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

Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

openresearchlab.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 669 posts

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#581

Post by gwd »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #536
gwd wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see that they exist already, without UBI. So the question is, what effect will UBI have on freeloading if introduced? Will they contribute even less than they do now? Will there be more of them? Or will they stop free-loading off companies and individuals? If UBI means everyone at the place you work is actually motivated, and you never have to watch your friend support a free-loader again, I think we're proba…

You're forgetting about the bit in which you've literally given the person thousands of dollars. They use that free money to get you to do things for them. It's hidden behind bureaucracy but it's the same thing. Worse, even, because you don't have a choice. It's like the nonsense solutions the left propose for tackling crime. "If we give people X, they won't have to steal X". I mean, sure, because they have already g…

Right, but there are situations where you will pay for something one way or another; we'd like "not paying" to be an option, but trying to take that option causes you to pay in the most expensive way.

If you have a piece of industrial machinery, you will have down time for maintenance: you can pro-actively schedule planned maintenance when it's less disruptive, or the machine itself can schedule unplanned maintenance without regard to the disruption; "not having maintenance" isn't an option, and trying to take it is actually taking the "expensive unplanned maintenance" option.

If you're the parent of a toddler and that toddler wants your attention, they will get it one way or another: you can pro-actively make time for them, or you can re-actively make time when they act out, perhaps destroying something in the process; as frustrating as it is, "not making time" is simply not an option, and trying to take it is actually taking the "expensive re-active to acting out" option.

Here in the UK several years ago they cut back severely on social services to people with low-grade emotional problems. So instead of calling the social workers, they started calling emergency services, who are required to send someone out. The result was that much more more money was spent on emergency services. One could of course jail people who falsely call 999, but then that's pretty expensive too. For better or for worse, "not paying for people for them to talk to" isn't an option; it turns into "pay expensive EMTs to talk to them".

So, maybe there are these people who are just freeloaders; they get jobs and then do the minimal amount of work possible, they get boyfriends or girlfriends or spouses who will support their freeloading lifestyle. That cost is being paid right now, but in a damaging way: they're dead weight in companies and vampires on romantic partners. It would be nice not to pay that cost at all, but that doesn't seem to be an option. Maybe if we just explicitly paid them to freeload, then at least we'd have the benefit of not having them hurt our friends and our companies.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#582

Post by nrr »

jerf wrote: post #491
giantg2 wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something that most programs don't even try to explain, and something ive wondered about - how does the money affect competition, both for goods/services and labor? If you're affecting very small percentages of the population, the impacts seem minor. We've seen this with analysis on raising minimum wage to about $10/hr. Most people make over that amount (or work in excluded roles), so the impact is small. Rais…

UBI creates inflation. I think anyone trying to deny that amounts to denying it because they really want UBI, and so they need it to not have that bad effect, but it does. You can't pour money into an economy without a productivity offset without inflating it. The theory is that productivity increases will in fact offset it. One way to prevent an increase in money causing inflation is to correspondingly increase the…

I'll be honest. You had me in the first half, but then: "... the hypothetical paradise it produces full of wonderful artists and musicians and programmers creating text editors rather than CRUD apps ..."

Who willingly endeavors to write text editors in 2024 when acme(4) exists?

I jest. More seriously though, if the measure of one's value to society is in their ability to crank out CRUD apps, I'm appalled. I want more dishwashers, more plumbers, more framers, more joiners, more cooks, more babysitters, more stonemasons, and the only way any of that kind of hard labor is sustainable is if there's a cushion to fall back on to recuperate. Bodies break. They break more catastrophically when the damage is continued and sustained over time.

I want my girlfriend to feel free to take on domestic work full-time with the knowledge that, no matter what, she'll be paid for it and that her domestic labor contributions, as informal as they are, are valued monetarily without my having to make up the balance. Likewise, I want that there in case I myself want to take up those domestic responsibilities for a while.

These are two cohorts that literally cement the foundation of society, let alone our trade system, not a cavalcade of keyboard cowboys wrangling Ruby on Rails. I want UBI for them because, without them, the entire project literally crumbles.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#583

Post by throwaway22032 »

gwd wrote: post #581
throwaway22032 wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting about the bit in which you've literally given the person thousands of dollars. They use that free money to get you to do things for them. It's hidden behind bureaucracy but it's the same thing. Worse, even, because you don't have a choice. It's like the nonsense solutions the left propose for tackling crime. "If we give people X, they won't have to steal X". I mean, sure, because they have already g…

Right, but there are situations where you will pay for something one way or another; we'd like "not paying" to be an option, but trying to take that option causes you to pay in the most expensive way. If you have a piece of industrial machinery, you will have down time for maintenance: you can pro-actively schedule planned maintenance when it's less disruptive, or the machine itself can schedule unplanned maintenance…

I don't agree with cutting mental health services and don't believe that it is equivalent to giving free money to people.

> they're dead weight in companies and vampires on romantic partners

This is trivially avoidable in both cases. The Offspring have a song that comes to mind.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#584

Post by irjustin »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #374
irjustin wrote: post #291

Serious question, didn't we have a glimpse into UBI w/ all the stimulus packages? I'm very open to discussion here because I'm quite naive. My current lens is that UBI ultimately inflates prices leaving everyone back where they were before. The problem with openresarchlab's test is it's limited scope. It did increase the spending power of a particular group because the prices around them did not increase. If everyone…

An UBI that inflates prices doesn't leave everyone back to where they were before. This is most obvious in the case of someone who doesn't have any money at all without UBI. This person can now buy things, and before they weren't able to buy anything. Depending on how much money people make pre-UBI, there's a point where the inflation costs them more then they get.

Ah fair point, I hadn't considered that, but how is that better than welfare?

There is the welfare trap, but I don't really see us in a net positive position vs UBI because I see creating a bunch of inflation only to help the bottom 5%? I imagine there's a better way.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#585

Post by iainmerrick »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #451
iainmerrick wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My effective rate is already >40%, and you are proposing another 20%. That would mean others are getting more of my salary than I am. There’s nothing magical about exceeding a 50% marginal tax rate. (Hitting 100%, sure, that would be bad.) There’s definitely a psychological threshold there for most people. I ran an informal survey a few years back about what tax rates people would consider fair, and there was a very…

>The whole point of taxation is redistribution, so why would you care whether you’re “winning” versus the marginal tax rate? A substantial portion of the population doesnt think taxation should be used for distribution at all. They think the fundamental point of taxation is to pay for public goods that everyone uses like roads, police, and firemen.

You’re right -- that is actually what I had in mind (in addition to welfare), but I was imprecise.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#586

Post by RRWagner »

Real question: What is to stop someone with power/money from taking advantage (or just fooling) someone with UBI to sign away their future UBI income? For example, the UBI person wants to buy a car, but has nothing other than UBI, the car dealer says, "no problem, just sign here and all your UBI for the next 5 years will pay for the car. Not our problem if you don't have anywhere to park it or gas to run it". Historically, those with power are able to clip a little extra assets from someone who doesn't have the power. Why wouldn't the UBI just become a new baseline for almost-zero? I hope I'm phrasing this in a way that is understandable.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#587

Post by bentt »

spdif899 wrote: post #429
bentt wrote: post #427

I used to support UBI but after seeing the US stimulus money get socked away into savings and the stock market, leading to rising prices and inflation, I no longer support it. I think all it will do is raise the cost of nearly everything and those that couldn’t afford the basics still won’t be able to since they’ll be more expensive.

I understand where you're coming from but my perspective is that the two aren't directly comparable. The stimulus money came at a time of fear, and a time when people were primarily stuck inside. It was also known by all to be limited to just one or a couple of payments. All that combined meant for those that didn't have an immediate need, it was effectively like getting a small bonus from work - putting it in saving…

I don't think it matters where it gets put in terms of inflation. What we learned from the stimulus is that taken in aggregate, the population became less price sensitive because they had more money, and sellers felt the increased money supply. This allowed prices to rise. I don't see how UBI doesn't create a similar outcome, but I'm happy to review a paper or something that shows possibly how after an extended period it levels out. I'd imagine in a similar vein if you deleted overnight Social Security prices would fall because the money supply would be impacted so severely.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#588

Post by bentt »

podgorniy wrote: post #457
bentt wrote: post #427

I used to support UBI but after seeing the US stimulus money get socked away into savings and the stock market, leading to rising prices and inflation, I no longer support it. I think all it will do is raise the cost of nearly everything and those that couldn’t afford the basics still won’t be able to since they’ll be more expensive.

And then businesses start competition for the customer with pricing pulling that inflation down. No one will start new business or start adjusting existing in context of stimulus money to make prices competitive because they know this spike is just a temporal glitch. Business was rather interested in raising prices to get more in the face of supply shortage. Showed good corporate profit numbers. Stimulus checks are n…

I argue against this in that I don't think anyone was acting with such precision. This was an aggregate effect of money supply increasing dramatically. There would no doubt be a spike in prices upon the rollout of UBI, but maybe it would level off over time. My fear is that it would raise the water level permanently and the new price baseline would negate the benefit of UBI.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#589

Post by throwaway2037 »

circlefavshape wrote: post #407
throwaway2037 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2024 tax brackets Tax rate Single filers Married couples filing jointly Married couples filing separately Head of household 10% $11,600 or less $23,200 or less $11,600 or less $16,550 or less 12% $11,601 to $47,150 $23,201 to $94,300 $11,601 to $47,150 $16,551 to $63,100 22% $47,151 to $100,525 $94,301 to $201,050 $47,151 to $100,525 $63,101 to $100,500 24% $100,526 to $191,950 $201,051 to $383,900 $100,526 to $191,1…

Wow! It's amazing how anti-tax Americans are when their taxes are so low! My income is at the 24% level above, and I'm paying 52% marginal taxes in Ireland (or 35% of my total income after tax credits etc)

Who cares about marginal tax rates -- that is the rate you pay on your last one Euro of income. What really matters is effective (blended) rate.

In the US, there are normally two levels of income tax (Federal and State), and, rarely, there is also a local/city income tax (like New York City). Sorry, I am not familiar with the Irish income tax system. Since you mentioned that you are in the 24% bucket, your gross income is more than 100K USD. (Congrats: That is pretty high in Ireland where the median income is about 38K EUR.) If you add up all income taxes in the US (Federal + State + Payroll), I guess it is pretty close to your 35% effective rate in Ireland. So really, not so different.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#590

Post by xboxnolifes »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #574
xboxnolifes wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 40k is way more than most UBI proponents are aiming for. It's certainly 3 times as much as I have bean mentally considering in UBI discussions. When I think UBI, I think paying for a shared living space and food. A minimum budget, not necessarily a comfortable budget.

Ps, the people want Ubi as a replacement to means tested welfare and Social Services, consider what level of Ubi would be required for an unemployed or disabled mother of two

That's just another assumption you're adding into the ring. I see no reason why UBI would replace disability. It wouldn't even make sense to. They solve different problems.
Post reply on HN