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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

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Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#151

Post by dataflow »

beejiu wrote: post #28
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…

People have different definitions of UBI, but in my mind 'basic' doesn't translate to quitting your job and not working. People in a functioning society still have to work.

> People have different definitions of UBI, but in my mind 'basic' doesn't translate to quitting your job and not working.

There's nuance worth teasing apart here.

The only definition I've ever heard is that UBI allows you to lose your job and still be able to pay for the basic necessities (food, water, shelter, transportation, etc.). Anything less misses the whole point.

However, just the basic necessities would make for a pretty dull and repetitive life, which most people hate. And so the idea (as I understood it) is that it's not supposed to go beyond that, so your incentive would still be to keep your job if you at all can, not quit it.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#152

Post by OvidNaso »

jrmg wrote: post #142
willcipriano wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could have worked under the table. Babysitting would make sense in particular if you are available during the day and have children of your own that you are already watching. A lot of poor people are really good at convincing themselves they have no choice but to do the thing they wanted to do anyway. It wasn't until I broke free of this attitude was I able to escape myself.

Could have worked under the table. This is a ridiculous take! You’re arguing (or appear to be) that all-or-nothing welfare systems are fine because you can always just commit welfare and tax fraud if you want more money?!

Illegaling working as a daycare no less!

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#153

Post by actionfromafar »

bko wrote: post #100
jimt1234 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in my college speech class, a woman gave a presentation basically supporting the "welfare today is a disincentive to work" myth, with emphasis on "today" (or current), while totally destroying the notion that welfare recipients don't "want" to work. She was a stay-at-home mom with 2 kids, her husband commit suicide after serving in Iraq and then being pushed out of the military (this was the 90s when the US mili…

Yes, exactly. If you pay someone not to work, I can't blame them for not working. Sure it could be short-sighted, but that's not a moral flaw. The system is designed to keep people in poverty and dependent on the system. It's really tragic

If your kids have to live on the street if you take that part-time job, it's not only short-sighted to stay on welfare, it's the rational thing to do even in the long term.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#154

Post by aspenmayer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #139
aspenmayer wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 adul…

Citizenship and a form of retirement through service is a time-honored military tradition, it’s true.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38586918

> I'm not sure we could offer VA benefits to every adult without massively raising taxes.

If we eliminated waste and slippage/loss and gained efficiencies of scale by eliminating private health insurance obligations except for high net worth, like is done in some countries like Australia, I think we could come out ahead actually, due to reducing the cost of employment borne by businesses, while maintaining or increasing health outcomes for those on public healthcare rolls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(Australia)

> (Also, we treat our veterans quite poorly.)

To our great collective shame. That being a veteran is essentially a greater risk factor for peacetime structural violence in the form of homelessness, food insecurity, and lack of health care is a travesty only eclipsed by the how commonplace these issues are among fellow countrymen who are merely civilians.

What is this grand democratic experiment even for, if we still suffer from the same failure modes as that which we originally fought to save ourselves from?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#155

Post by harimau777 »

jimt1234 wrote: post #79
bko wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Back in my college speech class, a woman gave a presentation basically supporting the "welfare today is a disincentive to work" myth, with emphasis on "today" (or current), while totally destroying the notion that welfare recipients don't "want" to work. She was a stay-at-home mom with 2 kids, her husband commit suicide after serving in Iraq and then being pushed out of the military (this was the 90s when the US mili…

I've heard negative income taxes suggested as an alternative to our current approach. I'm not an expert on them, but it might be worth looking into for people who are interested in ideas for improving our system:

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

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#156

Post by mandmandam »

renewiltord wrote: post #123
mandmandam wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in my mind 'basic' doesn't translate to quitting your job and not working In society A, machines and clean energy allow the population to work an average of 20 hours a week. Some, even many people choose not to work at all, but still get access to a basic apartment and have their basic food, social and education, etc, needs met. In society B, machines and dirty energy allow a tiny segment of the population to live…

[flagged]

Have you forgotten the context of the conversation? (Reminder: "in my mind 'basic' doesn't translate to quitting your job and not working")

If you think that full employment is the barrier we're facing to society A then you're living in a logical wasteland.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#157

Post by JumpCrisscross »

aspenmayer wrote: post #154
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 adul…

Citizenship and a form of retirement through service is a time-honored military tradition, it’s true. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38586918 > I'm not sure we could offer VA benefits to every adult without massively raising taxes. If we eliminated waste and slippage/loss and gained efficiencies of scale by eliminating private health insurance obligations except for high net worth, like is done in some countrie…

> What is this grand democratic experiment even for, if we still suffer from the same failure modes as that which we originally fought to save ourselves from?

We treat our veterans poorly, but let’s not lose perspective, that’s still far better than most countries today or in history.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#158

Post by skeledrew »

UBI might be an OK stopgap in the beginning when comparatively just a few are losing their jobs. Over time though, in the long run, the core of currency-based systems will need to be replaced as a greater percentage of labor is made valueless by AI, with the resulting increase in bodies not earning anything and decrease in bodies bearing the tax burden. I hardly see any discussion anywhere of what happens when 100% of useful labor is automated to the point that humans have 0 comparative advantage compared to AI+robots in anything of economic value.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#159

Post by TeMPOraL »

david38 wrote: post #99
jimt1234 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in my college speech class, a woman gave a presentation basically supporting the "welfare today is a disincentive to work" myth, with emphasis on "today" (or current), while totally destroying the notion that welfare recipients don't "want" to work. She was a stay-at-home mom with 2 kids, her husband commit suicide after serving in Iraq and then being pushed out of the military (this was the 90s when the US mili…

To me, this is the single biggest problem with welfare. The woman wants to work, yet cannot because she can’t guarantee how fast she will move past the “no welfare and very little money” transition until she gets promoted to full time work. Her only recourse is to stay on welfare. Now the real issue comes to her children. If she managed to really instill in them the need to never be on welfare themselves, great, they…

That's how you breed shadow employment. People on welfare who can work often will find jobs that pay some, or all of the salary, under the table. The attitude this instills in children is that of having to work hard, while scheming against the taxman, to improve your life. Some people then do that way past the point they need to, and end up at risk of being caught for tax evasion.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#160

Post by kamarg »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #117
nehal3m wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cards on the table: I think the vast majory of people would do less, and perhaps very little socially productive work without the current financial incentives. I don't disagree, but aren't you implicitly admitting here that the vast majority of people don't want to spend their lives doing work? We get a few laps around the sun, once, before we return to oblivion. It seems a tragedy to me to force almost everyone in…

I agree with everything you said except the shareholder value part. people dont want to spend their lives doing work, but they do want to spend their lives consuming. If you eliminate the shareholders and shares, it still take the same amount of work to produce what we consume, so this wont help reduce work. In the 1930s, Keynes imagined that humans would live lives of leisure as productivity doubled every 20 years.…

> it still take the same amount of work to produce what we consume

Does it? Seems like if we don't have excess value going to shareholders, less work could be done to provide the current level of value for things people are consuming.

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