Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Guaranteed Minimum What?

granolashotgun.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 446 posts

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#241

Post by fasquoika »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #63

I hate to say this, and this is in no way a troll, but I believe the solution for this will eventually be to kill the poor. Not directly, at least I don't think, but through lack of health care, lack of shelter, lack of education, poor diet, use in waging war, incarceration, and probably once they get desperate and try and get theirs, being labelled terrorists. People who have money, and therefore power, in the Unite…

> this is in no way a troll

Really? Because this is this the basic premise behind one of the greatest examples of satire in history...

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#242

Post by morgosmaci »

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…

And then with out any human interaction, the tablet asks politely for a 20% tip... I wonder if the tablet makes less than minimum wage too.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#243

Post by dragonwriter »

fasquoika wrote: post #235
FussyZeus wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't see a dime I wouldn't call it an UBI. "Unconditional" is supposed to mean that everyone gets the same amount of dime. I wouldn't see a dime because I make far, far more than the people who need it. I don't need help.

Then you're not talking about a UBI, you're talking about a negative income tax[0], which IMO is a lot saner than a UBI. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

A UBI alongside a progressive income tax is identical to a negative income tax, assuming that the negative income tax is truly progressive (that is, the marginal tax rate is monotonically increasing over the entire income range; I only add this caveat because I've seen NIT proposals where the marginal rate was higher in the range where the total rate was negative, then dropped down, and was progressive beyond that point.)

That is, with any such NIT, you can add a fixed amount to the tax laibility so that the amount is never negative, and add a UBI of equal amount, and get exactly the same net results, and with a UBI you can subtract the UBI amount from everyone's tax liability, delete the separate UBI, and have an NIT with the exact same net financial effect. They are basically interchangeable.

Administratively, they are different, in that the UBI payments are effectively an advance against the potentially negative income tax that those above the point with 0% marginal tax have to pay some or all of back at tax time. But that's the only difference.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#244

Post by samlevine »

haltingthoughts wrote: post #57
bryanlarsen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect inflation? All sane UBI proposals don't create money, they just move money from rich people to poor people. If you're a Friedman disciple, then "inflation is a monetary phenomenon" and we can stop there. If we're moving money from rich people to poor people, perhaps we'll see the prices of stuff rich people buy go down and the prices of stuff poor people buy go up. The vast majority of stuff poor…

Housing, Education, Healthcare are supply limited and pretty important to the poor and UBI doesn't fix that.

> Housing, ... supply limited

The US is incredibly sparsely populated, there would be billions of residents if we were as dense as Western Europe.

We do have limited supply of housing in artificially low dense cities that have good jobs, but that's politics and not economics.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#245

Post by [deleted] »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #63

I hate to say this, and this is in no way a troll, but I believe the solution for this will eventually be to kill the poor. Not directly, at least I don't think, but through lack of health care, lack of shelter, lack of education, poor diet, use in waging war, incarceration, and probably once they get desperate and try and get theirs, being labelled terrorists. People who have money, and therefore power, in the Unite…

[deleted]

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#247

Post by gwright »

Taek wrote: post #202
justinator wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write as though you've never held a minimum wage job. Have some compassion for those people who are working hard for almost nothing. Sometimes, it isn't their first choice, or it's their only choice. I would suggest a better experience is had when you give respect to the (say) service industry worker you engage in a transaction with.

Maybe we should be working on better ways to get the poor educated and integrated with modern society as opposed to making them dependent on jobs which take all of their time, don't pay nearly enough, and block any and all opportunity for a way out because there's no free time or disposable income.

You seem to be assuming that low-wage workers are all poor and uneducated. That is misleading. From [1]:

  50% of minimum wage workers are under the age of 24
  25% of minimum wage workers are under the age of 19
Entry level jobs paying minimum wage teach important skills to teens and young adults:

  * being on time
  * attention to detail
  * how to work with others
  * how to follow instructions ...
There is certainly room for discussion about how to help heads-of-household who are struggling with a minimum wage job because they don't have any other skills, but it is a mistake to assume that is the situation for all minimum wage workers.

High minimum wages price many entry level workers right out of the market making it difficult for them to gain these entry level skills which are important for subsequent jobs.

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-mi...

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#248

Post by sqeaky »

DougBTX wrote: post #114
darpa_escapee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone in a movie box isn't going to tell you about the movie, or have a conversation about it with you. They are there to take the most basic info (movie, time) and money, and give you a ticket. It's also always done thru a thick bit of glass that makes communication sometimes difficult if not painful. This has not been my experience at all. People who work at theaters get discounted, if not free, tickets to movi…

> This has not been my experience at all. FWIW it matches my experience. I can't think of a time I've gone to the cinema not already knowing which film I'm there to see, so it wouldn't cross my mind to ask for recommendations.

Dealing with unhappy minimum wage workers seems to be the default to me as well. My theater experience sounds like yours. As for minimum wage cashiers, I would rather use the self checkout.

Most cashiers can't be bothered to puts things like eggs anywhere except directly under gallons of juice. I am not trying to beat them up, most are clearly hard working and decent people. But they are people who are being replaced by more efficient, cheaper an more reliable machines. Except for the part where I have to bag my own eggs, but I won't crush them, because I paid for them.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#249

Post by cbanek »

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…

You're basically talking about the "fast casual" dining craze. Like a panera, where you can order and take payment online, or from a tablet there, and they drop the food off when it's ready. Drinks and everything else until you leave are self service.

Pei-wei is another example. These are all the rage because of the efficiency (less wait staff) but still good food and a sit down environment.

The distinction is in expectation. Certain places you expect a waiter, to be seated, brought everything ("fine dining"). The difference between casual dining is mostly the atmosphere (usually better furniture, tablecloth, cutlery, etc) and a waiter (who may or may not be formally dressed).

The fancy waiter is adding value in the second case, because you're looking for that fine dining atmosphere. If it wasn't, they'd probably be going toward iPads too. Instead they have dress codes.

The difference is the waiter doesn't add much to an everyday meal. The waiter could be terrible though. So in terms of a business cost, that's something casual places can skimp on. For a more "fine dining" feel, you need great waitstaff, so that's harder to automate.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#250

Post by dredmorbius »

gwright wrote: post #247
Taek wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should be working on better ways to get the poor educated and integrated with modern society as opposed to making them dependent on jobs which take all of their time, don't pay nearly enough, and block any and all opportunity for a way out because there's no free time or disposable income.

You seem to be assuming that low-wage workers are all poor and uneducated. That is misleading. From [1]: 50% of minimum wage workers are under the age of 24 25% of minimum wage workers are under the age of 19 Entry level jobs paying minimum wage teach important skills to teens and young adults: * being on time * attention to detail * how to work with others * how to follow instructions ... There is certainly room for…

There are two distinct problems at play:

1. Workers whose contributions are undervalued.

2. Workers who cannot be trained or educated to provide high-value labour.

These are both issues.

(There are other categories: parents, caregivers, the disabled, sick, or handicapped, etc. But the two classifications above represent a major part of systemic failure of labour markets.)

Post reply on HN