Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

bloombergview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

781–790 of 840 posts

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#781

Post by bane »

jhall1468 wrote: post #418
bane wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't labor markets decrease? Isn't that the principle idea floating by UBI advocates entirely throughout this thread? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11619803 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11619677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11619716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11619722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11619700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11619538 https://news.ycomb…

> Why wouldn't labor markets decrease? Isn't that the principle idea floating by UBI advocates entirely throughout this thread? They will, and I never said they wouldn't. The problem with your "theory" is that they are going to decrease at a 1:1 ratio with increase in labor costs from the UBI resulting in an overall "0 gain" from the UBI. > No, all money will devalue with the increase in supply and increase in labor…

> The problem with your "theory" is that they are going to decrease at a 1:1 ratio with increase in labor costs from the UBI

Actually, I never said 1:1 ratio with UBI. I just claimed the labor markets would decrease and monetary supply would increase.

> True, but that's not the argument you are making.

No, that's exactly and precisely the argument I'm making. I'm not an opponent of UBI for wishy washy wealth redistribution reasons, but because of the lousy labor markets it would create and the inflation it would create.

The models for what would happen under UBI are not clear, but there are not positive economic models under a UBI scheme by major economists.

UBI proponents have failed to provide any model whatsoever and fall back on vague handwaivy feelings that seem to always only show extremely positive outcomes with no possible negatives and a reliance on magic automation technology that doesn't exist.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#782

Post by sokoloff »

gigawhat wrote: post #561
phaemon wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay it weekly.

Payday loan shops. Don't pretend you can legislate around that problem-- if payday loans against UBI were illegal, the black market (loan sharks) would fill in the gap.

There's already a black market for WIC/EBT ("food stamps"). Replacing those with another program that would also have a black market seems less outrageous to me than supplementing them with another program with the same flaw.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#783

Post by bane »

smaddox wrote: post #463
bane wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your arguments are interesting, but they hold only in systems with artificial inflation controls. UBI increases the amount of money in the economy, which has the same effect as simply printing more, thus the value (scarcity) of the money decreases. A poor mother without UBI will be a poor mother with UBI because costs will simply go up, something you acknowledge. As costs for services go up, costs of products go up a…

UBI would only cause inflation if 1) it is not covered by taxes, 2) production does not increase in proportion, and 3) debt does not decrease in proportion. It is extremely likely that a combination of 1, 2, and 3 will keep inflation in check. Ideally, 3 would dominate, because that would greatly dampen the business cycle (i.e. the boom and bust cycle). The potential for number 3 is the reason I think UBI is a macroe…

It's currently believed by most economic models that debt would wildly increase in proportion as there's few tax schemes that would tax the wealthy enough (and in the right ways) to make it work. For example, even a WW2 level progressive income tax scheme would not provide enough money because the wealthy have learned how to acquire wealth without it being their personal income.

Capital gains taxes only occur if money is made from investments, and there's lots of wonderful ways to show losses or get around that kind of tax system by reinvesting or working the books over to show losses.

You don't want to tax asset ownership too much, because then you'll be taxing people's stock and bond ownership and their retirement accounts and it produces a disincentive to invest in businesses that would need that money to produce the kind of automation revolution that would make UBI work (your #2). A great many assets also only have value and not intrinsic worth. For example, Donald Trump is on record saying that he believes his personal fortune can vary by billions of dollars on any given day given how he "feels" about his brand image. We all know about VC valuations. Do we tax paper billionaires who are pulling down $100k in real income? How can they possibly pay that?

Consumption taxes have been demonstrated to have an outsized impact on the poor.

and so on.

A notion that "well we'll just close all the tax loopholes to make UBI work" is quite frankly a fantasy.

I agree that UBI would stabilize boom bust cycles, but it's not clear that that's a desired end-state. Boom cycles are often when major innovation happens.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#784

Post by bane »

lifeformed wrote: post #556
bane wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your arguments are interesting, but they hold only in systems with artificial inflation controls. UBI increases the amount of money in the economy, which has the same effect as simply printing more, thus the value (scarcity) of the money decreases. A poor mother without UBI will be a poor mother with UBI because costs will simply go up, something you acknowledge. As costs for services go up, costs of products go up a…

What if we phase UBI in with increasing automation. Maybe the opposing problems caused by both will cancel each other out?

Let me know when we have sufficiently advanced AI to complete most of the jobs on "Dirty Jobs" and it might just could work.

An amazing amount of work is not mindless factory work.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#785

Post by bane »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #410
bane wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your arguments are interesting, but they hold only in systems with artificial inflation controls. UBI increases the amount of money in the economy, which has the same effect as simply printing more, thus the value (scarcity) of the money decreases. A poor mother without UBI will be a poor mother with UBI because costs will simply go up, something you acknowledge. As costs for services go up, costs of products go up a…

I am not sure your argument does not suffer from the lump of labor fallacy. But it's not like there is a coherent definition of inflation, much less a working model for it.

There's actually very good models for inflation. They're basically the models the entire global macro economy is run on. They about as good as weather models, and sometimes they don't work well, but they're generally pretty good at this point.

e.g. When the Fed raises and lowers rates, it's using inflationary models to inform that decision. With a desired goal of sustainable and controlled minor inflation.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#786

Post by bane »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #352
bane wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your arguments are interesting, but they hold only in systems with artificial inflation controls. UBI increases the amount of money in the economy, which has the same effect as simply printing more, thus the value (scarcity) of the money decreases. A poor mother without UBI will be a poor mother with UBI because costs will simply go up, something you acknowledge. As costs for services go up, costs of products go up a…

How many bottlers are running on such razor thin margins?

Why is it the bottler's job to absorb the impact of the UBI out of their profits?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#787

Post by majewsky »

prostoalex wrote: post #667
hfsktr wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the new tax needed? What are we trying to fund that other taxes don't already cover? Don't we (the government) subsidize HFCS? Wouldn't not doing that raise the prices and not require a tax then? I will oppose a 'sugar' tax because I don't think the government should be deciding what foods I consume, especially when I think taxes should be for raising money. I am aware it's not the full picture and I haven't e…

From the tax simplification point of view you're right. But removing the subsidy would still raise the prices on soft drinks, and affect lower income households disproportionally, so it's a regressive measure as well.

Depends on the scope. If you can reduce obesity and obesity-induced diseases, that could affect the average budget of a low-income family very positively. Of course, I don't have numbers on how the two effects weigh against each other.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#788

Post by sokoloff »

pasquinelli wrote: post #681
MicroBerto wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now that you have enough free cash to afford a security deposit on a different place This leads me back to my original question - EVERYONE now has "enough free cash to afford a security deposit on a different place", so if EVERYONE goes and does that, we're right back to where we came from within 1 year -- the lowest class still has the lowest quality apartments with the lowest class slumlord landlords!! Nothing ch…

"we're right back to where we came from within 1 year -- the lowest class still has the lowest quality apartments with the lowest class slumlord landlords!!" but the previous lowest class slumlords have been run out of business, because no everyone's trying to move out of their apartments and no one's trying to move in.

Where I live, there is no structural vacancies at the low end of the market. In markets like that, unless you believe that UBI will cause a net reduction in the number of households, those landlords will experience an increase in demand, not a reduction.

In markets with structural vacancies (more units available for rent than households wanting to rent them), you might see of the migration effect you describe due to increased mobility.

(To be clear, I believe that UBI will cause an increase in household formation, not a decrease.)

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#789

Post by pfooti »

PietdeVries wrote: post #357
goda90 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about children are included, then provide X% to parents for child care expenses, and X% to a fund that the child can't access until 18. That way we don't have to do free higher education. Public universities can expect each student to have close to XXXXX dollars saved away and set tuition accordingly.

Hmm... So with everyone getting free money, including the children, there is no need for a father to take care of the family when he decides to diforce, right? Afterall, the family gets a good deal of income even when daddy is gone. So marriage will no longer be a bond forever, it will be a bond until something nicer comes along since there is no financial penalty anymore: no pressure to stay together for the kids. M…

Sooooo, what you're saying is that a significant number of families are currently together for economic rather than emotional / social reasons? I (a) find that somewhat difficult to believe and (b) find that somewhat troubling if true. (disclaimer: I'm in a love-filled marriage and my partner and I have decided to have no children)

Honestly, I'd rather see families split up, if by "split up" you mean "find independence from someone with whom you do not want to spend your life". There's levels here- children are a responsibility that someone needs to shoulder (and emphatically not just Mom), but if the alternative right now is being trapped economically in an emotionally traumatic relationship, that's not good either.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#790

Post by majewsky »

mac01021 wrote: post #736
Grishnakh wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're going to have a hard time eliminating Social Security; the voters won't stand for it. They paid into it, so it seems unfair for them to not get paid back out of it. What would work, I think, might be a phase-out: for anyone who's getting less in SS payments than the UBI, just replace their SS with UBI. For everyone making more, they don't get a UBI, they just keep drawing SS. (Or, you could say they ge…

I agree with you 100% about the lack of political viability. But I also think a system that requires taxpayers to fund more than basic living expenses for non-taxpayers is unjust. Everyone should be able to stay warm and dry, safe and clean, with a soft bed and a healthy diet. Anything beyond that is luxury. In particular: - Just because you don't have enough income to pay your big mortgage doesn't mean others should…

> Everyone should be able to stay warm and dry, safe and clean, with a soft bed and a healthy diet. Anything beyond that is luxury.

The definition of "luxury" changes over time. Today, you should include internet access in the list of basic needs since it is needed for many forms of social interaction.

Post reply on HN