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Request For Research: Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#331

Post by rewqfdsa »

tptacek wrote: post #254
rewqfdsa wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Equally credible alternatives to university education for professions You're talking about trade schools? Good. That's a step in the right direction. It doesn't go far enough though. One unfortunate reality of our existence is that people differ markedly in cognitive skill. These differences are innate and immutable. Not everyone can benefit from an education. If we pitch education as the way to address to inequali…

No, I am not talking about trade schools. The jobs staffed by trade school grads already do a decent job of not being beholden to university signaling. I'm talking about white collar professional jobs that rely on those signals for reasons having nothing to do with job aptitude.

What do you have in mind then? The for-profit university experiment has largely been a scammy failure.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#333

Post by tptacek »

ThomPete wrote: post #312
tptacek wrote: post #170

Things that would help everyone, regardless of income, without depending on a radical restructuring of entitlement spending, that seem like things startups could actually do: * Equally credible alternatives to university education for professions that don't involve students shouldering $100k-$200k in debt based on decisions they have to make when they're 18 years old. * Empirical, blinded, skills-assessment based tur…

Problem is that a country like Denmark have all those things more or less and we still have more or less the same issues although to lesser degree. The solution to the problem isn't hiding in what we already know although many of these things of course would be hugely beneficial to people. The underlying problem. Technology is still going to be there.

I don't know enough about Denmark to evaluate your comment, but stipulate that it's true, and then, if you'd like to reframe my list as "a list of things startups could do to use the market to make the US more like Denmark", I would have no objection.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#334

Post by albertop »

dmix wrote: post #244
Bud wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a 0% public sector job growth necessarily indicate a failure, in and of itself? To me, that's not probative at all. What if Sweden had simply reached a level where everyone who was employable and wanted to have a job, had one? "Removing red tape" has been tried quite a bit, as a sole means of stimulating growth. Not only has it failed over and over again, but the negative consequences dwarf even the fantasies of…

Removing red tape has indeed been tried in America... but almost exclusively for the benefit of already large near monopolistic corporations. It has rarely happened to the benefit of small/medium businesses. Especially if you're talking about deregulation that happened in the financial industry in the 2000s. The companies that most struggle with red tape aren't mega-corps but the smaller companies who can't afford te…

Seems like "It has rarely happened to the benefit of small/medium businesses." and "The companies that most struggle with red tape aren't mega-corps but the smaller companies" are contradictory. Not sure if I understand if you are for or against removing red tape.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#335

Post by iMuzz »

"Our idea is to give a basic income to a group of people in the US for a 5 year period"

In order to get realistic information for how people will behave / feel with a basic income we should seriously consider dropping the '5 year period' and extending it for the remainder of their lives.

Personally, knowing that I will have to start working again in 5 years to support myself would drastically change how I choose to spend my time over the next 5 years.

Also, props to Sam / YC for this initiative.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#336

Post by tptacek »

staunch wrote: post #311
tptacek wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether I agree or not with this (mostly, I don't), it fails my test of "being something a startup can do". Whereas a startup that had a really good solution for inculcating the kinds of skills and values white-collar employers are looking for could outcompete universities instead of legislating them out of the picture. When people discuss the value signaling provided by elite universities, their first example is usu…

> When people discuss the value signaling provided by elite universities, their first example is usually "the diligence and hard work it takes to get into the university"... Graduation rates at universities for the elite are nearly 100%. Getting into the club is the only hard part and everyone involved knows that. Empirically, what's required to get into the club is being wealthy enough to afford the private schoolin…

I agree, and because that's a rather obvious market inefficiency, I see it as an opportunity for a startup to make money while improving the world.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#337

Post by evanpw »

Riseed wrote: post #216
davidw wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suggestion in the book is a negative income tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

One big difference between basic income and negative income tax is who receives them. Basic income is given to everyone, and negative income tax is only given to those below a threshold amount -- creating two classes of people: givers and receivers, us and them. The negative income tax experiment in New Jersey showed that the negative income tax created a disincentive to work, and increased family breakups. [0] Negat…

A negative income tax is basically equivalent to a basic income funded with a progressive income tax. No matter how you pay for it, some people are going to pay more in taxes than they get from the basic income, and some will pay less.

For people who have a job, we already have a system for them to pay taxes with each paycheck (withholding). By reversing that, you could make negative income tax payments year-round rather than at tax return time.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#338

Post by [deleted] »

staunch wrote: post #311
tptacek wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether I agree or not with this (mostly, I don't), it fails my test of "being something a startup can do". Whereas a startup that had a really good solution for inculcating the kinds of skills and values white-collar employers are looking for could outcompete universities instead of legislating them out of the picture. When people discuss the value signaling provided by elite universities, their first example is usu…

> When people discuss the value signaling provided by elite universities, their first example is usually "the diligence and hard work it takes to get into the university"... Graduation rates at universities for the elite are nearly 100%. Getting into the club is the only hard part and everyone involved knows that. Empirically, what's required to get into the club is being wealthy enough to afford the private schoolin…

[deleted]

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#339

Post by surfmike »

abakker wrote: post #285
surfmike wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excavation is expensive and that's the main reason people don't use it. Trains are hard to build in established areas but self-driving cars, ride sharing, and hyper loop point to new ways enabled by technology. I agree that zoning is the big political obstacle. But I feel like some development entrepreneurs could convince some cities and make some great examples of dense livable neighborhoods.

In can't help but think that the only real answer to getting housing to be appropriately cheap is to manufacture it 100% off site and bring it to the site in easy to assemble pieces.

edit: The more I think about it, the more I think this is important regardless of the cost of land. If it became cheaper to "start over" and redevelop underused lots, you could scale up density a lot faster. In that vein, technology to make demolition cheaper/faster would help too.

--- original:

That's definitely part of it. But cost of land often dwarfs the construction costs. And some things like excavation (which lets you avoid wasting land on low-value uses) need to be done on site.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#340

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

honksillet wrote: post #218
simonh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cost of a lot of basic goods and services would fall. Employers would only need to offer relatively modest wages because the marginal value of those wages would be so much higher. This could drive down labour costs without driving down net pay for low wage workers. Basically a worker on $1,000/Mo now might be on $600/mo basic income and $600 wage after (fantasy numbers). This could make low wage workers m…

This is exactly wrong. The cost basic goods would increase. Basic Income would immediately have an inflationary effect as the money supply for these good would be expanded drastically. The Employer would not see as much benefit as you'd think as presumably he would be amongst the class of people/entities (including the middle class, upper class, and corporation) which would be paying for this indirectly in the form o…

It may or may not be wrong. There will definitely be some inflation, but there will also be an equilibrium. It is also a possibility that if the UBI is adjusted accordingly, that the relative costs of things will remain roughly the same.

As for whether employers will benefit, recognize that demand will also increase when those who were formerly impoverished begin consuming things. It is direct and distributed economic stimulus.

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