Basic Income Research Proposal • Hacker News Board

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#261

Post by Matumio » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 7:49 PM UTC

nnfy wrote: post #226

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have seen firsthand how entitlements ruin people My grandfather received a very lucrative PhD offer at a very prestigious American university, but he didn't have the money to make the trip himself, and airplanes were much too expensive for him. So he found a ship in the harbor that was taking a passage to the US and volunteered to be a deck-hand. Now his grandkids, those in India and those abroad, drive cars, g…

>because it allows us to legitimatze our individual struggles Please. Have you ever lived in poverty? The people who climb out will tell you what other poor people are like. And I'm not just talking about poverty. Look at what former Soviets have done in NYC, especially Brighton beach. They live out of the projects but stereotypically drive BMWs. The average poor person is not your aspiring PHD father, its someone wh…

> Poor people aren't just poor because they have no money, and by and large throwing more money at them won't solve anything.

No, poverty is all about the lack of money. You cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have no boots. A relevant article about "the psychology of scarcity": https://thecorrespondent.com/4664/why-do-the-poor-make-such-...

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#262

Post by nnfy » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 7:51 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #254

nnfy wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>because it allows us to legitimatze our individual struggles Please. Have you ever lived in poverty? The people who climb out will tell you what other poor people are like. And I'm not just talking about poverty. Look at what former Soviets have done in NYC, especially Brighton beach. They live out of the projects but stereotypically drive BMWs. The average poor person is not your aspiring PHD father, its someone wh…

> Please. Have you ever lived in poverty? Yes, yes I have. I grew up in it. And most of my friends are struggling to make ends meet, working at restaurants, nail salons, and cafes. There's no glory in realizing that you can't make rent this month and you need to beg your landlord, or that after rent you have $50 leftover for a month's expenses. I've been there. > They live out of the projects but stereotypically driv…

I am not arguing that supply if finite, I am arguing that extraction of supply is finite and if you deincentivise millions of people from working while throwing money at them, you further reduce supply and exacerbate long term economic problems.

>So you're using a stereotype to make your argument? Come on

The argument could have been made without the stereotype, I agree. But it is an open secret in NYC that people, especially in Soviet neighborhoods, abuse the welfare system. I'll drop it though because I only have anecdata.

If you lived in poverty, surely you at least caught glimpses of all the people who were not quite as noble as your friends? I do not deny that there are truly hard working poor who need a little extra to climb out. I merely argue that there is a much higher proportion of poor who dont care to learn or work than you are acknowledging, and those are the people who will ruin any UBI experiment.

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#263

Post by chillwaves » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 7:51 PM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #74

The design is flawed from the start. If you have any sort of income guarantee in a system where (i) there are others in the same currency area who don't receive the income (ii) the amount is insufficient to live on (iii) there are insufficient jobs overall in the economy for all that want them (iv) it isn't permanent then all you actually have is a tax credit system with a different withdrawal mechanism. https://medi…

> Overall basic income is theft from workers

Disagree, basic income is equitable distribution of a collective legacy of increasingly advanced tools and a necessary recognition of limited natural resources and duty to share a small portion to every human being on the basis of birth into our society, aka social contract.

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#264

Post by Mz » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 7:53 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #223

Mz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I would challenge you to come up with an alternative Actually, I have. I was homeless for nearly six years until earlier this month. I am medically handicapped and can't work a regular job. I was a homemaker for a lot of years, I had a corporate job for a few years and I currently do freelance writing, resume editing and I blog, which gets me a little money via ads, tips and Patreon. UBI will solve nothing as lon…

You are assuming an awful lot of things about me. Why would I challenge you if I wasn't intersted in what you had to say? You completely ignore that there is no need to structure work if I don't have to hire people to produce or develop my products. This is the whole point and why I believe you are fundamentally looking at this wrong. The industrial revolution replaced physical work, this revolution is replacing inte…

And, yet, your out of hand dismissal fits very well with my assumption that you aren't actually interested in hearing a solution other than UBI.

I am not betting on a political, ideological or moral change. Whether we establish a UBI or go with something akin to my above proposals, these are equally political solutions. Neither will happen without a great many people working to make it happen.

The only question is what kind of future do we want? I think UBI makes no sense and will not work. Universal basic health care would be vastly easier to implement, if only because it has already be done in multiple other countries, so we have models to borrow from. Yet, people think that is a bridge too far and will not happen.

So, to me, the good news is that UBI is unlikely to happen and Gig Work is already on the rise, such as Uber, writing services and delivery services. The challenge here is just getting the word out that such services need to be a win-win scenario for both company and workers.

I am already living this reality. Gig Work has been an ideal solution in the face of a medical situation that makes a normal job not work for me. So, I know firsthand that Gig Work can be a terrific option for the worker if it isn't designed to screw over the little guy.

That can totally coexist alongside factories with very few workers. The rise of the machines does not have to be a terrible thing for humanity. The Industrial Revolution raised standards of living and quality of life across the board. There is no reason The Second Industrial Revolution cannot do the same.

But we do need to set that as a goal and work towards it. My only real concern is that, currently, some very rich and powerful people do not see the 99 percent as actual human beings. They see them as sheeple. And the solutions that grow out of such contempt tend to be self fulfilling prophesies that force powerless people into the narrative imposed on them from high.

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#265

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 7:53 PM UTC

This is a test of charity, not UBI.

1. The money involved is voluntarily donated, not confiscated from taxpayers - an essential difference between tax-funded vs charity.

2. 3000 recipients is vanishingly small on a state or federal level. When everyone gets their monthly $UBI check, supply-and-demand dictates that "free money" will be duly devalued, with prices of low-end essential goods/services rising to match (say, basic rent rising to $1000/mo).

3. Many who currently produce wealth to make ends meet - paying income-scaled taxes included - may very well be enticed to "go Galt" by seeking a self-sufficient lifestyle where $UBI/mo covers all cash needs without one having to get a job per se. (I find this option quite attractive.)

4. Old aphorism: "tax what you want less of, subsidize what you want more of." UBI implements/enforces this by punishing the productive and rewarding the idle. Yes, some people will use the opportunity to do laudable activities - which won't necessarily contribute to the economy. Yes, some people will use this to bridge current welfare-to-work transition issues - which are better handled by narrowly fixing that bridging problem without having to involve the entire population. Yes, more people will wonder why they're pulling other people's economic weight, and consider the merits of humble low-income living.

5. I realize Y Combinator is in the business of giving money to people to encourage productivity. Methinks they're too used to working with the rare hyper-productive, and don't grok how many people are quite content with low-cost no-effort zero-productivity living.

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#266

Post by nnfy » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 7:54 PM UTC

Matumio wrote: post #261

nnfy wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>because it allows us to legitimatze our individual struggles Please. Have you ever lived in poverty? The people who climb out will tell you what other poor people are like. And I'm not just talking about poverty. Look at what former Soviets have done in NYC, especially Brighton beach. They live out of the projects but stereotypically drive BMWs. The average poor person is not your aspiring PHD father, its someone wh…

> Poor people aren't just poor because they have no money, and by and large throwing more money at them won't solve anything. No, poverty is all about the lack of money. You cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have no boots. A relevant article about "the psychology of scarcity": https://thecorrespondent.com/4664/why-do-the-poor-make-such-...

You cannot pull yourself up by anyones bootstraps if you dont care to, or are so far removed from functional society that you dont know how a job works, and there is no one in your family or circle of acquaintances to teach you to learn because your community is as unortunately poor and ignorant as you are.

UBI is not the answer to the modern ghetto. Regardless of race. We much first address problems with culture and education. Or at the very least do that in conjunction with UBI.

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#267

Post by chimeracoder » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 8:01 PM UTC

NickLamp wrote: post #242

chimeracoder wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think richer people would think that the government giving $1000 a month to everyone would see that as benefitting themselves, there's your opposition to increasing BI or having it at all. Huh? No, the point isn't what the richest people would think - they have an incentive to oppose either welfare or cash handouts. The point is that currently, welfare only targets the people with the lowest voting power, b…

I don't think I said richest... Also I don't think it's hard to see how this thought would come about (not saying I'm advocating it). But there are plenty of ideas that would help society in general (lower college tuition) that many Americans are against whether rationally or irrationally. If you fail to see how the American public would have a negative reaction to some kind of redistribution of wealth I think you sh…

> If you fail to see how the American public would have a negative reaction to some kind of redistribution of wealth I think you should think about the average American's reaction to the idea of a socialist politician.

That's not it - I'm not saying that the American public wouldn't have a negative reaction to "redistribution of wealth". I'm saying that the American public has a negative reaction to "redistribution of wealth" when they don't think it benefits them. In other words, they're generally fine with wealth being redistributed from other people to them, which is most evidenced by people of all income levels usually (though not always) being on board with federal money coming in to their district. This generally takes the form of federally-funded infrastructure projects or targeted subsidies.

I'm using that to explain why people in between welfare-level poverty and comfortable wealth would have a different reaction to a stipend that (they think) is coming out of other people's tax dollars than they would to current welfare programs (which [as they perceive] don't benefit them).

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#268

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 8:04 PM UTC

chillwaves wrote: post #263

neilwilson wrote: post #74

The design is flawed from the start. If you have any sort of income guarantee in a system where (i) there are others in the same currency area who don't receive the income (ii) the amount is insufficient to live on (iii) there are insufficient jobs overall in the economy for all that want them (iv) it isn't permanent then all you actually have is a tax credit system with a different withdrawal mechanism. https://medi…

> Overall basic income is theft from workers Disagree, basic income is equitable distribution of a collective legacy of increasingly advanced tools and a necessary recognition of limited natural resources and duty to share a small portion to every human being on the basis of birth into our society, aka social contract.

Your abstract 3rd-party justification from a distance fails to note the rest of that sentence:

"Overall basic income is theft from workers and will be seen as such by those workers."

When enough of those producing wealth decide that UBI = theft, they aren't going to just continue producing without pushing back. Personally, if UBI is implemented, I will "go Galt" and move to a self-sufficient homesteading-style life, leaving any cash-requiring activities (like paying taxes) to my $UBI/mo check. That I am a productive person does not mean my productivity will necessarily be taxable; I grew up in a live-off-the-land family, and would be happy to return to that lifestyle if you're going to just take a big chunk of my income just to give to others.

There are enough jobs (yes, there are). Wealth is not durable (you eat a hamburger, $1 of economic wealth turns to *). Encouraging idleness by funding it is an unsustainable economic strategy, because so many people find paid idleness a desirable lifestyle.

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#269

Post by cisanti » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 8:06 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #256

Retric wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People regularly vote to cut government entitlements. See healthcare funding in Canada which still does not cover prescription drugs or dental care. UBI is going to be treated just the same as a tax break for the poor and likely to stay at very minimal levels.

Look at social spending rates by government over time. It's typical that they rise, despite attempts to restrain them. Critics call attempts to slow the growth rate "cuts" and paint the reformers as heartless.

Because people lack gratitude for the life we have. (including me) No generation before has been so prosperous or lived so long, healthy lives. Now how do you solve that problem?

Re: Basic Income Research Proposal

#270

Post by gnaritas » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 8:06 PM UTC

nnfy wrote: post #262

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please. Have you ever lived in poverty? Yes, yes I have. I grew up in it. And most of my friends are struggling to make ends meet, working at restaurants, nail salons, and cafes. There's no glory in realizing that you can't make rent this month and you need to beg your landlord, or that after rent you have $50 leftover for a month's expenses. I've been there. > They live out of the projects but stereotypically driv…

I am not arguing that supply if finite, I am arguing that extraction of supply is finite and if you deincentivise millions of people from working while throwing money at them, you further reduce supply and exacerbate long term economic problems. >So you're using a stereotype to make your argument? Come on The argument could have been made without the stereotype, I agree. But it is an open secret in NYC that people, e…

You don't seem to grok the point of UBI because you seem to fetishize work. UBI is the solution to a world where work isn't an essential due to automation, there is more to being human than getting money for labor, we want people to be happy not working, that's the goal, so those people aren't ruining the experiment, they're proving it correct.