Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It Is Time For Basic Income

hawkins.ventures

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 761 posts

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#291

Post by bryanlarsen »

stormbrew wrote: post #259
MetricMike wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most implementations I've read lean towards it being similar to a negative tax (there are other possible implementations out there). So if you file $0 income, you get a $10,000 credit/refund. If you make $200,000 income, you pay $20,000 in taxes. So taxes on the top brackets pay for basic income on the lowest brackets, with the understanding that the impact isn't changing much for most people because we already have…

Negative income tax and basic income are best seen, imo, as separate concepts. Basic income is simply giving everyone the same amount of money and then probably taxing it as income in itself, with the base level personal exemption being at least the amount given out. I'm of the opinion that a negative income tax is a bad idea simply because it really does create the situation where the next dollar you earn on the low…

Huh? Nobody's suggesting a 100% rate. Every dollar you earn increases your income with a negative income tax, it just doesn't increase it by a full dollar. It might be 90 cents. Still a fairly strong incentive to work.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#292

Post by bcheung »

orthecreedence wrote: post #274
bcheung wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free from wage slavery? Technology is so much further along than it was 1000 years ago people barely have to work to have the same living standard as they had then. People generally only work for 8 hours a day. They can't spend the rest of their time doing that right now? Everyone is free to start a business. Tons of people do it while working a full time job. Tons of people go to college while they have a full time…

This is the type of attitude that hinders progress, and for no apparent reason. News flash: you're already rewarding people who sit around doing nothing with your tax dollars. GBI does the same, but at reduced overhead. Starting a business is hard. Starting a business while working full time is near impossible. It's not about laziness or incompetence. You just don't get the same business opportunities you do when wor…

I'm opposed to rewarding those who sit around and do nothing period, including the current system.

Yes, starting a business is hard. So? All I'm hearing is excuses.

I'm not saying do things that put you in indentured servitude. Debt is a tool that can be used to great effect but used unwisely it can make life harder. Unless it makes sense financially people are better not incurring college loans and educating themselves or working for less pay. They will actually come out ahead financially even though they may make less in wages. Alas, financial education is rarely taught in school, parents, or society.

Those who start out with less resources need to work harder but it is possible. Why should those who have worked harder or whose parents' have worked harder so their kids have better opportunity have to sacrifice for those unwilling to put in the hard work and make the difficult sacrifices?

The majority of bored people engage in escapism and only a small percentage engage in creative endeavors. People have more disposable time now than they did 100 years but instead of using those hours to work on their own stuff and better themselves the majority engage in escapism (facebook, movies, tv, video games,, etc).

The free market definitely approves of art. What are you talking about? Increasingly larger portions of disposable income are being spent of various forms of content (music, movies, books, etc) than on actual physical goods.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#293

Post by buzaga41 »

ahomescu1 wrote: post #187
buzaga41 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are not, but society is an organism with more than you in it, and if he's thrown into the bin because he's can't make it in it the guy may think it's fair to take it from you... in the same vein, your job only exist because there's people with enough buying power to keep the business you're at existing, so again you depend on people, and you could be punished or rewarded depending on how society as a entire organ…

> you are not, but society is an organism with more than you in it, and if he's thrown into the bin because he's can't make it in it the guy may think it's fair to take it from you... I already had a similar discussion on Slashdot recently. Taking other people's money by force is, IMHO, theft. My question then isn't why it would be OK for the guy, but why does theft become OK for society? Why are you arguing that ste…

Of course it's acceptable. Depending on the circumstances, killing can be acceptable, eating human flesh can be acceptable, why wouldn't stealing be?

It's not taken from you, if everybody receives basic income, how can it be taking from you? You're missing the point.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#294

Post by EGreg »

ekianjo wrote: post #251
marcosdumay wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income means taxing people with income, and redistributing it to everybody. Where did you get the idea that disposable income increases for everyone? How could that be even possible?

> Where did you get the idea that disposable income increases for everyone? How could that be even possible? The government could be printing money to make that possible, as well, instead of financing it through taxes only.

Taxes remove money from the economy and also create the demand for the fiat currency.

A government that didn't spend any money while collecting taxes would create massive deflation and markets wouldn't clear. On the other hand, a government that didn't collect any taxes and simply spent the money would create inflation.

If for the increase in money supply there is a corresponding increase in GDP, there is no real inflation since the money is chasing more goods and services.

The increase in demand would happen mainly because the MPC multiplier of poor people is higher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_propensity_to_consume

Guess what - that means more poor people getting what they need, before rich people get to fund golden toilets or something. And yes, I will think this way even when I am a billionaire.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#295

Post by [deleted] »

saraid216 wrote: post #191
kalvin wrote: post #164

I think if you could see close-up how these systems work now, you'd be convinced that it's completely not worth the cost in practice to try and figure out who "deserves" each of the many, many special benefits/allowances/exemptions available (plus it's incredibly difficult for potential recipients to figure out what they're eligible for, plus it imposes those costs on the people who aren't eligible, but end up having…

> So since this is HN... is there any way to get to an MVP without having a sovereign state to experiment with? Or is this solely in the realm of public policy? Scale it down? Seems pretty obvious to me. If you can make it happen in one city, you have a foothold.

[deleted]

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#296

Post by damonpace »

kalvin wrote: post #164

I think if you could see close-up how these systems work now, you'd be convinced that it's completely not worth the cost in practice to try and figure out who "deserves" each of the many, many special benefits/allowances/exemptions available (plus it's incredibly difficult for potential recipients to figure out what they're eligible for, plus it imposes those costs on the people who aren't eligible, but end up having…

This basic premise(MVP) exists on American Indian reservations, quasi-sovereign states. The BIA and the Tribe distributes an equal share of funds from either the government or gaming to each tribal member. As long as you can prove you are a tribe member, you get the funds.

Feel free to visit any of these reservations and see the kind of lives they live. I grew up surrounded by them in Arizona and went to school with many Native Americans in both primary & high school. It's not a great way to live and the reason so many are leaving the reservations.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#297

Post by dragonwriter »

jbuzbee wrote: post #286
nattaylor wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't RTFA, but if you instead assume it just goes to adults (~221M) then that's $2.2T. I think BI gets rid of SS/Medicare/Medicaid/etc, which gets you back roughly $2T.

In 2012 Medicare, Medicaid, and Children's health funding was $732 billion. And I don't know how you get rid of SS since the government would still need to make payments that are higher than any typical basic income level. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258

You could transitionally subsume SS by making SS benefits, as a special transitional case, non-cumulative with BI -- how this works:

(1) eliminate separate SS tax when you establish BI (probably keep a tax of about the same level overall rolled into general income tax, you probably need it to fund BI, but you no longer have dedicated SS contributions)

(2) The SS eligibility you have earned from your past contributions remains, except any time when you would get SS, your BI is deducted from your SS benefits (so you never get less benefits from BI+SS than you would have gotten from the worst of the two, but also never more than you would get from the best of the two.)

So, over time SS withers, and to the extent its duplicative its effectively eliminated immediately, but no one loses the minimum guarantee they had already secured from SS.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#298

Post by damonpace »

kalvin wrote: post #164

I think if you could see close-up how these systems work now, you'd be convinced that it's completely not worth the cost in practice to try and figure out who "deserves" each of the many, many special benefits/allowances/exemptions available (plus it's incredibly difficult for potential recipients to figure out what they're eligible for, plus it imposes those costs on the people who aren't eligible, but end up having…

This basic premise(MVP) exists on American Indian reservations, quasi-sovereign states. The BIA and the Tribe distributes an equal share of funds from either the government or gaming to each tribal member. As long as you can prove you are a tribe member, you get the funds.

Feel free to visit any of these reservations and see the kind of lives they live. I grew up surrounded by them in Arizona and went to school with many Native Americans in both primary & high school. It's not a great way to live and the reason so many are leaving the reservations.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#300

Post by NoPiece »

Question for the liberals who support this. Would you honestly be willing to get rid of social security, welfare, unemployment, earned income tax credit, food stamps, student loans, pell grants, and all the other entitlement programs? If so, I might support it, even if it cost more, just to get rid of all the government social engineering.
Post reply on HN