iPads or cable television - and they will be incentized to work for that on a competitive market for those products and services. 0 hours of janitoring = small comfortable house and enough food 5 hours of janitoring = small comfortable hosue and enough food and cable televsion If people simply stopped…

I never said any of those wouldn't exist, but I'm a firm believer in rewards. Right now a janitor is rewarding himself with a paycheck so he can do what he wants otherwise the flip side is poverty.

Here's the thing. Let's say you made $100k per year working 40 hours/week with benefits. If I were to pay you to not work but get a smaller wage (keeping your benefits), what percentage would be acceptable to you? 90%? 80%? 50%? What is it worth to you to not have to work?

There is a number that most janitors would probably accept. I think a fair number of retail employees too.

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

#400

Post by chiph » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 7:42 PM UTC

kyllo wrote: post #281

chiph wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly suspect that the Basic Income Guarantee would receive increases in excess of the rate of inflation, as politicians use it to buy votes. I think the $10k/yr figure that was quoted is unrealistic - that would cover food expenses with not much left over for housing costs. Even in a low-cost part of the nation, they'd have to perform work of some kind to earn more.

I think the $10k/year proposal was per person, not per household. Although that begs the question, at what age should the benefit start? $10k/year is $833/month. $500/month rent and $333/month (about $11/day) for food is pretty basic subsistence for a single person. Yes, you'd have to work if you wanted anything more than basic nutrition and shelter, or wanted to live in a high-cost urban center, but the idea here is…

If per-person, population of the US is currently about 330 million. Doing the math, that's $3.3 Trillion per year in payments to be made. Social Security expenditures in 2008 were about $615 billion. There are obviously other programs that people qualify for, and I'm specifically excluding Medicare/Medicaid because they're health programs, not living-expense programs.

Even so, if the income guarantee program were implemented, expenditures in this arena would go up by about a factor of 4 to 5.