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

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#501

Post by zamalek » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:20 PM UTC

MaulingMonkey wrote: post #287

zamalek wrote: post #140

Although I advocate the empowerment of the impoverished, this looks like a very fundamentally flawed idea that would actually harm those it sets out to help. We need a different approach. When you give everyone in the economy a $10000 basic income you drive demand without driving supply. This graph[1] demonstrates how we estimate the relationship between the two, as well as price. As you'll notice, an increase in dem…

What's the net economic difference between giving someone $5, which they then spend on soup, and spending $5 to buy soup on their behalf? None. Same for spending $10000 on someone's behalf via services, versus simply giving them $10000 which they then spend on the same services. Who holds the taxpayer provided money when making the final sale for goods or services is moot. In both cases you're driving up demand, whic…

> What's your "new N=0 point" on the graph?

In essence I meant that, in a construed way, the buying power of $10000 would approach the same buying power as the pittance that the impoverished have today. Your argument was very educational so I have to do some more thinking about this and may discard that point. Thanks for the food for thought.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#502

Post by dazmax » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

vlunkr wrote: post #477

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…

Can someone explain to me how a true basic income would be expected to work? If you're not excluding anyone, where does this massive amount of money come from? I suppose it has to be taxed out of the wealthy? So they still receive the income but pay it back in taxes? This is an honest inquiry. Yes you can save money by cutting these programs, but that argument doesn't add up for me yet because you still have to pay E…

Yes the rich would probably pay more even with getting their basic income. The point of giving it to everyone is to reduce the administrative cost of figuring out who qualifies, and to get rid of "welfare cliffs" that give poor people a disincentive to earn more for fear of losing assistance programs.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#503

Post by dllthomas » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #146

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…

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…

Not only are your numbers misleading (we've dug into that in depth in previous conversations - the students who choose to spend more time on their studies are not producing tremendous, irreplaceable value), but the comparison is absurd. The problem in Great Depression was not that too many people chose not to work because they had sufficient other sources of income - pretty close to the opposite.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#504

Post by notahacker » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

phaemon wrote: post #491

notahacker wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Thanks for the helpful link. From what I can see they're undertaking to ensure that not a single disabled person would be worse off under their scheme with many better off, plan on keeping housing benefits in their entirety, intend a revised form of child benefit to similarly not leave families worse off and propose a pension scheme which is higher than BI and current basic state pensions in addition to retaining existing earnings related state pensions.

In short: they're proposing to abolish ~£37bn of targeted subsidies for working age adults but retaining ~£67bn of them. Pensions and child benefits get totally replaced, but by new subsidies that cost more than what they replace. I think this is a much better approach than eliminating all or nearly all the existing benefits as is often favoured by right wing BI proponents, but it leaves untouched or simply renames more than it eliminates, and ultimately they're proposing to balance their books far more from offsetting tax increases than by eliminating traditional targeted welfare subsidies.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#505

Post by gjm11 » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

_Understated_ wrote: post #104

gjm11 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some sorts of political proposal it's reasonable to be shocked at people talking openly about. For me, they're things like: Reintroducing slavery. Switching to communism. Putting people in prison for having the wrong religion. Expelling all black people from the country. ... Do I understand correctly that you consider raising taxes to be in this category?

I absolutely don't believe they are in the same category: How the hell did you equate them? Who honestly wants to pay more tax? Really? I ask you in all seriousness. I am well-off but up until recently I earned enough to keep my head above water. I had a disposable income after all bills were paid of around £100 a month: One burst tyre in my car and that was it but I had no debt (apart from my mortgage) as I lived wi…

I equated them because you said:

> they love the fact that they can raise taxes here now... they openly talk about it and very few people I know bat an eyelid!

which looked to me (and still does) as if you were expressing surprise that people openly talk about raising taxes and that others aren't surprised they're doing so.

> Who honestly wants to pay more tax?

Me. More precisely: all else being equal I prefer to pay less tax, but all else is not equal and I think increasing the taxes paid by people like me and using the resulting revenue to increase funding for (e.g.) the national health service or benefits for disabled people would, overall, make the country I live in a better place.

> no Government has decreased taxes in the UK

Well, according to the graph here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_Uni... tax revenue in the UK was a smaller fraction of GDP in 2005 than in 2000. It's a little under 40% (which already makes it quite implausible that 60% of your income gets taken in tax).

Finer-grained comparison is really difficult because the tax system is complicated (income tax, National Insurance, VAT, capital gains, ...); over the last few decades income tax has decreased substantially for most people but other taxes have increased.

> over 60% of my money is taxed now

This is not something you should be believing or disbelieving on the basis of something you read from an anti-tax campaigning organization. You should have all the information you need to work it out.

I don't know whether I'm paid better or worse than you are (I would guess fairly similarly) but I do not pay anywhere near 60% of my earnings in tax. Adding up all the taxes I can think of, I reckon I pay either about 30% or about 40% in tax; the lower figure is if I count capital gains (largely untaxed because most of my assets are in tax-efficient things like ISAs and pension funds) as "income" and the higher figure is if I look only at salary.

(Maybe the numbers look worse for contractors than for salaried employees? I am not counting, e.g., corporation tax paid by my employer; neither do I see any reason why I should.)

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#506

Post by dllthomas » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

vlunkr wrote: post #477

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…

Can someone explain to me how a true basic income would be expected to work? If you're not excluding anyone, where does this massive amount of money come from? I suppose it has to be taxed out of the wealthy? So they still receive the income but pay it back in taxes? This is an honest inquiry. Yes you can save money by cutting these programs, but that argument doesn't add up for me yet because you still have to pay E…

Yes, you tax it back. Typically proposals include a flat tax (or flat tax increase) to pay for it. In that case, you net extra money from the system if you make more than the mean, and you net pay into the system if you make more than the mean, but there are no hard cliffs and your next dollar earned still means more money in your pocket at any point.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#507

Post by dsq » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

empressplay wrote: post #53

gaius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basic income will provide only the basics - if you want luxuries, you will still need a job.

I'm not convinced it will even provide the basics. There would be nothing to stop rents / real-estate prices from going up to compensate. Or food, or utilities. It's simple supply and demand.

And so the next, inevitable step after benefacting loyal citizens with their stipend would be price controls so that greedy kulaks - sorry, property owners, can't profiteer like that. Cast your vote for the next General Secretary!

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#508

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:33 PM UTC

PietdeVries wrote: post #344

karmacondon wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way I can see UBI working is if most people get no benefit. So someone making the average US income of $50,000/yr would get a check for $20k from the government and then see their taxes go up by ~$20k. Rich people would pay much more, effectively transferring their wealth to the poor. People who are solidly middle class wouldn't see much change, except having a new class of potential customers (the people th…

I fear it will only increase inflation to a level that the 10k people get is representing about the same in goods as the current level is they have. Free money is fake: it doesn't work in my opinion. It either increases the price level (hey - even the poor bum gets 10k a year, so he can afford a $10 bread, isn't it?) or it will stop people from over-achieving. My motivation to earn extra with a job only to see it go…

[deleted]

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#509

Post by adwf » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:37 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #369

adwf wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the correct pay, yes. Some jobs aren't paid enough for people to do and still afford to live. Basic income actually fixes that by giving people a baseline to live off, upon which their salary can build.

If those jobs "aren't paid enough for people to afford to live" then India should be full of a billion rotting corpses. I was there last week and I feel like I would have noticed the apocalypse. A much better solution than BI would be a guaranteed job and/or an expanded EITC. These solutions - while not sounding as cool and hipster as BI - have no labor disincentive and cost a lot less.

Putting aside the absurd comparison of living costs in a 3rd world country vs 1st world...

India is filled with a ton of misery. It's the only country in the world where I saw dead people just lying in the gutter. The Mumbai slum was one of the worst places I've ever been and you want to hold that up as some sort of ideal? That people should just live down to that level instead of striving for better? If it wasn't for the Indian government welfare programs, that slum would be filled with rotting corpses.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#510

Post by dllthomas » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:39 PM UTC

empressplay wrote: post #53

gaius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basic income will provide only the basics - if you want luxuries, you will still need a job.

I'm not convinced it will even provide the basics. There would be nothing to stop rents / real-estate prices from going up to compensate. Or food, or utilities. It's simple supply and demand.

There would be competition to stop rents and real estate from going up to compensate. It may or may not be sufficient.

Note that it is not merely a question of competition of perfect substites. An apartment competes with a house, but also with a shared apartment, with living with family, with leaving the area. And note that a Basic Income quite directly increases the supply of "housing near some source of income".