A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory • Hacker News Board

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#471

Post by branchless » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

charlieflowers wrote: post #469

branchless wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The monetary system is pretty well understood. Basic income just becomes another input for money to enter the system. I'm no fan of basic income however basic income comes from tax. This is redistributive, but not expansionary. You say it's well understood but you seem to think that central bank issued currency is the cause of inflation. Most "money" is created as credit from private banks (against land). Again, ba…

I'm curious enough that I'd like to look into your worldview. So please, tell me what to read. What are the 4 or 5 links/resources that explain it best in your opinion?

It's not my worldview. It's the world.

http://bankunderground.co.uk/2015/06/30/banks-are-not-interm...

http://www.amazon.com/Progress-Poverty-Henry-George-ebook/dp...

http://www.amazon.com/Soft-Currency-Economics-II-Monetary/dp...

I'm sure others can post more.

Reality is the dreamworld as far as I can see. It's a total disaster that people don't understand they are seeing all productivity gains now (and forever more) captured by land prices.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#472

Post by paulhauggis » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

chimprich wrote: post #359

paulhauggis wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a few of them end up just enjoying themselves" The studies about people that win money that I've seen paint a different picture: 75% lose it all within 5 years by not spending wisely. It's the same with professional sports players and it's gotten so bad, they have started getting them mandatory professional money managers. I believe there is a Netflix documentary about it called "broke". People that inherit money al…

With all due respect, I think you're really confusing two arguments here; that of wealth distribution and the concept of basic income. The idea of a basic income does not imply a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the poor or indeed anyone. You could set up a basic income system tomorrow in your country of choice and set the level of basic income and tax levels so that everyone, at least in the beginning, wa…

"With all due respect, I think you're really confusing two arguments here; that of wealth distribution and the concept of basic income."

With all due respect, you are only thinking about basic income at step 1. I laid out what will happen at step 10..which is essentially a wealth distribution system.

"You could set up a basic income system tomorrow in your country of choice and set the level of basic income and tax levels so that everyone, at least in the beginning, was receiving the same amount of cash they were before."

Where do you think the money comes from to support a basic income? Who do you think pays for it?

"One advantage of the idea is that the poor would be more likely to find work because the marginal reward is so much better"

How so? Many poor people will be content with not finding work and just living on basic income. Minimum wage will also need to be well above what they are getting from the government, further contributing to inflation.

"leading to more wealth overall and sharing out the tax burden more. At least in theory."

You are only looking at it from one very small part of it.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#473

Post by JamesBarney » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:29 PM UTC

frogpelt wrote: post #362

The basic income concept is intriguing to me (because it simplifies things) but I do not think it will work for this reason: Who administers the basic income? The government and by extension politicians. Once they have every single person who breathes on the dole, this will give them unbelievable leverage against the people. If the government is giving everyone a check, how hard is it to argue that the check should b…

"Besides that, asking any government to take money from the people, run it through the giant bureaucracy machine, and magically produce a net benefit to the people is both logically impossible and naturally never going to happen."

It doesn't matter if redistribution is inefficient in terms of dollars if it's efficient in terms of utility.

The idea that a rich person gets less from money than a poor person does is called diminishing marginal utility. An example of this is $3,340 can buy a very rich person a purse, or it can buy a very poor person the life of their daughter.[0]

Now suppose that this government bureaucracy is terrifyingly inefficient and burns one dollar for every dollar that makes it to the malarial foundation. This would mean that a rich person has to give up 2 purses to save one life. In most people's books this is a huge gain in utility, and is why even if redistribution is inefficient[1] financially, it is very efficient when measured by utility.

[0] - Give well estimates that the malarial foundation saves 1 life per $3,433 [1] - The latest papers by the IMF actually argue that redistribution does not reduce growth.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#474

Post by stephengillie » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:31 PM UTC

branchless wrote: post #467

[deleted] wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Oh dear. BoE in their blog have a different idea to you, from their official blog: http://bankunderground.co.uk/2015/06/30/banks-are-not-interm... > In the simple ILF model, bank loans represent the intermediation of real savings, or loanable funds, between non-bank savers and non-bank borrowers. Lending starts with banks collecting deposits of real resources from one agent, and ends with the lending of those resourc…

It's very frustrating to discover that everything you've learned in college was either very wrong or completely wrong. This is why I tell people that parties and social time are so much more important than classes, for which I get called an idiot.

I've almost never had a bank loan. Banks have traditionally refused to lend to me. Thus we can't have me start with the FMC model; I've always lived in the ILF model.

If banks aren't reliant for central banks or others for their money, then why are there not more banks? Why don't we see poor people just set up their own bank, loan money to each other, then use that money to go and buy food and shelter?

If banks create money, then where do Bitcoin come from, and why are they valued? What happens if everyone stops using other currencies and use Bitcoin instead? And how does the world of Finance plan to stop this?

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#475

Post by eli_gottlieb » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:31 PM UTC

nekopa wrote: post #345

anticon wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we redistributed wealth around the world, everyone would be poor, unable to start companies, etc etc. Does that really solve anything useful? You do realise that if you redistributed wealth over the world, you would be drastically worse off don't you...

If all the world wealth was distributed to everyone on the planet, we'd all get about $51,000. I'd be drastically better off.

Yeah, at that rate, I'd only be very slightly worse off than I am now. Maybe I'd lose... $10k-$20k to Horrifying Socialism. But hey, I could restart my life from a capital base of $51k.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#476

Post by ZenoArrow » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:32 PM UTC

branchless wrote: post #434

[deleted] wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> The monetary system is pretty well understood. Basic income just becomes another input for money to enter the system. I'm no fan of basic income however basic income comes from tax. This is redistributive, but not expansionary. You say it's well understood but you seem to think that central bank issued currency is the cause of inflation. Most "money" is created as credit from private banks (against land). Again, ba…

"I'm no fan of basic income however basic income comes from tax."

Basic income does not need to come from tax. The debt that comes with creating money need not exist, and with debt-free credit you vastly reduce the need for the credit to provide a taxable return.

Initiatives such as the Positive Money campaign show that we have got options when it comes to changing how money is created, it's something I believe could work, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

http://positivemoney.org/

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#477

Post by branchless » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:34 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #476

branchless wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The monetary system is pretty well understood. Basic income just becomes another input for money to enter the system. I'm no fan of basic income however basic income comes from tax. This is redistributive, but not expansionary. You say it's well understood but you seem to think that central bank issued currency is the cause of inflation. Most "money" is created as credit from private banks (against land). Again, ba…

"I'm no fan of basic income however basic income comes from tax." Basic income does not need to come from tax. The debt that comes with creating money need not exist, and with debt-free credit you vastly reduce the need for the credit to provide a taxable return. Initiatives such as the Positive Money campaign show that we have got options when it comes to changing how money is created, it's something I believe could…

Sure, but in this case I was responding to the parent comment who was totally unaware of how money/credit works.

I get that this could also be supplied via the state by issuing "new" money. It's good you posted a link to this link. Thanks I'm already aware of their work.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#478

Post by branchless » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:36 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #474

branchless wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh dear. BoE in their blog have a different idea to you, from their official blog: http://bankunderground.co.uk/2015/06/30/banks-are-not-interm... > In the simple ILF model, bank loans represent the intermediation of real savings, or loanable funds, between non-bank savers and non-bank borrowers. Lending starts with banks collecting deposits of real resources from one agent, and ends with the lending of those resourc…

It's very frustrating to discover that everything you've learned in college was either very wrong or completely wrong. This is why I tell people that parties and social time are so much more important than classes, for which I get called an idiot. I've almost never had a bank loan. Banks have traditionally refused to lend to me. Thus we can't have me start with the FMC model; I've always lived in the ILF model. If ba…

What? You want the plebs at the front of the queue? You need a banking license. Go set up your own bank that is not an intermediary but instead issues dollars. I bet the cops come to see you faster than if you were murdering a person on the hour every hour.

Speak to others about bitcoin. It doesn't interest me, it's not "state" money. The state can guarantee it can pay you back by squeezing citizens. Bitcoin can't do this.

For more info go see my other link or just google. It's all out there if you look, and I'm not talking zerohedge conspiracy lunacy as demonstrated by my url to the BoE's own blog.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#479

Post by crimsonalucard » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

bomaqhbk wrote: post #385

crimsonalucard wrote: post #367

How about a guaranteed job rather then a free paycheck.

The main problems I see with the guaranteed job idea are that it presupposes a judgment about what types of work are inherently valuable (and does so at the cost of exploring the unknown) and it sounds a lot like a life of forced servitude for which the only rational was the original income inequality.

Forced servitude? you gotta be kidding... Let's look at the world as it is today: work for money. Is that slavery? No. Let's look at the world I'm proposing: guaranteed work for guaranteed money. Is that slavery? according to you, yes. If you're saying one is slavery and the other isn't, then I have to disagree.

>guaranteed job idea are that it presupposes a judgment about what types of work are inherently valuable (and does so at the cost of exploring the unknown)

Picking up the trash and cleaning up the neighborhood are unknown high risk ventures? Fixing pot-holes, washing graffiti off walls, planting trees, picking litter off the beach, helping the environment have no benefit to society? There are PLENTY of jobs that can be created that are not high risk ventures and can benefit all of society. I'm not proposing to start another NASA program.

Are you trying to say that paying people money to sit on their asses while entire cities have thousands of little problems is a more worthwhile venture then telling someone to help out the community in exchange for the same amount of money? Your reasoning being that we as human beings are not intelligent enough to make judgement about which types of work are more valuable?

Make a judgement on this: which is more valuable? Helping the community for money OR sitting on your ass for money?

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#480

Post by stephengillie » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

branchless wrote: post #478

stephengillie wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very frustrating to discover that everything you've learned in college was either very wrong or completely wrong. This is why I tell people that parties and social time are so much more important than classes, for which I get called an idiot. I've almost never had a bank loan. Banks have traditionally refused to lend to me. Thus we can't have me start with the FMC model; I've always lived in the ILF model. If ba…

What? You want the plebs at the front of the queue? You need a banking license. Go set up your own bank that is not an intermediary but instead issues dollars. I bet the cops come to see you faster than if you were murdering a person on the hour every hour. Speak to others about bitcoin. It doesn't interest me, it's not "state" money. The state can guarantee it can pay you back by squeezing citizens. Bitcoin can't do…

> Go set up your own bank that is not an intermediary but instead issues dollars.

Wait, wait, wait. There are different types of banks? How many different types? Let's start again, talking about all of these types. How do they interact? Got any good links?