It would be interesting if some of the homeless sleeping on the street were included to see if they get themselves together or not.
Moving Forward on Basic Income
281–290 of 1001 posts
Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've not heard of or thought of this approach. It's pretty clever. Still possible to abuse, but it seems at least somewhat less likely.
You would need to outlaw "BI payday loans" for this to not be circumvented almost immediately.
then "We'll simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes."
Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
This really isn't a good riddle. First, Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCT) work better than most people expect ( http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-... ). As noted in the article, UCTs work surprisingly well in scenarios where lack of capital is the primary problem. A UBI (at least as usually is discussed in the US) is a de-scaling UCT. Second, most proponents of a UBI see it as more efficien…
You completely side stepped the question. I find it absolutely amazing how naive BI supporters are. I grew up poor in a ghetto in New York. Studied, went to university, became an engineer and am no longer in that socioeconomic bracket. However it is very apparent that the people in my current bracket (the one's that support BI), have no idea about the issues of the poor. Poor people are mostly poor because of the dec…
If you are an engineer I would expect a better capability of root cause analysis than that. Your list of things there is entirely comprised of things that are largely outside of the control of individuals.
"Poor people are mostly poor because of the decisions they make."
* Drug addiction
Yes, a person can choose to use drugs. Usually the choice is made under intense peer pressure and at a young age. We won't let children under the age of 18 be bound by contracts, but we still stigmatize them with poor choices made when they were often younger than that. Once drug use becomes drug addiction, it is no longer a choice and is excruciatingly hard to break out without external help.
* poor budgeting
Yep, budgeting is important. It's a shame that this isn't given top billing from about grade 4 on. Budgeting isn't just about managing monthly income and expenditure, it's about forecasting, and understanding financial risk management. Unfortunately, at least in the US, the education system is pretty abysmal, and it appears to be difficult to actually get students through school in some parts of the country.
* gambling, alcoholism,, mental illness, etc, etc, etc."
These are actually all tightly linked to the word "illness". Gambling is often a learned behaviour that is linked with poor risk management and financial planning knowledge (see previous section on budgeting). Alcoholism is learned behaviour, that like gambling depends on poor impulse control, and addictive tendencies which are both physical and mental illnesses (or just illnesses once you get past the labelling stigma).
"Hard working people with not vices don't live in the slums and generally can support their basic needs."
Turn on the news, or better yet, read a couple of socio economic studies -- especially ones whose conclusions you find distasteful (it helps break your personal filter). This is flat out false - it is hard to support your basic needs when minimum wages are too low, finding full time work is hard, and there is a glut of skilled professionals who can't find work in their field, so they take up all the entry level jobs.
If you are actually an engineer you should be capable of composing a better comment than what you wrote here simply by thinking it through first.
Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income
#284Setting aside whether or not redistribution is ever justified, I do respect the pragmatism of the UBI granted it replaces all other forms of welfare. Faced with a choice between the current welfare state and a UBI, the latter is a no brainer. While not specifically a UBI, the negative income tax seeks to accomplish the creation of a similar safety net while still maintaining a strong profit motive for the people bene…
UBI is barely distinguishable from negative income tax when you have a single tax bracket with fixed tax rate and a fixed amount of nontaxable income. Difference is in how you do accounting and usually frequency of the payouts.
When you have multiple tax brackets it's a little more complicated but I think still mostly the same.
Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income
#285Very cool! Please consider studying GiveDirectly's approach to evaluation (e.g. pre-registered evaluation plan and pre-analysis plan).
We will definitely be following this protocol. We're committed to transparency throughout the study.
Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income
#286Has anyone considered "subsidizing jobs" as an alternative to BI? Would it work better if the government gives $X to a company when they hire someone?
I posted a comment with a link to a NYT article that mentions subsidizing jobs. I do wonder though -- if the government subsidizes jobs by $X/hr, what incentive is there for companies to not just reduce their contribution by the same amount (so the net to the employee is the same)?
I think you could solve that by increasing minimum wage at the same time. That would also make min. wage increases more palatable.
Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income
#287So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
everybody will have emergencies and blow the money. BI just makes it simpler to get money back from society in general (where some individuals have plenty) to people in a more just way
Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am 100% for this experiment. But the assumption that technology will replace basic jobs seems naive. Throughout human history, we have seen rapid and accelerating technology improvements. Arguments from "but this is how it always have been" have a tendency to break down when significant societal/technological changes happen.
I use a different model than everyone else which I think gives insight on this. I split jobs into 3 categories (simplified here to make it easy to understand): 1) jobs that mostly create economic value (doctors, farmers, programmers): the percentage of these jobs is already small and keeps decreasing with technology. 2) jobs that mostly transfer economic value (marketers, lawyers): these jobs keep increasing. (Note:…
That is a very insightful comment. I wonder if anyone categorizes new ventures using the same methodology.
Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've not heard of or thought of this approach. It's pretty clever. Still possible to abuse, but it seems at least somewhat less likely.
You would need to outlaw "BI payday loans" for this to not be circumvented almost immediately.
With such small amounts, the fees would be a huge % - no different than loan sharks everyone already has access to.
Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income
#290So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
The problem with most BI solutions is they just want to hand out money but not change how its used and where. There is certainly sufficient technology to track and even restrict the usage of BI funds. So my idea is this, your restrictions on your BI lift as your income does to the point its just flat out money the ends up in your account. You could put forth some requirement that to receive BI you agree to have that…
But at that point what you are describing isn't basic income. It's welfare+medicaid+food stamps+section 8 housing under a different moniker, along with all their administration costs and inefficiencies.