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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

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Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#201

Post by photonthug »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #157
aspenmayer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Another comment mentions land grants and swords to plows in antiquity. Lots of those vets weren’t super happy with the offering at the time since it moved them out to the frontiers where they’d feel less threatening to the republic, sure, but idk, a actual land grant seems better than token assistance of a loan for housing that remains pretty unaffordable.

Education assistance is more substantial maybe, but then again that’s something much of the civilized world enjoys without the threat of being blown up by ieds far from home in a pointless conflict.

Indeed though, let’s not lose perspective, let’s take a hard honest look at things and ask ourselves whether we’re doing better or worse.

The military is one of the best available options to lift people up out of poverty and give them a better chance at life, and it always has been. but it’s also a chance at no life at all, and so if people are forced into making this desperate bargain then it is disgraceful and reflects badly on what we’ve actually accomplished with all the time since antiquity.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#202

Post by Gimpei »

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…

One of the selling points of unconditional cash transfers is that they wouldn’t be a disincentive to work. That instead they would help quality of life. And indeed, in high poverty contexts, they don’t disincentivize work. But this result suggests that in the US at least, they do cause people to work less. This is only one study in one context, so I wouldn’t consider anything “proven.” But, it is a big study and a very bad sign.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#203

Post by homefree »

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…

Yeah - this suggests the simple explanation is true, if you reduce the incentive to work then people work less.

There is a lot of speculation that that's not the case, but it doesn't seem to really hold up.

This comes up a lot in lefty politics imo - similar to people arguing (erroneously) that increasing housing supply raises rents or reducing crime enforcement reduces crime. The simpler/dumber causality around incentives seems more true in all of these cases, the complicated second order theories fail to hold up.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#204

Post by altruios »

Detrytus wrote: post #182
legitster wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" - Karl Marx. It's not an inherent function of capitalism. If anything, Marx himself actually pitched communism as boosting overall productivity of society by putting bourgeois to work.

This stupid adage by Marx has to die. It never works. For one, some people have extraordinary abilities, and will be pissed off if, in exchange for their extraordinary contributions, they only got the income "according to their needs", as defined by government. This basically takes away all the motivation to excel at something. Also, the masses would be discontent because their perceived "needs" are much bigger that…

I think you might be mistaken about the ratio of the average person's needs/abilities... a probing question is: do we really need telemarketers to continue to exist (just so people have jobs... and that's better that people receive unwanted calls... because?)?

Greed is greed and shouldn't be rewarded.

I otherwise basically agree with you... just that most people are basically able and society doesn't need to do things arbitrarily if there is a better (more direct) way...

We don't need to be in a constant state of production/consumption - we can take a break and still feed people. We throw out food if we aren't selling it because we'd rather let people starve than get a free loaf of bread... which really just stems from a lack of imagination and empathy.

Let's imagine a better world. Imagine and make it so.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#205

Post by mandmandam »

renewiltord wrote: post #171
mandmandam wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my mind, society C is the basic standard. Anything less is living in a late-stage capitalistic dystopia that is inherently anti-human. All progress depends on the unreasonable man. And I am more unreasonable than everyone.

I'll take that as a 'yes' then.

It's not that utopian to want a society where people aren't made homeless if they don't work. Finland did it - it worked great. It wasn't even that hard.

Also in a society where just eight people own as much as 4 billion. Maybe making 'jokes' denying that we're in late stage capitalism is an odd choice? Like, yeah, we're headed for destruction.. It's funny the way Ralph Wiggum's "I'm in danger" line is funny.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#206

Post by IshKebab »

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).

It's not a surprise to most people, but UBI proponents often explain the unworkable economics by saying it would make people earn more... or something.

I don't think realists really needed any evidence that normal people would love to quit their job and play computer games all day, but I guess this study wasn't for them.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#207

Post by globular-toast »

CTDOCodebases wrote: post #178
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…

All the studies on UBI are flawed. The whole point of UBI is that everyone gets the money. When you give a select few extra money they can do things that they otherwise wouldn't. When you give everyone money the value of the money just decreases.

That's obvious. The point is inequality is reduced.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#208

Post by legitster »

Detrytus wrote: post #182
legitster wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" - Karl Marx. It's not an inherent function of capitalism. If anything, Marx himself actually pitched communism as boosting overall productivity of society by putting bourgeois to work.

This stupid adage by Marx has to die. It never works. For one, some people have extraordinary abilities, and will be pissed off if, in exchange for their extraordinary contributions, they only got the income "according to their needs", as defined by government. This basically takes away all the motivation to excel at something. Also, the masses would be discontent because their perceived "needs" are much bigger that…

I was not at all advocating for Marx or that quote.

I'm just pointing out that it's largely a universal truth that if we want a functioning society with food and roads and electricity and houses and internet, a lot of people are going to have to do something they would rather not do.

The "greedy capitalist" is more about how the work is coordinated. We have a market-based system where work assignments are more or less voluntary where he who signs the checks sets the work. But I am not volunteering myself to going back to a manorial or subsistence agriculture society.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#210

Post by the_other »

dylan604 wrote: post #63
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…

> Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? because that's the way things are in scifi like Star Trek. people want to make life imitate art.

You write like rhat’s a bad thing.
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