A universal income is not such a silly idea • Hacker News Board

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#271

Post by neltnerb » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:00 PM UTC

phillmv wrote: post #169

muyuu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with making it unconditional is that it will completely break the ceteris paribus calculations as to what is good enough, making a lot of collateral damage on its way while being largely ineffective. Showering money to everybody is very likely to make more harm than good to real people's economies. A transition to Friedman's proposal on a "moderate" negative income tax (it's not what the name suggests) ma…

The Swiss suggestion aside, it's not really meant to be a free middle-class experience. In the minds of most people it's more of a "you will not go hungry or get cold in the winter" level of support, and I would make the argument that the majority of folks would continue to work to supplement their income beyond the bare necessities. It depends on your base axioms here. Most people don't like living with the bare min…

Yes, this.

My take is that capitalism is corrupted because people are unable to meet basic needs. We pretend that capitalism is a system where everyone is able to make informed decisions. We pretend that in capitalism, a 10% chance of making $1M a year in income has the same value as a 100% chance of making $100k a year. This is just not the case.

People have two different types of risk they can take. Income risk, and personal risk. Personal risk is your shelter, your food, your health, your family. Income risk is your expected income beyond what is needed to meet those basic needs.

If your personal risk is covered for some reason, then you are able to objectively evaluate income risk. But if your personal risk is not covered, you have to be more conservative. The downside is not that you might not make as much, it's that you might lose your home, health, or starve. You can't be logical about that.

If we have a system where personal risk is largely covered, then the free market will actually pay people what they are worth because people will feel free to actually take risks and (for instance) start companies and pursue their passions.

This is some stuff I wrote on it a while back, it's better written than what I put here.

http://neltnerb.tumblr.com/post/58818804903/an-entrepreneurs...

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#272

Post by ricardobeat » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:00 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #173

ricardobeat wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rule setting a maximum of one or two months/year paid abroad would suffice.

Right. But then you've got a very large incentive against the kind of travel that young people routinely do. Most of my family and friends have taken 3-4 month trips abroad, very formative. I expect many of them would have stayed home if they lost the income.

How so? They wouldn't be expecting any income at all if they only had a job, it would be even worse.

Of course, you'd be eligible again on return.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#273

Post by maxk42 » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:01 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #94

ck2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I say make sure poor people have that basic income. You don't have to give it to everyone. I live in a low income neighborhood - you can clearly see the difference in generational poverty and how help is needed. You also can fix the problem by making sure that corporations like Walmart do not rely on their employees getting foodstamps as part of their income as a business model. It is a very unlevel playing fie…

> Nope, I say make sure poor people have that basic income. > You don't have to give it to everyone. Then it's not a basic income. Giving it to everyone, period, is the defining characteristic of a basic income, and what makes it different than welfare. Proponents believe it to be a superior model because it eliminates a lot of beaurocracy, bad incentives and paternalistic structures that communicate to poor people t…

Yes, but once you give everybody $X,000 dollars per month you'll spur inflation and in a couple years $X,000 will no longer be enough to live on. So then you've got to adjust your basic income to $(X+Y),000 per month to make sure everybody has enough, but that will spur more inflation and you'll be right back where you started. Meanwhile, that money has to come from somewhere and it will come out in the form of taxes. Remember, that only about one in three people in the US is employed. So now every working American has to be taxed enough to pay for three basic incomes plus their own incomes on top of that. The rich will complain about the added taxes, but it's the middle-class that really suffers, since they will NOT escape the added tax burden and their extra taxes combined with rising inflation mean they now make just barely enough to get by, effectively placing them in the lower-class. Now you've got a gigantic lower-class, a tiny middle class, and an upper class that only gets richer because they can accelerate the rate at which they siphon off income from the lower classes through price increases.

It's a nice idea, but it's not a good idea.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#274

Post by chongli » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #121

gnaritas wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always shocked how otherwise very rational and logical people tend think every socialist idea is communist and don't seem to know what communist actually means. > Ever heard of inflation? Yes, have you? > If you give basic income to everyone what happens to the prices of everything? I don't think you know how inflation works. Basic income doesn't increase the money supply, it's income redistribution, not money pr…

money printing is inflation.

And money printing devalues the money of the rich and distributes it to the poor.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#275

Post by dllthomas » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:04 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #12

It's not a silly idea at all but I like to think of myself as progressive and I think it is a very bad idea in reality vs on paper. Just look at how college costs magically rise to the availability of loans and grants. What do you think is going to happen to food and rent prices once those supply chains figure out there is much more profit to be made? The Walton family alone has more wealth then the lower 42% rest of…

Availability of loans and grants for college that can't be used for other purposes is a very different situation, because there are fewer options competing for that money.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#276

Post by philwelch » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:04 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #94

ck2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I say make sure poor people have that basic income. You don't have to give it to everyone. I live in a low income neighborhood - you can clearly see the difference in generational poverty and how help is needed. You also can fix the problem by making sure that corporations like Walmart do not rely on their employees getting foodstamps as part of their income as a business model. It is a very unlevel playing fie…

> Nope, I say make sure poor people have that basic income. > You don't have to give it to everyone. Then it's not a basic income. Giving it to everyone, period, is the defining characteristic of a basic income, and what makes it different than welfare. Proponents believe it to be a superior model because it eliminates a lot of beaurocracy, bad incentives and paternalistic structures that communicate to poor people t…

Giving it to everyone, period, is not mathematically tenable. A thousand dollars per month to every adult US citizen would represent over 2 trillion dollars in additional spending per year. At the very least you have to change the tax structure to claw it back from people as they earn more money.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#277

Post by dllthomas » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:05 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #36

jamesaguilar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably a lot of the potential profit would be taxed to fund this basic income guarantee. In any case, it seems like your argument boils down to "Better not let poor people buy food, in case the price of food rises," which I think fails without significant deeper examination.

Nope, I say make sure poor people have that basic income. You don't have to give it to everyone. I live in a low income neighborhood - you can clearly see the difference in generational poverty and how help is needed. You also can fix the problem by making sure that corporations like Walmart do not rely on their employees getting foodstamps as part of their income as a business model. It is a very unlevel playing fie…

You increase taxes to provide the basic income, so on net you're not providing it to everyone. On gross you provide it to everyone so that there's no sharp drop off at any point.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#278

Post by agentultra » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:07 PM UTC

I find it sad, but not surprising, that one of the key disagreements with a BI system is the assumption that poor people are lazy and will spend it on drugs.

There are people like that but they make up such a small portion of the population considered, "poor," that it's insulting everyone in a very large demographic. I'd wager that the effects of these people who do use their BI for drugs and recreation will be statistically insignificant.

Whereas a BI would provide a lot of mobility and improve the bargaining power of the lower classes if I understand BI. It seems to me that would have far-reaching benefits for the economy at large -- even for high-income earners.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#279

Post by neltnerb » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:08 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #257

weddpros wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often hear this argument, but it sounds wrong to me. Benefits are cut when you start working, and resumed when you stop again. Did you consider the fact that salaries WILL be lowered to compensate for BI ? If BI is 1000, that 1200 paying job will become a 200 paying job... I just can't see where's the incentive to work. Who wants a 200 paying job when you get paid 1000 for just breathing ?

If BI is 1000, that 1200 paying job will become a 200 paying job... I just can't see where's the incentive to work. Who wants a 200 paying job when you get paid 1000 for just breathing ? You've got it backwards. The incentive is not to work, the incentive is for employers to offer market value for their wages. When people have the power to choose not to work, the market will have to adapt. If nobody wants a 200 payin…

Definitely. I do think that with a guaranteed income, minimum wage laws as well as welfare in most other forms should simply be eliminated. Pay a market rate for the work, if you don't pay enough, you don't deserve an employee. But you can also charge less for easy work and get away with it because to the employees it's basically just spending money to use for luxury items.

How much should a garbage man get paid? Arguably (to me) more than many other professions. The free market for labor is badly broken, and I think that a guaranteed income will help (although not perfectly). Besides, I for one think that giving people the freedom to raise their kids for a while, or do art, or start a company, is more valuable to society than having them work a very likely unnecessary job just because we incentivize working over value generation.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#280

Post by wil421 » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 7:10 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #172

switch007 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mention income support, so I take that as the UK, where hundreds of thousands of people rely on foodbanks each year.

Ah, I just took the opportunity to naïvely hate on the U.S. a little. I think their lack of social security is appalling. How can such a well faring nation have such a low income tax, and so many poor people. I guess I just don't understand their definition of liberty.

> So many poor people.

I think poor is a relative term and I dont think America has as many as lets say Central or South America. I dont see people living in shacks sifting through landfills to make ends meet.