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A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

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Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#591

Post by gumby »

stale2002 wrote: post #562
gumby wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The SS system is clever, but it required a lot of sleight of hand to get it into place -- but that approach has kept it alive for 80 years so far. First, SS is universal rather than means tested in order to garner enough support to keep it in place. It's ridiculous that someone with millions in assets will receive a relatively small SS payment each month once they turn 70, but if the system had any decision maki…

The reason why "You paid for it" is a valid argument is that Social Security is explicitly advertised as a forced retirement system. Imagine if you put money into your 401k, and then the government came along and decided that you didn't need that money so they just took it all away from you. Do you believe THAT would be OK? Because if SS is a retirement system, that's effectively what the government would be doing.

Your argument is circular: it was advertised as X so it is X.

I described why it was advertised that way and it is operated to resemble that, but that is not in fact how it operates.

In fact I do think it is ludicrous that the US government will pay me SS money when I get old, even through I certainly won't need it. But I am glad they will do so because people have a screwed up model of how things work, so if they have to pay a bunch of people who don't need it in order to make sure those who do need it get their money, well, it's worth the cost. But what a waste. How much better not pay Bill Gates an SS payment and give it to someone else who needs it more?

You should be more outraged that a huge chunk of your taxes is wasted on beating up random people in other countries rather than fixing the bridges or giving it to people who are suffering. You should be more outraged that you are told that ISIS is some sort of existential threat to the republic, which is of course absolute nonsense.

How about the fact that the US created and underwrites all the "conforming" mortgages (i.e. essentially all of them outside a few pockets like the Bay Area and Manhattan). Another program from the 1930s that is taken for granted today with a cover myth a private mortgage market.

Look, I'm no flat-earther, gold-standarder, or conspiracy theory loony. I am hugely in favor of SS payments, welfare, Obamacare, FDA, etc etc -- in fact I think they should be stronger. But if you read history and some of the original debates and documents from the Roosevelt administration it is clear they are good medicine wrapped in a sugar coating of fakery in propaganda in order to get them implemented.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#592

Post by CWuestefeld »

ticviking wrote: post #585
CWuestefeld wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much for sanitation. How am I going to get someone to pump out my septic tank, except to pay him some amount that is sufficient to compensate for the displeasure of the job? Believe it or not, there are jobs that need to be done, but nobody in the world has a passion for them. Employment isn't about fear or force. It's about two parties agreeing that they each come out better after the transaction of selling labor…

Employment is in fact often about fear or force. I work a day job because the state will literally show up with police and guns if I went out into the mountains and lived off the land. Therefore unless I want to starve I must work. Even when it's on shit I hate. I am lucky enough to have a skill that is sufficiently valuable that I can survive despite disabilities making it difficult to work. If you imagine that the…

the state will literally show up with police and guns if I went out into the mountains and lived off the land

Why? Is it someone else's land that you're trespassing on, using up their resources, hunting their animals, etc?

Shall all of us who don't feel fulfilled do the same thing as you propose? When you hurt yourself and get an infection, are you going to crawl back out of the woods and expect there to still be other people to care for you, supply your antibiotic, and yes, clean your bedpan while you recover? What right to you have to expect the bedpan cleaner to serve you?

unless I want to starve I must work.

Who do you expect to plant, harvest, and distribute the food you want to eat?

When you want something from someone - food, medicine, etc. - you're going to have to offer something in return, else why should they provide it? For almost all of us, our labor is the product we can offer in trade. Only by all of us making this tradeoff does society survive.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#593

Post by dragonwriter »

mcv wrote: post #145
weddpros wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't see any moral justification for a software engineer earning more than someone collecting waste" That's because moral justification isn't at the center of our society. The market is. Many attempts have been made to switch from the market to something else, not many were brilliant. The "lucky historical accident" you cite isn't one... It's just the way our society was built. Also you could argue on many differ…

The labour market is not going away with BI. It will just become more free. Currently, many workers are forced to accept crappy jobs for little pay because the alternative is starvation. With BI, they can afford to say no when they don't think the compensation is worth it. If those crappy jobs are necessary, they will have to improve, either by making the jobs more fun or interesting, or increasing the pay.

> The labour market is not going away with BI. It will just become more free.

Of interesting note in this domain, BI is often advocated as an alternative to minimum wage (such that in a mature BI system, there would be no minimum wage, though in some models there'd be a transitional period as the BI ramped up and the minimum wage wound down, at least in real if not nominal terms.)

So, while BI removes economic duress that forces people to take low-wage jobs, that also allows it to remove regulatory barriers which, while they exist to prevent abusive profiteering from economic duress, also have a side-effect of preventing generally mutually-beneficial arrangements that happen to have low wages (but where the low-wage earner might benefit from experience that increases future potential, etc.)

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#594

Post by zyxley »

MicroBerto wrote: post #415
tehrei wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic Income is very, VERY far away from the Utopia in that experiment. It means enough money to cover rent, utilities and food. For anything more, you still have to study, work, etc. Also, it's one experiment, that I haven't seen replicated, done in an age when you had to show up those darn commies, that Capitalism is the best.

> It means enough money to cover rent, utilities and food. Umm yeah, that's exactly what they gave to the mice. The fact that it hasn't been replicated is extremely concerning, and makes me wonder why.

> Umm yeah, that's exactly what they gave to the mice.

Yes, without any opportunity to get involved in anything more than that.

"Here, live in this box forever, you get all the food pellets and water you want, but you can never leave and don't get anything entertaining to do" would drive any animal insane. Take a look at animals behaving pathologically in boring zoo enclosures, for example.

A study actually analogous to basic income would have, for example, unlimited generic mouse food and a comfortable home environment, but also have a large exterior environment available to explore, wheels and toys, and a steady supply of puzzles/mazes/etc fitted with tastier treats that the mice could engage with or avoid as they wish.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#595

Post by maaku »

knz wrote: post #529
maaku wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mildly related, but for a while I've felt we should change the age of majority / self responsibility to age 25. It would improve a lot of things about society...

Personally I think the opposite is true to some degree. Age does not guarantee that you are a rational and well informed citizen. I've also read numerous articles about how young people are more tolerant (gay marriage is a good example), moving back into dense urban areas (causing less sprawl and a renewed interest in better public transport and urban planning), and willing to at least admit that major challenges lik…

I'm not sure what that has to do with age of responsibility? The statistical facts are there to show that people under the age of 25 have generally impaired judgement compared with those over. (Among other things that's why you can't rent cars until 25.)

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#596

Post by ticviking »

DominikR wrote: post #544
mcv wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, duress (which is what the prospect of death is) does not make a market more free. If you are forced to accept a crappy deal because otherwise you will die, you are not making a free decision. A fair deal in a free market is one that you can afford to say no to. > Some services or products are worth less precisely because there is no customer available willing to pay more for it. And for some services or products…

What duress are you talking about? No one in the EU or the US will actually die if they don't take some crappy job. These people are free to live in a tent and dive into trashcans for food if they don't like to work, which isn't nice but this certainly isn't death! It's just a crappy lifestyle. It's just they don't want to live in a tent and they want to have a smartphone, a car and enjoy all the things that the work…

The same duress that uses force to prevent me for moving into the hills and living in a tent off the land.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#597

Post by zyxley »

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…

If you apply that "mouse utopia" to humans, what you get isn't a "utopia"... it's a refugee camp or low-security prison, where food and shelter is available but nobody can leave and there's nothing to do but walk around and talk to people. That's nothing like the basic income concept.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#598

Post by cududa »

nine_k wrote: post #101
NhanH wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "non-intellectual" (need a better word here) people will make all the money doing the dirty jobs? In the long run, any menial task is supposed to be automated away completely. In short term, what you described already happened in area like Post-doc and game indu…

I don't think plumbing or even waste collection is going to be seriously automated any time soon. Can you imagine what kind of autonomous robot would it take to be able to do regular plumbing work, in cramped spaces, with low visibility, requiring relatively significant physical efforts? The software side of it can definitely be solved (though not easy at all). The hardware side would require significant breakthrough…

Waste collection I can see being automated in suburbs. Already many of them have arms that grab the trash/ recycling and dump them automatically with just a driver behind the wheel.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#599

Post by ams6110 »

jackreichert wrote: post #227
timlyo wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the article is talking more about the difference from the current system. > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 trillion. These retirees can be excluded from the calculation because they are already being paid, they wouldn't add any additional cost to the system.

Is it fair to say they're being paid if they paid into the system paying them for their entire working lives? Can someone please explain why people call Social Security an entitlement? Am I missing something?

The money you put into SS is used to pay the benefits of the people drawing on it today. Anything left over is loaned to the government (yes an IOU to itself). There is no account with your name on it that holds the dollars that have been taken from you all your life. There is no trust fund. It's a giant pyramid scheme.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#600

Post by undersuit »

snomad wrote: post #195

Will universal basic income take into account relative cost of living per geographical area? If so, why isn't the same done with income tax. If no, why then is it really a universal basic income / all that useful?

Many states, counties and cities in the United States already leverage their own income taxes in addition to federal income taxation. How about we let the same states, counties, and cities decide if they want to provide their own basic income addendum. And they might need to if the BI amount is great enough that a janitor in Seattle, or a maid in SF no longers sees a reason to live anywhere near a big city for a job that barely covers their financial needs, needs imposed on them by living in a big city.
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