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Moving Forward on Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#571

Post by zanny »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #444
cbr wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> worked for black money and collect the social benefit at the same time This one doesn't apply to BI, since you get the same amount of BI money whether you work or not and regardless of how much you earn.

Yes. And it's paid for with higher progressive taxes. As taxes go up workers are increasingly incentivized to get paid under the table.

We have progressive taxes today, and the only people working under the table are predominantly the poorest, who cannot afford taxes and have less to lose. The richer you are, the more you have at risk getting caught for tax evasion, and the less likely you are to do it, until you get so rich and the amount lost in evasion so lucrative you can offset the risk by buying politicians, courts, and police while also writing the laws and having significant fail-safes protecting your money laundering.

But that would happen anyway. If you are taxing the ultra-rich period, at almost any % of income, there are strong incentives when the taxable total is in the millions or billions to evade taxes.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#572

Post by justinv »

fudged71 wrote: post #184

What impact does UBI have on technology and companies? In theory I suppose more people will be able to afford a basic phone, banking, transportation etc so more eyeballs on ads and users of services. By getting out of the poverty trap, more people can be employed so even more expendable income on technology. Will companies pay their employees less if their basic needs are covered? Then automation would be less of a c…

Though, on the contrary, you'd have to now pay people X amount above BI to get them to do menial jobs.

i.e. if you get $10k from BI or can get $12k from working building widgets, you'd have to decide if that time spent making widgets is worth the $2k extra vs the opportunity cost of leisure or painting or whatever.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#573

Post by donutz »

kilroy123 wrote: post #251
haaen wrote: post #133

The YCR statement says: "We think everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs—no matter what, especially if there are enough resources to make it possible." Why give free money to people who are too lazy to work?

Why not just give them money? If someone is "too lazy" to work, they're not going to be productive in any job anyways. We already give these people substantial subsidies in the form of food stamps, housing assistance, etc. If someone wants to not work and live in a bad part of town. No offense, by why do you care? You'll live a much nicer life than them, working, and having more.

> If someone wants to not work and live in a bad part of town. No offense, by why do you care?

Sounds like "basic income will cover rent in the bad part of town" means that safety isn't covered in "basic"?

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#574

Post by greedo »

EGreg wrote: post #549
greedo wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"newly issued fiat currency" is theft. Forced inflation is theft from people with savings etc etc etc.

I handled the inflation issue in my comment. In scenario #1 there is no theft from anyone even in your sense. And frankly, when you open a store in a mall, it's not theft for the mall to use your rent money as it sees fit. It might build a toy train ride for kids that you disagree with, or spend on a promotion of itself. Same with a state you register your business in. We are talking about abstract entities here, but…

Simply stating that you've "silenced the" theft argument doesn't make it so. Anymore than the Church branding Galileo a heretic didn't refute heliocentrism.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#575

Post by dragonwriter »

justinv wrote: post #572
fudged71 wrote: post #184

What impact does UBI have on technology and companies? In theory I suppose more people will be able to afford a basic phone, banking, transportation etc so more eyeballs on ads and users of services. By getting out of the poverty trap, more people can be employed so even more expendable income on technology. Will companies pay their employees less if their basic needs are covered? Then automation would be less of a c…

Though, on the contrary, you'd have to now pay people X amount above BI to get them to do menial jobs. i.e. if you get $10k from BI or can get $12k from working building widgets, you'd have to decide if that time spent making widgets is worth the $2k extra vs the opportunity cost of leisure or painting or whatever.

> i.e. if you get $10k from BI or can get $12k from working building widgets, you'd have to decide if that time spent making widgets is worth the $2k extra

That's not how UBI works. The "U" in "UBI" is "unconditional", referring (among other things [0]) to the fact that it isn't means-tested; that is, it isn't reduced for outside income.

So, if you have $10k in UBI and there are jobs making $12k building widgets, you don't get $2k extra from working, you get $12k extra [1].

[0] It also refers to the absence of behavior testing, which is a common feature alongside means testing of public welfare programs.

[1] Before taxes. Income (including payroll) taxes will reduce this, but you don't lose UBI dollar-for-dollar (or, for that matter, at all) with outside income.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#577

Post by zanny »

tdaltonc wrote: post #136
dclowd9901 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...aaaaand whether or not your children would be receiving it, right? We make many rather large financial decisions based on our choices to procreate or not. If I didn't know if my kids were taken care of, I would probably make different decisions than if I did. There really is no way to test basic income without simply implementing it.

Just because the government says it will be "forever" doesn't mean it will. When thinking about planing the multi-generational prosperity of your family (something few people do to any serious degree) you can't take the perpetual existence of this-or-that political institution as granted.

Which should be just fine under UBI, where you shouldn't be getting anything for children in the first place. Children are not adults, and are not treated like adults for the vast majority of social contracts, and UBI is certainly one of them - we have no expectation today of children to make any income whatsoever now, but to be provided for by their parents. If parents would only be on UBI, that is not enough to provide for kids, but that is a reflection of negligence on the part of the parents.

It is certainly an endemic problem we need solutions for in that the poor, the most promiscuous population, is also the one that cannot afford their own children, but we certainly do not want to give them any incentives to have more kids. Children should absolutely be an expense to the parents, because the parents decided to have them, and unless we need kids (at which point the state can start subsidizing procreation in almost any way they want) we need to maintain strong (and much better than we have) adoption and orphanage faculties, but not excuse bad parents in any way who make irresponsible immature decisions like reproducing without any financial means to care for their own.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#578

Post by thejeremyweaver »

Per Malthus, the ever-expanding global population will probably prevent us from achieving a state of total abundance in the long run. We may (or may not) be able to rely on technological progress at times, but constant population growth is virtually guaranteed (barring any sort of population management or disasters).

I love the kind-hearted spirit of this effort, but it seems ill-informed.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#579

Post by zanny »

jcslzr wrote: post #297

We have BI in Mexico for people over 65 years old since about 10 years ago. Nothing is different in general, but for some of those people I would think those few pesos are life changing.

This was practically the panacea of 20th century liberalism - the idea of state retirement income being unconditional was fundamental to post WW2 society in all western democracies and become a cornerstone of growth in the era. How could you fathom being successful in business while you had to care for your parents?

In the same sense, that will apply to basically everyone in this century in regards to technological unemployability. We could either stifle our society with the burden of social unrest involving the unemployable and underemployed, or we could just give them the money to take care of themselves so anyone who can still be productive will be able to.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#580

Post by Yen »

timwaagh wrote: post #381

my main concern with this is that the working class will lose social status compared to those who don't work. In fact it could give those who don't work more status than the working class (my broad definition of working class would include anyone who does not have enough to stop working) because they have much more time. i don't think this is something we want to see. Although its arguably better than the current wel…

Does your concern depend on the "dependents" receiving basic income, but the "working class" not receiving basic income? Or, does it depend on basic income possibly changing the signifiers of social status?

If it's the first case,

Most proponents of Basic Income want to implement either Universal Basic Income (everyone gets the same check, regardless of their means), or a Basic Income which drops off proportionally with earned income.

In a Universal Basic Income scenario, someone who chooses to work should always have more income than someone who does not work. Given how much social status is currently centered around wealth and income, a worker should have more social status than a non-worker.

If it's the second case, where we assume implementing UBI will change the markers of social status - I think this is pretty unlikely. For the foreseeable future, having more income than someone else means being able to buy rarer or higher-quality luxuries. Humans value rarity and scarcity.

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