311–320 of 446 posts
Come on, you're making an argument for universal basic income, but you obviously aren't educated enough to make an argument for or against it if you think only religious bigots and those lacking your level of sophistication are the majority of the opposition. Learn some opposing views, Buddy
I realize that UBI is a very popular position on HN, so I am hoping someone here has given this more thought and can comment. My problem with UBI is that all tests to date look great, but have only been done on a micro level. The fundamental issue I would like addressed is the macro scale inflation you would expect when redistributing trillions of dollars without commensurate economic value being created directly. Mo…
UBI isnt the solution, there just isnt a better response that has even slight chance of being implemented. There needs to be a radical shift in how we look at our economic systems and culture in the medium term. However, if the currently proposed health care replacement is evidence of current thinking, U I is a pipe dream. I don't usually make predictions, but it is going to get very ugly in the next 10 years if noth…
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> New tech is giving outsize advantage to the major players across almost every industry, who can afford to invest in creating internal teams for these big new technologies. Oohh, this very much. Inside Amazon warehouses, there are tens of thousands of employees called 'Pickers'. They walk around with these handscanners with 300x300 pixel screens that tell them where to go and what item to get next. For two years, my…
I think the only realistic way for a small player to beat Amazon at selling physical goods is to charge more and convince customers that it's worth it.
From Henry Hazlitts 1946 classic "Economics in One Lesson": You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less. You merely deprive him of the right to earn the amount that his abilities and situation would permit him to earn, while you deprive the community even of the moderate services that he is capable of rendering. In brief, for a low wage you substitute unemploy…
Competitive forces are a thing. If your competitors can hire cheap people for working there, you will never be able to justify hiring more expensively. But if they can not hire that cheaply, you will be able to spend more too.
From Henry Hazlitts 1946 classic "Economics in One Lesson": You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less. You merely deprive him of the right to earn the amount that his abilities and situation would permit him to earn, while you deprive the community even of the moderate services that he is capable of rendering. In brief, for a low wage you substitute unemploy…
Sweat shops, while convenient to those in higher economic positions, are not economically sustainable. But, yes, let's deregulate everything so a few property owners can amass all the wealth to themselves. Great idea. Never been done before. Let's give it a shot.
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Most western social democracies already have an overlapping network of benefit systems that are essentially a patchwork UBI in disguise. The system is designed not to go without food and shelter, but the exact mechanism varies depending on what population group you belong to. There's assistance for the temporary unemployed, for students, for people with disabilities, people with long-term illnesses, etc. There's pens…
I completely agree. I think moving to a single-payer health care system would also be required.
A better way is to use UBI which a portion earmarked only to purchase health insurance. Instant universal coverage with consumer choice and market forces stay intact.
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So this is a naive, honest question, but why not just index funds?
most people don't have enough wealth for investment income to matter much, and they probably will never have it. the average american has a negative net worth.
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Blocking talent? Or not in need of the talent offered at the price expected?
They say they need it. They often do need it to achieve their goals. Then they block everyone that can do it unless they'll do it for a ridiculously low amount. One so low that it seems to result in half-assed results in most IT work that cause them trouble down the line. They just can't afford that $10-20k for real production work. That said, they can pay someone $1+ mil a year to let the people under him do all the…
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You seem to be assuming that low-wage workers are all poor and uneducated. That is misleading. From [1]: 50% of minimum wage workers are under the age of 24 25% of minimum wage workers are under the age of 19 Entry level jobs paying minimum wage teach important skills to teens and young adults: * being on time * attention to detail * how to work with others * how to follow instructions ... There is certainly room for…
I don't know what entry level jobs you worked at. Every single entry level job I worked at just taught you how to sign off paper work saying you did procedure A when you hadn't done it months, how palling around with the managers got you whatever shift you wanted, and how to turn a 2 minute trip into the back room into a 30 minutes break. There were some lessons in petty theft as well if you were interested in that.…
As a rule, the only skill entry level jobs teach anymore that apply to future jobs is how to eat shit and keep going. Every single habit you would learn would need to be unlearned to be valuable in skilled labor. You need to be independent and able to think of novel solutions to provide value at higher skilled jobs. Entry level jobs will grind you up and fire you under some made up offense so you can't even get unemployment. You succeed by being as close to a robot as possible.
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Personally I wouldn't bother working very hard if income tax was 100%.
The incentive structure in this example is certainly bad, but that is an issue whenever you are planning to give things away for free, with a universal basic income scheme or otherwise. That my example is exceptionally poor in this regard should not matter too much for the point addressed unless you want to hint at a problem with sustainability. That might or might not be the case depending on the behavior of the peo…