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A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

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Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#151

Post by spurgu »

sokoloff wrote: post #111
thiagoperes wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, no job should be considered dirty. Second, if you go to places like Netherlands, Norway and Japan you'll see that it's not about money. Higher education prepares workers to do more complex, more efficient and more productive jobs. Also, the society is more conscious about not having someone to do stupid things for them like collecting their trays after they eat at the McDonadls, this is YOUR responsibil…

You're suggesting that people that would be considered "dumb" today will suddenly start inventing automation of street cleaning, trash collection, and the like if we implement a basic income and better education? That strikes me as an extraordinary claim.

Yeah, it's more like the people owning the waste companies that would try to drive up automation because of the high costs associated with manual labor.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#152

Post by newjersey »

gjm11 wrote: post #99

This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc. And then, towards the end where it starts looking at numbers, it starts saying things like > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 tril…

I'm one of the people who supports excluding people under the age of eighteen from basic income.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#153

Post by rubinelli »

empressplay wrote: post #115
chongli wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income would not significantly increase the demand for food or accommodation. How does "simple supply and demand" work in this case?

People will be able to pay more for it. Remember, part of demand is the amount people are willing and able to pay.

One thing to consider is that basic income increases mobility. Without the pressure to stay in large centers, where most jobs are concentrated, people can migrate to lower-cost areas.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#155

Post by takno »

_Understated_ wrote: post #129
pjc50 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really for you - it is child benefit, after all. Think of it as basic income for kids, to keep them clothed and out of the factories. I'm in favour of bringing back the Education Maintenance Allowance, and making it very slightly performance-related.

Haha, of course :) However, I am not in favour of Government handouts. How much money did it cost to give me £80 back? £100? £150? Would it not be better to reduce my tax so I pay £80 less each month?

It costs maybe 81 pounds a month to give you your 80 pounds. If it was means tested it would cost massively more per person you gave it to. In addition plenty of needy people would go without because they didn't know about it, or couldn't fill out the forms, or got arbitrarily sanctioned because their meeting with the job centre was on a day when the "advisor" hadn't met his sanctioning target

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#156

Post by known »

1. USA could have PREVENTED https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamophobia had it initiated UBI in 1971 for rest of the world when it pegged dollar to OPEC Oil http://www.zerohedge.com/print/502779

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world provides impetus to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority will OPPOSE UBI because they fear you'll NOT be subservient to them

4. UBI is prudent distribution of cash, not wealth

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#157

Post by yummyfajitas »

rmc wrote: post #33
amelius wrote: post #5

I'm still wondering about one thing: if everybody has a basic income, then who will be doing the dirty jobs like collecting our waste? Will the price for waste collecting go up? And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "non-intellectual" (need a better word here) people will make all the money doing the…

Higher wages for dirty jobs would certainly spur innovation in labour saving devices to reduce the amount of manual labour. "Dirty" jobs being paid more certainly does sound a little more ethical than today, where those with little options have to work those dirty jobs to keep their house and to eat, and they are paid low.

How would it spur innovation? After enacting a BI, we've just reduced the labor supply and funneled resources toward consumption (since rich people invest, poor people consume, and we've shifted resources from rich to poor).

Labor supply = Labor servicing consumption + labor servicing investment

Rearranging this implies:

Labor providing investment = labor supplied - labor providing consumption

Simple arithmetic shows we now have less resources devoted to investment. So how will this innovation actually occur? I realize demand for it might go up, but if supply doesn't increase correspondingly, so what?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#158

Post by a3n »

amelius wrote: post #5

I'm still wondering about one thing: if everybody has a basic income, then who will be doing the dirty jobs like collecting our waste? Will the price for waste collecting go up? And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "non-intellectual" (need a better word here) people will make all the money doing the…

10k/year, or whatever it might be, isn't that much. Most people would want more, and you'll need to work for more.

As to "who would do the dirty work." You probably didn't mean it this way, but the question implies that we have to keep people down in order to do the work that "we" need them to do.

When something is in short supply, you compete for it. UBI would bring competition to employers, especially at the lower incomes. Part of that competition would be with "not working," but it would also be with other employers, as it would then be easier for people to look for or prepare for other jobs, and it would make it easier for people on the bottom rungs to expect better treatment.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#159

Post by pjc50 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #146
gjm11 wrote: post #99

This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc. And then, towards the end where it starts looking at numbers, it starts saying things like > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 tril…

It's not just wealthier people who will be worse off - it's everyone. Basic income is known to create a large disincentive for work. In previous experiments (Mincome) labor supply dropped by about 10% - double what happened during the great recession. This means that fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc. No matter how much money you give to peop…

Except it's not simple arithmetic, because the normal economy doesn't count - cannot assign - a value to work done for yourself or your family.

Someone going out to work and paying a large fraction of their income for child care is counted, whereas someone staying home and looking after their children is not. Only the first has value in an economic sense. Is it the only work that has value in a moral sense?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#160

Post by oselhn »

microtonal wrote: post #35
arximboldi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if that would actually be the case, but if it were, the question would be: is it actually a bad thing? I don't see any moral justification for a software engineer earning more than someone collecting waste [1]. In fact, it is normal that as our society gets more educated and the supply of unskilled workers goes down, a lot of hard manual labor will become expensive. This is already the case with mining,…

I don't see any moral justification for a software engineer earning more than someone collecting waste [1]. In general I agree. However, besides education costs (I have quite many friends who have a sizeable loan), software engineers also enter the workforce quite a bit later. E.g., taking Netherlands as an example: - Waste collector: age 12-16 VMBO - Software engineer: age 12-18 VWO, age 18-23 BA+MA university Also,…

I think that most of those students already work during their studies and income difference is so big that they will definitely earn more money in total before 30. I would be more worried about doctors which start to work independently a lot later and do not earn much in the beginning of their carrier (at least in my country).
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