The indignity of no work • Hacker News Board

Re: The indignity of no work

#121

Post by smsm42 » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 5:39 PM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #99

whatevsbro wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what? He's pointing out that it's a practical impossibility. The money for UBI has to come from somewhere , and any money a government has at its disposal comes from: 1) extortion (ie. taxation), 2) printing, 3) borrowing. Those are the three options, and none of them are a sustainable way to fund UBI, because the amount of money needed is so massive. You can't get something from nothing, and everyone can't get…

> The money […] has to come from somewhere Not necessarily. Money can be printed out of thin air. It is printed out of thin air right now, mostly by private banks (I know they're not technically printing money, but Fractional Reserve Banking and other shenanigans have the same practical effects). Of course, once you're explicit about printing money, you need to be careful about inflation. But we shouldn't fool oursel…

Money are used as a replacement of resources. By printing money out of thin air you make the same amount of money signify less amount of resources. This is very profitable to those who print money and very unprofitable for those who holds these money but need resources instead. So printing money is just a redistributive program that takes resources from savers. In severe form, from anybody having money, even for a short term (this is called hyperinflation). So when we're talking about "money has to come from somewhere", we're of course talking about resources, "printing money" is just a sneaky way to extract resources from those who delayed their consumption of resources they produced, foolishly trusting the government to preserve their value by exchanging them for a government-controlled money. And these resources are not infinite, they are scarce. Moreover, if you start extracting a lot of resources from those foolish people, they start noticing and no longer entrust their savings to the government that takes too much from them. And then the government finds itself with a lot of people who were promised non-scarce money but don't have any resources to back them up. And you can't eat money, so situation becomes sour pretty quickly at that point.

Re: The indignity of no work

#122

Post by smsm42 » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 5:44 PM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #100

smsm42 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note also if you living on the dole, you get free housing, free healthcare, free phone, free childcare services, free education, etc. etc. All of which you'd have to pay for if you were stupid enough to work. So actual initiatives are even worse. Even now, welfare already pays more, if benefits are counted, than a minimum-wage job: Welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accountin…

Of course, a sufficiently high ABI would have welfare gotten rid of: no more free housing, schooling, nothing: just live with your ABI. To really calculate the cost of ABI, you need to subtract the cost of welfare.

That won't work. If it worked, we woudn't need free housing, schooling etc right now - giving people money would be much easier. The problem is that money is fungible - if you give people money instead of free housing, they'd just by some crap on it and then will come back to you and complain they have nowhere to live, and you're back to square one. That's why there are so many non-monetary benefits - because you can't sell free schooling and buy beer or fancy shoes or a lottery ticket on it. Some benefits - like free phones - can be sold, and they are actively abused and sold.

Re: The indignity of no work

#123

Post by vinceguidry » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 5:44 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #13

dantheman wrote: post #4

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.

You can't standardize consumer goods. Non-standardized goods will instantly acquire a prestige premium and all your hard work on all that labor-saving tooling will go out the window in a matter of years.

Re: The indignity of no work

#124

Post by AngrySkillzz » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 5:51 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #4

mattdw wrote: post #2

> A world in which a healthy adult has the reasonable expectation of earning a decent living while working full-time at a market wage is absolutely a world in which the dignity of work is a useful social value to cultivate. In a world in which that is not a reasonable expectation, the dignity of work can be a harmful concept. Interesting times ahead. It's going to be painful getting there, if we get there at all, but…

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…

The U.S. currently spends about 2.3 trillion dollars on social welfare every year. That's around $9,500 per adult per year, a pretty good starting point (and cheaper to administer since you aren't means testing and can collapse all of those other programs into one).

Combined with small tax increases or a cut in some of the U.S.'s other massive expenditure programs (i.e. the military), we can pretty easily afford to pay every adult U.S. citizen above the poverty level to do nothing.

Re: The indignity of no work

#125

Post by bluedino » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 6:16 PM UTC

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #35

jlangenauer wrote: post #21

Whenever I hear the phrase "the dignity of work", I'm reminded of Jeffrey Bernard's quote: "As if there was something romantic and glamorous about hard work ... if there was something romantic about it, the Duke of Westminster would be digging his own fucking garden, wouldn't he?" http://www.rense.com/general56/thevirtueofidleness.htm

Isn't gardening a popular hobby amongst the rich?

'Gardening' is quit a bit different than breaking your back to pick 200 bushels of oranges for 14 hours in 90 degree heat.

Re: The indignity of no work

#126

Post by forgottenpass » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 6:24 PM UTC

stefan_kendall wrote: post #103

"Maybe the jobs are gone forever" - Good analysis, economist. This article is full of bullshit 'maybes' and aggressive 'income inequality' overtones. I don't know how this garbage gets onto HN.

I don't know how this garbage gets onto HN.

The only unique aspect of this piece is it strikes a nerve with you. I know how it gets here, because HN is jam packed with "analysis" that doesn't make any stronger of a case for itself. Vague wishy-washy "Maybe the jobs are gone forever" level points are taken at face value when the rhetoric is headed to more agreeable conclusions.

Re: The indignity of no work

#127

Post by lotsofmangos » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 6:27 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #4

mattdw wrote: post #2

> A world in which a healthy adult has the reasonable expectation of earning a decent living while working full-time at a market wage is absolutely a world in which the dignity of work is a useful social value to cultivate. In a world in which that is not a reasonable expectation, the dignity of work can be a harmful concept. Interesting times ahead. It's going to be painful getting there, if we get there at all, but…

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…

The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. There just isn't that much money.

I don't think you understand how money works. If there are available resources then there can be available money.

Re: The indignity of no work

#128

Post by harryh » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 6:31 PM UTC

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #124

dantheman wrote: post #4

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…

The U.S. currently spends about 2.3 trillion dollars on social welfare every year. That's around $9,500 per adult per year, a pretty good starting point (and cheaper to administer since you aren't means testing and can collapse all of those other programs into one). Combined with small tax increases or a cut in some of the U.S.'s other massive expenditure programs (i.e. the military), we can pretty easily afford to p…

Cutting social security benefits that pay the retired 10s of Ks per year in order to give everyone, most of whom are by no means poor, 9.5k/yr absolutely is sci fi level crazy talk.

Re: The indignity of no work

#129

Post by dllthomas » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 6:35 PM UTC

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #124

dantheman wrote: post #4

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…

The U.S. currently spends about 2.3 trillion dollars on social welfare every year. That's around $9,500 per adult per year, a pretty good starting point (and cheaper to administer since you aren't means testing and can collapse all of those other programs into one). Combined with small tax increases or a cut in some of the U.S.'s other massive expenditure programs (i.e. the military), we can pretty easily afford to p…

Indeed, I think a basic income should probably fall around $6-$8k/yr. It's not enough to live comfortably (especially on your own), but plenty enough to build on.

Re: The indignity of no work

#130

Post by dllthomas » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 6:40 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #22

mattdw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. That's untrue. Switzerland is having a national referendum on whether to offer one, and stipends from oil or casino money, while not enough to live on at this point, already exist in a few places. You may be correct that there's not enough money to give everyone enough to live on, but it's far from sci-fi. (There is plenty of money in the world, it's just tied up in things…

In switzerland it was voted down because it doesn't make economic sense. Look at the numbers, they don't work.

Has it in fact been voted on? Last I had heard it hadn't even been scheduled for a vote, and a search isn't turning up any updates. Give a citation, or stop making shit up.

As it happens, I'm also skeptical of the numbers working out in the Swiss proposal, but they're crazy high.