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Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

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Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#211

Post by vinceguidry »

gnaritas wrote: post #135
vinceguidry wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a hot topic on HN and in a few policy circles. In the grand scheme of things, it's a really small issue, far behind, say, gun control or national security.

The topic of this thread is that a "country" is experimenting with it, that's more than a little interest. It's a small issue in America, for now, for sure; that will change as unemployment creeps up with every new technology hitting the market, cars will start it.

There are 196 countries in the world, give or take a few. The US is at the very tip of economic advancement of all 196. That we would care so much about one's experiments is really quite silly. To make a comparison, Obama cares a little bit about what strategy Apple is taking, but he's got much bigger things on his plate.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#212

Post by rorykoehler »

stevesearer wrote: post #92
dawnbreez wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Except that there are strong social incentives for anyone who is capable of getting a paying job and going off welfare to do so Debatable. In the US, many welfare programs are designed to cut off anyone who actually gets a job...even if that job pays less than what you'd get from welfare. This problem gets even bigger as you factor in the fact that multiple welfare programs exist, making it nigh-impossible to preven…

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?

Then they are not mentally healthy and should be treated as such.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#213

Post by rorykoehler »

gnaritas wrote: post #32
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…

> he 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 could rise out of nowhere and carry us all into a new age. That is not at all what basic income is about. The point of basic income is not as a means to enable anything; it's a natural byproduct of and sol…

You're both right. I don't see how your point is exclusive of the comment you referenced.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#214

Post by chipsy »

Alupis wrote: post #167
beat wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's different for me. I know a bunch of people who are deeply creative, artists and musicians and such, who spend enormous amounts of time volunteering their productivity - or what's left of it, after "earning a living". I'd love to see them with the opportunity to not have to worry about eating, so they could make things instead. The conflation of value and money is one of the worst things about our society. Money…

> I know a bunch of people who are deeply creative, artists and musicians and such, who spend enormous amounts of time volunteering their productivity - or what's left of it, after "earning a living". I'd love to see them with the opportunity to not have to worry about eating, so they could make things instead Well, I'd love more time for my hobbies too, however it's not realistic to think more time spent doing pleas…

Remember, the stuff we want to get rid of by automating is the boring stuff! And we discourage automating it now because our economic model is centered on full employment with abundant labor. What this model has produced is consumer demand that is perpetually shaped by price sensitivity, which encourages bullshit work, bullshit results, and bullshit pay.

We don't need more packaged food with the top ingredients being one or more of "HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, MILK PROTEIN, SOYBEAN OIL". We don't need fashion that falls apart within one season. We don't need pay-to-win video games, or advertorials, or Buzzfeed. Neither do we need gold Apple Watches, $9000 pens, or palatial mansions. Scarcity of our environmental resources is real, but scarcity in manufactured products? Hardly! We can and should shift towards a quality-centric model - practical quality, not slapping gold leaf on everything.

What we have inherited is a way of seeing the world that is not really using our full potential, but is simply insistent that it is the climb to the top that produces the rewards, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary. BI is not the solution to all of that, but it will shift the demand profile towards quality in all sectors and allow consumers the option of choosing quality. If some of those consumers are "wasting their time" noodling on a guitar, so what? They aren't working at McDonald's.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#215

Post by kwhitefoot »

beat wrote: post #153
Alupis wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's different for me. I know a bunch of people who are deeply creative, artists and musicians and such, who spend enormous amounts of time volunteering their productivity - or what's left of it, after "earning a living". I'd love to see them with the opportunity to not have to worry about eating, so they could make things instead. The conflation of value and money is one of the worst things about our society. Money…

Why is this comment grey?

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#216

Post by jpindar »

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.

You must drink a lot of beer. The maximum unemployment in Massachusetts, for instance, is over $700 a week. Even in New Hampshire it's over $400.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#217

Post by kwhitefoot »

dwiel wrote: post #124
Xixi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept you are looking for is that of residency: because you are physically in a country doesn't mean you are a resident of that country. There are rules of residency even within the EU.

I'm not sure, but perhaps it is similar to local voting rights? Do tourists get the right to vote in local elections, or do they have to prove to have lived there for some length of time first?

Here in Norway you have to be a permanent resident to vote in local elections and a citizen to vote in national elections. I think it is broadly similar in the rest of northern Europe.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#218

Post by lftl »

SixSigma wrote: post #51
lftl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plenty of people already receive checks from the government every month that they live on. Like, a whole lot of people. There should already be a not-so-huge wave of accomplishment coming from all these people. Not to belittle them and their abilities, but there isn't. I'm not well versed in the structure of European welfare systems, but when you look at the US welfare system there are some absolutely perverse ince…

> 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.

There are two reason I'm more interested in just tweaking the current programs rather than UBI (or something similar) and neither of the reasons are that I think the current system is more efficient.

1) In the US at least UBI seems politically unfeasible for the near term at least. The ACA was a massive political battle, and while I don't think it'll be repealed, there's still a decent political groundswell aimed at doing so. This makes it hard to imagine anything like UBI getting done in the US. Graduated cliffs for existing programs seems like a minute tweak in contrast, and I really can't foresee what a legitimate argument against it would be on either side. I'm pretty sure most of the programs could even be changed by executive order to some degree.

2) I think there will always be a paternalistic side to welfare or UBI. With UBI some people will continue to avoid spending their money on decent housing, decent food, and health insurance (assuming there's no universal healthcare as well). And there will always be some pressure for programs to provide these things to people, who have decided they aren't a priority, at taxpayer expense. Hopefully, charities could step into these roles, but welfare gets messy in both directions with some people claiming there's a moral imperative for government to help people in certain situations, and some people angry about "their" money being spent by others on things they find morally objectionable. I don't think those arguments are ever going away.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#219

Post by greedo »

sanderjd wrote: post #158
Alupis wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You are linking human labor to production, which is not necessarily wrong, but not necessarily right either. Many of us who are cautiously supportive of BI think it sounds like an awful idea that is nonetheless one of the few that has a somewhat credible vision of a plausible future where production is almost completely independent of human labor.

That's the rub. I don't believe there's a "plausible future" where production is independent of human labor. Manual labor in assembly lines etc, sure. But humans are cheap. Cheap to build, cheap to feed, cheap to house. Compared with a robot, a human is extremely adaptable to situations and circumstances that far exceed robotic solutions. Now if you handwave and say "but AI" then you're not being realistic.

And never mind "work" that requires more creativity and intelligence. Programming, writing, art, sales, marketing, policing, military, the list goes on and on. There's a reason that humans are at the top of the food chain, and that's our brains and adaptability. The idea that these traits will have no or limited value doesn't track with history.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#220

Post by gwright »

> If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from

Is that really what basic income is all about?

I'm sure there are more ways to look at this but broadly speaking I see two types of arguments for basic income being made:

1) Unconditional provision for basic necessities (food, shelter, clothing, health care, education) in the absence of all other income.

2) Administrative simplification of core assistance programs such that a beneficiary could combine their basic income with the income derived from a basic job (for example, entry level full time position) and be able to provide for their own basic necessities.

In scenario 1) there is assumption that individuals have no responsibility to provide for themselves.

In scenario 2) there is an assumption that individuals do have a responsibility to provide for themselves but that basic assistance will provide a basic level of security and assistance to make things easier.

I find the idea of basic income very interesting from an efficiency point of view (best way to deliver assistance) but I'm wary about the disencentives towards personal responsibility that might arise.

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