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America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

economist.com

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Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#211

Post by thayne »

geoduck14 wrote: post #136
mlyle wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, there's welfare cliffs and other problems with benefits that make it difficult to climb out of benefit dependency. In turn, current programs incentivize people to not do things that increase their income. https://www.atlantafed.org/economic-mobility-and-resilience/... A UBI, instead, eliminates these problems and ensures there's always a reason to increase your income. This in turn removes deadweight costs…

>current programs incentivize people to not do things that increase their income. At what point do they have "enough" income? At what point can we stop chasing more money? The USA already has a really high average income. Why do we need more?

The USA also has really high living expenses.

Besides which, the median is a much better measure than average.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#212

Post by crooked-v »

eric_b wrote: post #196
hyperhopper wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with what workers will they do it? Fewer workers. That's the whole point. For years, companies have been investing billions into automation and efficiency improvements. Less and less humans are required to do the same work. Of course, we aren't at 0 yet, but it's trending lower and lower. It doesn't take doubling a human workforce to double output anymore.

This is also a pipe-dream. You can't automate plumbing, drywalling, framing and dozens of other construction jobs. They already can't find people to work those jobs - when you add UBI do you think there will be more of those workers? No. So who's going to build the houses? Who's going to make the supplies? Who's going to pick up trash? Moreover, who's going to be a nursing assistant, a home care aid, or even a teache…

The answer is "people who are paid enough to do so".

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#213

Post by dataflow »

eric_b wrote: post #182
anonporridge wrote: post #6

Anything other than direct cash transfers to individual humans is likely to have this effect. Institutions are simply always going to be able to navigate and take advantage of complex government programs better than real human beings. UBI or stfu. Time to try some trickle up economics. Also, for the love of god, let's stop prioritizing saving "jobs" that may or may not be necessary for civilization and start prioriti…

UBI is a pipe-dream. Look what happened when we tried it on a small scale with stimulus to "everyone". Rents went up 20-40% across the board, and demand exceeded supply in most industries. This will happen in any UBI scenario - the cost of goods will rise to meet whatever money people have. The reason is simple - we are not in a post-scarcity society. I don't know why people think we are. Desirable apartments, land,…

Have you looked at other (actual) UBI experiments people have carefully run and observed? Or are you just extrapolating from this one data point that hardly resembled UBI in the first place, never mind even remotely resembling a controlled experiment?

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#214

Post by mrkentutbabi »

anonporridge wrote: post #6

Anything other than direct cash transfers to individual humans is likely to have this effect. Institutions are simply always going to be able to navigate and take advantage of complex government programs better than real human beings. UBI or stfu. Time to try some trickle up economics. Also, for the love of god, let's stop prioritizing saving "jobs" that may or may not be necessary for civilization and start prioriti…

No UBI or stfu.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#215

Post by eric_b »

dataflow wrote: post #213
eric_b wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is a pipe-dream. Look what happened when we tried it on a small scale with stimulus to "everyone". Rents went up 20-40% across the board, and demand exceeded supply in most industries. This will happen in any UBI scenario - the cost of goods will rise to meet whatever money people have. The reason is simple - we are not in a post-scarcity society. I don't know why people think we are. Desirable apartments, land,…

Have you looked at other (actual) UBI experiments people have carefully run and observed? Or are you just extrapolating from this one data point that hardly resembled UBI in the first place, never mind even remotely resembling a controlled experiment?

There isn't a single UBI experiment that remotely approximates what people mean when they talk about UBI. They are all small samples and all for limited time periods. The COVID stimulus was the closest thing we've seen on the scale required to get meaningful results.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#216

Post by mrkentutbabi »

jlmorton wrote: post #89
genousti wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubi would go into homeowners. Hell at some Point they will raise rent by the ammount of the ubi because they know people can afford at least that

It's far too simplistic to say UBI would go to homeowners. In a supply-constrained environment, it's true that a higher capacity to pay would lead to higher prices, but that's not some general truth. If it were, you could say the same thing about wage increases. Any policy goal seeking higher incomes would be useless: it will all just go to homeowners. Why bother with public education? Sure, it will increase incomes,…

Public education doesn’t directly increase earning. Learning takes effort. Also you can learn useless stuff that has no demand.

UBI is a handout. It takes zero effort you might as well lie down and be a rock.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#217

Post by wyager »

lmm wrote: post #164
wyager wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free handouts don't "raise the floor" in a sustainable, long-term, or asymptotically effective way. Every dollar spent on UBI would yield better returns being invested in essentially any kind of R&D, unless your time preference is very high.

Citation needed. Who's to say that recipients wouldn't spend their income on personal R&D - finding out what fits them or developing useful skills - which could have a much higher return than the centrally-planned kind.

> Who's to say that recipients wouldn't spend their income on personal R&D - finding out what fits them or developing useful skills

Common sense. Half of everyone and 95% of beneficiaries of UBI will use additional marginal cash to do things like smoke weed and watch cartoons. Being a beneficiary of UBI is already extremely compelling evidence of inability to efficiently allocate capital (personal or monetary).

> which could have a much higher return than the centrally-planned kind.

I guarantee that forcing me to ""invest"" my labor by giving it away to random people will have vastly lower returns (personal and social) than letting me invest it myself. My suggestion is not to increase taxes and give the money to R&D departments - my suggestion is to not take more of my money at all. The fact that R&D is better than UBI only tells us that if we were to increase central planning at the margins, UBI is almost certainly not the utilitarian way to do it.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#218

Post by eric_b »

crooked-v wrote: post #212
eric_b wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also a pipe-dream. You can't automate plumbing, drywalling, framing and dozens of other construction jobs. They already can't find people to work those jobs - when you add UBI do you think there will be more of those workers? No. So who's going to build the houses? Who's going to make the supplies? Who's going to pick up trash? Moreover, who's going to be a nursing assistant, a home care aid, or even a teache…

The answer is "people who are paid enough to do so".

Your response is smug and glib. You can make 150k without too much trouble as a plumber. Or a mason. And still they can't find people. If you can't find people to work for those wages now, you think UBI will make it better? Please do explain that to me.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#219

Post by nsxwolf »

dylan604 wrote: post #195
nsxwolf wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a house just before the financial crisis and a decade later needed to move but I was underwater. I didn’t have enough money to sell it so I rented it out.

how did this not break your mortgage agreement? most private mortgages have a clause that states the mortgaged property will be your primary residence. specifically. it is to prevent private mortgages being obtained for rental properties.

Shrug. It never came up. I was all squared away with a good legal document for the lease, verified renters insurance, all that. Never even occurred to me the bank might take issue with it. Oh well, no harm done.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#220

Post by mrkentutbabi »

jollybean wrote: post #35
anonporridge wrote: post #6

Anything other than direct cash transfers to individual humans is likely to have this effect. Institutions are simply always going to be able to navigate and take advantage of complex government programs better than real human beings. UBI or stfu. Time to try some trickle up economics. Also, for the love of god, let's stop prioritizing saving "jobs" that may or may not be necessary for civilization and start prioriti…

"UBI or stfu." "for the love of god, let's stop prioritizing saving "jobs" th" Printing money does not create value and we will generally suffer reduced standard living, some worse than others at least over time. In the long run, the real economy creates vast consumer surpluses which are generally not even really accounted for. We are actually quite a bit richer than we were a generation ago. 'Direct Stimulus' might…

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