Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

openresearchlab.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 669 posts

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#301

Post by Suppafly »

rustcleaner wrote: post #275
Suppafly wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> student loans should be private (but should 100% be dischargeable via bankruptcy) While I mostly agree, how do you prevent basically every student from going bankrupt immediately after graduation? None of the downsides to bankruptcy really apply to students so it's logically the best course of action if students loans could be discharged.

That's part of the risk. It will downsize annuity present/future values so as to reduce the windfall payout of bankruptcy vs its credit score and process costs. It will help keep college cheap: if what they teach is worthless then students should welch. The investor has more money, let him eat the friggin' risk! The student is otherwise forced to delay family for a decade and take a 67%+ cut in fertility rate as a re…

> It will help keep college cheap: if what they teach is worthless then students should welch.

Just the opposite, presumably the best colleges that product the highest earning graduates cost the most, those high earning graduates would be might more incentivized to start over than someone with a lesser degree because at least they'd be part of a high paying field and immune from needing to use credit.

>Maybe put the school on the hook in some way too, forcing it to actually screen for talent (which would absolutely murder DEI lol), that way investor isn't totally SOL if the school was the useless party.

You're so wrongheaded there, I don't even know how to get you on the right track, but companies, and schools, with so called diversity hires do better overall. Schools already screen for talent and the ability to graduate, DEI initiates just have them look a little harder in an expanded pool.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#302

Post by Suppafly »

heylook wrote: post #94
Suppafly wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> student loans should be private (but should 100% be dischargeable via bankruptcy) While I mostly agree, how do you prevent basically every student from going bankrupt immediately after graduation? None of the downsides to bankruptcy really apply to students so it's logically the best course of action if students loans could be discharged.

I'm not convinced you would need to. "Students" cease to be students immediately after graduation, so they wouldn't really be "students" anymore, right? So "none of the downsides to bankruptcy really apply to students" doesn't really seem accurate, does it? Even reading it more charitably, students and recent graduates still probably would like access to credit cards, or the housing rental market, or whatever. Bankru…

Bankruptcy stays on your credit report for 7 years, but doesn't lock you out of the credit market. Someone with a high paying job has relatively easy access to credit regardless of recent bankruptcies. At most it effects them for a year or two, but new graduates aren't really making any big purchases using credit immediately after graduation anyway.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#303

Post by hobs »

briHass wrote: post #223
jewayne wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I'm a big fan of the "for every $2 you make, you get $1 less from UBI/Welfare" That's..that's not UBI, at all. UBI is universal . If there are any means tests whatsoever , that's not UBI.

UBI would never be truly 'universal'. If someone takes money from me and then gives some of it back, I don't consider that a free gift. The only way the numbers would ever balance would be for most income earners to end up being taxed >100% of their UBI payment.

It is a free gift, because you keep receiving it even if you dont make money next year.

And that's right, its not meant to pay for people who can pay their way themselves, just like in most income redistribution schemes the rich would be taxed at several (thousand?) multiples of the value they receive back.

In the current regime, the rich gain far more benefits from taxes (they pay little, and get to offload much of their cost of society to the rest of us) than in a UBI approach. That's the point.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#304

Post by WheatMillington »

jimt1234 wrote: post #79
bko wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts? And if everyone quits their job and lives in a nice apartment, where is this money going to come from? The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work. Start working, you lose your transfer payments. A lot of people are stuck in thi…

Back in my college speech class, a woman gave a presentation basically supporting the "welfare today is a disincentive to work" myth, with emphasis on "today" (or current), while totally destroying the notion that welfare recipients don't "want" to work. She was a stay-at-home mom with 2 kids, her husband commit suicide after serving in Iraq and then being pushed out of the military (this was the 90s when the US mili…

You call it a myth and then describe the very real disincentive to work, in detail.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#306

Post by habosa »

The connection between UBI and Silicon Valley elite (specifically the VC class and, lately, AI people) should give everyone pause.

Why does this group of people that are not historically known for their generosity or their sympathy for the unworking poor suddenly want to give everyone a little bit of money for nothing?

In my mind, it is to create a permanent underclass. A group of people with just enough money to survive but not enough to participate in the world of the elites (or even the middle class). This underclass will represent a massive user base for the products and services that the VC class wants to sell. And they’ll be stuck there, and easier to target than ever.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#307

Post by WheatMillington »

DemocracyFTW2 wrote: post #134
bko wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts? And if everyone quits their job and lives in a nice apartment, where is this money going to come from? The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work. Start working, you lose your transfer payments. A lot of people are stuck in thi…

> The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work No. The reason you say that is because you're young and you believe what you've heard. You will soon cease to be the former and then presumably, likely, stop to do the latter. People want to work, they want to be useful. And yes, if I support you but threaten to stop supporting you as soon as you get to work for money—suddenly working for money looks…

You haven't met enough deadbeats in your life. Trust me, there's a virtually limitless number of them, and they very much do not want to work.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#308

Post by travisjungroth »

mucle6 wrote: post #277
globular-toast wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's obvious. The point is inequality is reduced.

So a progressive tax system like what we have? (ignoring capital gains taxes)

UBI represented as a progressive tax system would be so wildly different from our current brackets it would be qualitatively different. Some brackets would be negative.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#309

Post by drekipus »

briHass wrote: post #293
karmajunkie wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just curious, but why is there always an implicit assumption in this debate that we only tax the wealth of billionaires? is the money of a half billionaire somehow less green than a full billionaire?

Keep going until you're taxing everyone that makes over $80K/year or so, and you pretty much have it being balanced. I never understood the UBI argument. 30 seconds of napkin math would show you how insane the proposal is, even at the rate of $1000/month. If you want to increase welfare for those below the median income, fine, let's have that discussion. Don't play games with the word 'universal'

Generally the people who want UBI "as promised, no compromises" also don't see why we can't just print money to make the shortfall

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#310

Post by creato »

altruios wrote: post #126
marcusverus wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone needs to participate with American capitalism as a worker drone Working a job you don't like is a leaser evil than mooching off of your neighbors. The level of entitlement required to argue the opposite is absolutely mind boggling. How many people have to work full time to support one able-bodied layabout? UBI may make sense in the event of technology-induced mass unemployment, but folks won't tolerate it…

Working a job you don't like isn't the issue. Working a job that makes the world a worse place because you need to survive is the issue. It IS less evil to do nothing and be fed than to take up arms in a factory that produces produces that people want, but is poison (cigarettes, as an example). Paying people to prevent exploitation from plantation owners is a good thing.

A lot of people like cigarettes. The idea that no one would work in a cigarette factory because everyone would see it as morally objectionable and they could afford not to is preposterous.
Post reply on HN