A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory • Hacker News Board

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#101

Post by mohawk » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:05 AM UTC

piokoch wrote: post #77

When I see that discussion about basic income I am always wandering, who is going to pay for that? I assume the money will not be printed (this would not help, as inflation would make that income very small). So the country that applies such policy must have some way of finding money. Some countries have natural resources that they can sell, so the problem is solved. But how about the rest? I guess this will be finan…

> When I see that discussion about basic income I am always wandering, who is going to pay for that?

Just look at all the social "safety nets" that many European countries have. That money then gets relabled "basic income". Pensions, unemployment benefits, paid sick leave, child support money, etc...

For people who are working full-time and don't get anything at the moment, the taxes would have to be increased slightly to offset their "basic income" on average, so maybe with a low wage you would have a small gain, with a big wage you would have slightly less than before.

The advantage could be a massive reduction in bureaucracy. The disadvantage in Europe at least is that many people prefer perceived "fairness" over efficiency, i.e. they are more worried that someone who "should not get that money" will get it than they are worried about their social systems wasting money and peoples' time.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#102

Post by tormeh » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:06 AM UTC

dagw wrote: post #65

Sir_Substance wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The vast majority of people are not. You're vastly over-estimating the general population. The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream. I've always felt that this argument against basic minimum income said more about the arguer than society at large. In my experience, everyone has a personal project that gets sidelined for their work.

everyone has a personal project that gets sidelined for their work. For many people that project is to watch their favorite TV shows while eating their favorite ice cream.

I know one single person like that. Wanting this is very rare and is a symptom of mental illness. Most people want to be proud of something. Granted, MacDonald's will have problems finding workers, but is that so bad?

Living in Norway it is perfectly possible to slack off on the taxpayers' bill if you want to, but society doesn't collapse. People would rather avoid the low status associated with living on the dole than avoid work.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#103

Post by sktrdie » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:06 AM UTC

verinus wrote: post #93

when it comes to utopian ideas i would prefer the right to work, to get a job to handing out cash to everybody. my reason: handing out cash destroys the incentives to do better and improve...and not all necessary jobs are actual fun to do and others would surely completely vanish...

That's probably because you've found a job that you like. In reality however most people hate their jobs and would rather do something else. This idea of living in a society where people need to do something they don't want in order to survive is a form of slavery.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#104

Post by anticon » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:07 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #96

anticon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't mention the fact it's completely unworkable mathematically. In the UK I believe it'd cost £240 billion a year. Where the hell would anyone be able to find that money from? (Tackling tax avoidance from Starbucks isn't a credible answer). Just to put it in context, that's twice the entire NHS's budget, or 5 times our defence spending.

We wouldn't need money for most benefits any more (pensions, income support, etc) so that's about £120bn of the £240bn found immediately. You mention the NHS - we'd be able to spend a lot less on that if people didn't have poverty-induced health problems, so there's another £35bn (assuming a 30% reduction of the £110bn). It's not unreasonable to assume that the difference of £85bn would essentially pay for itself by…

Yeah I'm sure you could find that missing £85bn down the back of a sofa in whitehall.

Sorry, but the whole idea is laughable. Not to mention the fact that it's another incentive to have more children and bigger families because the state will give you more money.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#105

Post by mkingston » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:07 AM UTC

anticon wrote: post #87

mkingston wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the state will take more than it gives from the billionaire. This is actually more bureaucratically efficient than manually means testing every possible recipient.

How would they take more from the billionaire? Means test them? What if they're asset rich, cash poor... or if they have no income? The whole idea is unworkable. It's like it's been dreamed up by a 5 year old.

In the current system, yes. But at least we do away with one set of means testing. I would actually argue for a flat tax rate in the presence of a basic income. As for "asset rich, cash poor, no income" there are plenty of ideas out there for capital or capital gains taxes.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#106

Post by LBarret » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:08 AM UTC

piokoch wrote: post #77

When I see that discussion about basic income I am always wandering, who is going to pay for that? I assume the money will not be printed (this would not help, as inflation would make that income very small). So the country that applies such policy must have some way of finding money. Some countries have natural resources that they can sell, so the problem is solved. But how about the rest? I guess this will be finan…

We tried without goods redistribution, it doesn't work (19th century anyone ? ). Beyond a certain level of poverty you don't have the lawful/legal means to reach a better situation, you need external help or to turn criminal. There are a lot of (documented) threshold effects.

Beside, without some form of solidarity, a society tends to degrade into some "every man for himself" : the poors use violence (that's all they have), the richs task evasion because they feel no obligation to their fellow men. We have too many examples of that, local or national.

The mechanisms you describe might happen but they may be minor forces in the end. A real economic system is very complex, many many forces and behaviours are at work (and many are social/cultural). A complex reactive organism.

So no, this experience is not silly and it's hard to see what it will produce.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#107

Post by verinus » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:10 AM UTC

Sir_Substance wrote: post #58

anticon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People starting companies are driven, determined people who want to create things. The vast majority of people are not. You're vastly over-estimating the general population. The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream. (Step outside the startup bubble for a while). Most people are also selfish. The idea that they'll all start doing things to benefit o…

>The vast majority of people are not. You're vastly over-estimating the general population. The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream. I've always felt that this argument against basic minimum income said more about the arguer than society at large. In my experience, everyone has a personal project that gets sidelined for their work.

and my take on people arguing for basic minimum income have not understood the human nature.

communism was doomed from the beginning as they were removing all incentives to do something useful in the long therm.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#108

Post by collyw » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:11 AM UTC

PinguTS wrote: post #88

Basic income is a nice theory, but completely ignores the financing part. The money has to come from somewhere. I would be really fine with receiving a basic income. From the social side I would support it. People can do what they like, like artists, developers, and creative people. May be there will be the next business opportunity, startup from that work. Yes, may be other people are lazy, that is like today. There…

The money can come from the same place it came from when the banks needed bailed out.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#109

Post by 314 » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:12 AM UTC

anticon wrote: post #73

Fuxy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would wager there will be people who will take advantage of the system and use it as a opportunity to not work and laze around all day however those people will be the one who are not particularly productive in their work anyway. They might find something else to do they might not but that's OK it is an acceptable loss. On the other end companies which used to take advantage of the job market and the fact that ever…

You don't mention the fact it's completely unworkable mathematically. In the UK I believe it'd cost £240 billion a year. Where the hell would anyone be able to find that money from? (Tackling tax avoidance from Starbucks isn't a credible answer). Just to put it in context, that's twice the entire NHS's budget, or 5 times our defence spending.

Checking the latest figures for 2016: 155B for pensions and welfare 56B. I assume the point is to replace both of those completely with the basic income so the net cost is not 240B, it is 29B. Not cheap, but not pie in the sky either. Sell a bank or two :)

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#110

Post by lmm » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:12 AM UTC

piokoch wrote: post #77

When I see that discussion about basic income I am always wandering, who is going to pay for that? I assume the money will not be printed (this would not help, as inflation would make that income very small). So the country that applies such policy must have some way of finding money. Some countries have natural resources that they can sell, so the problem is solved. But how about the rest? I guess this will be finan…

Basic income is openly and explicitly redistribution. Many of us in Europe have found redistributive tax-and-spend policies to be quite successful.

> Let's forget about the question if this is moral or not to take away money from people who are working hard just to give away these money to those, who are not working at all.

In civilized countries those who are not working at all are already given money that's taken from the rich. The big difference with a basic income is that those who are working hard at low-paying jobs also get money.

> the taxation will make costs of work higher and higher. Country economy would become less competitive.

A country with closer income equality will be more pleasant to live in, so maybe people will be willing to work for lower take-home wages and this will balance the higher income tax.

It would be good to have some kind of international tax settlement though. Otherwise we have a race to the bottom (we already see that with corporation tax and e.g. Ireland) that ends in no country being able to tax and the whole world (except for the very rich) being worse off.

> In addition avoiding taxes would start to be really profitable - people would start opening fake companies abroad, create fake costs, etc. it happens now as well, but the scale could be much bigger.

People already avoid tax as much as they can, I don't think this would change that. If you're the kind of person who avoids 40% tax you would still avoid 30% tax, IMO.

> As usually, big players would be able to avoid taxes, so the one who would be hurt most are the "middle class".

The whole idea of it being universal is that it's the working / lower middle class that benefits the most. Blindly assuming that the rich are just not going to pay their taxes is no way to run a government - if they're not paying, make them pay.