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A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

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Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#281
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll have you know that money itself tends to disincentivise work for a lot of people. In this economy, monied relationships are too often wage slavery. People think that they can pay me to work on something I don't love. You are sitting here talking about people mowing your effing lawn. Are you kidding me? If you aren't gonna do that yourself, why in the dear beloved earth should you expect some stranger to do it ex…

How do you know the guy who mows my lawn isn't passionate about it? He helps beautify people's property and takes lots of satisfaction in that. Why are passion projects only ones that have no economic value?

I said that the guy mowing the lawn is either doing it out of "good will" or "fear". The way I read the post I was responding to was: if UBI existed, less people would be forced into doing stuff they didn't want to do, so there would be less people to mow my lawn because a lot of people wouldn't mow my lawn if they weren't coerced into it therefore we shouldn't stop coercing people into mowing my lawn cause that would mean it would be more expensive and not as many people would be around to mow my lawn.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#282
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll have you know that money itself tends to disincentivise work for a lot of people. In this economy, monied relationships are too often wage slavery. People think that they can pay me to work on something I don't love. You are sitting here talking about people mowing your effing lawn. Are you kidding me? If you aren't gonna do that yourself, why in the dear beloved earth should you expect some stranger to do it ex…

How do you know the guy who mows my lawn isn't passionate about it? He helps beautify people's property and takes lots of satisfaction in that. Why are passion projects only ones that have no economic value?

[deleted]

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I envision it as enough for someone to get by. So not enough for luxury expenditures. Basically food and shelter. I'm also looking at this from the perspective of someone in the UK who doesn't have to think of things like health care and education which changes things quite a bit. I'd say around $800 p/m per person would be plenty if you look at food and rent for a room in a shared apartment. Tax revenue should also…

The savings from laying off a few bureaucrats and jobcentre employees aren't going to change the fact that the £250bn needed just to give a $800/£550 per month BI to working age adults in the UK is a lot more than the £3bn spent on unemployment benefit. (eliminating tax credits, disability benefits and housing benefits will net another £110bn, but also render a lot of poor people poorer or even homeless, which is the…

>> "eliminating tax credits, disability benefits and housing benefits will net another £110bn, but also render a lot of poor people poorer or even homeless, which is the opposite of what BI is generally proposed to do)"

I don't see how that's true. Isn't the UBI supposed to replace ALL of those programmes with a single number for everyone that is sufficient for everyone? If the UBI provides enough for food and shelter you shouldn't need housing benefits. Disability may be different I suppose but if you cannot meet your needs with UBI due to a disability I think that's something you could probably roll into the NHS where equipment you need but cannot afford is provided to you by them (I haven't really thought that through though it's a very good point you've brought up).

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the people who supports excluding people under the age of eighteen from basic income.

Most countries have dozens to hundreds of government programs (a dozen federal, a dozen per state, another dozen per city, …) to support parents of underage children. You'd get rid of a lot of administrative overhead by outphasing all of them in favour of including children into basic income (maybe at a fixed reduced rate if expenses are a concern).

No, I'd rather we raise the basic income for every adult enough to the point where the adult can support themselves and ONE (1) child at least for bare necessities like food and shelter.

For what it is worth, I don't think anyone sane would have kids to get money. In fact, you couldn't pay me to have children and raise them. I know what a shitty brat I've been and I'm sure if God or karma exists, I'll get an equally shitty child or worse I'll make a very shitty parent. (Parents: yes, people without kids also have nightmares about fucking up as parents)

Thankfully though many if not most people want children even though it makes no sense. This is good for me because these are the kids who will build and maintain roads, hospitals, and electric lines when our generation can no longer walk without a cane.

I don't think we need to encourage people to have many children. Those who want multiple children should find alternate ways to fund their lifestyle.

Edit: I assume above that basic healthcare for everyone exists with $0 out of pocket even if it is some couple's 99th child.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#285
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's not simple arithmetic, because the normal economy doesn't count - cannot assign - a value to work done for yourself or your family. Someone going out to work and paying a large fraction of their income for child care is counted, whereas someone staying home and looking after their children is not. Only the first has value in an economic sense. Is it the only work that has value in a moral sense?

It's not true to say a stay-at-home parent isn't rewarded in an economic sense. They're rewarded by not having to pay a large fraction of their household income for child care. It's a tenable line of argument to argue that the opportunity cost of child care - typically less than earnings foregone - isn't as high as the social benefit from taking care of one's own child, but I can't really think of a less efficient me…

I was arguing about the effect on GDP, where "not having to pay for child care" appears as a negative effect, a smaller GDP.

From a GDP-maximising point of view, it's better for everyone to contract out every aspect of their household than it is to do it themselves. An economy built on taking in each other's washing has a much higher GDP than one where each does their own. Stepping back from GDP makes that look nonsensical.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#286
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would it spur innovation? After enacting a BI, we've just reduced the labor supply and funneled resources toward consumption (since rich people invest, poor people consume, and we've shifted resources from rich to poor). Labor supply = Labor servicing consumption + labor servicing investment Rearranging this implies: Labor providing investment = labor supplied - labor providing consumption Simple arithmetic shows…

Well putting aside that you might be making a kind of post-hoc fallacy there with your equation; Is reducing labor supply really a bad thing? Most developed countries have unemployment permanently somewhere between 5-10% or even more during recession. Some, like Spain, have closer to 25%. Reducing labor supply may be the only answer. It's not that I don't agree with you in principle. But you can only gain productivit…

Really? Child care is easily available to working mothers? House cleaning services are cheap and readily available to all skilled workers? Professionals sit in the back of their car working on their laptop while a driver watches the road?

There are lost of things to do. We have a situation of labor scarcity, not a surplus.

Complaining about a labor surplus right now is like a 350lb man eating french fries on the theory that he might starve in the future.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#287

Although I advocate the empowerment of the impoverished, this looks like a very fundamentally flawed idea that would actually harm those it sets out to help. We need a different approach. When you give everyone in the economy a $10000 basic income you drive demand without driving supply. This graph[1] demonstrates how we estimate the relationship between the two, as well as price. As you'll notice, an increase in dem…

What's the net economic difference between giving someone $5, which they then spend on soup, and spending $5 to buy soup on their behalf? None. Same for spending $10000 on someone's behalf via services, versus simply giving them $10000 which they then spend on the same services. Who holds the taxpayer provided money when making the final sale for goods or services is moot.

In both cases you're driving up demand, which is what in turn drives up supply. Supply doesn't magically materialize - either someone pays for it with money, or someone pays for it with time not spent earning money, to provide those services or products. As your own graph demonstrates, quantity goes up regardless. What's your "new N=0 point" on the graph?

My point here is not that there aren't issues with funding demand for services with inelastic supply (where large increases in price only lead to small increases in quantity, meaning little good was done.) There are such issues. Instead, my point is that these are not UBI specific issues. They're valid concerns with housing programs and rent controls today, for example.

The real difference of consideration between UBI vs other social welfare programs (when taken as a whole), is how demand might change (lowering in some places while increasing in others) when the ones actually consuming the services get to direct where the dollars are spent, instead of government policymakers.

In theory, replacing social welfare programs with UBI might drive demand away from elastically supplied goods and services, towards inelasticly supplied goods and services. It's far from a given, though - we have plenty of existing government programs for such inelastic things as housing. If you see some fundamental flaw of UBI that would cause demand to shift this way, I've missed it, so please do share.

I'm more concerned by the other factors:

On the one hand, those in need of services in many cases the ones in the best position to know what they need, so the money for those services may be spent more efficiently - especially if there's less waste in red tape bureaucracy, from government organizations unfettered from the pressures of capitalism.

On the other, if you haven't learned how to manage your money, don't know about the things that could best help your situation, or are in the grips of addiction, it may be difficult for you to spend your money wisely.

My understanding is that direct cash influxes to the poor in 3rd world countries has worked pretty well. It's not perfectly analogous to helping out the poor in 1st world countries via UBI, but I'm fairly hopeful it's analogous enough.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#288
post #92

The Fed engineers a slow inflation every year via interest rate control and gives the benefit of the newly created money to banks, the loan borrowers, and asset holders as rates lower than keeping inflation at zero. Since the money supply increases anyway, might as well give the new money as basic income to ALL people. At least the money will be spent directly by the people for economic activities, instead of indirec…

Regarding inflation... if everyone instantly has $X now, doesn't $X become worthless? For instance, why would landlords not raise rents knowing that everyone now has this cash?

Because that's not how markets work. The ones that try would loose all their business to those that didn't.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#289
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I envision it as enough for someone to get by. So not enough for luxury expenditures. Basically food and shelter. I'm also looking at this from the perspective of someone in the UK who doesn't have to think of things like health care and education which changes things quite a bit. I'd say around $800 p/m per person would be plenty if you look at food and rent for a room in a shared apartment. Tax revenue should also…

You'd still need some people to work on running welfare programmes. Not every basic need can be met by a fixed sum for everyone. For example, some disabled people need extra money to run a car, get equipment in their homes or perhaps employ a carer (if this wasn't otherwise supplied).

Another comment made this point and it's a good one, I hadn't thought about it before. I think when it comes to equipment you could provide that through the NHS (essentially doctors could be in a position to prescribe it). Same goes for a carer. If you need it for health reasons the NHS should be able to prescribe it. I guess then you run into moral issues (e.g. this person doesn't NEED a carer but it would make their life much easier).

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc. First of all, even if the people in positions like this were only working for sustenance and UBI provides it for them, it doesn't mean some wouldn't want to continue working to make even MORE money. UBI is a baseline, not welfare. If previously a lawn mowing job was only enough for rent and food, maybe now…

But you're right, at least some people would definitely completely exit the work force. Well, that just means the salaries of the rest would go up. Simple economics. Does that mean that some working families can no longer afford to pay a new immigrant bottom dollar to mow their lawn and instead have to pitch in themselves? Maybe so. Is that so bad. Yes, it's bad because now we are all poorer. We have fewer goods and…

If someone's that highly productive they'll still be able to earn enough that going out to work would make economic sense. Or they could have the fathers change the diapers.
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