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

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

#551

Post by ppereira » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:24 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #410

criley2 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Republicans are also openly for reducing burdens (both regulation and taxation) on the wealth producers so they can make more of it and spread it around. Taking half of earners' incomes with one hand and blocking ways to earn more with the other will NOT end well. I'm making a good buck, but at this rate of taxation I'm gonna have to resort to self-sufficiency homesteading with zero taxable income. Remember the goose…

> Republicans are also openly for reducing burdens (both regulation and taxation) on the wealth producers so they can make more of it and spread it around.

Wow, you really do drink the trickle-down effect Kool-Aid.

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

#552

Post by ppereira » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:27 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #239

VMG wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, the studies show that corporate taxes are essentially a proxy for the taxing the ultra-wealthy - a cut in the corporate tax rate is very similar to cutting the highest marginal income tax rate. So why tax by proxy and not wealth directly?

> So why tax by proxy and not wealth directly? If by "wealth" you mean "net worth", then because that is even harder to administer than income taxes. If by "wealth" you mean "income", we do that, but earning income through an entity with separate legal entity whose income is not taxed and retaining it in that entity becomes an effective tax dodge if it is permitted. Which is why corporate "income" tax (which is effec…

> If by "wealth" you mean "net worth", then because that is even harder to administer than income taxes.

That is the standard argument, but countries have been taxing property a lot longer than they have been taxing income. Some even manage to tax property at current market prices (e.g. Canada).

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

#553

Post by thwest » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:31 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #542

comrade_ogilvy wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you could read Stephen Jay Gould's The Mis-measure of Man. Or you could read The Bell Curve. It is positing a small difference between "races", a difference so small that it is very minor compared to the expected range of deviation for a populace. The idea that there is a scientifically definable thing called "race" lacks data. That is your row to hoe if you believe other. Skeptics are not required to disprove…

I wonder then, what about the Melanesians that have 6% of DNA of a unique population? Or that asians and whites have wildly different reactions to milk. Or that some diseases only affect blacks, or whites, or whatever? This is not data? People use freely the same techniques to categorize humans, to categorize other animals with significant variations in their species, why only humans you must not use the word "race"…

You've learned anything about the history of race relations and think "race" is a better word to describe that phenomenon than "lactose intolerant"? I'll be right back, going to inform my friends that because they aren't Chinese we can go get ice cream.

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

#554

Post by talmand » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:35 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #512

talmand wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, thos…

Investment in staff, research, equipment etc. tends to come out before profit calculations. So no.

If they don't use profits as part of their expansion plans, then how do they expand year-over-year without spending more money than the year before? If they spend more money than the year before then where did the extra money come from if not from the previous year's profits?

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

#555

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:36 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #356

dragonwriter wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe instead of giving everyone cash, the government could provide people with a default shelter, food plan, etc. The problem that BI advocates see with that is that there is much greater overhead in managing a default shelter program, food plan, non-food-non-shelter-necessities-of-life-plan, etc., than just establishing and managing a single universal cash allowance plan.

It has a higher overhead now, but how many people would actually use it, versus BI? Also you can always increase BI (and if everybody gets it, that is going to be a fairly popular campaing promise), but people can only eat so much food.

> It has a higher overhead now, but how many people would actually use it, versus BI?

It has a higher overhead even with a much smaller number of people using it, because the overhead is involved in enforcing the conditions which don't exist for unconditional basic income. (That is, the overhead in existing social welfare programs is largely costs expended to prevent people from using them, either at all or in the incorrect amounts for their particular qualifications. A fixed universal unconditional entitlement doesn't have that overhead because it doesn't have that function.)

> Also you can always increase BI (and if everybody gets it, that is going to be a fairly popular campaing promise), but people can only eat so much food.

People can recieve and derive utility from virtually unlimited amounts of food (just like money), even if they can only eat a limited amount, as food is a commodity.

And as much as the point you make about the politics of raising BI is frequently made about any social benefit, I don't think there's much reason to believe its true of BI. There are quite a lot of people who are already aware that benefits have costs (both personal and social), and the people who have the most interest in focussing on the personal cost also have the most resources to bring the social costs to the public eye.

That being said, there's no reason BI levels couldn't be managed by a politically insulated group (something like the Federal Reserve), and plenty of reasons why a legislature might prefer to leave those kinds of decisions to such a body.

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

#556

Post by talmand » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:37 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #530

talmand wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying they are taxed on the amount of money they pay you. Well, there is Social Security (US) taxes that they pay but you could argue that's money that should go to the employee anyway if there was no such tax. I'm saying the company makes money that is taxed and then they pay you out of that money in which you are taxed for receiving. Ok, granted, not all the money that the company has on hand that is paid…

The root of this thread was someone saying, "Most people are taxed roughly 36% (28% income tax, 2% medicare, 6% social security) on their labor, however investments are only taxed at a flat 15%." "Double taxation" may not be an entirely accurate label (more like "an additional pass of taxation"), but the fact that dividends (in particular) are taxed as corporate profit before being taxed as individual profit makes th…

I cannot say I disagree with your explanation. I believe I may reconsider my viewpoint.

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

#557

Post by cheald » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:37 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #549

cheald wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any particular examples we could analyze? Yes, you're right, the jobs that robots can do better are gone, but any improvement in efficiency in an industry generally results in lower prices and an increase in job creation around that industry. Again, in the case of the cotton gin, while the gin itself reduced the need for manual labor to pick seeds from cotton, it blew the demand for labor to plant and har…

> Do you have any particular examples we could analyze? I'd look at every job that is being replaced by a robot or a computer system. I can't give you a particular example in form of "job A replaced by robots, workers can't move anywhere else", because so far we've been very efficient at reallocating labor. Throughout last 200 years, people out-automated in agriculture moved to manufacturing; optimized out from there…

> I can't give you a particular example in form of "job A replaced by robots, workers can't move anywhere else", because so far we've been very efficient at reallocating labor.

Surely it makes sense to be able to cite examples of how we are failing to reallocate labor before complaining that we're not able to reallocate labor.

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

#558

Post by zxcdw » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:40 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #521

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…

So a few basic strategies for maximizing UBI: 1) Get educated, find a job, work. 2) Produce more children, pool financial benefits that a single household is eligible for. 3) Vote for politicians who promise to increase UBI. Long-term which option do you think the populace will go for?

First one. I would assume UBI is only available to adults.

The third one isn't really much of an option since it assumes that politics is more black and white than what it actually is. 50 shades of grey and counting. And of course people realize that UBI has it's drawbacks too.

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

#559

Post by agilebyte » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:40 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #462

agilebyte wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with you. How does one enforce people hopping borders from places that have no universal income policy? How do we deal with sovereign states that are allowed to set their own tax policy and thus legally become an offshore tax haven?

The same way we always have. What do either of these issues have to do with BI?

I do not know what you mean and what "always have" means in your context.

The article asks to get more money from corporations which I do not think is feasible. I am in the UK now and this country decided to go for universal income we would have to either close the borders or convince at least the whole of EU to do the same at the same time.

Please expand your comment if you can.

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

#560

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 10:42 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #392

btilly wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 que…

> 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?

The same reasons that people vote themselves lower taxes every year, though they do vote themselves lower taxes sometimes: 1. We don't have a direct democracy, so people don't vote for policies directly; 2. Quite a lot of people, even if they can't analyze all the implications, can see that voting yourself a lower net contribution to government (either via lower taxes or greater benefits) has consequences that may be undesirable.

> How can you both have the (modern conception of the) vote, and a basic income at the same time?

The same way you can have the modern conception of the vote and have taxes at the same time. Mostly, this involves relying on an electorate that is largely composed of at least modestly responsible adults, rather than infants that gorge themselves on candy without limit given the opportunity without thought of the consequences.