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

#291

Post by Retric » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #196

jackweirdy wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My inner pessimist is expecting to see a "there was this Daily Mail article one time". Everywhere I look, I see the opposite. Families with a comfortable amount of disposable income have the 2.4 kids, but those in poverty (and particularly the working poor) have 3, or upwards. Anecdotal, but I'm yet to see evidence to the contrary

There's evidence on a national scale that birthrate is anticorrelated with wealth. The better off people are on average, the less kids they have.

This is not true; on average richer men have more children.

If you try and slice it by family you find that the 'traditional' family makes up a fairly small percentage of the population.

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

#292

Post by vidarh » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

mierek4ever wrote: post #137

tormeh wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know one single person like that. Wanting this is very rare and is a symptom of mental illness. Most people want to be proud of something. Granted, MacDonald's will have problems finding workers, but is that so bad? Living in Norway it is perfectly possible to slack off on the taxpayers' bill if you want to, but society doesn't collapse. People would rather avoid the low status associated with living on the dole th…

Norway is extremely different than for example US. With all due respect, I'm sorry, I can't see Norwegians happily supporting social programs if they are mostly designed to help immigrants. US is immigration based. What about Norway consisting in 15-20% of Blacks, than the other 80% coming from all over the world. I believe that about 75% of all Americans are immigrants, their children, or their grandchildren. Would…

> It's enough for you to have a few immigrants here and there to become extreme right.

If you refer to the current government, consider that the junior partner in the current government that is considered "extreme right" by Norwegian standards would mostly be Democrats by US standards. E.g. a substantial proportion of them are in favour of continuing most of a welfare system that would get even many Democrats in hysterics over socialism.

By Norwegian standards, the majority of the US Congress is "extreme right" and threatening "US conditions" is a well established way of scaring people.

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

#293

Post by mcv » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

Merovius wrote: post #71

hueving wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people will spend their time working on things to improve everyone's life Some people will. I have met many plenty of people though that don't care about other people regardless of their income.

I never understood, why this is a problem. We live in a society of abundance. Tying coverage of living expenses to work done, just leads to people doing pointless work. This is at least the reality in Germany: There aren't enough jobs for everyone, people live under the illusion that it is wrong to just subsidize people living, thus the government rather subsidizes jobs, that are not profitable to be done by people (…

We need to get rid of the myth that everybody needs to work. Better would be to automate all the work so nobody has to work anymore.

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

#294

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:47 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #291

TeMPOraL wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's evidence on a national scale that birthrate is anticorrelated with wealth. The better off people are on average, the less kids they have.

This is not true; on average richer men have more children. If you try and slice it by family you find that the 'traditional' family makes up a fairly small percentage of the population.

This TED talk focuses on the anticorrelation I wrote about: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y....

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

#295

Post by jchrisa » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:48 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...

You can take all our money, we'd still have plumbing, fiber, and college degrees.

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

#296

Post by tiatia » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:49 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...

Mate, "The one who speaks the truth needs a fast horse." (Chinese Proverb).

Don't "overunderstimate" the reason of the average reader here and don't be discouraged by the down vote.

"Zwei mal drei macht vier, widewidewitt und drei macht neune, ich mach mir die Welt, widewide wie sie mir gefällt."

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

#297

Post by Retric » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #294

Retric wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true; on average richer men have more children. If you try and slice it by family you find that the 'traditional' family makes up a fairly small percentage of the population.

This TED talk focuses on the anticorrelation I wrote about: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y... .

Richer countries have lower birth rates.

Richer men in the same country have more kids.

PS: I think I just misread your comment. By "national scale" I thought you meant in the same country.

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

#298

Post by mcv » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:52 PM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #120

dagw wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The huge 'problem' with most European benefit systems that I am aware of that as soon as you take the money, your time is no longer your own. You cannot go to to school or take courses, start a company, do odd freelance work, do certain types of charity work, travel freely or a whole host of other potentially self improving things, without losing your benefits. Living on benefits is also living in constant fear that…

> 'problem' with most European benefit systems that I am aware of that as soon as you take the money, your time is no longer your own. Getting a job has similar disadvantages.

True, but with a job, at least you're producing something. Well, there are also bullshit jobs, but I'd like to believe that most jobs still provide some kind of value in some way. The hoop jumping for the unemployed is just plain value destroying. If they could get an education or do charity work, they'd at least be doing something useful. I'd rather pay my taxes for that.

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

#299

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:55 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #297

TeMPOraL wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This TED talk focuses on the anticorrelation I wrote about: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y... .

Richer countries have lower birth rates. Richer men in the same country have more kids. PS: I think I just misread your comment. By "national scale" I thought you meant in the same country.

Ok, I think I should have written "international scale", I apologize for the confusion.

I don't know of any study on national level, i.e. of families in a single country. The only thing I know of are anecdotes and stories about very poor families having 5+ children.

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

#300

Post by clavalle » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 2:58 PM UTC

> “People say they are not going to try as hard to find a job,”

Or they will bargain for a job that is worth their time so they won't accept a job that won't improve their lives. That is a subtle but important difference from just sitting around because they can.

My bet is that when people aren't bargaining for their life -- food, shelter etc because those things are a given they will begin making trades that are a net positive for them rather than just trying to control their losses. 'Head above water' bargaining is a fact of life for the poor that is easy for the middle and upper classes to forget. It leads directly and almost inevitably to exploitation by the other party that is in a better bargaining position.

Further in the article it talks about young men continuing school and mothers staying home and taking care of children. These are decisions that are made by people who are not desperate and not in a terrible bargaining position.

I'm excited to see the results whether they agree with my intuition or not. We need more policy experimentation in the US and I'd love to see some of that experimentation in this direction.