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The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

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Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#61

Post by evanlivingston »

deadmetheny wrote: post #45
babaganoosh89 wrote: post #11

Doing some back of the envelope math, US gov revenue is 3.31 trillion and the population size is 323.1 million. Which leaves about $10244 per capita to play with. How would a BI work, give people $7k per year and save 3k for military and basic services? Seems like BI would need big tax increases to become viable.

It wouldn't. That's exactly why UBI doesn't pass muster - the per capita is much higher since 323 million is the entire population, disregarding the unemployed, children, retired, etc. Then you still have to have the requisite safety nets for people too irresponsible to handle a direct UBI cash infusion, or set up even more bureaucracies that handle housing credits, food credits, etc. It just leads to an expensive sp…

Yes, I advocate that.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#62

Post by stcredzero »

AmericanOP wrote: post #6

In ancient Rome there were a few honest reformers who felt bread subsidies (classical UBI) were deserved by the people. It was an economic argument (as is Sam's) since Roman conquest generated massive wealth that did not reach the masses who made it possible. It was an honest attempt at economic reform by a few forward thinking leaders. Within a generation the movement was captured by politicians who used its popular…

Collectivism is really the domain of the small.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful

For human beings, the number where a communal understanding can work and seem like magic is about 350. The missing key to understanding this, is the network of interpersonal relationships that form in any society. These networks are like strong fibers in a composite material, giving it a cohesion and tensile strength that the aggregate wouldn't have otherwise. Those who operate small companies know this firsthand.

A lot of collectivism is akin to selling concrete by advertising using the specs of reinforced concrete. It doesn't hold together as well as it should on paper, because there is something very important missing in the theoretical description. For larger numbers, in the millions and beyond, there needs to be some kind of larger organizational structure. Historically, this has been hierarchical, but other solutions could exist enabled by technology.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#63

Post by js8 »

Danihan wrote: post #14
babaganoosh89 wrote: post #11

Doing some back of the envelope math, US gov revenue is 3.31 trillion and the population size is 323.1 million. Which leaves about $10244 per capita to play with. How would a BI work, give people $7k per year and save 3k for military and basic services? Seems like BI would need big tax increases to become viable.

The math doesn't work and has never worked. UBI proponents will never talk math because it doesn't add up, even with the most casual analysis. $12k is the cited number that you see a lot in basic income discussions. That's just over the poverty level. That's not enough to live on and it's practically a bonus for some members of this site. It's not enough to do anything with. Even upon receiving that, many people woul…

Maybe it doesn't add up in the monetary sense, but economically it kinda does. If you look around, the actual resources are there.

I was born in socialist country (Czechoslovakia) in the late 70s. It was inefficient system (the productivity of the most advanced economies today is about 3-4x times higher), and yet it was able to provide housing, food, health care, education and even decent culture for more than 90% of the population. And all this for about 30 hours of real work week.

So think about it, why is that? I think the social inequality is much larger than people are willing to admit, and much larger portion of it are mostly nonsensical expenses (rents, unneeded business travel, status displays..) due to requirements to maintain the social inequality.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#64

Post by creaghpatr »

pdonis wrote: post #37

Sam makes an interesting analogy with Y Combinator as providing a form of "basic income" to people trying to start startups. However, this analogy ignores a huge difference in the two cases: the people who are trying to start startups with Y Combinator's help are a highly self-selected group. Giving them "basic income" often turns out to be highly productive, yes. But that does not imply that giving basic income to e…

Also when a startup burns out their runway it dies and investors probably won't fund the same idea twice.

What happens to the people who blow their UBI on drugs/gambling etc instead of healthcare and prosperity. Who will pay to re-fund them? (and fund them again?)

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#65

Post by Suncho »

ucaetano wrote: post #56

After deriding UBI for a long time, and believing it won't work, I came up with a trial model that, IMHO, would allow it to be tested out with minimal damage to the economy (even though I still don't think it would work): Take a country, US for example. Let's say that society determines that a reasonable UBI is $1000/month (ignore the number, this is about the process, not the amount). When I say "everyone", I mean "…

I agree with your plan of gradually ramping up the amount of the basic income to find the optimal amount.

However, I would question a couple parts:

> every US resident who has been a US citizen for at least X years

Why limit it in this way?

> conditioned to willing to have employment

Why? Isn't one of the biggest benefits of basic income that it gives more people more of an option not to work?

And what does "willing to have employment" mean? Every man has his price. If you pay people enough, they will work, no?

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#66

Post by [deleted] »

stcredzero wrote: post #36
drb91 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, tax the hell out of wealth. The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die.

The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die. The problem with taxing the wealthy, is that they generally have an outsized share of the political power. I think that a better solution, from a political and psychological standpoint, would involve a voluntary system. If just rent could be covered, this would be the equivalent of $12k per year in many parts…

[deleted]

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#67

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

jpao79 wrote: post #15

"We’re still in our pilot. It turns out that giving money to people is much harder than you might imagine. We’ve had to work with state, local, federal governments so that people in our study don’t lose their housing eligibility, lose their food assistance just because we’re giving them money and raising their income level. And what we don’t want is to make anyone worse off." It feels like this statement is what woul…

>Isn't the main benefit of UBI to make it so everything is streamlined into a single program and administrative overhead is reduced?

No no no. The Universal means it's given to everyone, not that it is the universal welfare program.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#68

Post by ucaetano »

Suncho wrote: post #65
ucaetano wrote: post #56

After deriding UBI for a long time, and believing it won't work, I came up with a trial model that, IMHO, would allow it to be tested out with minimal damage to the economy (even though I still don't think it would work): Take a country, US for example. Let's say that society determines that a reasonable UBI is $1000/month (ignore the number, this is about the process, not the amount). When I say "everyone", I mean "…

I agree with your plan of gradually ramping up the amount of the basic income to find the optimal amount. However, I would question a couple parts: > every US resident who has been a US citizen for at least X years Why limit it in this way? > conditioned to willing to have employment Why? Isn't one of the biggest benefits of basic income that it gives more people more of an option not to work? And what does "willing…

> Why limit it in this way?

X can be 0. I didn't set it to any specific number to avoid discussing it (some people would want a cool-down period, others don't).

> conditioned to willing to have employment

Why?

"willing to have (employment and spending) tracked by researchers" :)

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#69

Post by stcredzero »

bduerst wrote: post #50
stcredzero wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die. The problem with taxing the wealthy, is that they generally have an outsized share of the political power. I think that a better solution, from a political and psychological standpoint, would involve a voluntary system. If just rent could be covered, this would be the equivalent of $12k per year in many parts…

If just the rent was covered for everyone ~$12k/yr, then rents would inflate universally ~$12k/yr because housing pricing is a function of income elasticity. That German gated community you linked has housing that is owned by a trust. I don't think you can ask residents of the U.S. to voluntarily hand over all their housing property to a trust, or require them to be Catholic to reside in it.

I don't think you can ask residents of the U.S. to voluntarily hand over all their housing property to a trust, or require them to be Catholic to reside in it.

However, I think it could be possible to have many, many such trusts which cater to specific interest groups. How about communities which cater to different kinds of artists, musicians, writers, philosophers, etc...? If something like 60% of the US population could be covered this way, it would combine many of the best aspects of universal coverage with the benefits of meritocracy and the advantages of a voluntary basis.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#70

Post by drb91 »

stcredzero wrote: post #36
drb91 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, tax the hell out of wealth. The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die.

The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die. The problem with taxing the wealthy, is that they generally have an outsized share of the political power. I think that a better solution, from a political and psychological standpoint, would involve a voluntary system. If just rent could be covered, this would be the equivalent of $12k per year in many parts…

You must be joking. Wealth people? Depart with wealth? Willingly? They can pay their taxes now and don't; I wouldn't hold your breath waiting.

No, to tax rich people you have to seize the damn money.

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