Request For Research: Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#271

Post by mattkrisiloff » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:30 PM UTC

Riseed wrote: post #216

davidw wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suggestion in the book is a negative income tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

One big difference between basic income and negative income tax is who receives them. Basic income is given to everyone, and negative income tax is only given to those below a threshold amount -- creating two classes of people: givers and receivers, us and them. The negative income tax experiment in New Jersey showed that the negative income tax created a disincentive to work, and increased family breakups. [0] Negat…

It's possible the negative income tax experiments results were more complicated than thought -- especially with how the results were portrayed:

http://www.widerquist.com/karl/Articles--scholarly/Failure2c...

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#272

Post by newjersey » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:30 PM UTC

I think that there ought to be a maximum wage that is linked to the minimum wage (we can switch over the baseline to the basic income if we ever get basic income implemented).

The idea is anyone earning over the maximum income[calculation] will pay almost all of the amount over the maximum wage as income tax.

Calculation: I propose that the maximum income be a hundred times the current federal minimum wage times two thousand. The assumption is that a full-time employee works two thousand hours a year. Under my proposal, we will raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour which will set the so-called maximum income at $3M a year.

Of course, we do not want to penalize people from making more money. Nobody shall go to prison for making more money. I just think that any income over the maximum income should be taxed at a higher rate which I propose should be 90% of the income over maximum income.

If/when we get a basic income system working, we can switch the so-called maximum income to a hundred times the basic income. I hope the mega rich will support this plan as unlike the estate tax, this is not a tax aimed at the eroding their assets. As long as they do not take distributions from their corporations/ trust funds/ "charitable" funds, their assets should remain safe.

I know the federalists will turn in their graves as I say this but we cannot afford to have state and local governments do as they wish. When Texas steals business from California or Kansas steals business from Missouri, the consequences are just the same as when China steals business from the US. We need to federally enforce standards that prevent some states and communities from being "business friendly" at the expense of the people.

Edit: will the downvoter please care to say a few words?

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#273

Post by mrschwabe » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:30 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #251

mrschwabe wrote: post #45

Interesting project, but personally I would be more interested to see the funding of a study on "basic financial freedom". The test is quite similar, but instead of giving them a basic income participants are still required create their own income - however, they no longer have to pay taxes on their income. They are encouraged to create businesses and those businesses are also free from tax, and those employed by sai…

So are they no longer allowed to use public roads? How about public utilities? Does the fire department show up at their "un taxed" businesses, how about the police? Can they hire students that received their education from public schools? The fact that there existed a group of people that posted that modern society would be even remotely possible without government is far more likely to be seen as ridiculous in 50 y…

Yes they would have access to all that stuff because their taxes would be paid for by YC as part of the program.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#274

Post by Zigurd » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:30 PM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #238

avip wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a more trivial alternative to "equally credible alternatives to university" - just ban education based discrimination. Same way US so nicely enforces regarding race or martial status. Make it illegal to ask. Simple change with 100% guaranteed positive outcome.

just ban education based discrimination I am not sure I understand this. If you are going to a doctor, you would want to make sure she is qualified, isn't it? And the only way (currently at least) to make sure is that degree that proves she knows what she is doing. Of course this doesn't apply to all professions.

Qualifying tests and apprenticeships can make that work for almost all cases. Some of that is already in place for professions that need practical experience.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#275

Post by phkahler » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:31 PM UTC

I have a more fundamental question that I intend to work on at some time down the road, and it is this:

How does the money flow, and at what point does it brake down?

You see, if we give every person basic income of $BASIC, that money must come from taxes (else we just have runaway inflation). So ultimately every dollar spent needs to be collected in taxes. That's not to say it gets taken away by the government at the first transaction. The velocity of money will play a large part in determining the tax rate required to collect all the money back to the government. But that velocity will be low if a large number of people choose to not work. It also depends on propensity to save and some other factors. I'd like to see even the most simple analysis of this to get a feel for the math and what some obvious constraints it places on the system.

Has anyone done this and published a blog?

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#276

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:31 PM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #238

avip wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a more trivial alternative to "equally credible alternatives to university" - just ban education based discrimination. Same way US so nicely enforces regarding race or martial status. Make it illegal to ask. Simple change with 100% guaranteed positive outcome.

just ban education based discrimination I am not sure I understand this. If you are going to a doctor, you would want to make sure she is qualified, isn't it? And the only way (currently at least) to make sure is that degree that proves she knows what she is doing. Of course this doesn't apply to all professions.

[deleted]

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#277

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:31 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #251

mrschwabe wrote: post #45

Interesting project, but personally I would be more interested to see the funding of a study on "basic financial freedom". The test is quite similar, but instead of giving them a basic income participants are still required create their own income - however, they no longer have to pay taxes on their income. They are encouraged to create businesses and those businesses are also free from tax, and those employed by sai…

So are they no longer allowed to use public roads? How about public utilities? Does the fire department show up at their "un taxed" businesses, how about the police? Can they hire students that received their education from public schools? The fact that there existed a group of people that posted that modern society would be even remotely possible without government is far more likely to be seen as ridiculous in 50 y…

[deleted]

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#278

Post by vesinisa » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:31 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #187

RankingMember wrote: post #118

I'm curious to see how Finland's basic income system turns out. I think doing so would drop the omnipresent fear of being destitute and homeless, which would do a lot to improve mental health.

Finland already has a quite thorough social welfare system - no-one is homeless unless they have a bag of other problems than a lack of income. Mental health - not so good. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide... You will notice Finland has way more suicides than US.

US is a huge territory, and differences in suicide rates vary quite much across both Europe and the US by region. Finland has only marginally higher suicide rate than US (14.8 vs 12.1) if you consider that Alaska and many states in the Western US have rates around and above 20.0 (per 100,000): http://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#279

Post by RangerScience » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:33 PM UTC

pcmaffey wrote: post #256

Ask HN: What can startups do to increase prosperity for everyone? We need a better system for measuring and distributing the value of our work. We lose so much collective value because of the system of inefficiencies built up around how we quantify that value. When 70% of working Americans don't give a shit about their job, we're talking about trillions of dollars worth of "productivity" wasted... Prosperity comes fr…

1) http://www.amazon.com/DAEMON-Daniel-Suarez/dp/0451228731 2) Industrial augmented reality is a real thing that is really happening 3) Data-driven economics

It's my dream that some day we can know enough about how energy and goods move throughout society that everybody is more-or-less able to do what they want with their lives, and we use information technology to simply arrange them in groups such that civilization results.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#280

Post by lisper » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 8:33 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #170

Things that would help everyone, regardless of income, without depending on a radical restructuring of entitlement spending, that seem like things startups could actually do: * Equally credible alternatives to university education for professions that don't involve students shouldering $100k-$200k in debt based on decisions they have to make when they're 18 years old. * Empirical, blinded, skills-assessment based tur…

> Products that offer serious competition for incumbents in the financial sector to bid down the 7-10% of the economy taken by financial services.

The limiting factor here is the regulatory regime, which makes it all but impossible to move money around without using a bank as an intermediary. That gives the banking cartel effective veto power on all new financial services.

The key reform here is to separate the movement of money from the provision of credit, and to have access to money transfer be classified as a basic human right along with food, water, and internet connectivity.

Good luck with that.

Otherwise it's a terrific list!