101–110 of 268 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And just how far would £3000 go if you had anything at all serious remember that US guy who had to pay $50k for a one night stay appendix removal.
I am talking about welfare not healthcare - different budgets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In switzerland it was voted down because it doesn't make economic sense. Look at the numbers, they don't work.
Okay, now I am 100% that you're just trolling indiscriminately. There have been at least a couple real-world experiments done, have you even had the decency to look it up on Google? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=basic+income+experiment
I don't know how this garbage gets onto HN.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. There just isn't that much money. Freeing people to work on things they desire will mean no one will ever wash dishes at a restaurant, no one will pick up trash, no one will spend time wiring your house for internet, or fix your computer, or do a large swath of jobs. The argument that with UBI people will still do that only for more money is crazy, since the taxes would hav…
Washing dishes is so incredibly dumb. What should have been done long ago is standardising plates, cups and cutlery and creating integrated dish cabinet/washer that can wash those standardised items and store them. The fact that in 2014 we still rely on manual work to wash the dishes is a disgrace perpetrated by oversupply of cheap human work.
Less sarcastically, automating that part of dirty dishes would not solve the whole problem of dirty dishes, would directly cost a lot and would make life more boring (standardized dishes!).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am talking about welfare not healthcare - different budgets.
Um no its not NI pays for both benefits JSA (social security for non uk people) etc and the NHS.
Welfare and healthcare are run by different govt departments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you crunch the numbers and explain how? A back of the envelope calculation will suffice.
Well, it might be a slight exaggeration to just tax 2 persons. But it's based on the extremely skewed power-law distribution. The richest 2 people in america have around 120 billion dollars between them. 100B are enough to directly give $5000 to 20M people under coupons and welfare today. Even $1000 are more than the yearly income for billions of people in places with far less physical resources than the US (and clos…
Lets say you tax away that 2 trillion, which is mostly illiquid productive capacity rather than easily redistributable liquid cash. That'll provide a $7,200 basic income for about 275 million Americans for one year. Then what?
Of course, in real life, you can't redistribute Zuckerberg's wealth as cash. The most you could do is give every American a few shares of FB, a few shares of MS, etc.
Also, you won't be giving a basic income to anyone making above a certain amount (no reason to give it to someone already making several tens of thousands of dollars a year).
We already do that. It's called "welfare", not "basic income".
Not to mention that these people, unlike Warren Buffet or Trump, cannot hoard the money they get, so those get re-invested in the economy pronto.
You are confusing consumption and investment.
Buffet and Trump invest the bulk of their income. Buffet invests in railroads and insurance companies, Trump invests in condos. Peter Thiel invests his money in companies like Facebook, Linkedin and Deep Mind.
Consumption is when you spend the money on stuff like big screen TVs or food.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Washing dishes is so incredibly dumb. What should have been done long ago is standardising plates, cups and cutlery and creating integrated dish cabinet/washer that can wash those standardised items and store them. The fact that in 2014 we still rely on manual work to wash the dishes is a disgrace perpetrated by oversupply of cheap human work.
"The fact that in 2014 we still rely on manual work to stack dishes in washer cabinets is a disgrace perpetrated by oversupply of cheap human work." Less sarcastically, automating that part of dirty dishes would not solve the whole problem of dirty dishes, would directly cost a lot and would make life more boring (standardized dishes!).
Not sure what you have in mind. Standardised thing would still be hand washable if you can't afford machine that washes and stores them.
About your ironic remark... I'm not sure if you consider current state of dish washing technology an optimum that we need not to progress any further from, or that you are perfectly happy at the current pace of the progress of dish-washing technology. I don't. And if we already had washer cabinets, I'd be wondering why they can't be integrated into a table or why we can't have mobile robots to collect the plates. Although I wouldn't call lack of robots a disgrace because robots are hard. I believe combining washer with cabinet is not and it doesn't exist mostly because of silly cultural thing called "but my plates would be boring then" and "what would humans do with all additional free time"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Washing dishes is so incredibly dumb. What should have been done long ago is standardising plates, cups and cutlery and creating integrated dish cabinet/washer that can wash those standardised items and store them. The fact that in 2014 we still rely on manual work to wash the dishes is a disgrace perpetrated by oversupply of cheap human work.
"The fact that in 2014 we still rely on manual work to stack dishes in washer cabinets is a disgrace perpetrated by oversupply of cheap human work." Less sarcastically, automating that part of dirty dishes would not solve the whole problem of dirty dishes, would directly cost a lot and would make life more boring (standardized dishes!).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand how 'there just isn't that much money' is a meaningful statement in a world where governments can issue more currency. How much money do you propose we need to offer a basic income system?
Generally as the supply of dollars goes up, the price of a loaf of bread goes up too. Printing money isn't a panacea.
> generally as the supply of dollars goes up, the price of a loaf of bread goes hardly up in any noticable way, financial assets / Silicon Valley valuations / houses go up significantly (so the country thinks they got "wealthier"), and bread-loaf prices in USD-aligned weak-currency/underdeveloped/perpetually-"emerging" economies go up quite significantly
Not to worry, dollar supply inflation greatly delays consumer price inflation on your shores thanks to the massive oversupply of USD already circulating all over the globe, looking to find a way "home" ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Generally as the supply of dollars goes up, the price of a loaf of bread goes up too. Printing money isn't a panacea.
True for all national currencies but hardly for the world-reserve-currency. Here you have the following reality instead: > generally as the supply of dollars goes up, the price of a loaf of bread goes hardly up in any noticable way, financial assets / Silicon Valley valuations / houses go up significantly (so the country thinks they got "wealthier"), and bread-loaf prices in USD-aligned weak-currency/underdeveloped/p…