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

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#551

Post by mmanfrin » Tue, May 03, 2016, 6:48 PM UTC

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…

  If you were to implement the Fair Tax, which includes a stipend for 
  basic needs, you'd get bipartisan support as well

Poe's Law is pinging.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#552

Post by ThrustVectoring » Tue, May 03, 2016, 6:50 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #512

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO social security is too much of a hot button issue to touch. I'd market UBI as "social security for everyone" - that sets both the level that people get, and neatly removes the issue of giving both UBI and social security to retirees.

>I'd market UBI as "social security for everyone" - that sets both the level that people get No, it doesn't. Social security isn't a fixed amount, its based on prior earnings, adjusted by a wage index since the time they were earned, put through formula to get a base benefit amount in the year you start drawing them, and then inflation adjusted after retirement. So calling a UBI "Social Security for everyone" does no…

Sorry, I wasn't as clear about the plan as I could have been.

To be more specific, I'd set UBI at a level that everyone who is currently getting Social Security based on age would rather switch to getting UBI instead. Then I'd discontinue SS and call the UBI program "Social Security", and pretend that I didn't get rid of the entire SS program. Wrap that change up as a package deal along with taxes to fund it, and call it "Social Security for Everyone".

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#553

Post by dang » Tue, May 03, 2016, 6:52 PM UTC

idiot99 wrote: post #38

There isn't huge support. Step out of the bubble... It's just the new generation of kids flirting with communism.

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11619113 and marked it off-topic.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#554

Post by coolspot » Tue, May 03, 2016, 6:53 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #538

brightball wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Get rid of old people completely. Problem. Solved.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#555

Post by contravariant » Tue, May 03, 2016, 6:54 PM UTC

MicroBerto wrote: post #531

contravariant wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

If I have to choose between a society where 11% of the population does some pointless work (and anything that doesn't pay at least what could be consider a 'basic income' is pretty much pointless) or one where 1% does amazing stuff in their spare time, and 10% does nothing. I'd prefer the latter.

Don't see how criminality would increase with basic income, if anything I'd expect a decrease (fewer people in hopeless situations = less crime).

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#556

Post by lifeformed » Tue, May 03, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #277

deanCommie wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc. First of all, even if the people in positions like this were only working for sustenance and UBI provides it for them, it doesn't mean some wouldn't want to continue working to make even MORE money. UBI is a baseline, not welfare. If previously a lawn mowing job was only enough for rent and food, maybe now…

Your arguments are interesting, but they hold only in systems with artificial inflation controls. UBI increases the amount of money in the economy, which has the same effect as simply printing more, thus the value (scarcity) of the money decreases. A poor mother without UBI will be a poor mother with UBI because costs will simply go up, something you acknowledge. As costs for services go up, costs of products go up a…

What if we phase UBI in with increasing automation. Maybe the opposing problems caused by both will cancel each other out?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#557

Post by narrator » Tue, May 03, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

I think this is sort of the apotheosis of the concept that money is the universally effective solution to all problems.

Money is not the universally effective solution to health care in this country. We already spend double, as a percent of GDP ,compared to any other country.

I think we're going to run into some problems on the supply side with a universal basic income. Some prices will rise due to increased consumption. This will make capital investment (e.g Research and Development, New Factories, Upgrading Production Equipment) more costly. Eventually you'll burn the furniture to heat the house and then things will start to fall apart and get into an inflationary spiral. It does have the benefit going for it that it is less complex to administer though, while our health care system is enormously complex and grows ever more complex with the more money that gets spent on it.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#558

Post by Guvante » Tue, May 03, 2016, 7:02 PM UTC

lsaferite wrote: post #239

xefer wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To paraphrase that XKCD comic, "14 benefit programs?! Ridiculous! We need to create one universal benefit program that covers everyone! Now you have 15 programs." I get the sense that liberals and conservatives have wildly different conceptions of what a Basic Income would mean in practice. Conservatives and libertarians may like the idea of giving a single no-strings-attached check every month to everyone and anyone…

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

Unless you plan on passing a universal benefit program that completely supplements the income of everyone relying on existing program then you are going to have to keep existing ones while cutting the benefits under those programs by a matching amount.

For instance if you currently get $1100 a month from benefit X then you would get $700 BI and $400 from benefit X.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#559

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 03, 2016, 7:03 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#560

Post by habosa » Tue, May 03, 2016, 7:05 PM UTC

WWKong wrote: post #542

How does a universal basic income work from economics stand point? Let's say everyone gets $1000/mo. Currently the market knows that everyone has $10 and prices bread accordingly at $1.50. Tomorrow the market will know that everyone has $1010 and will price the bread at $100. Thus everything from food to utilities to rent gets adjusted to the new normal and the poor can't still afford the basics. Is this theory not c…

Take a step further. Let's say on day 1 of the basic income age all the bread merchants raise their price to $100.

One smart bread merchant will probably say "Hey I used to sell this for $1.50, I can do better than $100" and prices it at $90. Now everyone buys bread from him.

The other merchants feel the price pressure and the cycle continues, with the price settling down to something likely higher than $1.50 (to reflect the increased price of labor input as a result of basic income) but not so high that it totally eats the increased income.

So yes, things will cost more after basic income (after all you'd likely need some sort of inflation to find the money to give away). But in an efficient market they will not cost so much more than people are not still effectively richer than they were before. It does not change the intrinsic value of most things, it just makes certain inputs (namely labor) more expensive.