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A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

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Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#491

Post by phaemon »

notahacker wrote: post #272
lsaferite wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"universal benefit program" meaning it is designed from the beginning to replace the 14, so now you have 1.

Designed to /= actually will There are plenty of campaigners on the left - the UK Green Party is an example - that openly campaign for a BI in addition to most of the state benefits that already exist. And when it comes to implementation details, it's quite hard to believe that many left wing proponents actually would take the "well if the BI isn't enough for you to afford your social housing once we sell it off, may…

That's very misleading. The Green Party want to keep some of the existing benefits, but massively reduced (so disability benefit, for example, would drop to £30 a week). But since they plan to abolish more than one benefit, there would definitely be fewer than before.

You can read the detailed proposal at: https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/Policy%20files...

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#492

Post by phaemon »

JonFish85 wrote: post #478
morgante wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any bill to introduce UBI would almost certainly have to include the elimination of existing programs to get passed. I don't dispute that many liberals would like to have UBI and the existing benefits (despite that being economically crippling). They're just extremely unlikely to get their way.

There is absolutely no way you could get rid of all of the other programs. If someone is irresponsible with their money (and there will be at least some), I doubt anyone wants families starving in the streets, which is kind of the way a bunch of the current programs are set up (at least in the US).

Pay it weekly.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#493

Post by chongli »

maxerickson wrote: post #459
chongli wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 smal…

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. Is this true in reality or just in principle? An area with more students can naturally better afford to offer programs that are of limited interest, because they will still have lots of students that are interested. An area with less students probably can't spend mon…

It's true in reality. We don't have localized funding for schools in Canada; we fund them province-wide. The small rural school gets the same funding per student as the big city school. The difference between the smallest schools and the biggest schools is not that much so rural kids have a longer bus ride to get to school. They don't have to sacrifice on programs.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#494

Post by jboggan »

'In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."'

    :Rudyard Kipling [0]
0 - http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#495

Post by CWuestefeld »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #316
pjc50 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone's that highly productive they'll still be able to earn enough that going out to work would make economic sense. Or they could have the fathers change the diapers.

If someone's that highly productive they'll still be able to earn enough that going out to work would make economic sense. This is absolutely true in a free market with no labor distortions (BI, tax, etc). However, we already live in a world with distortions (taxes, welfare, regulations) that drive a wedge between economically optimal and actual choices. How would adding an even bigger wedge help? Also, due to women'…

I don't think it's even true without market distortions. The whole point of BI is to give people without adequate income some means to support themselves. In other words, it changes the compensation to our hypothetical woman from $0 to $X,000.

At the margin this will certainly cause people to drop out of the workforce. Heck, as I get closer to having enough assets saved to be able to require, I'd probably choose the pull the trigger on that decision sooner.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#496

Post by corin_ »

rhino369 wrote: post #401
corin_ wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Swiss proposal of around $2600 a month, implemented in the US, would cost nearly $10 trillion a year which doesn't really seem feasible. That number sounds higher than it would effectively be: 1) The population is ~320m, but ~65m of those are under the age of 16 (add on another 8m if you say under 18), who presumably don't need the same $2600/month right from when they are babies. That shaves of $2.8trillion 2)…

You probably have to give children some sort of amount. Maybe even the full amount. The public isn't going to buy into a program that gives an abled bodied man who smokes pot and plays WoW all day the full share but give a single mom the 4 kids the same amount. There is also no way this would work if 50% of the country doesn't really get the income because you raise their taxes to take it back. Middle class taxes are…

You're right I forgot to add back in some amount for children. Somewhere between $400 and $1300 would be fair, so let's say a middle ground of $850/month which adds back $0.75trillion.

As to raising taxes - if a UBI were ever to exist this would have to happen to the middle class, because the middle class (or most of them, might depend on how defined) do not need $2,600/month on top of their current situation and if they get this then certainly it wouldn't be affordable. It's not nearly as hard a sell as a normal tax raise though, you just explain that for X people under a certain wealth level the "new basic income tax" will be capped at the same amount they receive as basic income so that they don't lose any money in real terms.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#497

Post by chongli »

msandford wrote: post #381
chongli wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People's willingness to pay is not strictly positively correlated to their ability to pay. In many cases, such as rubinelli's example of increased mobility, an increase in ability to pay is marked by a decrease in willingness. Overall, I'd argue that by increasing a person's ability to pay for anything you increase their ability to walk away from all kinds of bad deals. One of the best examples of this is given by Te…

Remember also that people's wants are effectively unlimited in aggregate. If we could all have 100 foot yachts and spaceships and Ferraris we collectively in large majority would choose to have those things. You know, in the absence of any negative consequences for those actions. A beef carcass might have 500 pounds of meat on it, but only 5-10lbs of that is tenderloin. If we all have enough money to buy tenderloin i…

You know, in the absence of any negative consequences for those actions

And there's the rub. Even if we could make 500lb all-tenderloin cattle you wouldn't see people buying hundreds of pounds of beef tenderloin for themselves every day. Billionaries like Bill Gates can already afford millions of pounds of tenderloin yet you don't see him eating that.

Basic income might cause the price of tenderloin to go up a little bit but so what? It's not going to do anything to the price of corn or rice or wheat. Maybe the price of an apartment in Manhattan will go up a little bit (I doubt it) but not a house in rural Wisconsin.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#498

Post by jboggan »

uhtred wrote: post #274

Surely $833 a month ($10,000 a year) still wouldn't be even close to enough for someone who is unemployed to live? Wouldn't rent and bills use that up, without leaving anything for food, clothing etc? I love the idea of universal basic income, but I feel it would need to be double the amount proposed in this article to really change society for the better. Otherwise people will still need to resort to crime to extra…

Why not triple it? Why not $100,000k a year for everyone?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#499

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

arethuza wrote: post #311
spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They meant in the industrial relations sense of being "dirty" Jobs which traditionally came with a premium - sewer workers dustmen steel workers both because its unplesant work and there s also a risk premium. Its why a pit deputy (coal miner) in the UK can charge £2k for a single weekend shift.

I don't think there are any "pits" in the UK anymore - the last deep coal mine closed at the end of 2015: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/18/kellingle...

Ah this might have been before that i was at a training course for TUPE and some of the senior Union Guys where there on the same course.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#500

Post by CWuestefeld »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #194
yummyfajitas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just wealthier people who will be worse off - it's everyone. Basic income is known to create a large disincentive for work. In previous experiments (Mincome) labor supply dropped by about 10% - double what happened during the great recession. This means that fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc. No matter how much money you give to peop…

I'll have you know that money itself tends to disincentivise work for a lot of people. In this economy, monied relationships are too often wage slavery. People think that they can pay me to work on something I don't love. You are sitting here talking about people mowing your effing lawn. Are you kidding me? If you aren't gonna do that yourself, why in the dear beloved earth should you expect some stranger to do it ex…

So much for sanitation. How am I going to get someone to pump out my septic tank, except to pay him some amount that is sufficient to compensate for the displeasure of the job?

Believe it or not, there are jobs that need to be done, but nobody in the world has a passion for them.

Employment isn't about fear or force. It's about two parties agreeing that they each come out better after the transaction of selling labor. I may not love what I do every day, but the sacrifice is worth it to have the benefit of the salary and other benefits that my employer gives me. And she probably isn't enamored with having to give up that money to pay me, but values the productivity I deliver (when I'm not on HN) more than that money.

The ability to trade labor for goods or money is the single greatest invention in the history of humanity. Without it I'd have to grow my own food and fibers, weave my own cloth for clothing (in the house I had to construct myself), sitting in a dark drafty room wishing that some altruist would come cure my illnesses.

But instead, we found that people can decide they value one thing more than another, and engage in voluntary commerce so that they can trade in kind.

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