Finland’s basic income plan could change everything • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#191

Post by notahacker » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 12:57 AM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #23

nugget wrote: post #2

I'm a fan of the theory of basic income but it seems incompatible with an open border/immigration policy. Given how many refugees are already migrating into Europe (many for economic reasons), how would a basic income change the incentives and migration patterns even further?

> I'm a fan of the theory of basic income but it seems incompatible with an open border/immigration policy. No it isn't. It is very simple to say "Green Card (no basic income) -> Citizenship (basic income) transition depends on N years of taxes paid on time with a dollar value greater than 25 hours/week at minimum wage (or some equivalent proxy value)."

It's very simple and almost certainly a practical necessary to do this, but changing the logic behind the programme to "nobody in this country should have to work" to "only foreign-born people in this country should have to work" rather undermines the idealism of the whole project...

Introducing a work requirement - even if only for some people - is of course rather more compatible with the traditional welfare state view that entitlement to state handouts should be linked to evidence of willingness to contribute to society through paid work. In which case, why not go the whole hog and not pay out to citizens that don't need the money enough to be prepared to look for work?

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#192

Post by cmurf » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 12:58 AM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #147

beat wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those people you mention actually productive now? Most of the people I know who would do nothing are already doing nothing.

> Are those people you mention actually productive now? Well, kind of, but only enough to pay rent and eat. But that's my point, individuals like this, who only work the bare minimum to just keep existing and have no drive or motivation to achieve more, are very likely to just not work anymore at all since their basic needs are now provided. At the moment, they at least work somewhat. This helps keep local businesses…

The free loader problem exists but it's also known that it's essentially an edge case. It's not going to get smaller by making people poor or envious of others so that they work harder. It's a fixed problem.

And this is hardly "a free living", £6000 pounds is $8550. The average monthly Social Security benefit per year is $16092.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#193

Post by r00fus » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 1:12 AM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #71

Ao7bei3s wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment benefits just aren't like basic income. At all. 1. They're barely enough to feed yourself and pay for rent, if even. Nothing more. 2. The authorities keep you busy filing paperwork and sending applications for awful jobs. Don't meet your quota, miss a deadline, don't make a meeting, or refuse any job (even if quite beneath your qualification), and your benefits are cut. 3. If you're unemployed, long-term…

It's worse in the US. It's essentially beer money.

Cite?

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#194

Post by noonespecial » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 1:24 AM UTC

beat wrote: post #98

stevesearer wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One question I have about BI is if it replaces other forms of social welfare (food stamps, unemployment, etc...), what happens when some percentage of people inevitably make decisions and still cannot afford the basics of what BI should cover? Will a new set of social welfare programs replace the ones that were previously removed?

If BI isn't enough to replace existing welfare systems, then it isn't enough. You can't half-ass something like this.

The system we've got now isn't even working quarter-ass. Finding a "replacement" is a pretty low bar.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#195

Post by 1024core » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 1:39 AM UTC

arebop wrote: post #150

1024core wrote: post #86

Why wouldn't inflation swell up to soak up the UBI? If I'm a landlord in a poor(er) area of town, charging $500/mo for an apartment, and UBI is $1000/mo, then why shouldn't I raise my rent to, say $1000/mo because my tenants now have extra money? (Ignore rent-control for now).

Inflation is generally believed to be caused by an imbalance between the quantity of money and the goods & services in the market. BI per se doesn't change the money supply; it can be done by redistribution of existing money rather than debasing the currency.

I would disagree. If, for example, I take $1B each from every billionaire in the SV (for a total of, say, $20B) and gave each resident of SV (say, 2M residents) an extra $10,000, won't the prices go up? People will go on a spending spree, buying up TVs and cars and games, driving up their prices? There is a reason why gas costs more in SF than in, say, San Mateo.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#196

Post by white-flame » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 1:49 AM UTC

dibujante wrote: post #30

vinceguidry wrote: post #12

I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…

The counter-argument is that those cheques stop if those people start working. In a worst-case scenario, you can end up with a "dead zone" where you make the same amount of money working 30 hours a week at a poorly-paying job as you get doing absolutely nothing. Why not do absolutely nothing, then? Advocates of UBI stress that the non-means-tested nature of these benefits prevents them from causing that trap. Even if…

Nobody would work those jobs, but on the other hand those jobs exist because companies need that work done. That's what closes the feedback loop and would raise wages to meed their need for basic actual human work. It's an unfamiliar system, but it seems crazy enough to have a chance.

At the very least, it's FAR simpler to run than welfare, because it wouldn't need to be qualified and policed. Those issues are involved in the creation of a crime (cheating welfare) that needn't exist at all under BI.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#197

Post by SixSigma » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 2:20 AM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #166

SixSigma wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All it would take is requiring graduated income checks so for every $1 you make more in wages you lose less than $1 of benefits. Or just universal benefits and a progressive income tax, then you don't have to have the bureaucratic machinery of the means tested welfare state.

That doesn't seem an alternative, so much as it seems one potential (particularly smooth) approach.

I meant instead of $1 in $1 off - too much work.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#198

Post by jaegerpicker » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 2:20 AM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #25

nilkn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should already be a not-so-huge wave of accomplishment coming from all these people. Could you clarify which people specifically you're talking about? I'm not trying to disagree with you. It's just that the main examples I'm thinking of are retired folks receiving social security and people with disabilities.

That's a lot of people, and they shouldn't be left out of the discussion. Retired people and the disabled accomplish a lot of things. It's just that these are personal accomplishments. Paying someone to not have to participate in the economic system, seems to me to force them to forever remain outside of it, unless they have a rare kind of motivation, that kind of motivation would mean they didn't need the basic inco…

I disagree with your second part. A good counter example is that if I had a basic income, I'd be much more likely to pursue a career in scientific research, particularly in the area of Marine Biology. I love software development but I also love biology. The big choice for me is that software pays very well and makes it much easier to support a family which is also important to me. Given an opportunity to have a baseline to supplement my income, I'd be vastly more likely to choice a career that allowed me to not only do right by my family but had a net positive impact on the world as a whole.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#199

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 3:11 AM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #104

api wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can live on basic income and/or welfare, but not all that well. You'll be poor. You'll be living in a bad neighborhood or a crummy tiny apartment and won't be able to buy very much. Most ambitious people -- the people who have personality characteristics that lead them to achieve interesting things -- want more than this. As a result, most are not willing to live exclusively on the dole. The thing a basic income…

> You'll be poor. Most people are poor. > Most ambitious people Most people are not ambitious. > Personally I think a minimal basic income could go a long way toward eliminating bullshit jobs Is that something we really want? I read an article a few months ago about a government program that literally created bullshit jobs for willing, unemployed people to go to so they could keep up their skills. People who went thr…

>Most people are poor.

By which definition of poverty?

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#200

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sat, Jan 16, 2016, 3:24 AM UTC

rbrogan wrote: post #36

Would anyone, personally, take something like this as an opportunity to do open source work and/or research projects? Or do you feel like you want/need money as a motivator to be your most productive and a way to keep score in the game?

I definitely would, and would particularly use it as a way to spend a lot more time preparing myself to enter a PhD program.