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The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

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Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

jpao79 wrote: post #15

"We’re still in our pilot. It turns out that giving money to people is much harder than you might imagine. We’ve had to work with state, local, federal governments so that people in our study don’t lose their housing eligibility, lose their food assistance just because we’re giving them money and raising their income level. And what we don’t want is to make anyone worse off." It feels like this statement is what woul…

> Isn't the main benefit of UBI to make it so everything is streamlined into a single program and administrative overhead is reduced?

No, the main benefit is that eliminating means testing eliminates perverse effects which reduce the benefit of outside income when in means-tested benefit programs.

Reduced total program overhead is a peripheral benefit of a mature UBI vs. existing means-tested benefit programs.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#42

Post by PatientTrades »

AmericanOP wrote: post #6

In ancient Rome there were a few honest reformers who felt bread subsidies (classical UBI) were deserved by the people. It was an economic argument (as is Sam's) since Roman conquest generated massive wealth that did not reach the masses who made it possible. It was an honest attempt at economic reform by a few forward thinking leaders. Within a generation the movement was captured by politicians who used its popular…

Not much different than what the left in America is doing today, back then Roman politicians passed laws to keep the votes of poorer citizens, giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses", was the most effective way to rise to power. Today free stuff is still the most effective way to power.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#43

Post by weirdstuff »

AmericanOP wrote: post #6

In ancient Rome there were a few honest reformers who felt bread subsidies (classical UBI) were deserved by the people. It was an economic argument (as is Sam's) since Roman conquest generated massive wealth that did not reach the masses who made it possible. It was an honest attempt at economic reform by a few forward thinking leaders. Within a generation the movement was captured by politicians who used its popular…

This is my fear: the UBI would be instituted and then the "Universal" part slowly erode into a sticks-and-carrots regime like how taxes and transfer payments are used today.

We need to make damn sure that adequate opportunities to generate wealth ourselves remain so that UBI doesn't become the only income for large swaths of the population. That'd just put producers and UBI-only recipients at odds. Not to mention inflation pressures.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#44

Post by pdonis »

The "share of GDP" thing has already been discussed on HN (in response to Sam's own blog post on the subject):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15789108

My comment on a basic flaw in the underlying analogy (that nothing like "shares in the US" corresponds to a share of GDP) is here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15791054

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#45

Post by deadmetheny »

babaganoosh89 wrote: post #11

Doing some back of the envelope math, US gov revenue is 3.31 trillion and the population size is 323.1 million. Which leaves about $10244 per capita to play with. How would a BI work, give people $7k per year and save 3k for military and basic services? Seems like BI would need big tax increases to become viable.

It wouldn't. That's exactly why UBI doesn't pass muster - the per capita is much higher since 323 million is the entire population, disregarding the unemployed, children, retired, etc. Then you still have to have the requisite safety nets for people too irresponsible to handle a direct UBI cash infusion, or set up even more bureaucracies that handle housing credits, food credits, etc. It just leads to an expensive sprawling bureaucratic nightmare where the end result is even more expensive government services, and prices inevitably end up rising because suddenly everyone has all this extra money to spend that's guaranteed.

The numbers haven't ever and will never add up, unless you just advocate straight-up jacking the taxes on the upper brackets sky-high.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#47

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

stcredzero wrote: post #36
drb91 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, tax the hell out of wealth. The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die.

The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die. The problem with taxing the wealthy, is that they generally have an outsized share of the political power. I think that a better solution, from a political and psychological standpoint, would involve a voluntary system. If just rent could be covered, this would be the equivalent of $12k per year in many parts…

>The problem with taxing the wealthy, is that they generally have an outsized share of the political power. I think that a better solution, from a political and psychological standpoint, would involve a voluntary system. If just rent could be covered, this would be the equivalent of $12k per year in many parts of the US:

By voluntary system you mean the wealthy voluntarily turning over the wealth that they won't let us tax them for? It doesn't make sense.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#48

Post by Suncho »

Danihan wrote: post #20
Suncho wrote: post #7

I largely agree with what's being said in this interview, except for a few comments: > "But in countless ways it’s much harder to convince lawmakers and politicians to give every person in the country cash gratis than it is to guide a start-up to a nine-figure valuation." You don't have to convince lawmakers to do it. It's possible to implement basic income without any direct government support. > "The question I’m i…

> It's possible to implement basic income without any direct government support. How's that? > The right question is "how do we unlock the economy's prosperity-maximizing capacity?" Asked and answered: free-market capitalism. Nothing has resulted in the sort of rapid prosperity we've seen recently with market capitalism spreading globally.

> How's that?

It's what I'm working on right now: http://www.greshm.org

> > The right question is "how do we unlock the economy's prosperity-maximizing capacity?"

> Asked and answered: free-market capitalism. Nothing has resulted in the sort of rapid prosperity we've seen recently with market capitalism spreading globally.

Capitalism can't exist without government and government can't exist without capitalism. They are yin and yang. I agree with you that capitalism is an important piece of the puzzle. By providing people with a basic income, we can make sure capitalism reaches its full potential in supporting social prosperity.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#49

Post by vonnik »

sedtrader wrote: post #12

> America competitive in the world—lies in giving every citizen a regular allotment of money to cover basics like housing, food, and shelter. Out of curiosity don't we already do this? We have public/section 8 housing, food stamps, medical/dental, etc... If we are talking about handing out cold hard cash as basic income, as the statement implies, then that is a recipe for disaster. There would be no guarantee that pe…

UBI is a direct cash transfer that the recipient can spend on anything. It's proven to be effective in international aid, and much more efficient that financing the enormous bureaucracies employed to decide whether someone is qualified. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39038402

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#50

Post by bduerst »

stcredzero wrote: post #36
drb91 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, tax the hell out of wealth. The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die.

The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die. The problem with taxing the wealthy, is that they generally have an outsized share of the political power. I think that a better solution, from a political and psychological standpoint, would involve a voluntary system. If just rent could be covered, this would be the equivalent of $12k per year in many parts…

If just the rent was covered for everyone ~$12k/yr, then rents would inflate universally ~$12k/yr because housing pricing is a function of income elasticity.

That German gated community you linked has housing that is owned by a trust. I don't think you can ask residents of the U.S. to voluntarily hand over all their housing property to a trust, or require them to be Catholic to reside in it.

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