It Is Time For Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#421

Post by 31reasons » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:37 AM UTC

richardjordan wrote: post #408

freefrancisco wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's really more efficient than the current system, it should be fundable from the existing entitlements. Just dismantle the programs, fire all the bureaucrats running them, and divert all these funds toward the basic income. If it requires another tax then it's not an alternative, it is an expansion of the welfare state.

No. It's not more net taxes. It's a change in the tax rate so the basic income is clawed back at the high end. Doesn't change tax out of pocket.

Its like applying plaster to an uneven wall. The dents gets filled with plaster but the bumps stays at the same level! Its much better than giving tax breaks since you need income to begin with.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#422

Post by msellout » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:37 AM UTC

atom-morgan wrote: post #127

whyme wrote: post #48

Obviously this is not a new idea... Twenty years ago I sat around with college mates, in Canada, listing the merits of the "Guaranteed Income" and quite frankly I still support the idea today. If you took all the salaries, property and operations cost associated with distributing old age security, welfare, disability, unemployment wages etc etc, it would probably pay for much of the cost associated with the Guarantee…

...that eliminates money all together You can't eliminate money. It's a natural creation of human interaction. Even prisoners have money.

This "natural instinct to truck and barter" only showed up about 200 to 300 years ago. Before then there was feudalism, chieftains, etc. Humans have had other technologies for distributing social assets.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#423

Post by yummyfajitas » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:41 AM UTC

msellout wrote: post #407

yummyfajitas wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...it's become increasingly clear to all of us that the implementation of well-meaning policies intended to separate the deserving from the undeserving ends up adding an incredible amount of complexity and overhead,... Unless the overhead is truly massive (read: 5x more than the actual benefits), it doesn't matter. It's still vastly cheaper to pay only a small set of deserving people than to pay everyone. Consider a…

Consumer spending will increase and therefore also tax revenues. More importantly, we can cut other programs to recover the difference. Edit: rough calculation in other comment

I can't see any plausible way that these numbers will even approach the ballpark of $5 trillion. Back of the envelope calculation please.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#424

Post by polarix » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:44 AM UTC

msellout wrote: post #409

yummyfajitas wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back of the envelope calculation please - that will clarify your vague words and reveal many arithmetic errors (if such are present).

"In 2013, the total Social Security expenditures were $1.3 trillion, 8.4% of the $16.3 trillion GNP (2013) and 37% of the Federal expenditures of $3.684 trillion" (Wikipedia). Medicare adds another half billion, rapidly increasing. We could get between $6k and $7k annually per citizen by swapping those plans for a basic income. If children don't count, we could bump that to maybe $10k. Obviously, this change would ne…

Why increase consumption taxes? Why add friction? Wouldn't it be better to tax the assets at rest -- real estate, property.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#425

Post by sanswork » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:44 AM UTC

wozniacki wrote: post #366

adekok wrote: post #229

I'm reading the comments, and surprised at what's missing. What happened to the business approach? The US government is delivering a large number of products with wildly varying costs, efficiencies, and price points. e.g. unemployment, welfare, food stamps, etc. There is a proposal is to replace those products with only one. The new product fills (mostly) the same need as the existing ones. It will do so at less cost…

Let us not delude ourselves into thinking any healthcare system is self-contained and self-sustaining, equipped to deal with all the needs of its citizenry. Most European nations ( and Canada, Australia & New Zealand ) are great at dispensing - what can be termed as - "subsistence medicine." Most ailments, procedures and surgeries are handled quite well, although - it has to be said - a tad frugally. ( It is not unco…

Having the best hospitals in the world doesn't matter if only a tiny subset of your population can actually use them.

The wait times for life threatening issues in Canada really isn't that bad as someone who spent last year with my mother going through Cancer treatments and has a few friends here going through the same at the moment. Less urgent procedures due tend to take a long time though.

So while Canadians may wait up to 6 weeks for non-essential/urgent surgeries, 45,000 americans die each year because they lack the insurance to pay for their medical treatments.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#426

Post by yummyfajitas » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:44 AM UTC

msellout wrote: post #409

yummyfajitas wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back of the envelope calculation please - that will clarify your vague words and reveal many arithmetic errors (if such are present).

"In 2013, the total Social Security expenditures were $1.3 trillion, 8.4% of the $16.3 trillion GNP (2013) and 37% of the Federal expenditures of $3.684 trillion" (Wikipedia). Medicare adds another half billion, rapidly increasing. We could get between $6k and $7k annually per citizen by swapping those plans for a basic income. If children don't count, we could bump that to maybe $10k. Obviously, this change would ne…

To hit that $20k number, we'd need to increase taxes.

I'm glad we are in agreement that a BI will cost a lot more than the current targeted welfare state. (Or alternately will require a drastic cut in benefits for the current crop of non-workers.)

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#427

Post by nirnira » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:44 AM UTC

A truly insane and stupid idea befitting an insane and stupid political culture.

And lo and behold! Embraced with open arms by the Hacker News community. What a surprise.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#428

Post by dola » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:47 AM UTC

This is actually a very current topic right now in Switzerland. There will a national vote to decide if every Swiss citizen should get a basic income of 2500 swiss francs (approximately 2700$) a month. Some interesting details can be read in this (kind of) recent article (most other ones are in German) http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/swiss-pay-basic-income-2...

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#429

Post by incomethax » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:47 AM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #414

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…

okay, I have a pitch for an MVP. It's an independent organization that functions as a voluntary tax collection. Everybody who believes in basic income signs up for it, and makes a monthly donation. At the end of each month, we divide the total pot of all donations by the number of users: if you need the money, you withdraw your portion. If you don't need it, you can leave it in, so that the next month's pot will be b…

This is basically supplemental insurance (think Aflac) - the caveat with those insurance companies is that their incentive is to not pay anything out unless a very specific set of circumstances is met.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#430

Post by bcheung » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 5:48 AM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #206

jgj wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the mystical future world where a GBI has been implemented charity still exists, and much of the capital once dedicated to assisting those in poverty-absent-illness can now be directed to those who need help in addition to the GBI.

But if charity were reliable enough to rely on for livelihood wouldn't it make sense to remove any form of welfare or basic income?

According to Maslow's Hierarchy, at least as I interpret it, charity increases as an individual is able to meet their lower needs. How you go about getting more individuals to that level is a matter of debate that is difficult to give any definitive answers to.