It Is Time For Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#441

Post by api » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:08 AM UTC

nirnira wrote: post #434

api wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not why communism didn't work. Communism didn't work because they tried to micromanage every aspect of the economy. It was central planning that failed, not guaranteed minimums. A guaranteed minimum income without economic micromanagement or other central planning is what I'd like to see tried.

>Communism didn't work because they tried to micromanage every aspect of the economy. No, sorry, you're completely wrong. Communism didn't work because it destroyed every incentive for industrious, honest labour, supplanting healthy competitive free-market economics with a landscape of scheming and parasitism as people scrambled to exploit one another. Communism failed (and will fail every single time another stupid…

I look forward to the day when this ideology goes the way of Communism.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#442

Post by bcheung » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:09 AM UTC

msellout wrote: post #413

bryanlarsen wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two formulations are similar. If you just print money to give to everybody, you cause inflation, which is a tax on liquid wealth. The wealthy have ways to hedge against inflation, so it's basically a tax on the middle class.

What are these magical ways to hedge against inflation that wealthy have access to and middle class don't? By definition, inflation equates to higher salaries for the middle class.

Commodities, stocks, options, derivatives, and real estate are the most common. But I think they aren't limited to the wealthy per say. The wealthy just know much more about them and have higher percentages of their net worth in these types of things.

You can make money if the market goes up, you can make money if the market goes down, and you can make money if the market doesn't go anywhere.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#443

Post by nirnira » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:12 AM UTC

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #158

dicroce wrote: post #69

Here's the thing: I believe that millions of years of evolution have baked into every living thing a deep need to work, and we'll feel bad if we don't (because for millions of years lazyness meant death). We need to struggle. Further, I think we need to bad times to help us recognize the good times and a basic income would do much to soften those bad times... I worry that Basic Income is in the long term practically…

Hard work is a recent invention. It arrived with the farming revolution a mere 10-12k years ago. Before that, humans as foragers are believed to have worked about 20hrs per week, if they so chose.

Yeah, and early vertebrate species in the Cambrian just swam around singing happy songs and smooching anemones all day while they enjoyed a universe free of those horrible constraints of energy and matter that nasty humans invented to oppress each other.

Get a fucking grip. Hunter gatherers lived in shitty conditions with unbelievably poor material wealth, and had no protections against disease, injury, starvation, attack by animals, attack by other humans, old age, death in childbirth, etc etc. Average lifespan was 20.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#444

Post by bcheung » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:13 AM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #377

ahoy wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only ever heard basic income proposed as the former implementation, never the latter.

The two formulations are similar. If you just print money to give to everybody, you cause inflation, which is a tax on liquid wealth. The wealthy have ways to hedge against inflation, so it's basically a tax on the middle class.

If the original argument proposes wealth distribution it would cause inflation and deflation at the same time. Inflation of lower end goods and services because the poor will have more money, and deflation in the higher end goods and services because the wealthy will have less. i.e., things get more expensive for the poor, and cheaper for the rich. ;)

If we are talking about printing money, it would be similar. The lower end goods and services would get more expensive and the higher end goods and services would stay about the same.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#445

Post by nirnira » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:13 AM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #189

I have a proposal. Those who favor basic income should pick one or two recipients who are deserving of assistance, and open their own pockets and provide the money. The recipients will be glad and thankful, the donors will feel they have moved society toward utopia, and the rest of us can just get on with our lives without suffering the burdens that an additional entitlement would impose. I say this not to incite a f…

What?!? Suggesting people use their own money to support their own beliefs, rather than expecting the rest of society to pay up while they make no sacrifice?? Heretic!!

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#446

Post by tempestn » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:14 AM UTC

polarix wrote: post #424

msellout wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Aren't income taxes a logical fit here? You would still have graduated tax brackets, so you wouldn't have an enormous cliff once you started earning, but all tax brackets could be increased such that the middle class end up about the same, and the poor are better off. With the added efficiencies described by the parent comment, this should even be possible without reducing net income to those in the higher brackets, but it might be desirable to do that to some extent as well for greater redistribution.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#447

Post by nirnira » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:15 AM UTC

bcheung wrote: post #190

1) When people don't need to produce value to live in the world, they will cease to produce value. 2) Ultimately it is not income that is needed to survive but resources properly organized. The cost of survival is getting cheaper and cheaper at an exponential rate. You wouldn't know that though because they keep raising the bar on what it means to "survive"—big screen tv, air conditioning, car, etc. The amount of wor…

Thanks for being one of the least insane and retarded people on this comment thread.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#448

Post by nirnira » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:18 AM UTC

NoPiece wrote: post #300

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.

Since when did "liberal" mean someone who supports coercive redistribution by states?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#449

Post by dojomouse » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:19 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #313

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…

...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…

You're assuming that the remaining $4trillion is lost. It's not. It goes to other people who will spend it on other things worth, in total, $4tril... even though some of them may need it less.

The benefit they derive from the increased flexibility that $20k could easily exceed $20k by itself - you've probably seen the research on how people make bad decisions when they are financially unstable. And all that benefit is raw positive.

For a BI to be bad from the perspective you're talking about it has to actively make people less productive. Simply giving them $20k doesn't count as a 'cost' in itself - it all comes full circle.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#450

Post by nirnira » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 6:19 AM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #344

Eleutheria wrote: post #170

Everything that goes against liberty is doomed to fail. Miserably.

Are you equating liberty to redistribution of wealth, or liberty to "I'M NOT PAYING MORE TAXES SO FREELOADERS CAN SIT AROUND WATCHING TV?" I don't see what you're trying to add.

Liberty means allowing people to make their own decisions about how they live and use their resources, as long as they're not infringing on the liberty of others. It's a universal concept, not just tied to your vilification of wealthy conservative people.

Thanks for the nasty stereotype though.