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Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

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Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#101

Post by missedthecue »

petermcneeley wrote: post #98
missedthecue wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly possible to tax the average person $1050 monthly in order to pay that average person $1000 every month, but i really just don't see the point. There are just not enough rich people to transfer $2.5 trillion from annually.

I think your arguing against some position that I am not even suggesting. You think im saying "if we took the money of billionaires we would have enough to give the whole country 1k/month forever" Im suggesting that there is enough money when you think in totality so this is merely a question of how comfortable you are with redistribution. Your saying 2.5 trillion annually; ok thats only like 12% of GDP. It is also c…

You're saying redistribution. Meaning taking money from people with more to give to people with less. (I assume youre not just talking about moving figures around but leaving everyone with the same amount in the end).

I'm saying there are not enough people with more than people less to provide that $12,000 transfer to each person in a way that benefits most people.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#102

Post by dariusj18 »

r00fus wrote: post #86
hyperpape wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare is reasonable, but the right way to provide people food is to give them money. Otherwise, you can't possibly provide a useful service. People choose to spend more or less on food, eat different things, etc. If I want to spend a lot on food, that's my choice, but I should give up something else. Or if I decide to eat rice and lentils multiple times a week, I should be able to save money. Even more important…

Why are food stamps (but universal, not means-tested) not a good solution? They allow basics to have controlled pricing, and increased availability, while preventing abuse of the system (ie, alcohol purchases). Having dispensaries (or dispensary-specific items in a general store) where you can use your food stamp money would leverage a working system we have now.

Even with food stamps food can become a commodity and be traded. It's generally a good idea to keep it need based IMO.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#103

Post by basch »

munificent wrote: post #16

I think well before we consider universal basic income, we should consider universal basic services . Many services are already highly regulated and naturally somewhat difficult to exploit. Healthcare is the obvious one. It's not like you can get a surgery and then resell it to exploit the system. (You could, of course, exploit things like pain medication, but overall healthcare is not expoitation-friendly.) Some amo…

What about a natural resources tax into a sovereign fund, combined with a savings/investment account. It can achieve roughly the same thing, without nationalizing every industry. Closer to UBI and food stamps than free services.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23010921

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#104

Post by basch »

scabbycakes wrote: post #84
LaEc wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elimination of the price mechanism eliminates a key way to sort out who truly needs healthcare (or whatever service). Consider a safe elective knee surgery. If you knew it was paid for by the government, you would just sign yourself up for the surgery for even the slightest ache. If there was a copay, you might reconsider unless your pain was actually painful enough to warrant it. Ask any Brit about NHS waiting times…

I can agree on the points you made about the system not having any need to be efficient, a government ran system is just not able to be lean - but as far as people just getting whatever they can for the heck of it, that's probably not the case. Just from personal experience, I don't have copays or much in the way of direct monetary costs (I'm not American) and it's not like I'm out there grabbing free drugs and surge…

Expand the HSA to be a universal savings account, more like food stamps + social security.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Provident_Fund

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23010921

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#105

Post by ardy42 »

LaEc wrote: post #68
munificent wrote: post #16

I think well before we consider universal basic income, we should consider universal basic services . Many services are already highly regulated and naturally somewhat difficult to exploit. Healthcare is the obvious one. It's not like you can get a surgery and then resell it to exploit the system. (You could, of course, exploit things like pain medication, but overall healthcare is not expoitation-friendly.) Some amo…

Elimination of the price mechanism eliminates a key way to sort out who truly needs healthcare (or whatever service). Consider a safe elective knee surgery. If you knew it was paid for by the government, you would just sign yourself up for the surgery for even the slightest ache. If there was a copay, you might reconsider unless your pain was actually painful enough to warrant it. Ask any Brit about NHS waiting times…

> Elimination of the price mechanism eliminates a key way to sort out who truly needs healthcare (or whatever service). Consider a safe elective knee surgery. If you knew it was paid for by the government, you would just sign yourself up for the surgery for even the slightest ache. If there was a copay, you might reconsider unless your pain was actually painful enough to warrant it.

Huh? Surgeries don't work like that, they all have significant risks of giving you worse problems than you already have. And even if successful, they're not going to leave you "good as new" or anything like that.

Also, the price mechanism doesn't actually do anything to sort out who "truly needs healthcare," all it does it make it so the wealthy can get whatever they want and the poor can't even get what they need. The actual mechanism for preventing unnecessarily and wasteful medical care is the professional ethics of doctors and the caution of patients.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#106

Post by petermcneeley »

missedthecue wrote: post #101
petermcneeley wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your arguing against some position that I am not even suggesting. You think im saying "if we took the money of billionaires we would have enough to give the whole country 1k/month forever" Im suggesting that there is enough money when you think in totality so this is merely a question of how comfortable you are with redistribution. Your saying 2.5 trillion annually; ok thats only like 12% of GDP. It is also c…

You're saying redistribution. Meaning taking money from people with more to give to people with less. (I assume youre not just talking about moving figures around but leaving everyone with the same amount in the end). I'm saying there are not enough people with more than people less to provide that $12,000 transfer to each person in a way that benefits most people.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri...

If you just took 20% of people making over 150k it would be enough to give 1k a month to the bottom 50%. (and yes i understand this is household)

And this of course is the silly idea that your giving people making 50k a year 12k more for some reason. This also doesnt include the real money up at the top top end. It also doesnt include any wealth transfers (scary)

I think (with respect) you just dont realize how much wealth is out there.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#107

Post by jazzyk »

hyperpape wrote: post #95
r00fus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are food stamps (but universal, not means-tested) not a good solution? They allow basics to have controlled pricing, and increased availability, while preventing abuse of the system (ie, alcohol purchases). Having dispensaries (or dispensary-specific items in a general store) where you can use your food stamp money would leverage a working system we have now.

Food stamps generally do not allow purchasing hot food or a wide variety of foods that are not considered essential (there is some variation in policies, however). Remove those restrictions, and it would be better. You would still have the problem that it wouldn't actually provide food for everyone or some people would end up losing the money because they're frugal.

What about people who are addicted (huge problem in the US)? If we give them money, they will spend it on drugs/alcohol/etc. and will still need to be taken care of.

So while food stamps (universal or need based) may not be a perfect solution (selling food stamps for drug money is not unheard of), it is still better, because it makes misappropriating the help provided more difficult.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#108

Post by bsanr2 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #56
cultus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way we are funding massive corporate bailouts. Sovereign government debt does not work like personal debt, for the simple reason that money can be printed. Fears of inflation in a time like this are completely unwarranted. edit: Back of the envelope math shows that 1000/month for the US population is about $4 trillion/year. The Fed has pumped more than that into financial markets since this pandemic has star…

Isn't that the approach that Venezuela took? To me, any proposal to fund UBI by printing money has to explain why Venezuela failed, and how the new proposal is different in a way that matters.

Venezuela - and, frankly, the rest of the world - is reliant on monetary policy set by outside parties, who can also impose explicit (import/export) and de facto (loan terms) sanctions should their political positioning be undesirable.

How much does the US government subsidize the average US citizen in services, tax rebates, etc.? Is it more or less than what Venezuela offered its citizens in cash payments? I honestly don't know, but I've become more convinced lately that Venezuela's issues have less to do with the efficacy of their policies than they do objections to the nature of their intended distribution of wealth.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#109

Post by wayneftw »

IMO you can't have long term success for basic income without coupling it with population control measures such as requiring a license to have a baby and/or limiting the number of babies people can have.

I fully support requiring a license to have a baby.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#110

Post by hyperpape »

jazzyk wrote: post #107
hyperpape wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food stamps generally do not allow purchasing hot food or a wide variety of foods that are not considered essential (there is some variation in policies, however). Remove those restrictions, and it would be better. You would still have the problem that it wouldn't actually provide food for everyone or some people would end up losing the money because they're frugal.

What about people who are addicted (huge problem in the US)? If we give them money, they will spend it on drugs/alcohol/etc. and will still need to be taken care of. So while food stamps (universal or need based) may not be a perfect solution (selling food stamps for drug money is not unheard of), it is still better, because it makes misappropriating the help provided more difficult.

This is an unreasonably optimistic model of how addicts behave.
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