A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing • Hacker News Board

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#441

Post by dilemma » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:24 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #429

dilemma wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So under UBI, if someone in San Francisco, NYC, DC, Seattle, etc. loses their job, they should move to rural Wisconsin?

Yes. Why not? When they do, it'll cause rent to drop in San Fran, NYC, DC and Seattle. The US has a staggering amount of available land. The problem with real estate is that prices are high where the jobs are located. With basic income you no longer have to live where the jobs are and can move around freely.

>When they do, it'll cause rent to drop in San Fran, NYC, DC and Seattle.

No it won't, no more than today.

>With basic income you no longer have to live where the jobs are and can move around freely.

Poor people are already "free" to not live in places they can't afford, and instead live in places with poor access to education and healthcare and jobs, and as such have reduced life expectancy. Your plan to use UBI to re-locate and segregate poor is no improvement compared to the current situation.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#442

Post by slavik81 » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

Unklejoe wrote: post #376

cujo wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you should advocated for a drinking age of 25 instead. Or move all those other things you get to do at 18 to 25 also.

I think we should actually lower the drinking age. It's currently 21 here. In fact, being 18 really gains you nothing here other than the ability to join the military and get into trouble with the law. My main point is that a few years should go by after a child enters into the adult world before they have access to a fund left for them. There's usually a short "reckless" period immediately after graduating high scho…

> I have two friends who inhereted $20,000+ sums of money from relatives when they were in their late teens, and both of them pissed it away in under a year. Looking back, both of them seem to regret it.

Would they have learned that lesson without making that mistake? Are you even sure they really wouldn't do the same again?

To quote Time, "About 70 percent of people who suddenly receive a windfall of cash will lose it within a few years, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education."

Just to make the anecdotes match the statistics, I inherented roughly 30k. It remained in my education fund until I finished undergrad. At 22, I opened an investment account. It's been paying dividends for the better part of a decade now.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#443

Post by RobertoG » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:28 PM UTC

rbcgerard wrote: post #193

I see two basic issues: 1. How do you implement this whithout border control - if you create a basic income that is higher than ~1/2 the world's income the amount of illegal immigration will be huge 2. Will we really have the will to tell people who are starving because they lost their stipend to drugs or gambling "too bad"?

which one of those problems we don't have now, again?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#444

Post by criley2 » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:28 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #371

brightball wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it work you'd have to take whatever the amount is and extract it from all other government benefit programs. You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month. Reducing all of those programs by the first $700 would effectively gut each of them enough to finally make some reforms without inducing panic in everyone…

Why would you get bipartisan support for the FairTax? Redesigning the tax structure to favour millionaires ( massive net beneficiaries because their US consumption expenditure is usually a tiny fraction of their capital gains tax and/or income tax bills) over the middle classes (no matter how high the stipend is someone has to pay for the millionaires' tax cut) isn't exactly a popular proposal even on the right That…

Poster is crazy to think liberals will EVER support a hugely regressive tax scheme. Consumption taxes destroy the middle class by acting as vehicle to transport wealth from the middle to the ultrawealthy, which makes it surprising that people continue to suggest it.

Now perhaps a consumption tax combined with a large capital gains tax and inheritance tax -- to keep taxes going in the oligarchs economy AND the regular economy, and prevent capital from being tied up between generations in the least productive way possible, then you might get some of them on board.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#445

Post by morgante » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

thiagoperes wrote: post #85

amelius wrote: post #5

I'm still wondering about one thing: if everybody has a basic income, then who will be doing the dirty jobs like collecting our waste? Will the price for waste collecting go up? And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "non-intellectual" (need a better word here) people will make all the money doing the…

First of all, no job should be considered dirty. Second, if you go to places like Netherlands, Norway and Japan you'll see that it's not about money. Higher education prepares workers to do more complex, more efficient and more productive jobs. Also, the society is more conscious about not having someone to do stupid things for them like collecting their trays after they eat at the McDonadls, this is YOUR responsibil…

> Also, the society is more conscious about not having someone to do stupid things for them like collecting their trays after they eat at the McDonadls, this is YOUR responsibility as a member of a society, to look for others as well.

To play devil's advocate, why? If my time is more valuable than a McDonald's worker's, why should I be wasting it on cleaning up trays?

Your argument could easily be extended to saying that restaurants are in general frivolous. Isn't feeding yourself a fundamental responsibility as a member of society? Except that destroying restaurants would actually be quite economically negative.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#446

Post by chongli » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

dilemma wrote: post #441

chongli wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Why not? When they do, it'll cause rent to drop in San Fran, NYC, DC and Seattle. The US has a staggering amount of available land. The problem with real estate is that prices are high where the jobs are located. With basic income you no longer have to live where the jobs are and can move around freely.

>When they do, it'll cause rent to drop in San Fran, NYC, DC and Seattle. No it won't, no more than today. >With basic income you no longer have to live where the jobs are and can move around freely. Poor people are already "free" to not live in places they can't afford, and instead live in places with poor access to education and healthcare and jobs, and as such have reduced life expectancy. Your plan to use UBI to…

I live in Canada so I always take health care for granted in these sorts of discussions. Knowing this, it should come as no shock to you that I also support universal health care.

What may be less obvious is that I also support universal education and in Canada we also generally have that, at least as far as K-12 goes. If I were a parent, my children would have access to the same quality of public education in a small rural town as they would in a rich area of Toronto.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#447

Post by Unklejoe » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #431

Unklejoe wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite the accomplishment, and is by far not the norm. I am 25 and have only been financially independent since 23, and even I am the anomaly amongst my peers. I don't see what's wrong with my stereotype in this case. Most people under 25 are not financially independent, and it's mainly due to the society we live in, not the children themselves. When my Dad was growing up, people had full time jobs at 16 years…

Stop calling us "children." It's offense and rude. How very convenient that the cutoff of adulthood is your own age—if you're going to insult vast numbers of functional adults, at least insult yourself in the process. Silly child. First of all, you are in fact wrong. The majority of young adults do in fact live independently. [0] Second of all, if you think that adulthood isn't reached until 25, why would you be advo…

The link you posted doesn't seem to work.

[How very convenient that the cutoff of adulthood is your own age]

I chose the number 25 because it is usually a few years after most people have graduated college and have entered the work force. The number 25 is used in many places as a "special" age. Insurance companies, rental car companies, hotel bookings, etc...

[you're going to insult vast numbers of functional adults, at least insult yourself in the process. Silly child.]

I don't know about your peers, but from my graduating class of ~1000, I would guess there were less than 100 who were completely independent by 23.

[First of all, you are in fact wrong. The majority of young adults do in fact live independently.]

I'll do some research on that.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#448

Post by clarkmoody » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

gjm11 wrote: post #99

This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc. And then, towards the end where it starts looking at numbers, it starts saying things like > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 tril…

You forget that the thing voters want and the law that hits the books are often very different. By the time any measure gets out of Congress, it will, by necessity, have been carved up and divvied out, with all sort of exemptions and special cases and kickbacks.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#449

Post by JulianMorrison » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

gjm11 wrote: post #99

This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc. And then, towards the end where it starts looking at numbers, it starts saying things like > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 tril…

Taxes would go up. But previously blocked productivity would be released, and socially desirable but marginal services would become viable.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#450

Post by techabuse » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

Unklejoe wrote: post #427

morgante wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's offensive. I am 23 and have lived away from home since I was 17. I've been financially independent since I turned 18. Don't stereotype.

That's quite the accomplishment, and is by far not the norm. I am 25 and have only been financially independent since 23, and even I am the anomaly amongst my peers. I don't see what's wrong with my stereotype in this case. Most people under 25 are not financially independent, and it's mainly due to the society we live in, not the children themselves. When my Dad was growing up, people had full time jobs at 16 years…

I see plenty wrong with the stereotype. I've been on my own since 17, too. I'm 28 now. In that time I've worked at nearly every job you can imagine, with no parents to beg money from or go back home to live with. I know what grinding poverty feels like, and how it's all the worse when you actually have a full time job. Doesn't mean I wasn't financially independent. There's lots of us in the same boat.

I eventually ground out night classes while working and job-hopped my way into industrial automation and a halfway comfortable life, so I understand the appeal of passing judgement from a high and mighty place - but don't. It's a particularly pernicious intellectual weakness.