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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

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Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#131

Post by heylook »

legitster wrote: post #103
andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #77

I'm dumb and have no real education in economics. But even my dumb self makes the correlation that in 2020/2021, we handed out free money to keep people afloat (a very good thing), and then immediately following there was a surge in inflation. So I guess I don't understand, how do you give out free money without devaluing the currency? Am I making an incorrect correlation between the stimulus checks and the subsequen…

The stimulus checks kicked off inflation. But inflation should have been limited to the amount of money injected in the economy. We ended up seeing inflation exceeding the amount of money injected. Hidden in Covid was a massive decline in labor force productivity and participation - the lion's share coming from baby boomers retiring during this time. So it's no longer about the amount of money, but the shrinking pile…

> But inflation should have been limited to the amount of money injected in the economy.

I'm curious to hear more about why that would be the case. Money swaps hands constantly and we have explicit ways that a single dollar can become many multiples of itself (aka you get a dollar, you put it in a bank, the bank lends me 90 cents, I put it in a different bank, they lend you 81 cents, one of us gets another loan secured by our assets, etc, etc, etc, now how many dollars are there?).

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#132

Post by ericjmorey »

legitster wrote: post #5

This is a pretty generous reading of the study. One result they are missing out is that the income actually reduced overall employment compared to the control group, and ended up decreasing household earnings: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32719 Even with a generous reading, it was an extremely expensive study. And similar proposals like the Negative Income Tax would cost far less money and have none of the presented…

Caring for loved ones is a tremendous value enhancement that is entirely missing in any study looking at income and profits. Someone who loves to cook cooking for someone that loves sharing a home cooked meal with the person that cooked it is entirely valueless in any such interpretation of income and profits being the sole measure for evaluating value. Delivery food services are the most valuable forms of sustenance in such measures.

So did these people decrease their earnings because they were able to do more of what they value the most? Is that a thing we should try to make more people capable of doing?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#133

Post by maerF0x0 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #13
legitster wrote: post #5

This is a pretty generous reading of the study. One result they are missing out is that the income actually reduced overall employment compared to the control group, and ended up decreasing household earnings: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32719 Even with a generous reading, it was an extremely expensive study. And similar proposals like the Negative Income Tax would cost far less money and have none of the presented…

Why is it some shock-horror thing that people worked less? I think, for those who imagine AI taking a vast swath of jobs (like Altman), the aim for basic income is to get people working less but without this resulting social/work disengagement (whether AI will have that effect is a different matter).

> Why is it some shock-horror thing that people worked less?

Working less is not so bad, but their income (before transfers) also went down. That means they did not replace poorly paying jobs with better paying ones (or they did with net decrease), nor started a business.

The issue is that social safety net is meant for people who's income is seemingly too low. If the net effect is to decrease that even lower, then yes its a concern.

(for clarity, I read the link not the paper)

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#134

Post by DemocracyFTW2 »

bko wrote: post #46
ilaksh wrote: post #22

$1000 is not enough to quit their jobs or get a nice apartment. They could move slightly closer to work if they have to commute. It's not enough for a real tuition or to support them to study instead of work. I don't think we've ever had a universal basic income test. We have always missed the universal and basic part. It's below basic and not at all universal. I suspect that you need to get international cooperation…

Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts? And if everyone quits their job and lives in a nice apartment, where is this money going to come from? The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work. Start working, you lose your transfer payments. A lot of people are stuck in thi…

> The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work

No. The reason you say that is because you're young and you believe what you've heard. You will soon cease to be the former and then presumably, likely, stop to do the latter. People want to work, they want to be useful. And yes, if I support you but threaten to stop supporting you as soon as you get to work for money—suddenly working for money looks less attractive. Sure, natural. There's nothing wrong with that. But if I support you no matter whether you add money to that yourself, then that is not detrimental to your willingness to work, it just gives you that much more leeway to choose a suitable occupation.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#135

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hansworst wrote: post #122
_lyxd wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > People in a functioning society still have to work .. to pay taxes for social services. > I'd accept higher taxes ... how do you pay for these taxes if you have no job/income?

This assumes people just stop doing anything of value if there no longer is a proverbial stick in the form of financial ruin if they stop working. Nobody is saying that the carrot (personal financial gain) needs to be removed from the equation. Just that everyone is guaranteed some basic level of financial support. Society already produces enough wealth to cover the expense of UBI. Remember it would replace any other…

> it would replace any other welfare systems in place today

I’ve never seen this math worked out.

Also, some benefits are inherently lumpy. A special-needs or chronically-ill person needs (and receives) resources that wouldn’t be covered by a broad-spectrum UBI.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#136

Post by heylook »

steelframe wrote: post #128

If you were to hand out $1k a month to everyone in my area an immediate result would likely be that rents would increase by somewhere close to $1k a month. Everyone needs somewhere to live. Everyone wants to live closer to where they work and where there friends and family are. Housing is in limited supply. If everyone had more purchasing power, then everyone's going to collectively bid up what they're willing to pay…

At the margins, more people would have more ability to try to work around the market power of landlords. More time for political advocacy to rollback NIMBYism, or loosen zoning, or to build their own home, or to make an additional purchase that makes a marginally cheaper rental more acceptable.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#137

Post by aspenmayer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #109
falcolas wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much value can a disabled veteran provide to the free market? If that value is zero, should they just lay down and die? What if they're not a veteran, but just an unfortunate soul with a disability that provides "zero" value?

> How much value can a disabled veteran provide to the free market? If that value is zero, should they just lay down and die? If you do this you stop getting new veterans. Functionally speaking this is why every society with armies has veteran benefits.

I agree, and I think there are more nuanced and meaningful historical and especially modern reasons we encourage veterans to turn swords to ploughshares.

It’s reasonable to assume that the powers that be may find themselves in situations politically precarious if veterans aren’t able to provide for themselves and those they ostensibly fought for. Veterans know where real and metaphorical bodies are buried, they also know that at a nation scale, the internal problems that face first world nations are usually not logistical, but political. If not for fear of disrupting business interests, UBI in the form of food stamps, housing, and Medicare for all is possible. The veterans know this, because they are fed and housed and medically treated at scale during and after service. However, if everyone receives these same benefits also without service obligations, the ability to offer incentives to service is limited.

UBI is a thorny issue due to the complexities of implementing it piecemeal alongside the already-existing status quo. In some ways, a greenfield solution would be easier, but they call those revolutionary changes revolutions rather than evolutions for good reasons.

Some stray links for food for thought:

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

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

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

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#138

Post by s1artibartfast »

robotnikman wrote: post #31
ilaksh wrote: post #22

$1000 is not enough to quit their jobs or get a nice apartment. They could move slightly closer to work if they have to commute. It's not enough for a real tuition or to support them to study instead of work. I don't think we've ever had a universal basic income test. We have always missed the universal and basic part. It's below basic and not at all universal. I suspect that you need to get international cooperation…

I've always wondered why we don't just nationalize our resources and use that income to provide a kind of UBI to residents, similar to what Saudi Arabia or even Alaska does (for residents who plan to stay long term)

Because the resource income is trivial in comparison with national spending. Most of the resources you might be thinking of are already nationalized and rented to industry through a competitive bidding process.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#139

Post by JumpCrisscross »

aspenmayer wrote: post #137
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much value can a disabled veteran provide to the free market? If that value is zero, should they just lay down and die? If you do this you stop getting new veterans. Functionally speaking this is why every society with armies has veteran benefits.

I agree, and I think there are more nuanced and meaningful historical and especially modern reasons we encourage veterans to turn swords to ploughshares. It’s reasonable to assume that the powers that be may find themselves in situations politically precarious if veterans aren’t able to provide for themselves and those they ostensibly fought for. Veterans know where real and metaphorical bodies are buried, they also…

> there are more nuanced and meaningful historical and especially modern reasons we encourage veterans to turn swords to ploughshares

Oh, I always thought it was a reference to the Roman practice of settling veterans on farmsteads [1].

> if everyone receives these same benefits also without service obligations, the ability to offer incentives to service is limited

I'm not sure we could offer VA benefits to every adult without massively raising taxes. (Also, we treat our veterans quite poorly.)

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41342861

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#140

Post by kkfx »

Most people fails to understand a thing talking about basic income: it's not for those who get the money but for those who get them from those who get in the first place.

Yes, poor tend to be unable to retain money, they spend. Spending means someone else get money from them. So those with a basic income can spend more, making local economy a bit better and still making their life a bit better.

Remember a neglect thing: money are unit of measure of various substrate, not a value per se. Exchanging money means moving something else.

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