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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

#761

Post by weddpros »

octobyte wrote: post #473
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…

> To me, long studies meant delayed enjoyment of life, less freedom until 23, etc... You get less immediately, more later. What do you think life is like if you choose to skip postsecondary education? In most cases, it's straight into a factory/manual labor job that is much more physically (and in many cases mentally and emotionally) draining than your standard white-collar coding job. To characterize those who choos…

I think it's often a matter of immediate freedom... even if I have a clear idea of what life is without high education.

"You'll do whatever you want but get a degree first": tell me you've never heard these words. Maybe this education-then-life approach is counter-productive: education should be a life long journey, and life shouldn't start after your studies. "Finish your homework first, then you'll get to play" may be related...

Also, I suffered a stroke at 32 because of my job, so I'm not sure IT is as safe as you think. YMMV.

And I didn't study in the USA. Free education in Europe is not always as sexy as some may think. I often think that maybe this difference is what makes Europeans boring, and americans so creative and innovative. It's like we're trained through higher education to be obedient (white collar) workers, and you're trained more to achieve whatever you really want.

Lastly, it's been studied/proven/observed/shown that children who can delay immediate gratification for a better future outcome will perform better at school and in their lives (cf The Stanford marshmallow experiment).

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#762

Post by IanCal »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #495
yummyfajitas wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone's that highly productive they'll still be able to earn enough that going out to work would make economic sense. This is absolutely true in a free market with no labor distortions (BI, tax, etc). However, we already live in a world with distortions (taxes, welfare, regulations) that drive a wedge between economically optimal and actual choices. How would adding an even bigger wedge help? Also, due to women'…

I don't think it's even true without market distortions. The whole point of BI is to give people without adequate income some means to support themselves. In other words, it changes the compensation to our hypothetical woman from $0 to $X,000. At the margin this will certainly cause people to drop out of the workforce. Heck, as I get closer to having enough assets saved to be able to require, I'd probably choose the…

However on the other side it should be easier to remove the welfare cliffs that exist in current systems. In the UK there are points where the marginal tax rate is iirc ~75%. In the US there are points where you end up with less money if you work more.

So we may be removing other large disincentives at the same time.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#763

Post by gnaritas »

robk wrote: post #235
blfr wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have been arguing against basic income for years now, and with some really good points[1], but I think you consistently miss the main attraction of the idea to the HN crowd. Many here believe that if people weren't forced to work for income, they would be doing things that are more valuable but also more difficult to monetize (at least initially but perhaps generally), like open source development. There is an un…

Why would anyone clean toilets when they could write/paint/sleep all day?

You're basically asking why would anyone want to make more than the minimum; if you think about that for 10 seconds, the answer would be obvious to you.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#764

Post by Buge »

aminok wrote: post #757

Entrenching authoritarianism should NOT be the next big thing. Compulsory basic income requires throwing people who refuse to hand over currency they receive in private trade in prison, where they are kept in small enclosures, and often develop mental illness, and suffer physical and sexual abuse. Techies should not support such a dark, authoritarian vision for the future.

I don't understand your comment. By "hand over currency they receive in private trade" are you referring to taxes? Taxes already exist without basic income. The punishment for tax evasion does not necessarily have to increase because of basic income.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#765

Post by gnaritas »

nkohari wrote: post #517
blurbleblurble wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you anything there are people who love collecting garbage. Driving huge trucks, being in tune with the scale of human life, seeing the guts of the city, routine... some people love that kind of thing. Where I'm from, there are people who go around picking up trash at the local park out of personal fulfillment in their spare time. They enjoy making the park beautiful. Where do you read me assigning more value to…

I meant the STEM work as an example (hence the eg.) -- sorry if I wasn't more clear. You could just as easily substitute any "skilled" profession -- medicine, etc. All work can certainly be fulfilling, but more because of the reasons I described (it's a means to an end) than the reasons you're describing. Certainly, people shouldn't be forced to take particularly degrading jobs when they don't want to in order to sur…

> It's impossible that there are enough people in the world passionate about garbage collection -- allocated perfectly across the correct geographic regions, mind you -- to fill all of the available positions.

And you base this claim on what?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#766

Post by kybernetyk »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #449
gjm11 wrote: post #99

This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc. And then, towards the end where it starts looking at numbers, it starts saying things like > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 tril…

Taxes would go up. But previously blocked productivity would be released, and socially desirable but marginal services would become viable.

With high tax rates my perviously released productivity would get blocked though. I sure as hell wouldn't do the work I'm currently doing with a 80% tax rate attached.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#767

Post by thegp »

someguydave wrote: post #739
criley2 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poster is crazy to think liberals will EVER support a hugely regressive tax scheme. Consumption taxes destroy the middle class by acting as vehicle to transport wealth from the middle to the ultrawealthy, which makes it surprising that people continue to suggest it. Now perhaps a consumption tax combined with a large capital gains tax and inheritance tax -- to keep taxes going in the oligarchs economy AND the regular…

I perceive the income tax as helping the rich roll rocks on the upper-middle labor class while getting the poor to cheer them on. Most rich don't want competition or independent power bases to develop from bourgeois power bases. Also how is taxing labor in any way liberal?

What specifically makes you perceive that?

And for your last question:

1. What is your working definition of liberal(positive vs. Negative freedoms)? 2. Income tax taxes... Income. Not labour. Ideally not discriminating between capital and labour income.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#768

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dragonwriter wrote: post #695
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poster is crazy to think liberals will EVER support a hugely regressive tax scheme. Consumption taxes destroy the middle class by acting as vehicle to transport wealth from the middle to the ultrawealthy, which makes it surprising that people continue to suggest it. So the proposal is to combine something like VAT with a basic income. Doing that would cause low income people to have a negative effective tax rate (b…

> "Super-rich don't pay tax on money they don't spend" is the status quo. Only if you ignore estate taxes...which FairTax eliminates. For the rich (defined here as anyone with enough wealth that, if they don't spend it down, they will face estate taxes) they either have to realize the gains (and be taxed) and spend down or leave an estate which will be subject to estate taxes, giving them a maximum time window on tax…

> For the rich (defined here as anyone with enough wealth that, if they don't spend it down, they will face estate taxes) they either have to realize the gains (and be taxed) and spend down or leave an estate which will be subject to estate taxes, giving them a maximum time window on taxation equal to their lifespan.

It would be if not for the "estate tax holiday" we have periodically which together with a bunch of other ways of avoiding the estate tax is why it only constitutes a negligible amount (0.6%) of federal revenue.

The fundamental problem with the estate tax is that it's a huge tax that happens with semi-unpredictable timing, which induces rich families to do estate tax planning to avoid having liquidity problems when it happens. But "estate tax planning" means paying fifty million dollars to tax lawyers and lobbyists to avoid paying a billion dollars in estate taxes.

In practice what it means is that rich families will do much more to avoid and lobby against the estate tax than they would against a tax that collected the same amount of money from them but more predictably over a longer period of time. Which makes it a losing proposition if your goal is to get the rich to pay taxes.

> Because it also changes the cost structures on which debt is occurred, this only is meaningful as a one-time effect on debts that exist at the time of the transition to a predominantly-consumption-tax system, not as durable feature.

It applies equally to the interest paid on the existing debt. And given that the total interest generally exceeds the principal (and exceeds it moreso for poorer people paying higher interest rates), the "one time effect" would be with us for a generation or more.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#769

Post by Aoyagi »

kgwgk wrote: post #572
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really Old World, New World and Other, which was labelled "The Third World". It's not supposed to be ordinal. Media is advertising supported ( mostly still ) and it's therefore targeted at the New World, which breeds this curious resentment. But if one of these Worlds is to be the Second, I'd think it would be the New World.

Actually the term "Third World" was used to refer to the non-aligned countries (as opposed to NATO on one side and the communist bloc on the other).

Yeah, it's can have many meanings (including "non-EU, non-EEC and non-EFTA countries". I just used the one that's the most popular. ^^

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#770

Post by Aoyagi »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #689
Aoyagi wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think an average person can afford a steak but for very rare of occasions here or something? No. The average person buys "on deal" cheap food from "discount store" - quality on par with average dog food. Fruit (except for apples) is almost luxury. It always amuses me when I hear something like "10k USD is below the poverty rate". Do you think the living expenses are notably different?

> Do you think an average person can afford a steak but for very rare of occasions here or something? No. The average person buys "on deal" cheap food from "discount store" - quality on par with average dog food. Fruit (except for apples) is almost luxury. It is the same for the poor here. I know, I grew up experiencing it. Would you be happy with that life knowing that the opportunity for more was available and with…

>It is the same for the poor here.

Well...yeah. That's the point. American "poor" is the average here. Or a little below average, to be precise.

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