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Guaranteed Minimum What?

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Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#221

Post by Sir_Substance »

cbanek wrote: post #4

> Humans are agressively being eliminated from as many business models as possible. Well that's true, where they don't add value. What's the difference between the case of getting movie tickets and your waiter at a fancy restaurant? One of them is practically a useless annoyance, and the other one is part of the experience. Someone in a movie box isn't going to tell you about the movie, or have a conversation about i…

>Honestly, do we really like interacting with the people with minimum wage jobs?

You're naive if you think this will only impact minimum wage jobs. Paying humans is usually about 30-50% of a companies operating expenses. With less humans you can shave even more percentages off by reducing office space or insurance premiums of applicable.

This might be starting with robot barista arms manipulating coffee machines, but it's really quickly going to make it to lab workers manipulating samples. Where it goes from there depends more on the software than the hardware, but it's really not a stretch to assume that shortly after we replace truckers, we're going to replace pilots and sea captains as well.

We're racing towards a decision. We can allow the automated cargo ships that will soon manage all global trade to be owned by a small cabal, or we can nationalize these systems and use the value they create to support our most disadvantaged populations.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#222

Post by ansible »

notahacker wrote: post #178
pg314 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things like basic food stuffs will get more expensive, because there will be more money chasing it. Rents will go up, since disproportionately more poor people rent. Why would demand go up? Do you think these people are currently not eating and living in the streets?

Do you think the fact people are renting property now is going to stop landlords putting the rent up when they know that their target market that's used to spending nearly all their income on rent now has a lot more to spend (and few more housing options than before)?

If poor people have income not tied to a specific location, I'm expecting that they're going to move to lower-cost locations, rather than stay in expensive urban areas. So I further would expect that this will overall depress rents in urban areas.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#223

Post by kefka »

jimbokun wrote: post #181
Erik816 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why trust one random person (who may not have even seen the movie you are interested in, share your preferences, or be particular insightful) when you can have the aggregate wisdom of everyone who has seen the movie and cared enough to rate it?

Why trust the waiter over Yelp?

Oh yes. BaaB - blackmail as a business.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#224

Post by ryandrake »

cbanek wrote: post #4

> Humans are agressively being eliminated from as many business models as possible. Well that's true, where they don't add value. What's the difference between the case of getting movie tickets and your waiter at a fancy restaurant? One of them is practically a useless annoyance, and the other one is part of the experience. Someone in a movie box isn't going to tell you about the movie, or have a conversation about i…

> On the other hand, the fancy waiter will make recommendations. Will tell you about other things, and is generally part of the ambiance and experience of eating out.

I don't see the distinction. With all due respect to waitstaff (it's a tough job), the function is just begging for automation. An order-and-payment-taking tablet embedded into the table would be so much more efficient:

1. No need to wait for staff to come by, and then do the whole "drinks then wait, then food then wait" dance. Instead, just present a full page description of the food plus a picture, and an "order" button that you tap. You can even order more later if you'd like, without having to summon a waiter. Done.

2. No need to wait for staff to notice you're done eating and need the check. The total is right on the tablet, and it has a card reader.

That would be great. Would probably cut the entire time suck that is restaurant dining by at least 1/2.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#225

Post by desdiv »

omginternets wrote: post #216
nateberkopec wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MV = PQ. Money * Velocity = Price level * Quantity of goods and services. Friedman assumes the velocity of money is constant (good assumption), so really the only why you can cause inflation is to increase the supply of money, M. UBI increases the velocity of money by moving money from low-consumption, high-investment rich people to high-consumption, low-investment poor-to-middle-class people. Increase money velocity…

What is meant by "velocity" in this context? I'm unfamiliar with the term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#226

Post by rpearl »

haltingthoughts wrote: post #119
bitJericho wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubi does fix that. If ubi isn't enough to cover those then it's not high enough.

It's basically not possible to do that without making those things cheaper somehow. Convert the entire US federal budget to UBI and it is around 10k per person. Healthcare alone per person is already 9k. Housing is maybe another 5k. And this is before those things get more expensive as people consume more of them.

Other countries spend way less than that on healthcare (spending more like $3k per person) because they use more efficient systems.

Private healthcare is extremely expensive.

So that "somehow" already has a known solution.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#227

Post by atemerev »

chc wrote: post #205
atemerev wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some numbers: Current US population: 324 million people, 250 million adults. Poverty line income: $22,000 for the family of four (it is hard to estimate individual poverty line income, but it's more than $22,000 / 4. Let's say $12,000, which is $1000 / month). Total cost of universal basic income of $1,000/month for the US: $3 trillion per year. Total US income tax revenue: $1.8 trillion for personal income tax, $0.4…

This appears to lead to the conclusion "UBI is impossible" only if we include the premises "It's impossible to reduce COL" and "It's impossible to increase tax revenues."

Increasing tax revenues to 100% (assuming everybody will continue working like that) won't be enough. USSR learned it the hard way.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#228

Post by dllthomas »

atemerev wrote: post #200
dllthomas wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making the case that it's currently impractical. That is very different from "as inevitable as [the] CAP theorem". For instance, if the cost of "basic life necessities" was somehow $5/yr, but incomes (and tax revenues) similar to today (... presumably people are spending an awful lot on luxury goods?), it could certainly be all three of those things. It may be the case that that is somehow impossible, but tha…

Yes, the luxuries like rent, education and healthcare. And yes, "somehow" is a word that appears very often in every discussion about UBI.

I don't believe you're engaging in good faith, so I'm done here.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#229

Post by ryanwaggoner »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #221
cbanek wrote: post #4

> Humans are agressively being eliminated from as many business models as possible. Well that's true, where they don't add value. What's the difference between the case of getting movie tickets and your waiter at a fancy restaurant? One of them is practically a useless annoyance, and the other one is part of the experience. Someone in a movie box isn't going to tell you about the movie, or have a conversation about i…

>Honestly, do we really like interacting with the people with minimum wage jobs? You're naive if you think this will only impact minimum wage jobs. Paying humans is usually about 30-50% of a companies operating expenses. With less humans you can shave even more percentages off by reducing office space or insurance premiums of applicable. This might be starting with robot barista arms manipulating coffee machines, but…

Flight crews and ship crews will be enhanced by automation, thus reducing those jobs, but they won't be replaced completely. The liability, safety, and economics situations are completely different from drivers. The cost of a crew to ferry an oil tanker around the world is a rounding error. The cost of two pilots on your flight is similar, and in both cases, you want someone there when things go wrong anyway.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#230

Post by dahdum »

ryandrake wrote: post #224
cbanek wrote: post #4

> Humans are agressively being eliminated from as many business models as possible. Well that's true, where they don't add value. What's the difference between the case of getting movie tickets and your waiter at a fancy restaurant? One of them is practically a useless annoyance, and the other one is part of the experience. Someone in a movie box isn't going to tell you about the movie, or have a conversation about i…

> On the other hand, the fancy waiter will make recommendations. Will tell you about other things, and is generally part of the ambiance and experience of eating out. I don't see the distinction. With all due respect to waitstaff (it's a tough job), the function is just begging for automation. An order-and-payment-taking tablet embedded into the table would be so much more efficient: 1. No need to wait for staff to c…

What you described seemed pretty common when I visited Japan. For those in the Bay Area a Japanese chain Yayoi opened in Cupertino and Palo Alto.

You order entirely on the iPad. You do have to pay at the desk on your way out, but they just type in your table number you pay with Square. No tipping allowed so it feels so smooth and simple.

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