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People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

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Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#641

Post by tic_tac »

einpoklum wrote: post #609
tic_tac wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of UBI is not to fund people's vanity adventures in education. It's to support people who would otherwise be starving or homeless without a job. Regarding "sickness", the severity is important to know. If UBI enables people with slight depression issues to just give up working entirely, UBI could be entirely counterproductive by accelerating depression's spirals of inactivity. And this completely ignored th…

So, education is a "vanity adventure"? Perhaps if you're a person who looks at your cleaners or servers or cashiers as people with no potential for self-betterment; as people who are unable to expand their horizons. Ugh.

As it is structured today, yes it is. The majority of people study Psychology, Sociology, Economics or something of that nature then go on to make power point slides or enter numbers in Excel all day for the rest of their lives.

Enabling this sort of broken system is exactly what UBI as currently imagined will do.

The problem with progressive crusades like UBI is that they completely ignore reality... UBI will only increase the cost of education while simultaneously decreasing its value as a signaling mechanism, which is where the majority of modern education's value lies in the first place.

Let me repeat from my original comment: UBI on a societal scale will only cause inflation without an increase in real income. It's a true waste of money and nonsensical in practice.

That's why it's so horrifying to see people who should know better continue to try to meme it into existence and simply reminds all sober observers how divorced modern "progressivism" is from reality.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#642

Post by godelski »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #635
bavell wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, part of the allure of UBI to me is that it is a social safety net except it benefits everyone. Because it's universal and not means-tested, it removes the stigma of being 'on welfare' which IMO is incredibly discouraging and makes it harder to rise out of your unfortunate situation. So yes, I would love if UBI replaced some programs while augments others. At the end of the day it's the most direct and effecti…

> At the end of the day it's the most direct and effective way of combating poverty and goes a long way towards closing the wealth gap. Where do you think all this Income is going to come from? The middle class will shoulder the bulk of it which will widen the wealth gap. You will end up with 1k in UBI and 1500 in taxes to pay for it.

Under Yang's plan even if you made $100k/yr (single person household) you'd get an increase[0]. You'd be having to make roughly $140k+/yr to see a decrease in total income (140k results in -$66/yr). (If you were the norm of 2 adults and 2 children your household income would need to be north of $315k/yr to "shoulder" his UBI)

So I'm not sure why you think the middle class will shoulder the bulk of the cost. Do you think $150k/yr earners ($300k/yr families) are middle class? The median household income int he US (2018) was $62k/yr[1]

[0] https://ubicalculator.com/

[1] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#643

Post by sabarn01 »

csa wrote: post #404
hooande wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No person who was born rich has to learn skills to avoid destitution. And poverty isn't the natural condition for humans any more than it is for cats, or any other animal.

I’m guessing you don’t know many people who were born into wealth. The skill that they must learn is how not to lose the money. This skill is difficult to sustain over more than a generation or two — grandparent earns it, parent might keep it, child usually ends up destitute both in terms of financial capital and social capital. If the “child” in this scenario is lucky, they have some social capital that will save th…

I grew up working class and have seen lots of people fail. Those without the wherewithal to get on social benefits generally moved on with their lives toward success. I also have know several to get on social benefits find that acceptable and live what seemed to me unfulfilling lives on a type of pseudo adult hood. It could be they were happy and who am I to judge. I have always known if I fail I will be destitute and I think it has helped me build a decent life. But what works for me may not work for others.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#644

Post by danans »

airstrike wrote: post #524
danans wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is a tool for dealing with rising inequality and economic insecurity, not a solution on its own. People will be incentivized to work despite UBI because they still want better things, and will work to pay for things that provide social signalling value. A UBI shouldn't be designed to try to cover all desires and eliminate all reason to work, but rather should be tailored to give people more flexibility in choosin…

> UBI is a tool for dealing with rising inequality Just want to point out that inequality globally isn't necessarily rising. See e.g. the evolution of the distribution in wealth per wealth group per region based on data from table 3.2 of Credit Suisse's 2014 and 2019 Global Wealth Databooks. Compare "Percentage of region (in %)" from 2014 (screenshot): https://i.stack.imgur.com/IEEse.png 2019 (screenshot): https://i.…

> Just want to point out that inequality globally isn't necessarily rising.

My comment specifically referred to UBI in the context of the US, so I'm not sure what the relevance of global inequality is to whether or not an individual country does UBI.

If anything, the globalization that is driving global inequality down (a good thing), when coupled with domestic policies in the developed world that massively favor owners of financial capital, are driving domestic inequality up, which further bolsters the argument for UBI-like measures.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#645

Post by Ericson2314 »

spullara wrote: post #521
zazaalaza wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI would reorient the idea of work in the sense that new generations won't think about work the way we do, for them it will be something that you can do, not something you have to do. Similarly how sport is today, you can do sports but you don't have to. Also with UBI you are guaranteed a certain amount of income for the duration of your life. You can go to a bank and take a loan against your UBI. A big portion of t…

I think they would have to make it illegal to borrow against your UBI to create a true safety net.

Hmm, like dual of bank minimum reserve.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#646

Post by Ericson2314 »

biggestdecision wrote: post #525
munk-a wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so maybe we should fund UBI by just stripping out the capital gains exemptions that allow insanely rich people to get insanely richer. Some people have more money than they need, it can be removed from them - the intricacies of how they got that money should be very carefully considered when it comes to structuring how UBI would be funded - but they clearly have more money in absolute terms. And that wealth is tr…

How do you transfer it though? If some businessman has all his wealth tied up in stock in his business, how do you convert that to money? Some other person has to buy the stock. All this does is move the wealth around.

It doesn't matter. You bleed them through inflation, VAT, whatever. The finance may be abstract, but at the end of the day money is claims for (future) economic output and you can dilute that as needed.

Some ways are better than other, but this idea that the powerful can hide their power through accounting tricks alone is a failure to think at multiple layers of abstraction.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#647

Post by sabarn01 »

MadWombat wrote: post #292
sabarn01 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should fear being destitute its the natural human condition. Learning skills is the only way to make wealth.

> People should fear being destitute its the natural human condition. People should die of diseases, its the natural human condition. Women should die in childbirth, its the natural human condition. Men should die in wars, its the natural human condition. People should be hunted by sabre-tooth tigers, its the natural human condition.

Fear of failure is a useful social motivator. In rich societies that does't have to mean biological poverty.

When I lived in a urban poor neighborhood I had one neighbor who drove a asphalt truck while the other was on benefits and drank on the porch all day. As an external observer there was little material difference in their standard of living.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#648

Post by sabarn01 »

sfkdjf9j3j wrote: post #346
sabarn01 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should fear being destitute its the natural human condition. Learning skills is the only way to make wealth.

Does that mean you would support a 100% inheritance tax and say, confiscating all of someone's wealth every few years?

I think a true meritocracy is only possible using some type of agoge system, but that also violates human rights. When I say destitution I guess I mean to the acceptable minimum which that most people would find unacceptable.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#649

Post by djrhbedjkdi »

multiplegeorges wrote: post #378
simonsarris wrote: post #88

This is very misleading reporting. First: All studies so far show a pretty consistent ~10% work disincentive. This is what all the detractors say when they say it disincentivizes work. So how about this one? From actually reading the study's conclusion: > Slightly less than one-fifth were employed before but unemployed during the pilot (17%) So even worse than what we've seen so far. 17% dropping out of the labor mar…

And this is a very misleading summary of the results. Here are some actual quote from the study: > Ten respondents moved from unemployment to employment while 32 moved from employment to unemployment. Of the participants who moved from employment to unemployment, 13 (40.6%) enrolled in full-time education during the pilot with the intention of re-entering the labour market later as more qualified workers. Almost half…

>Almost half of people who stopped working did it in order to train for a better job. That's great!

Ahahaha, 50% of people not faffing around would count as success to you? You pay the taxes for that then.

>Receiving BI allowed sick people to not be forced into work to pay for a basic existence? That's great!

Such an improvement! The old method of just buying some aspirin really got put in its place here!

Please, this sort of optimism is indicative of why this won't fly in America. I don't know if you're European or just really like rose colored glasses but these are the kinds of outcomes that doom policy proposals in America. If you're going to live on someone else's dime you're /expected/ to be wretched beyond reproach or guranteed to do something worthwhile. No one is going to be clapping for the tax that 50% of the time breeds couch potatoes.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#650

Post by godelski »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #638
godelski wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education does correlate with a more successful job and it also correlates with a better functioning society. I believe that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that there is some causal relationship (note: this does not say that higher education leads to a successful job, but rather says that higher education increases the chances of you getting a more successful job).

No, because you can be educated in any topic up to and including the history of the Kardashians. This in no way contributes to a better functioning society. Your entire premise that education = more intelligence is completely wrong. Would you argue a person educated by extremists correlates with a better functioning society? The only thing that betters society is the positive application of knowledge to creating some…

It is unclear to me if you are being obtuse on purpose or on accident. But I want to reiterate that trolling is not allowed on HN and it is presumed that you are going to take arguments on good faith. So I will answer as if you aren't being needlessly obtuse.

We're talking about institutional education, not gaining more information. So in this discussion we're not talking about people spending their money to become more informed on Kardashians. We're talking about them going to school. As far as I'm aware, there's no school that teaches the history of the Kardashians.

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