Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work • Hacker News Board

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#541

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #239

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can only do that if they collude, which is illegal. On the other hand, if food and rent are paid for mostly with UBI money, and supply was more elastic than demand, then prices would surely increase.

Did they collude to raise rents 10% this year? People will bid up apartments because they have more money.

Ya, isn’t that what supply not keeping up with demand (in the form of money that can be applied to said demand). Everyone can’t afford to rent an apartment f there isn’t enough apartments to rent. People will use their buying power to prevent being the ones left without, while landlords will benefit from bidding wars by being able to raise prices. That works in Seattle or austin even if it doesn’t work in Detroit or Shreveport.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#542

Post by morelisp » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #539

morelisp wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who's pouring the drinks at your McDonalds? Generally, prior to COVID-19, the customers themselves.

How about in the drive through? Moving the pouring of dine in/take out to the customers happened mid 200x, and saved labor back then, too.

> Moving the pouring of dine in/take out to the customers happened mid 200x

At least 10 years earlier. Probably more but that's outside my memory range.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#543

Post by kukx » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #528

kukx wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And their income will grow on trees. It will fail unless the government gets easy money from eg producing oil like Emirates. Otherwise someone needs to produce stuff. We already have a big inflation problem that is directly related to policies that rain money on those not working. Let's not make things even worse, please.

> We already have a big inflation problem that is directly related to policies that rain money on those not working. Do we have any sort of evidence for that claim?

Of course. Printing money inflates its supply. And increasing the demand for products (by providing easy money) without increasing the supply of products (and actually decreasing it by restricting work) will lead to higher prices. It is economics 101 and it was tested by many countries eg Germany before the WW or more recently Venezuela.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#544

Post by danaris » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #184

tda wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are plenty of jobs where you absolutely will quit And so what if people refuse to do shitty jobs? Perhaps we as society can do without those jobs. And if we can't, we should value them more

The "So what" is that if pay for waiters and labourers has to compete with UBI, the cost of service, food, and housing increases significantly, putting it out of reach of more people, and contracting the entire economy as a result. You can postulate about how much we should value these jobs, but the reality is that most people wouldn't be able to afford a meal at a restaurant where all the staff make 50k, or a packet…

There's no competing with UBI. People with jobs still get UBI. That's what the "U" part means: Universal.

Pay for waiters and labourers, like pay for everyone else, is on top of UBI. There's no particular reason it would have to rise by 2x or 3x—unless the industry is categorically unwilling or unable to ensure that their workers are treated well enough that they just don't see it as being worthwhile for less.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#545

Post by ipaddr » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

catillac wrote: post #202

inglor_cz wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or those jobs will be eliminated altogether. Need to speak to a live human to solve some issue? Bad luck, here is our AI chatbot programmed for six common situations and wishing you a good day.

I’m dealing with this infinite loop chatbot with Verizon right now haha. My number port to become a Verizon customer was supposed to take 4-24 hours. Ten days later still nothing. Chatbot asks me for topics to help with, put in my number but it’s not a Verizon number (it’s mid port) so they recommend I register, I try to register and I cannot because my number isn’t a Verizon number, so back to the chatbot about my p…

I'm in a walmart the order is still processing loop.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#546

Post by missedthecue » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

teucris wrote: post #519

missedthecue wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a luddite. I think that automation is good, but I don't think that it makes humans permanently redundant. The human skill set is too diverse. Automation should be encouraged, not taxed, because it makes society wealthier and more productive.

> Automation should be encouraged, not taxed I actually agree with you on this if taxation is framed as a way to discourage something. But the goal is to encourage automation but ensure it benefits society, not just a wealthy few, so… > because it makes society wealthier and more productive. It does not. It makes some people ridiculously wealthy and makes everyone else poorer.

Would you say that the tractor for instance has only made John Deere wealthy, or has it made the world better off?

Has the motor vehicle only improved the life of the Ford family or would I be better off with a horse and carriage?

Have personal computers only made Bill Gates and Michael Dell richer or have they benefited the human race as a whole?

All of these are examples of automating laborious processes. All of them have made inventors wealthy and the world a nicer place to live. The economy isn't zero sum where to make one person richer another must necessarily become poorer.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#547

Post by missedthecue » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

teucris wrote: post #510

missedthecue wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me one such example of someone made permanently redundant by automation?

Examples of permanent redundancy are tricky to see, because even when people don’t really do a job anymore at a large scale, there are still humans involved, just way, way fewer. Examples are: Computers - not microprocessors but “computers” which were people who did the work of calculating stuff before calculators were invented. Lumberjacks - we have logging equipment now. Musicians - we have DJs and radio to provide…

Yes those are examples of technology, but there aren't vast swaths of homeless lumberjacks and mathematicians. Humans are remarkably adept at learning new skills when previous tasks have been automated.

Traffic lights eliminated the jobs of police officers standing in the middle of the road with a whistle. That policeman didn't become homeless. He got reassigned to a more productive role or found a new employer.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#548

Post by missedthecue » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

teucris wrote: post #524

missedthecue wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because across 250 years of extreme and rapid industrial progress, wages have gone nowhere but up, across all quintiles.

…until ~40 years ago[0] 0: https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/wage-stagna...

1. Thats very american-centric

2. Even in America, the trend of inflation adjusted wages has gone up and up

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#549

Post by ChrisLomont » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #514

renewiltord wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the interesting thing. Some people want to be lifetime wage slaves: they will work till they die at a low earnings level. Others would like to make five times as much with five times as much work. Proportionality is what they value. The problem, apparently, is that you want to force the latter into the former lifestyle. To that, I say no. In fact, you’re not going to get that world.

> The problem, apparently, is that you want to force the latter into the former lifestyle. No I don't. If I was in charge then for step one I wouldn't change the amount of money those people make at all, I'd try to claw back any productivity gains from the last few decades that aren't going to workers and see how much UBI that can turn into. If I did want to tax someone with 5x income more, it wouldn't be that much m…

>I'd try to claw back any productivity gains from the last few decades

If productivity gains come from capital, not from labor, then trying to take that from rewarding capital will also hurt labor. Over the past few decades a significant amount of productivity gains are from capital investment. Your average worker isn't simply turning out 2x or 3x the goods with the same effort. They have been given a productivity multiplier tool paid for by investment before they set foot on the job.

When it often takes significant tooling and tech investment from an employer to increase productivity, if that stops, we're back to much earlier productivity and level of goods.

Next, over the past few decades, there has been (in the US, likely others) legislation benefiting workers that has a cost to employers, which has also taken up some wage growth, by giving workers other benefits. BLS tracks such things under terms like total cost of employment and total remuneration. If you look at these over historical periods, you can see more places that workers are better off today than in decades past, without it showing up in wages.

There are reasonable causes not all productivity gains are immediately given as wages - not all gains come from workers.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#550

Post by kevingadd » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #54

kevingadd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring the fact that they chose not to work during a pandemic , at jobs that almost universally had very poor protection for employees - little to no PPE, in some cases not even hand sanitizer and/or soap (i.e. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/18/amazon-wh... , though I can't remember which warehouse had no soap). That is not applicable to UBI. Also keep in mind that during this time period ma…

We need roofs fixed and structures to be made safe to live in. We are still in a pandemic - should we keep paying people not to work? Eventually nature ruins our structures and people are homeless. I just don’t see how your logic is sound.

If you're saying you think rooftops are more important than lives, I don't know what to tell you. If roofers are refusing to show up to work because they'd rather accept fairly small checks from the government, maybe you need to offer them better pay or better health safeguards? We've had lots of people die during all this.

One reason the pandemic has lasted so long is that we've refused to take difficult measures, so instead we drag it out and people keep getting exposed. There are countries on this planet that have gone back to normal without these issues, because they took more difficult measures early on.