It Is Time For Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#741

Post by eli_gottlieb » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 12:03 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #735

stcredzero wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there has to be a requisite degree of suffering on the bottom-end to motivate the population to compete to better their station? Is that the society-scale version of "The beatings will continue until morale improves?" Well, on a more serious note, it would be, "The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable and productive." Would the "lower classes" in academia lacking health care resu…

The lines are set by supply and demand. It's the reason why I got paid doing a STEM graduate degree, while someone in the arts or history would not. "The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable and productive." Yes, and this is the reason society improves over time. Drastically so. In other words, it is little value to me if you decide to pursue art history because there are enough art…

>The lines are set by supply and demand. It's the reason why I got paid doing a STEM graduate degree, while someone in the arts or history would not.

Bull. The funding for your "STEM" (come on, tell us what field you actually did) grad degree didn't come from supply and demand on an open market; it came from government research funding.

>"The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable and productive." > >Yes, and this is the reason society improves over time. Drastically so.

The fact that you have noticed an optimization process acting on society optimizes society is not a great insight. The fact that you failed to notice the current optimization process profoundly mismatches our values and intentions is a major misstep of yours.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#742

Post by mcv » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 4:14 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #313

kalvin wrote: post #164

I think if you could see close-up how these systems work now, you'd be convinced that it's completely not worth the cost in practice to try and figure out who "deserves" each of the many, many special benefits/allowances/exemptions available (plus it's incredibly difficult for potential recipients to figure out what they're eligible for, plus it imposes those costs on the people who aren't eligible, but end up having…

...it's become increasingly clear to all of us that the implementation of well-meaning policies intended to separate the deserving from the undeserving ends up adding an incredible amount of complexity and overhead,... Unless the overhead is truly massive (read: 5x more than the actual benefits), it doesn't matter. It's still vastly cheaper to pay only a small set of deserving people than to pay everyone. Consider a…

The number of deserving people isn't small, it's large. It is very nearly everyone.

Unemployed people get something, disabled people get something, old people get something, and working get salary, pay taxes on them, get deductions or lower tax brackets, etc. All of that would be replaced by BI.

It's not just about saving overhead costs, it's also about making sure people always get ahead by working. Suppose you're on wellfare, but you might be able to work part-time against minimum income. That added income gets deducted from your wellfare and if it doesn't work out, you might not get it back. So you stand nothing to gain, and a lot to lose. Why even try? With BI, every additional hour you work, increases your income.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#743

Post by eanzenberg » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #741

eanzenberg wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lines are set by supply and demand. It's the reason why I got paid doing a STEM graduate degree, while someone in the arts or history would not. "The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable and productive." Yes, and this is the reason society improves over time. Drastically so. In other words, it is little value to me if you decide to pursue art history because there are enough art…

>The lines are set by supply and demand. It's the reason why I got paid doing a STEM graduate degree, while someone in the arts or history would not. Bull. The funding for your "STEM" (come on, tell us what field you actually did ) grad degree didn't come from supply and demand on an open market; it came from government research funding. >"The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable an…

>"The funding for your "STEM" (come on, tell us what field you actually did) grad degree didn't come from supply and demand on an open market; it came from government research funding."

Which is driven by the market. If art historians were all of a sudden extremely profitable then you bet your ass there will be a massive increase in gov't funding at their graduate level, due to market demands. Grant applications have to stress the importance of their research (and often times potential for profit) to society. The fact that you fail to see immense competition in gov't research funding shows how high your blinders are.

>"The fact that you have noticed an optimization process acting on society optimizes society is not a great insight. The fact that you failed to notice the current optimization process profoundly mismatches our values and intentions is a major misstep of yours."

Don't shove your values on me. Un-targeted welfare steals limited resources from those who truly need it. Swallow those values whole.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#744

Post by eanzenberg » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 4:38 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #693

eanzenberg wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not anywhere close to this. For this to even happen we need everyone who can work, to work, right now. Implementing BI will delay your utopia.

Close in America. Its rapidly becoming obvious that big business doesn't want/need even a fraction of the available workers. Folks resort to entropic work, where they sort out fad and fashion for one another while producing no useful product. A way to keep everybody busy in pursuit of the fantasy of 'full employment'.

Not. Even. Close. Call me when shelter, food, and water costs are so low that any able person can attain each for minimal work. The fact that electricians and construction workers are still in high demand and get paid 80k+ shows how far away we are.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#745

Post by drcode » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 4:53 PM UTC

jgalt212 wrote: post #673

drcode wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! This thread isn't meant for ideas that are sane and would actually improve things. Please move on to another thread.

b/c making the tax code more fair/logical would not improve things? your comment does not make sense.

I agreed with your statements. Since they are sane and would improve things, you are in the wrong comment thread.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#746

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 8:31 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #744

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Close in America. Its rapidly becoming obvious that big business doesn't want/need even a fraction of the available workers. Folks resort to entropic work, where they sort out fad and fashion for one another while producing no useful product. A way to keep everybody busy in pursuit of the fantasy of 'full employment'.

Not. Even. Close. Call me when shelter, food, and water costs are so low that any able person can attain each for minimal work. The fact that electricians and construction workers are still in high demand and get paid 80k+ shows how far away we are.

5 million Americans receive housing for free or substantially federally assisted right now :https://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/methodology/supplemental...

How can that be? What direction is this going? How soon until everybody is subsidized in some way? (There are 2000+ federal housing assistance programs right now).

Market value for construction workers is misleading when the market is skewed. Because we currently play a game where people who want houses, have to hand over green coupons to people who build houses, isn't the whole story. Consider that all this money-trading is by the 99%, who own a small fraction of the money. What if the 1% threw their money into the game? It would skew the prices and wages until some equilibrium was reached, maybe have no real effect on housing at all.

So the real question is, how do we motivate our workforce to create wealth (housing, food etc) for everyone? We have excess capacity to do this (Iowa creates enough food alone, to feed 2 USAs). Why aren't we doing it? Automation will make it not even take people at some point to accomplish it.

The money game will run out of steam at some point. Whether the robot overlords just give us all what we need, or let us starve, is up to our choices in the next couple of decades.

This is all tounge in cheek (sort of); but because today we use money to guide resource doesn't mean it will continue to be useful to do that.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#747

Post by eanzenberg » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 8:50 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #746

eanzenberg wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not. Even. Close. Call me when shelter, food, and water costs are so low that any able person can attain each for minimal work. The fact that electricians and construction workers are still in high demand and get paid 80k+ shows how far away we are.

5 million Americans receive housing for free or substantially federally assisted right now : https://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/methodology/supplemental... How can that be? What direction is this going? How soon until everybody is subsidized in some way? (There are 2000+ federal housing assistance programs right now). Market value for construction workers is misleading when the market is skewed. Because we currently…

I don't think you understand how money works. Remove money, and people will trade items for items. Money is the intermediate unit of your effort and time. "We" motivate our workforce in a natural way by choosing how we trade our (effort and time) for items they have. The value of those items changes as supply and demand changes anyways. The reason "we" are not letting Iowa feed us is because we don't want to eat 3 meals of corn all day every day. How would you "motivate" them to? Force? Which single entity would decide all these things? You, our new overlord? Sorry, I'll take my chances with the current, awesome, system ^_^

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#748

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 11:27 PM UTC

boomlinde wrote: post #540

dredmorbius wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a lands tax comport with the fact that some acres are hugely more productive (or extractive) than others? It's not in the US, but the First Oil Well in Bahrain, which has been providing oil since June 2, 1932. For much of its life at 70,000 bbl/day, more recently at about half that rate, 35,000 bbl/day. That's roughly $3.5 million per day in productivity. There was a time, and Henry George came well after it…

If it's not a "lands tax" but a "land value" tax, if some acres are hugely more productive they are also hugely more valuable, and at best they are taxed accordingly.

Thanks. I've heard a bit about Georgism but haven't looked into it in depth.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#749

Post by yungchin » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 6:04 AM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #671

nkoren wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't decide. The point of Basic Income is that it's unconditional and universal. If somebody can prove they're a citizen, they get the BI, no need to determine their income. As for a $4k tax being "crippling to a good chunk of them" -- no, you misunderstand the nature of BI. If we're paying $20k worth of BI in this scenario, then the mean income should be about $40k (since a good level for BI -- in basically any…

No. Explain why after spending 10 years in school my tax burden should increase by 30k (making it an effective 60% rate not counting 10% sales tax in CA) to give to able bodied people who choose not to get off their ass. I guarantee you society is better off letting me keep what I earned rather than giving it to a completely untested individual. I didn't work my ass off for you.

It's called "paying it forward". Assuming, of course, that some form of BI would be in place, you would have spent those 10 years in school supported by a BI. So paying those taxes, you're making sure that people just like you can afford to spend 10 years in school and become great and awesome too.

PS: I hardly ever meet any of those "able bodied people who choose not to get off their ass" - they mostly show up in discussions like these - and I suspect they're a tiny minority. Let's not adjust policies to punish that tiny minority if, in the process, everybody else gets punished too.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#750

Post by tripzilch » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 8:14 AM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #691

eanzenberg wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. BI would not provide increases to science nor art. It would dilute them. I get enough emails as it is from whacko's who think they've upturned Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, or created some perpetual motion machine. If society valued these people's output they would be financially rewarded already. There's already incentives in present society, called capitalism and competition! There's a reason why only a tin…

> Further, plenty of people on social programs are quite content with sitting on their ass. And some deservedly so, due to true disabilities. An able-bodied adult has no moral right to income which they did not earn. That is theft from the truly deserving individuals who either were born with extreme hardships, or became disabled. Trust me when I say that the truly deserving individuals with true disabilities do not…

Addition, it's too late to edit now, but reading back my comment, there should be scare quotes around the words "truly" and "true". I very clearly don't want to mean to imply I have the position to decide who is "truly deserving" or "truly disabled".

Just wanted to point out that a lot of people who can't work, generally want to, very badly.