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Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

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Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#421

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

gzu wrote: post #383
treyfitty wrote: post #272

There are a lot of people here dissenting on the idea of UBI on the premise that they find meaning in work, and to take the incentive to work away will lead others (themselves included) not to have meaning in life. I’ve taken a year off of work to start a business that failed and spent the past few months hanging out with my kids. At first, my stress levels were high because daycares were shut down and I was panickin…

The lack of real world experience on a HackerNews UBI discussion is infuriating. Western society's white collar elite are completely unaware of truly how many "sucky" jobs there are in the world that all enable our (currently) superior standard of living. Your entire existence relies on a globalist system of slave level labor producing products from all corners of the world. Automation of every industry is impossible…

In Europe and Australia, all those jobs get done and the people doing them get fairly compensated for it. For example, the pay for a garbage truck driver is actually quite high, because it's an unpleasant job and they need to attract people to do it. And because the salary is high, it's also heavily automated, with pickers that grab bins and empty them into the truck.

Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, the same job is done by three people, two of whom jog outside next to the vehicle in the sweltering heat and manually empty the bins into it. They're breaking their backs and get paid like crap.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#422

Post by umvi »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #421
gzu wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of real world experience on a HackerNews UBI discussion is infuriating. Western society's white collar elite are completely unaware of truly how many "sucky" jobs there are in the world that all enable our (currently) superior standard of living. Your entire existence relies on a globalist system of slave level labor producing products from all corners of the world. Automation of every industry is impossible…

In Europe and Australia, all those jobs get done and the people doing them get fairly compensated for it. For example, the pay for a garbage truck driver is actually quite high, because it's an unpleasant job and they need to attract people to do it. And because the salary is high, it's also heavily automated, with pickers that grab bins and empty them into the truck. Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, the same job is don…

> And because the salary is high, it's also heavily automated

That isn't really obvious to me as having a cause/effect relationship. Could you please expound? Why would high salaries cause heavy automation in a given field?

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#423

Post by antris »

laingc wrote: post #419
alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

One of my best friends is an academic economist working in this space, so while I won’t pretend to be an expert, I have spent a goodly amount of time discussing this with one. With no disrespect intended to you personally, this policy you propose makes no sense. Without putting words in your mouth, it looks to me like “two things I as a progressive like the idea of”, rather than a coherent economic policy. Carbon tax…

Quite bold statements there without linking to any sources. "I won’t pretend to be an expert" Yeah, you definitely shouldn't.

Also, you are missing the target on the parent comments argument. The carbon tax wouldn't affect the poor as much because the UBI is there to compensate for it, that's kind of the whole point. There's nothing about being poor that forces you to emit more carbon when compared to other people, as far as I know.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#424

Post by baq »

laingc wrote: post #419
alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

One of my best friends is an academic economist working in this space, so while I won’t pretend to be an expert, I have spent a goodly amount of time discussing this with one. With no disrespect intended to you personally, this policy you propose makes no sense. Without putting words in your mouth, it looks to me like “two things I as a progressive like the idea of”, rather than a coherent economic policy. Carbon tax…

OP may have mixed the idea of carbon dividend into UBI which the poor would get more of than they’d pay in carbon taxes.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#425

Post by djsumdog »

UBI feels like Communism with extra steps. With UBI, we're saying "You still have a choice on where you apply your skills and labour," and contrast it with systems where the choice is removed; or people are filtered via school and tests to things to 'the best of their abilities'

But who exactly will do the farm work? There are things we may never be able to automate, like picking green chili peppers. You may say,'Well those jobs will higher salaries,' but then the end product has a higher cost. I feel like you end up in the Animal Farm situation where, when you begging to stretch out all the cascading changes, someone will always find a way to either game that system, or just work insanely hard within that system, and end up on top.

This also doesn't address people with extreme wealth (Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg) who don't really care about the money, but only the insane power it wields them. Their wealth can't be pure luck. How much was merit? Is the merit worth the power they've acquired?

What about undocumented workers? Do non-residents of a nation get UBI? Do we create a new lower class, similar to the ones who rose up in Libya (a nation that now has a slave trade due to US bombings). Prior to the bombings, their citizens had dividends paid from oil wealth (similar to Alaska), and the government subsidized power, houses and education.

You will always end up with a group without UBI, unless you find a way to apply it to the planet. Otherwise your peripheral nations, and workers within your own nation, will rise up, and history repeats itself.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#426

Post by bjornsing »

The argument doesn’t seem very solid to me (e.g. I don’t see sharply increasing marketing budgets in the graph indicating more businesses are demand constrained), but the conclusion still seems likely to be correct. I’ve had similar thoughts for a long time now.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#427

Post by sysalphUS »

gzu wrote: post #383
treyfitty wrote: post #272

There are a lot of people here dissenting on the idea of UBI on the premise that they find meaning in work, and to take the incentive to work away will lead others (themselves included) not to have meaning in life. I’ve taken a year off of work to start a business that failed and spent the past few months hanging out with my kids. At first, my stress levels were high because daycares were shut down and I was panickin…

The lack of real world experience on a HackerNews UBI discussion is infuriating. Western society's white collar elite are completely unaware of truly how many "sucky" jobs there are in the world that all enable our (currently) superior standard of living. Your entire existence relies on a globalist system of slave level labor producing products from all corners of the world. Automation of every industry is impossible…

Thank you. These are necessary functions of society that require hard work that although maybe rewarding To some people in some capacity is mostly not desirable labor if other alternatives are available such as spending more time with family and reading whimsical books. How do you convince enough people to clean poo or raise and maintain livestock or climb inside a fuel cell in order to fulfill necessary the needs of society? We know how communism and capitalism traditionally have coerced people to do so. The reality is not pretty from either angle, but are we really even close to that alternative yet? It’s a noble premise but we have a long ways to go.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#428

Post by ktaylora »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #79

I understand and agree with how a UBI will benefit those that are currently falling between the cracks and not receiving any assistance. I can also see the benefits of greatly simplifying the social security system. (If it was implemented in a way that was actually simple. i.e. no distinction between sick, unemployed, old, lazy) But I don't understand why people don't believe the UBI will just become the new definiti…

This. There is compelling evidence that UBI, over the short term, really is effective at distributing money to a lot of people in need without a cumbersome burden of proof placed on assessing that need. That's why the treasury department used it for stimulus checks in the US. But long term, we don't understand if UBI is an effective tool for dealing with poverty. In effect, UBI would be like arbitrarily adding $15,000 to every persons annual salary. Over the short term this would be great. You'd be able to cover the costs of your bills with that additional money and live a little more securely. But in time, the market would absorb this expansion of the money supply as inflation. More surplus money in some people's pockets would lead to increased demand for goods and services. Increased demand would lead producers and retailers to charge more for goods. Renters would get charged more for desirable property. Gas stations would charge more for gas. And over time, your UBI check would need to get bigger and bigger to carry the same purchasing power that it did when UBI first started. There are examples of what this runaway inflation looks like in countries that pump free money for extended periods of time into their economies. Venezuela comes to mind.

To be effective, UBI might work better if it's distribution were random. And the duration of payments were irregular. Something that a market couldn't set it's watch by and producers couldn't game. If this sounds a ridiculous long term solution to poverty, it's because it is.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#429

Post by Ottolay »

laingc wrote: post #419
alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

One of my best friends is an academic economist working in this space, so while I won’t pretend to be an expert, I have spent a goodly amount of time discussing this with one. With no disrespect intended to you personally, this policy you propose makes no sense. Without putting words in your mouth, it looks to me like “two things I as a progressive like the idea of”, rather than a coherent economic policy. Carbon tax…

This is a red herring that keeps being brought up with respect to UBI way too often.

"Carbon taxes unquestionably fall hardest on the poor, as do consumption taxes generally."

Yes, but rich people consume and release carbon at a much higher rate than poor people. As a result, rich people would pay into consumption taxes/carbon taxes much more than they would get back in a flat cash payment funded by such means.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#430

Post by jaakl »

lysium wrote: post #401
alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

To me, a carbon tax sounds like it’s ok to piss into the pool as long as you pay for it. Nobody’s using the money to clean the pool, though. Sure, some will try to piss less, but I doubt you’d like to swim in it. For me, that’s the rational excuse to not rely on carbon tax. Instead, make everybody use the toilet.

We dont have toilets. So pissing less to the pool is basically best we can do.
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