European Citizen's Initiative for UBI • Hacker News Board

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#121

Post by sofixa » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #16

Most extant forms of welfare exist because at the time of their creation they allowed some group of politicans to buy the votes of some subset of the population. In order to reliably capture those votes, the welfare system has to represent a substantive transfer of wealth from whoever is getting screwed to whoever is selling their vote. From this angle, the problem with UBI is it doesn't really represent a clear win…

> Most extant forms of welfare exist because at the time of their creation they allowed some group of politicans to buy the votes of some subset of the population. In order to reliably capture those votes, the welfare system has to represent a substantive transfer of wealth from whoever is getting screwed to whoever is selling their vote.

Do you have any source on that? One of the original welfare systems, in Imperial Germany, was introduced by conservative politician Otto von Bismarck to preempt the popularity of the Social Democratic party which was gaining popularity with its proposals.

Eastern bloc ( Soviets, Warsaw pact, Yugoslavia) were dictatorships that supressed any dissent, but had very decent welfare states. There were wealth transfers, of course, but they were to the state, not citizens, and welfare wasn't linked to it.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#122

Post by sofixa » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #100

slg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is considered "wartime stuff"? Because the US has been preparing for, engaging in, or recovering from war for basically the entire history of the country including today as we are currently engaged in the longest war in US history.

Obviously that's referring to WW2, when the peak marginal income tax rate was temporarily raised to 94%. That was unsustainable because, absent a worldwide violent conflict, the highest income people will just emigrate to lower tax countries. All of our wars since WW2 have been wars of choice. The survival of our nation hasn't been at stake.

> All of our wars since WW2 have been wars of choice. The survival of our nation hasn't been at stake

As if any of the world wars had the US' survival at stake. Being separated by other powers by oceans on both sides, and having enormous amounts of resources and manpower meant that the last time the US was at any legitimate threat was 1812.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#123

Post by samatman » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #21

wyager wrote: post #16

Most extant forms of welfare exist because at the time of their creation they allowed some group of politicans to buy the votes of some subset of the population. In order to reliably capture those votes, the welfare system has to represent a substantive transfer of wealth from whoever is getting screwed to whoever is selling their vote. From this angle, the problem with UBI is it doesn't really represent a clear win…

I have no idea if you are right or not, but it is a pretty wild political science theory that a policy can benefit too large of a majority of the population and therefore would be unpopular.

On the contrary, it's a straightforward application of selectorate theory:

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

That doesn't make it correct, but it's not 'wild' at all.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#124

Post by samatman » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

spurgu wrote: post #34

Something I've been thinking about is how are addicts and mentally ill detected/addressed in a UBI society? Today it becomes apparent because when you have issues you tend to lose your job and have to join job seeking programs and/or contact social services. With UBI you could just fall through the cracks undetected. Has this been addressed by someone?

Right now (speaking from a US perspective, since that's what I know), a best case scenario for someone with mental health issues like you're describing is SSI. It's around $700 a month.

To qualify, they must establish that they're unable to do any job which could earn them about $1200 a month, they can never have more than $2000 in assets, and they basically can't work.

With UBI, they just... get the $700 a month (for the sake of argument). If they can work a little, well, then they do. If they get a gift, inheritance, any sort of windfall, good for them.

There isn't ever a choice between continuing to get the lifeline check or trying to reenter the workforce, also known as the poverty trap.

This is one of the basic arguments for UBI over means-tested benefits, in fact.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#125

Post by wyager » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #121

wyager wrote: post #16

Most extant forms of welfare exist because at the time of their creation they allowed some group of politicans to buy the votes of some subset of the population. In order to reliably capture those votes, the welfare system has to represent a substantive transfer of wealth from whoever is getting screwed to whoever is selling their vote. From this angle, the problem with UBI is it doesn't really represent a clear win…

> Most extant forms of welfare exist because at the time of their creation they allowed some group of politicans to buy the votes of some subset of the population. In order to reliably capture those votes, the welfare system has to represent a substantive transfer of wealth from whoever is getting screwed to whoever is selling their vote. Do you have any source on that? One of the original welfare systems, in Imperia…

> Do you have any source on that?

Mindlessly asking for a source on every claim or observation is one of the silliest and most annoying things people on HN tend to do. It’s an original observation, not some shit I regurgitated from a book. You’d swear 90% of the people here thought you weren’t allowed to have a thought unless you published it in an academic journal. If you read the thread under my comment, you’ll find plenty of people pointing out researchers and historians who came to the same conclusion, e.g. (apparently) Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, whose book I have ordered.

> Eastern bloc ( Soviets, Warsaw pact, Yugoslavia) were dictatorships that supressed any dissent, but had very decent welfare states

This is entirely compatible with my observation. They aren’t democracies.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#126

Post by knorker » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #76

knorker wrote: post #68

Where do I sign against this? This is just FIRE without the money. Did you read the actual proposal? They explicitly want to give a middle class life to everyone, with zero obligation from the individual. This is complete insanity. Kids will make zero plans to use school to make themselves useful. Kids are idiots (past me included), and if they knew they had the option to do nothing productive, then that's what a ver…

The EU has around 450 million residents. And hey, maybe a portion of your 50 % start hyper disruptive start-ups in, say, Berlin. There they can really contribute.

Contribute what?

Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#127

Post by knorker » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

barbazoo wrote: post #75

knorker wrote: post #68

Where do I sign against this? This is just FIRE without the money. Did you read the actual proposal? They explicitly want to give a middle class life to everyone, with zero obligation from the individual. This is complete insanity. Kids will make zero plans to use school to make themselves useful. Kids are idiots (past me included), and if they knew they had the option to do nothing productive, then that's what a ver…

> This is just FIRE without the money. I love how you framed this as a bad thing. As if FIRE was something one has to earn after years and years of wage slavery. > Kids will make zero plans to use school to make themselves useful. > So you'll have a population that is incapable of doing anything useful, demanding a middle class lifestyle, for free. That assumption has been disproved time and again.

>> This is just FIRE without the money.

> I love how you framed this as a bad thing.

No, not at all. I'm a Star Trek fan.

But for the 21st century it's a complete fantasy to think it's realistic.

You need money to do this. To just skip that step is disconnected from reality.

Or to put another way: You can't just take. In Star Trek you can, because food replicators, and extreme abundance.

In Star Trek people would give away a house because they can just get a new one.

We're hundreds of years away from that.

FIRE is about really intensifying your production (your "giving"), in order to then get back your fair share as others give back to you.

If you create a world where nobody has to "give", but everyone is allowed to "take", what exactly do you think will happen?

> That assumption has been disproved time and again.

Oh? How, where? I don't think we're talking about the same thing.

Yes, some wealthy people in history have used their time to make great things. But the vast VAST majority, like 99.9999%, have not.

Just look at royalty. The only productive thing they do is through their wealth and power. Who actually contributed, as opposed to have their wealth contribute?

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#128

Post by heavyset_go » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #16

Most extant forms of welfare exist because at the time of their creation they allowed some group of politicans to buy the votes of some subset of the population. In order to reliably capture those votes, the welfare system has to represent a substantive transfer of wealth from whoever is getting screwed to whoever is selling their vote. From this angle, the problem with UBI is it doesn't really represent a clear win…

Germany got universal healthcare in the 1800's while ruled by a monarchy.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#129

Post by akvadrako » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

yeslibertarian wrote: post #2

[flagged]

In the 20th century UBI was mostly supported by libertarians, for example Charles Murray and Milton Friedman. They called in Negative Income Tax, but mathematically it's the same thing.

It's smarter and more efficient than the system we have now, especially if it's funded by land value taxes.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for UBI

#130

Post by anoncake » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #114

anoncake wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, none. Obviously there will always be some assholes, that should not determine policy unless it gets out of hand.

The whole point of UBI is to remove means testing. I think we can set a number that works on average and let people move to suit their needs. We definitely should avoid all incentives to game the system as it will only distract and get the initiative bogged down in paper pushing bs.

Unfortunately, living standards differ too much within the EU for that.