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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

#201

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.

People's willingness to pay is not strictly positively correlated to their ability to pay. In many cases, such as rubinelli's example of increased mobility, an increase in ability to pay is marked by a decrease in willingness.

Overall, I'd argue that by increasing a person's ability to pay for anything you increase their ability to walk away from all kinds of bad deals. One of the best examples of this is given by Terry Pratchett:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#202
In the early 1970s, animal behaviorist John Calhoun built a "mouse utopia" to see what would happen if he created the perfect world for mice, with unlimited food, starting with four males and four females, that could reach a population of 2500.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM

What happened next is absolutely astonishing. When the mice had nothing to do and nothing to work for, their society collapsed upon itself. Females stopped caring for their young. Betas began guarding the elite females, despite them not breeding with anyone. Fights broke out for no reason whatsoever. Mice stopped eating.

Their population peaked at 2200, and then died off extremely quickly.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/

It was a big, fat, giant mess. And it's exactly what will happen to us if we don't have something to work and live for. Hell, it's already happening.

I don't think humanity survives with basic income as planned. We fall apart when we have nothing to do. We're no better than mice - we are still just animals with a larger hierarchy.

I'd rather see unproductive humans digging and re-filling holes in the ground than getting paid to do nothing. Or something like the biking experiment in Black Mirror.

Yet we need to do something as automation grows. Society is in for some serious decisions, and no country currently has the leadership to be able to tackle them.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#203
Why is that ubi is considered the next big thing, while people on welfare are usually looked down upon? In the current (optimistic) horizon it might seem like a good idea, but a recession could easily spin this the wrong way imho. If you don't contribute by working and paying taxes on your income, there can be a problem when a stressed actor comes asking to justify your ubi. OTOH, if you do need to work either way, why not tweak the current distribution system and include ubi money in wages.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#204
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…

This is a fact that I first learned in high school 45 years ago.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#205
post #92

The Fed engineers a slow inflation every year via interest rate control and gives the benefit of the newly created money to banks, the loan borrowers, and asset holders as rates lower than keeping inflation at zero. Since the money supply increases anyway, might as well give the new money as basic income to ALL people. At least the money will be spent directly by the people for economic activities, instead of indirec…

Regarding inflation... if everyone instantly has $X now, doesn't $X become worthless?

For instance, why would landlords not raise rents knowing that everyone now has this cash?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#206
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>funneled resources toward consumption (since rich people invest, poor people consume, and we've shifted resources from rich to poor) //

That's a natty turn of phrase but I'm calling bullshit.

Rich people invest with the excess financial wealth they have after they've consumed hugely more than a poor person.

Give me more money and I can afford to eat better (reduced healthcare burden), can repair my house (reducing total resources needed over the lifetime of the building; and again there are health implications). Give that money to someone rich and yes, they will invest - sucking more value away from the populous without producing more value - but they'll also do things like buying a private jet which consumes/pollutes hugely and wastes resources.

Perhaps some of the wealthy won't be able to have private islands and maintain their more liquid assets, for shame.

Why not cooperatives and micro-investment? Why does a rich capitalist have to be the investor and suck all the value from the system?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#207
post #43

From the $1 trillon stated in the article, spread across 300 million people, each person would get around $3000 a year. That honestly doesn't seem like it would help a lot, considering it would replace current welfare systems. The Swiss proposal of around $2600 a month, implemented in the US, would cost nearly $10 trillion a year which doesn't really seem feasible. I don't think the problem with basic income is an id…

I absolutely agree but my biggest fear is that socialists don't give a shit and will push "progressive taxes". I live in Scotland and they love the fact that they can raise taxes here now... they openly talk about it and very few people I know bat an eyelid! But it's the curse of socialism imo: As long as you tax people earning more than me then I am fine with it. Sadly, something I have heard too often Edit: Spellin…

"they openly talk about it"

Neither the SNP (by far the most powerful political party in Scotland) or the Conservatives (who look likely to be the 2nd most powerful party) are advocating tax rises.

Of course, there are people advocating tax rises - Labour, Lib Dems and the Socialists - but they are, of course, quite free to do this and the public will no doubt be just as free to not to vote for them.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#208

In the early 1970s, animal behaviorist John Calhoun built a "mouse utopia" to see what would happen if he created the perfect world for mice, with unlimited food, starting with four males and four females, that could reach a population of 2500. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM What happened next is absolutely astonishing. When the mice had nothing to do and nothing to work for, their society collapsed upon…

I'm pretty sure that animal behaviour doesn't necessarily map perfectly onto human behaviour.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is 10% less work necessarily a bad thing? Couldn't this be supplemented with technology via automation?

No, Americans fetishize work.

If the work is so valuable and necessary, compensation should then reflect a price that incentivizes people who are no longer completely desperate for food, housing or healthcare because of a Basic Income.

I speculate that a BI would bring compensation closer to labor's real value, rather than the stagnant wages we see now because people have no other recourse to negotiate higher pay. The elimination an underclass that absolutely needs exploitive work to survive would drive pay higher as well.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#210
post #130

Interesting how this article spins Basic Income as something of particular interest to conservatives while liberals would object to it. I suppose that can help sell the concept to highly partisan anti-liberals, but I know plenty of liberals and progressives who strongly support Basic Income. The idea that the people employed in the bureaucracy managing the current mess of programs losing their job is a silly concern.…

10k? That's almost the average income (or more, depending on how you count taxes) of the Czech Republic. If I had to choose between living in a 2nd world country and working and living in a 1st world country and not working for the same money, guess which I'd choose?
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