Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#161

Post by pvaldes » Thu, May 28, 2015, 11:03 AM UTC

wiz21 wrote: post #79

I was shocked by the "magic of markets" analysis. When there's no more bread, people make more bread ? Nope, bread becomes more expensive. Especially with automation : it's harder for new baker to start in the market, so those in the market get more powerful. That's concentration. Basic income will make less poor but more slaves. Slaves that will be dependent on those (I assume it's the state) who define the exact am…

Basic income can also mean other things. Some people just are so unique that don't need to compete.

Some examples of unemployed people that did not have an income other that the support of his family, friends or government in a part of (or all) his life:

Vincent Van Gogh, too clumsy to farm

John Steinbeck, housed by his father that provides also paper and material

Harper Lee, sabbatical payed by friends

J.K. Rowling, writing whereas on welfare.

... and many others

Take in mind that you don't have just competition, there is also collaboration, and teaming, and life-changers. Some people just born in poverty. This would not be his choice if they could. Some born in a poor rural environment somewhere in Misissipi, other in a manger in the middle of nowhere. Some of those people are between the most influent people in the history of the humanity.

People seem to worry about that basic income could lead to a lot of people scratching his bellies all day (and this is true) but don't always notice that this will also reveal a hidden minory of fine gem crafters in art, music, literature or poetry that are just roting now and could be free to create huge economic values instead.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#162

Post by jpindar » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:06 PM UTC

MCRed wrote: post #146

SwellJoe wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Although I really like the idea of minimum income, elkanjos point has to be addressed. Just yesterday there was an article about trailer parks ownership. They will simply increase rent to what their clientele can afford." Actually, I think that's one of the arguments for a basic income. It will lift some of those people out of the class that is subject to the whims of slumlords and trailer park owners, decreasing de…

Why don't we just cut taxes for everyone who makes less than $50k a year? Cut them to zero for all of those people. At least federal taxes, but it would be nice if there was a moratorium or movement to do it for state taxes as well. For someone making $50k a year, right now they are paying around $7.5k in federal taxes. That right there is close to the $12k the Basic Income would provide. And this would be a lot easi…

You can't buy food with a piece of paper saying how much you didn't have to pay in taxes.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#163

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:14 PM UTC

MCRed wrote: post #146

SwellJoe wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Although I really like the idea of minimum income, elkanjos point has to be addressed. Just yesterday there was an article about trailer parks ownership. They will simply increase rent to what their clientele can afford." Actually, I think that's one of the arguments for a basic income. It will lift some of those people out of the class that is subject to the whims of slumlords and trailer park owners, decreasing de…

Why don't we just cut taxes for everyone who makes less than $50k a year? Cut them to zero for all of those people. At least federal taxes, but it would be nice if there was a moratorium or movement to do it for state taxes as well. For someone making $50k a year, right now they are paying around $7.5k in federal taxes. That right there is close to the $12k the Basic Income would provide. And this would be a lot easi…

Its often helpful to start from where we are, and change things a little. That is more comfortable notion, if nothing else.

But when the system is patently not helping those it needs to help, perhaps a new system is desirable. Most government programs were new systems once. Replacing them should not be any more disruptive than inventing them in the first place.

Basic Income is superior to all the others, in my opinion, because it is trivial to see that it will help the most desperate, and it can be administrated trivially (send everybody a check). There's something wonderfully egalitarian about that. The patronizing approach hasn't worked so well; lets try trusting people with their own lives this time.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#164

Post by pratyushag » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:16 PM UTC

If you like the idea of giving such an income (or cash transfer) to people but the idea of an unconditional basic income seems too far away, you can contribute to newincentives.org which is providing cash transfers to poor pregnant HIV mothers. Achieves two goals: reduces HIV and puts money in very needy hands.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#165

Post by jpindar » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:17 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #142

alkonaut wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will simply increase rent to what their clientele can afford I may be crazy but wouldn't one of the ideas of basic income be that, for example, more people would afford to not live in freaking trailer parks ? Depending on how it was funded, there should be less demand for large houses and more demand for small houses and apartments, meaning more such housing should be built (thereby reducing the demand for tra…

If anything it would increase the demand for trailer parks. The average rent of a trailer now if I read that article right is $400-$500, that's already half of your basic income. The income of someone who lives there is also around $1000/mo, so the only thing that would change is that there'd be more of them, so demand would increase and the rent would go up. I can't tell you why trailer parks are a thing in the U.S.…

The vast majority of low income people in the US do live in apartment complexes. There are apartments in almost every town in the US, except for the most wealthy or the most rural places.

Trailer parks are just a picturesque (for lack of a better term) stereotype. Apartment complexes are so ordinary that discussing them isn't interesting.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#166

Post by dopkew » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:50 PM UTC

4ydx wrote: post #123

Sadly I think that UBI supporters tend to the false impression that everybody would be: 1) Frugal. 2) Responsible. I just don't have that much faith in (roughly) half the population. What happens when people have too many kids and are still too impoverished? Is there going to be a "reasonable limit" to the number of kids you can have? Women could have as many as 20 kids or more. Is that really going to work? What hap…

UBI will likely encourage unsustainable population growth. So, population growth dis-incentives need to be part of the package.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#167

Post by kamaal » Thu, May 28, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

MCRed wrote: post #131

SwellJoe wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ever heard of minimum wage? Yeah, that one did not work as expected either (and created massive unemployment when the threshold was set too high as well)." Citation needed. Your assertions do not match my understanding of the facts about the result of the minimum wage. (Though I would have agreed with you ten years ago, a better understanding of it has altered my opinion significantly.)

When you raise the minimum wage, you don't change any of the other aspects of the business affected by it. So, say you have 15 employees making $10 an hour to keep your company afloat. (Just to keep things simple ,this is about the logic of it.) Now the minimum wage goes up to $15. What are you going to do? You would be losing money with a %50 increase in your costs. Most likely what you will do is lay off 5 employee…

This happens a lot in over crowded markets too. In the Indian IT scenario, there are a lot of freshers every year in the market who will work for almost any starting salary(I was one such a guy at one point in time). So nobody in the chain would complain excessively about their salary, doing so would mean they are welcome to leave. The company would lose nothing as there is enough supply of workers ready to work at the price they want. The employee loses out on the longer run.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#168

Post by kamaal » Thu, May 28, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

vl wrote: post #134

SwellJoe wrote: post #62

If you'd told me ten years ago I would ever support a basic income, I would have laughed. My thought would have been, "People getting paid without doing anything? Absurd!" But, in the past few years I've thoroughly changed my mind on this, and a number of other fronts. I now fully support a basic income (though I think a debate needs to happen about how much that basic income ought to be and how it ought to be funded…

I supported guaranteed basic income as well, but then I read this article and it suggested to tax me more. I'm firmly in tax less, not more camp.

Some one needs to pay for it. Well this is where things like minimum wage and guaranteed income go wrong. Why would any one work more hard to make a extra money, only to be taxed and given to people who don't wish to even try working and want to have fun all the time.

Guess what happens to such societies. People who want to make more money go elsewhere where they are valued better. Eventually back in their original country everybody gets equally poor over time.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#169

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, May 28, 2015, 2:23 PM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #121

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK the government has recently being trying to increase the birthrate by giving more money to those who have kids, so its interesting to see you suggest this would be a problem with BI. I assume this is a general problem with advanced economies as I read an article recently that said kids in school were being given better info on how to get pregnant in some countries, in another attempt to lift the birth rate.

This is simply wrong & it is not government policy moreover UK is the most densely populated country in Europe after Malta. There is a benefit payment given in respect of all children under 16 who have parents earning less than around 60K pounds pa.

The UK may be densely populated, but if it doesn't produce enough children then its demographics will be top heavy and there won't be enough people of working age to support those in retirement. We're currently below the replacement rate.

If you pay people to do something, that is generally considered by economists to incentivize that behaviour, so how is giving thousands of pounds to families not a government policy to encourage people to have kids?

They did recently limit the payments to people earning more than 60,000 pounds a year, but the average wage is less than half of that.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#170

Post by true_religion » Thu, May 28, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #168

vl wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I supported guaranteed basic income as well, but then I read this article and it suggested to tax me more. I'm firmly in tax less, not more camp.

Some one needs to pay for it. Well this is where things like minimum wage and guaranteed income go wrong. Why would any one work more hard to make a extra money, only to be taxed and given to people who don't wish to even try working and want to have fun all the time. Guess what happens to such societies. People who want to make more money go elsewhere where they are valued better. Eventually back in their original c…

Truthfully, all first world countries are gradually applying more and more welfare laws so there's no where to really escape to unless you want to live in say the Saychelles or Cyphrus or another tax-haven.

Now its certainly fine for your money to live in the Saychelles, but many people value their home country for its people and you don't get that value without actually living amongst them.