A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:43 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #253

squids wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the group without would be more likely to be hired for low wage jobs because that salary is much more important to them. That's not necessarily how it would work. In the UK we've had a top up with tax credits for low paid jobs. What we've seen is an explosion of low paid part time jobs as businesses know people will take them as their income will be topped up by the govt.

That's irritating to read because when basic income is being discussed it's always about people taking advantage of it for not working when in the real world it's more likely the bosses and the people in power who will take advantage of it (and they will, a relative of mine lost his job at 50 because a govt sponsored win-win program targeting the youth: hire a young gun and the govt will pay a part of his salary. Now…

well those who take advantage of it from the top down tend to be those who already are willing to work and employ others. As in, those who don't want work are not likely to see it.

So I would not worry about it when the bosses and people in power step in unless they are laying off those already employed to do so. That is the area where abuse would be bad and must be prevented

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

#272

Post by thomnottom » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:44 PM UTC

JonFish85 wrote: post #258

anticon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't mention the fact it's completely unworkable mathematically. In the UK I believe it'd cost £240 billion a year. Where the hell would anyone be able to find that money from? (Tackling tax avoidance from Starbucks isn't a credible answer). Just to put it in context, that's twice the entire NHS's budget, or 5 times our defence spending.

Basic math: £240 billion / 64.1 million people in the UK = £3,744/year (assuming no government overhead). Seems low. That works out to be £312/mo/person. That certainly wouldn't seem to replace many costs (especially pensions and the like). Let's say you wanted it to be £500/mo/person. That'd run you £384.6 billion/year. Add in, say, 5% overhead and you're at £403 billion/year. Where does that money come from? If you…

Your basic math is assuming the money is distributed to everyone. Wouldn't it make more sense to only give it to adults? That knocks out probably about 25% of the population so you're looking at 48 million. That gets us to £5000/year. Of course the article mentions differences between what single people get and what couples/families get which would also bring down the numbers.

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

#273

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:48 PM UTC

DougWebb wrote: post #268

JonFish85 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic math: £240 billion / 64.1 million people in the UK = £3,744/year (assuming no government overhead). Seems low. That works out to be £312/mo/person. That certainly wouldn't seem to replace many costs (especially pensions and the like). Let's say you wanted it to be £500/mo/person. That'd run you £384.6 billion/year. Add in, say, 5% overhead and you're at £403 billion/year. Where does that money come from? If you…

You also have to factor in the fact that for most government welfare-type agencies a large portion of their budgets are spent running the bureaucracy, rather than going out to the people. Universal Basic Income greatly reduces the overhead costs. So £1 of Basic Income doesn't replace £1 of a current welfare program; it replaces £2 or £3 of the current program. Put another way, if the current welfare spending is £120…

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by ocb » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:51 PM UTC

SimpleXYZ wrote: post #262

In theory, a basic income should shift wages from skill to demand. For example, sanitation workers and doctors would get a high wage whereas video game designer wages would drop. (You won't care about a video game when there is 3' of garbage on your lawn.)

I don't think demand is the word you're looking for... Maybe necessity or importance?

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

#275

Post by thomnottom » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:56 PM UTC

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…

> This is about stealing money from the successful, and giving it to everyone, regardless of merit. It's a fantastic way to reward failure and penalise success, and society will suffer because of it.

Then those people starting companies you mentioned are not interested in creating things; they are interested in making money.

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

#276

Post by stefn » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:58 PM UTC

What I find is often not considered when discussing this topic are fundamental economics. Giving everyone a basic income will almost certainly be consumed by an increase in the price level of that country. A somewhat similar example are countries with very high wages like Switzerland. Wages are high but not in real terms as their price level is high also.

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

#277

Post by PinguTS » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:58 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #157

PinguTS wrote: post #88

Basic income is a nice theory, but completely ignores the financing part. The money has to come from somewhere. I would be really fine with receiving a basic income. From the social side I would support it. People can do what they like, like artists, developers, and creative people. May be there will be the next business opportunity, startup from that work. Yes, may be other people are lazy, that is like today. There…

In The Netherlands we are already spending that amount, so it doesn't need to come from anywhere. We spend well over 1000/mo on services for unemployed and poor people. We send social workers, health care all sorts of things. The general theory is that if we would supply these people with basic income they will live healthier lifestyles and not need so much care. In the long run it's thought basic income might even s…

The problem is, all the calculation I have seen so far (by different members and friends of the Pirate Party Germany) included also the benefits for people with disabilities, and other illnesses. It included also the money currently used to support the public health care system and other social benefits.

If you remove all those also to finance basic income, then you are taking the money who really need it.

If you are saying - like some who support basic income - here is your basic income and now you need private health care and also all those other things of the safety net removed, than this is pure capitalism in the form of "take it or leave it".

I am more for the safety net. I am the one who also pays extra for public health care. I could easily switch to private health care and safe some big bucks monthly. No, because public health care is an important part for the society.

All the working financing models I have seen so far meant: less then 500 EUR as basic income, which does not work. Or they took the money from important parts of the social net.

May be there would one financing model: remove the costs for the military system. But that will never happen, I assume.

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

#278

Post by anon4 » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:04 PM UTC

mierek4ever wrote: post #143

mierek4ever wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only at 115 - 120 IQ points one starts to be interested in "looking for information on their own". Not to mention things like building stuff on their own. 115-120 IQ is top 10% population. Maybe 20%. You are definitely over estimating general population. It is easy to do so of meeting only the smartest 20% when at university, work, family. I dare you ask McDonald's cashier next time what they want to do in life, or a…

I love downvotes without explanation. You know I'm right, so you don't discuss. I certainly take a lot of satisfaction from this.

dont worry i upvoted u. i couldn't understand what u sayd, but it seemsed bad to just get so very downvoted fer what u believe in.

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

#279

Post by anon4 » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:05 PM UTC

anticon wrote: post #222

just_had_tea wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...in which we learn the real reason you're against UBI—dirty immigrants. I really fail to see how this can be anything other than an argument for more fair/equal wealth distribution in the world. If most countries had similar schemes, then why would the "good for nothing immigrants" go to supposedly scrounge in the US?

If we redistributed wealth around the world, everyone would be poor, unable to start companies, etc etc. Does that really solve anything useful? You do realise that if you redistributed wealth over the world, you would be drastically worse off don't you...

If everyone is equally worse off, won't it lead to lower prices?

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

#280

Post by vidarh » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:06 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #204

goldfeld wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real reason Communism couldn't succeed (not necessarily the reason it failed) is because none of the countries trying it were or are advanced capitalistic economies before the revolution. Imagine a transition into communism in a less-scarcity scenario, where robots generate so much material wealth as to provide it to everyone, and no one HAS to work, and technology married to political science in turn allows more…

> because none of the countries trying it were or are advanced capitalistic economies before the revolution revolution was the least common way to turn communist. Far more common was "forced by nearby communist country" Also for example Czechoslovakia was advanced capitalist country. It's often overlooked - it was very industrialized country, with long capitalistic traditions, and democracy before WW2. It also went t…

> Czechoslovakia was advanced capitalist country

Did it have sufficient over-production that redistribution would remove "common wants" for everyone?

As early as 1845, Marx set that out as a central criteria that would have to be met before a socialist revolution would have any hope of succeeding.

> We just don't like to share, as a species.

And in fact, this is a central aspect of Marx' argument for socialist revolutions: We don't like sharing, and so for the vast majority of workers, the only way of getting a reasonable share is to join up and force the upper classes to surrender their wealth.

Marxism is basically founded on two ideas: 1) Capitalism will eventually make production efficient enough to produce substantial surpluses. 2) Workers will only get "their" share by cooperating to fight the ruling classes, and if they don't they will eventually get marginalised as capitalist competition starts driving down employment and/or incomes.

Nothing assumes people wanting to share. On the contrary, the Marxist focus on revolution is basically based on the idea that there's no chance you'll get wealthy ruling classes to voluntarily give up their wealth.