381–390 of 394 posts
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Why won't we?
Because the increasing trend is that it is not financially viable for younger families to buy a home. So they would thus not have a mortgage to reverse in the first place. Rather, they would be stuck paying rent and hopefully have enough savings/Social Security/other income to cover it as long as they needed.
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The average adult hunter-gatherer only worked about 22 hours [1] We've advanced so much technologically, yet we're working more than hunter-gatherers were hundreds of thousands of years ago. What are we working towards again? [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201611/in...
> What are we working towards again? Having a worldwide population of more than 10000 people ? What I don't get about basic income is the incentives this would bring, which invalidate the whole thing. It's not a Nash equilibrium. What this would create is a huge class of 100% dependent people who have no power, entitlement and are in a very unfair relationship (to their advantage) with the rest of humanity (by curren…
Regarding the unfairness concern, this is why I prefer rebranding it as a citizen's dividend funded by a land value tax. See my other comment in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13141203 . Essentially this makes it morally justifiable. Not to mention our system is already unfair in that rentiers profit off the earth's land, and rich people don't have to work.
We're already seeing the same tensions due to automation reducing the number and quality of jobs. We have a 1% class that have orders of magnitude more than what everyone else has while the plebeians barely scrape by and can't find steady, quality, decent paying work. Basic income is the solution to reducing this tension. Another option would be guaranteeing jobs, but I think that would be extraordinarily inefficient, and it perpetuates this notion that people without money have to work for people with money to justify their existence.
We're already highly dependent on each other. Chances are you work in an office and aren't growing your own food, building your own homes, maintaining your own plumbing, building your own cars, manufacturing your own products, and so on. Basic income just says that we have enough wealth to go around and we're all shareholders of this land, so here's your dividend for permitting others monopoly ownership of our land and its resources. It also says that in an advanced enough society, nobody should starve and go homeless.
Without a basic income, mass job automation and extreme income inequality will lead to a French Revolution.
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Thank you for the encouraging words. I try and check HN every day before my shift but I usually never have time to comment until much later, at which point there isn't much activity in the threads, so I sometimes wonder whether or not my posts add any value or if I'm just writing for myself. With regards to how I ended up in my current job I'll do my best to offer a succinct timeline. My prior work experience consist…
Well life seems to have worked out fairly well for you so that's good. Not sure why you worry about your writing, seems fine to me. How many machines are in your shop? Do you guys happen to use any software that monitors all the machines so you can see various charts and what not on uptime, downtime by reason, that sort of thing?
Sorry to not offer more specifics but I need to be careful on what I reveal about our workflow and ops since my employer guards those things pretty seriously but we have quite a large array of CNC, milling, lathes, spin forming, autoclave, welding, 3d printing, and other machines. The building I work in is a couple hundred thousand square feet and is constantly overflowing. We definitely have software tracking uptime/downtime and things like that.
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I understand what you’re saying but I wouldn’t completely dismiss the psychological effect that a sense of feeling needed or the pride you can gain from work has on many people. The sense of being needed may not be important to you, and to be clear I make no negative judgement about that, in fact I’m glad to hear from anyone whose own self worth or happiness isn’t tied to their job as this probably leads to much rich…
Thank you for sharing, it's good to get outside perspectives on issues like this. I'll share a bit about myself as well, so you can get a better idea of where I'm coming from. I don't consider myself on par with most of the stuff I see here either. I consider myself above average intelligence, but nothing special. I'm not particularly creative, but I love being part of the creative process with other people. If there…
I also want to make extra clear that I didn't intend for my comment to come off sounding like I was criticizing your point which is absolutely valid, and I'm not sure if it did, but again, that wasn't my intention. I was just providing a counterpoint on how I personally feel and the sense of fulfillment work gives me. Much of what you said resonates with me and I hope to one day be able to feel that same sense of accomplishment without outside validation. It sounds like we're probably on similar paths, I just might be a bit further behind, which pretty much describes my life.
Thanks again for sharing.
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Nah, screw that. We all deserve comfortable retirements, and we should fund it as a society. Wealth inequality being what it is, yes, the wealthy can afford to chip in for the well-being of the rest of us. Or rather, we can afford to redistribute our wealth claims as a society in this way. Why not? Wealth is a logical fiction we've invented, as to who has what monetary claims we enforce, and we can bend this fiction…
Social security in its current form doesn't even provide a comfortable retirement; it single handedly is keeping millions of seniors just a bit out of poverty. For that alone, it should be protected. https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/11/24/the-stunning-effe... "Researchers at the CBPP used the Census Bureau's definition of poverty, which in 2015 meant $11,367 or less for an elderly individual, $14,342 or lower for…
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Because the increasing trend is that it is not financially viable for younger families to buy a home. So they would thus not have a mortgage to reverse in the first place. Rather, they would be stuck paying rent and hopefully have enough savings/Social Security/other income to cover it as long as they needed.
What will become of all the homes (and wealth) controlled by older people and families once the owners are outlived by the younger generation?
Population growth in the US is slightly declining and generally remaining flat, although life expectancy is increasing.
So it seems likely the older people will need their homes longer than previous generations. When they die they might pass them along, but that certainly doesn't happen to everyone, and in many cases they might be sold, increasing supply.
That said, home value distributions are interesting. Jobs are stagnant or disappearing throughout much of the country, and it is primarily the cities where people are increasingly moving due to availability of jobs. This means those cities are much more desirable, and there is still too little supply, even with people turning things over to children.
Realistically though, the vast majority of the population has near non-existent savings. Many of these Baby Boomer retirees will need to downsize, reverse mortgage, or do something to tap their home for cash as that is still by far and away most families biggest investment. This might point more to the house being sold.
Still won't be enough to meet demand though in big cities since that is increasing, not decreasing. And if fewer are living in places without jobs, those homes may not be options for many families.
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Because the increasing trend is that it is not financially viable for younger families to buy a home. So they would thus not have a mortgage to reverse in the first place. Rather, they would be stuck paying rent and hopefully have enough savings/Social Security/other income to cover it as long as they needed.
There is also the issue of population growth rates. Future generations CANNOT keep growing like that. Be it by directed reproduction limits or global resource wars/pollution/plagues/extinction from the preceding the population will shrink.
[1]https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+population+growth
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This feels correct, anecdotally ... but is there data to support this claim? For example, savings rates going down, credit/debt going up, and consumer spending going down?
You also have to watch for savings going up and credit going down, to reflect people who are sick of being in debt and shying away from it wherever possible.
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Seconded. That stood out to me too in his post. Disability seems to be widely abused in the western world. I'm for social welfare, but I'm not for mismanagement and abuse. Disability as it exists today is a concern that needs to be addressed.
You guys have the advantage of being able to work. Your minds and bodies are healthy. Man up and take care of those less fortunate, even if it means a minority game the system.
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Seconded. That stood out to me too in his post. Disability seems to be widely abused in the western world. I'm for social welfare, but I'm not for mismanagement and abuse. Disability as it exists today is a concern that needs to be addressed.
Everyone is for rugged individualism until they're incapacitated. Good luck.