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A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

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Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#231

Post by icebraining »

fwn wrote: post #169
JulianMorrison wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. The majority isn't lazy, the majority is rebelling , in a passive-aggressive way. Faced with a job that they easily recognize as worthless economic make-work, they do as little of it as they must. Faced with having their mental energy drained down to nearly nothing, they prefer no-effort recreational activities like TV. Basic income will unleash a temporary plague of laziness, as people snatch back control of…

Isn't that the atlas shrugged plot, just mirrored?

I've only read summaries, but I don't see the similarities, except in a very general sense, maybe.

I'd say it's closer to the ideas defended by the Situationists.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#232

Post by chi-sq »

ajuc wrote: post #186
onion2k wrote: post #33

One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead. If a government were to do t…

> If a government were to do that for everyone Inflation would eat it up.

> Inflation would eat it up.

As discussed above, funding for UBI can be mostly reassigned from existing welfare & pension budgets.

Demand for basic food and shelter is more or less a constant (unless you can argue otherwise), regardless of people's income, so as I see, prices for non-luxurious items could stay about the same under UBI.

It's a simplistic overview and there are tons of important factors e.g. farming subsidies or migrations, but in general UBI makes a lot of sense.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#233

Post by ZenoArrow »

jlarocco wrote: post #6
ryan-allen wrote: post #2

I wonder how much you'd need to save and to own in order to conduct this experiment on yourself? I've wondered about what I would do day to day if I didn't 'have to work to live'. I honestly think I'd be doing very similar things. I'd still be programming, and I'd be wanting to make things that'd help people do their jobs better, but I wouldn't feel like I 'had to'. That alone would improve my sanity immensely (I thi…

The problem there is that you have a cushy programming job. The bigger question is what about the gas station clerks? Or cleaning people? Or wait staff? Or any of the people working the millions of other jobs that just totally suck. Having done it in the past, I'm 100% sure nobody wakes up totally stoked to go bus tables or wash dishes. So, maybe people who have awesome jobs will just keep doing what they're doing, b…

"So, maybe people who have awesome jobs will just keep doing what they're doing, but for people with shitty jobs, why not say, "F* it, I can get by with the guaranteed minimum, so why bother?""

That'd be a good thing. People leave the bad jobs behind, which would either free up room to automate them without social consequences, or the job would have to be made more attractive in some way (shared between multiple people for less stress, better pay, etc...).

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#234

Post by pknight »

anticon wrote: post #52
onion2k wrote: post #33

One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead. If a government were to do t…

People starting companies are driven, determined people who want to create things. The vast majority of people are not. You're vastly over-estimating the general population. The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream. (Step outside the startup bubble for a while). Most people are also selfish. The idea that they'll all start doing things to benefit o…

And even if your dim view of people is true - that all but a minority of people are so lazy they would all just sit on the couch and do nothing - it would not matter. When our tools are providing all of what the population needs, what is the realist, capitalist, economic argument for employing them?

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#235

Post by ZenoArrow »

fwn wrote: post #174
onion2k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means the shitty jobs will have to pay more in order to attract people to do them. People should be paid well for taking on a job no one else wants. That's how the free market is supposed to work.

So what makes you think that's not the case? We're not observing a shortage in unskilled work right now.

People aren't necessarily compensated extra for taking on a job that nobody wants.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#236

Post by rorykoehler »

ajuc wrote: post #229
rorykoehler wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For basic goods there would be more demand (people who can't afford even basics would enter the market making the total market larger) in turn making it more attractive to compete there. People always go where there is opportunity. We are also on a long term trend of prices coming down in any case.

So you say demand will increase and production will have to catch up. I think prices will go up, not down in such case.

How did you come to that conclusion? We can easily increase production to meet demand. In fact supply is a largely solved problem. The new problem is lack of demand.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#237

Post by toong »

ghgr wrote: post #40
lucaspiller wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am kind of in this situation so I'll chime in: I quit my full time job nearly two years ago and since then have been freelancing and contracting remotely. I'm now taking a 'sabbatical' for a couple of months over the summer to recharge and hopefully start my own business. I've had a lot of people asking me when I'm getting a job again, as I assume they aren't in a financial position to be able to do this so wonder…

> Although I have been lucky to have some jobs that reimburse me well, I also don't have a car, house, wife (that's happening next month!) or go out drinking. I find amusing that you include "wife" with all the other expenses. You'll become DINKYs ("Dual Income, No Kids Yet") and thus you will have even more financial independence :-). By the way, congratulations! > [..] but I've been following the bootstrapped commu…

If you are on your own, you are the only one deciding when and how to spend money. You could be perfectly happy living cheap.

I'm not sure the regular spouse would agree moving in into that 1-room studio/semi-frat-house and eating canned beans 5 times a week ?

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#238

Post by fwn »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #235
fwn wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what makes you think that's not the case? We're not observing a shortage in unskilled work right now.

People aren't necessarily compensated extra for taking on a job that nobody wants.

...because there are enough people wanting to do the job in the first place.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#240

Post by chi-sq »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #215

I'm a strong supporter of the concept and motivation behind universal basic income, but I admit I don't understand one part of the calculations - what's the solution for the problem of prices universally rising to the point of cancelling out the UBI? I mean, if everyone suddenly gets additional $500 a month to spend, how do you prevent the market from correcting for that?

IANAE and would like to hear an expert's answer as well. But as far as I can see, the demand for basic food and shelter is not elastic, people need roof and bread always. And the capital is mostly reallocated from existing subsidies, not created. With UBI, prices for non-essential goods and services would maybe increase a little, and there would be a revolution in employment market, but my guess is that potatoes and basic accomodation prices would stay low.
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