Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

bloombergview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 840 posts

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#531

Post by MicroBerto »

contravariant wrote: post #279
MicroBerto wrote: post #202

In the early 1970s, animal behaviorist John Calhoun built a "mouse utopia" to see what would happen if he created the perfect world for mice, with unlimited food, starting with four males and four females, that could reach a population of 2500. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM What happened next is absolutely astonishing. When the mice had nothing to do and nothing to work for, their society collapsed upon…

>I'd rather see unproductive humans digging and re-filling holes in the ground than getting paid to do nothing. Or something like the biking experiment in Black Mirror. I'd rather people get paid to do nothing than people getting paid to do pointless tasks. I've seen some amazing things people made in their spare time, but I can't imagine anyone making something worthwhile digging and re-filling holes.

Again, the people building "amazing things in their spare time" are not the people to be concerned about!!

The usefulness we'd get out of the creative top 1-5% of the population is far outweighed by the chaos that'd be caused by the bottom/criminal 10% of the population.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#532

Post by yummyfajitas »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #515
yummyfajitas wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just contradicted yourself, and agreed that the rich invest while the poor consume. Glad we are in agreement!

>agreed that the rich invest while the poor consume // You just twisted my words and acted disingenuously. I said, for the third time, the rich consume. The rich consume far more than the poor. The rich invest more than the poor, but that's because the poor don't have money to invest. Take all the money from the rich and give it to the poor and consumption and investment will shift. The people holding the money aren'…

The point is what will happen in aggregate. If the poor gain $1 additional and the rich lose $1 additional, will investment go up or down? If it goes up then we should target fiscal stimulus at the rich during bad economic times. If it goes down then a BI will reduce future investment.

You are unfortunately in the situation that the stated reasons for your preferred policies contradict each other. That's quite strange - it's almost as if those stated reasons are post-hoc justifications and not your real motivation.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#533

Post by undersuit »

idiot99 wrote: post #523
gjm11 wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far as I can tell, "the public" has this perfectly clear. (Or at least as clear as "the public" ever has anything, which is not necessarily all that clear.) I think what you mean is that I need to convince you . I've no idea what (if anything) you would accept as evidence. Here's the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page on communism; feel free to check that the [...]s don't hide anything that changes the meaning.…

We'll have to agree to disagree. And as I say, step outside your bubble. The vast vast majority of the population reject basic income, in favour of a meritocracy, where the harder you work, the more money you can earn. Confiscating money from everyone, and then distributing it equally amongst the population (Regardless of whether they need it or deserve it) doesn't sit very well with people.

>The vast vast majority of the population reject basic income, in favour of a meritocracy, where the harder you work, the more money you can earn.

Then the vast majority of the population are rejecting basic income for the wrong reasons. Nothing about basic income invalidates meritocracy. In fact I would say it strengthens it. No longer is the rat race composed of a hodgepodge of willing, unwilling, and incompetent workers. All the unwilling or incompetent workers drop out. Those that still work have reasons to work besides filling a seat for 8 hours so they can continue to afford a meal .

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#534

Post by yummyfajitas »

adwf wrote: post #509
yummyfajitas wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

I didn't hold it up as an ideal. I held up the middle class experience there as an example of what happens when labor isn't scarce.

You seem to think I'm endorsing having very few goods and services. I'm not. On the contrary, I oppose policies like BI which will reduce goods and services available.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#535

Post by MicroBerto »

n72 wrote: post #518
MicroBerto wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we? If anything, I'd say we're on-average worse. Of course, anecdotal. So much blind optimism in this thread. I really need to get out, I'm clearly older and more jaded than you kiddoes

Mice don't play soccer, compose symphonies, do crosswords, watch TV, etc. In other words, we're considerably better filling our leisure time than they are. (I'm 43. 'Kiddo' is slightly insulting and, dare I say, condescending.)

> Mice don't play soccer, compose symphonies, do crosswords, watch TV, etc. In other words, we're considerably better filling our leisure time than they are.

Yup, all those bored teens and violent criminals are going to be playing crossword puzzles and composing symphonies all day now that their rent is paid and bellies are full.

I gotta get out of this thread. I may be bitter and pessimistic about humans, but you people are beyond delusional if you think free money solves more social problems than it creates.

Edit: Don't forget that all those bored inner-city teens, who no longer have a reason to go to school (they're gonna get a lifetime of free money and free stuff, after all), now have zero education. We can't keep half of them in school today, what's going to make them stop in the free money future? And they're going to breed even dumber kids. A few generations of this and you have caused devolution and lost everything human civilization has worked to achieve. Bad, bad, bad. Collapse-worthy bad.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#536

Post by Cshelton »

ww520 wrote: post #347
MicroBerto wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding inflation... if everyone instantly has $X now, doesn't $X become worthless? For instance, why would landlords not raise rents knowing that everyone now has this cash?

The problem is not inflation. It happens already. The problem is the new money created causing the inflation is given to the asset holders and banks, not to everyone. Rent increases now, due to inflation. The general public have to give more despite not getting the created money. Landlords got the benefit of rising rent due to inflation and rising housing price due to lower interest rate to create more money. Basic i…

"new money" is not, or ever, given to anyone. Banks included. The U.S. gov basically sells promissory notes (treasuries) to an independent, non governmental organization (The Federal reserve...which is not "federal" in the least bit..) on behalf of the American people. Although the fed is more or less offering a note at x price and the U.S. Treasury just buys it...

Anybody is allowed to buy bonds from the U.S. Treasury. In exchange, you get the "new money" as you call it. At no one point is anything given to the banks or asset holders.

The interest rate is determined by the rate the fed sets and buys these notes from the US T. This is the key and primary tool at which a PRIVATE, non-governmental organization, determines interest rates. However..you can also buy these notes directly from the Fed. China does all the time along with many other countries. Yes...other countries hold the "debt" of the American people... If that's not crazy enough...it gets better. This organization..the Fed...gets to tell banks how much to hold in required reserves. Another primary tool they use to control inflation.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#537

Post by Aoyagi »

alehander42 wrote: post #319
Aoyagi wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10k? That's almost the average income (or more, depending on how you count taxes) of the Czech Republic. If I had to choose between living in a 2nd world country and working and living in a 1st world country and not working for the same money, guess which I'd choose?

I am just amused by the "2nd world country" thing. I really fail to see how life in Central Europe is somehow of "lower quality"(e.g. Czech, Poland, Germany) compared to USA. I'd actually prefer living in Central Europe or especially Southern Europe over USA any day.

Well since you just bulked Czechia, Poland and Germany into one group, I can understand how you fail to see it.

Since you mentioned Germany, I'll use that. A Czech earns about a third of what a German earns. But everything costs more or less the same (except for housing, but the difference certainly isn't multiples). Gasoline costs the same (and much more than in US), vast majority of consumer goods costs the same, food seems to be cheaper, but that's because it's of lower quality.

Yeah, education is "free". As is government free to take more than half of what people earn.

By "2nd world" I mean "1st world prices, 3rd world wages" (yes I know 3rd world is something incomperable).

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#538

Post by prostoalex »

brightball wrote: post #236
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…

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…

> You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month.

What happens to Medicare under that scenario? Some medical procedures, particularly for old people, can exceed that.

Current federal government revenues top out at $3 trillion. Dividing it by a rough population number of 300 million (and ignoring the fact that portion of it comes from corporate income tax, excise taxes, etc.), the revenues collected stand at $10,000 a year a citizen. Distributing $8,400 a year back requires rather deep cuts to every single entitlement program and then some (defense, USPS, air traffic controllers, national parks, etc.)

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#539

Post by iza »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #439
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More money for consumers -> more money that can be earned by businesses -> more incentive to come up with innovative things for people to spend money on

Forget about money - that's a red herring which is confusing you. Humans are needed to actually invent those innovative things. But in the BI world, we have fewer humans actually devoting their time to this. (See simple arithmetic above.)

How many potential innovators and inventors are currently slaving away at menial jobs instead of pursuing their passions? The idea that innovation is driven purely by investment is an oversimplification.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#540

Post by prostoalex »

clarkmoody wrote: post #456
criley2 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What about the consumption taxes we have on the books? Gas tax? Hugely regressive. Wouldn't liberals support additional carbon taxes? Value-added tax? Wouldn't those continue to "destroy the middle class"? What about the tax of inflation that serves to redistribute wealth from savers to debtors? (middle class -> government) Also interesting how you know better than others how they should arrange their financial lives…

If you followed recent headlines, tax on sugary drinks has been a subject in Democratic primaries. Even though high-fructose corn syrup has been linked to obesity, diabetes and myriad of other problems related to that, some members of liberal community oppose a consumption tax on sugary drinks on the basis that it hits lower-income families disproportionally http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Tax-VOX/2016/0430/Bernie-s...

Apparently obesity and diabetes hit lower-income families disproportionally as well http://www.livescience.com/37923-type-2-diabetes-low-income-... (who would have thunk), but we can always create a government program to conduct more research on causes.

Post reply on HN