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

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

#361

Post by macspoofing »

onion2k wrote: post #33

One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead. If a government were to do t…

>If a government were to do that for everyone it seems pretty obvious that society will be better off

I don't think it's obvious hence the necessity of actually testing it in a real-world setting.

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

#362

Post by frogpelt »

The basic income concept is intriguing to me (because it simplifies things) but I do not think it will work for this reason: Who administers the basic income? The government and by extension politicians. Once they have every single person who breathes on the dole, this will give them unbelievable leverage against the people. If the government is giving everyone a check, how hard is it to argue that the check should be more? Not hard. How hard is it to reduce the amount of the check. Almost impossible.

It will eventually devolve into a problem like Greece has now. Too many people receiving money, not enough people paying in.

Besides that, asking any government to take money from the people, run it through the giant bureaucracy machine, and magically produce a net benefit to the people is both logically impossible and naturally never going to happen.

I'm sure it will be attempted in America at some point and the "public servants" are licking their chops.

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

#363

Post by s73v3r »

vog wrote: post #16

Can this really work when applied just partially? This experiment is about ~250 people with basic income in a large city. (The text mentions 300 people, but some of them form a control group that doesn't receive basic income.) So if any of these selected people will try to find a job, they will probably voluntarily "lose" it to somebody to really needs that job. Even without that moral issue, this makes still sense f…

" All else equal, hiring a poor worker is probably perferable to hiring a wealthy one, as the poor worker has more incentives to work really hard."

Read from the other side, hiring a poor worker is preferable because they'll put up with more abuse, as they don't have much in the way of choice.

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

#364

Post by macspoofing »

The more I think about it, the more I really like the idea of a basic income. One of the great things about universal healthcare is that you just never worry about it. I never have to think about what would happen to myself or my spouse or my kids if they get cancer after I quit or lose my job. Whether my insurance will fight me on some treatment, or if it covers the rights things. It's nice.

Basic income seems like it will give you that kind of piece of mind as well. You know that in the worst case, you'll have a hassle-free, indefinite, (modest) income to get you by. That's worth something.

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

#365

Post by s73v3r »

rktjmp wrote: post #24
GigabyteCoin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>somebody to really needs that job. That somebody would not "really need that job" because they would be guaranteed a basic income no matter what in a real world scenario.

Yeah, but their point is its not really a real world scenario. Since the other person, who's not taking part in the study, wont receive a basic income, the person in the study might feel morally required to give up their job potential job to the person who really needs it, which means the results of the study will be inconclusive.

Are they even going to know who else is participating in the study, and who else is applying for their jobs?

When you go apply for a job, do you find out who else applied, and decide if any of them "need" the job more than you?

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

#366

Post by s73v3r »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #307
richmarr wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see that discussion about basic income I am always wandering, who is going to pay for that? The typical justification is that it pays for itself in simplified management, improved education, lower crime, etc. I haven't seen the sums, but given that the US incarcerates 1% of it's population at exhobitant (direct and indirect) cost, it doesn't seem that unrealistic. Let's forget about the question if this is mor…

> "given that the US incarcerates 1% of it's population at exhobitant (direct and indirect) cost" Isn't part of the problem there that the US Prison System is a for-profit industry? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pz3syET3DY

Not everywhere. There are still plenty of state run prisons in the country.

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

#368

Post by s73v3r »

verinus wrote: post #100
mcv wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who is going to pay for that? The same people who are paying for the other welfare, unemployment and disability payments, the lower tax brackets for lower incomes, etc. Those are all things that basic income could eventually replace. It's not like there's free money coming out of nowhere, it's simply a smarter and more efficient way to distribute the money that's already there. The big advantage of basic income, th…

> It's not like there's free money coming out of nowhere, it's simply a smarter and more efficient way to distribute the money that's already there. I highly doubt that. In my opinion the current european social system destroys incentives to work and take responsibility for ones own live.

And your opinion would be wrong. In my opinion, not having something like this would be forcing people to stay in shitty, abusive jobs because they have no alternative, due to needing to buy food and keep a roof over their heads. Alleviating those issues would mean that low income workers would be able to be more selective in the work they take, which means that employers would have to work harder in attracting employees. Not a bad thing at all.

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

#369

Post by macspoofing »

ancap wrote: post #346
onion2k wrote: post #33

One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead. If a government were to do t…

I'm all for this (and any other form of welfare), provided the funding of such a program is done on a purely voluntary basis.

>provided the funding of such a program is done on a purely voluntary basis.

Like taxes right?

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