A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing • Hacker News Board

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#811

Post by CaptSpify » Wed, May 04, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #405

ido wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sum also depends on how much robots will make stuff cheaper. Remember buying clothes and appliances/electronics before the 90s? These used to be major expenses, and much more expensive than today, adjusted to inflation (stuff got cheaper partially due to globalisation & partially greater automation).

You mean the clothes and the electronics made by Asian indentured workers in conditions close to outright slavery? I mean, don't get me wrong, I participate in the modern economy as much as the next guy, and the man who eats meat is brother to the butcher. But let's not get starry-eyed imagining that robots make our trousers and smartphones.

The idea is: They will. We're getting more and more automated every day. I think looking at and talking about UBI at this stage is much better than waiting until there aren't any more jobs left, and deciding we should have done something in the past. Lets experiment now, and get ahead of the curve.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#812

Post by mac01021 » Wed, May 04, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

Grishnakh wrote: post #800

majewsky wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Here again is another place where we need a lot more government regulation. People who don't work should not be getting $100/month or whatever for internet access. Instead, they should be able to afford a $15/month plan. Over in Europe, they have stuff like that, because they have real regulation, so internet service is much, much cheaper (of course, their internet and telecom companies aren't as profitable as ours;…

I've never seen a $100 internet bill that wasn't bundled with other kinds of services.

A more normal number, I think is $50.

If you couple that with the fact that people with out income most likely need to share housing and might as well share in internet connection too, you're already down to $17 per month for broadband.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#813

Post by TrevorJ » Wed, May 04, 2016, 6:01 PM UTC

The problem is, this doesn't happen in a vacuum: how do you prevent rent-seeking and COL inflation? Not universal basic income works in a free market, you may have to control prices directly in order to do it.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#814

Post by Grishnakh » Wed, May 04, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

zardo wrote: post #810

Grishnakh wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point, but good luck convincing all the Hillary-voting, suit-wearing Democrats in the northeast that they're not "liberal". Just look at the other responses to my post here even. But agreed, there's absolutely a huge difference between west coast liberals and east coast "liberals". The marijuana issue is an interesting thing to look at too, when you compare to red-vs-blue state maps. The "liberal" northeast…

That just gets to how silly the idea is that you can map policy opinions onto a single principal component and get good separation.

Exactly; we try to distill everything political in this country into two "teams", but the problem is that the teams are not even remotely homogeneous or agreed on policies. Trump vs. establishment GOP and Bernie vs. establishment DNC show this.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#815

Post by WWKong » Wed, May 04, 2016, 6:52 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #746

habosa wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a step further. Let's say on day 1 of the basic income age all the bread merchants raise their price to $100. One smart bread merchant will probably say "Hey I used to sell this for $1.50, I can do better than $100" and prices it at $90. Now everyone buys bread from him. The other merchants feel the price pressure and the cycle continues, with the price settling down to something likely higher than $1.50 (to ref…

Labor is wrapped up in the intrinsic value of things. Gold is only intrinsically valuable after it has been extracted, therefore its labor costs are included in the price. Don't believe me? What happens to the price of gold when it suddenly becomes much easier to mine for it?

Not sure if applies to everything. For a close product think diamonds where the value is controlled by creating fake scarcity.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#816

Post by WWKong » Wed, May 04, 2016, 6:54 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #579

WWKong wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, utilities and commodities will always hover around cost price due to market forces and hence the poor will be able to afford the basics. There might be other non essentials that might become more expensive to absorb the extra money in the market, but we would have mostly likely solved a bigger problem. Makes sense. I still worry about housing.

Housing is interesting because it's one of the few things we buy that is priced mostly around our ability to pay for it rather than the value of what we are buying. That's why in SF it seems that housing prices rise in lock step with wages in the dominant industry (tech). So while it's very likely that the cost of housing will increase in this situation, again I think people will still be better off overall. People w…

Also education cost spiked because of easy availability of student loans. Could there be many more products/areas like this?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#817

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, May 04, 2016, 6:56 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #579

WWKong wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, utilities and commodities will always hover around cost price due to market forces and hence the poor will be able to afford the basics. There might be other non essentials that might become more expensive to absorb the extra money in the market, but we would have mostly likely solved a bigger problem. Makes sense. I still worry about housing.

Housing is interesting because it's one of the few things we buy that is priced mostly around our ability to pay for it rather than the value of what we are buying. That's why in SF it seems that housing prices rise in lock step with wages in the dominant industry (tech). So while it's very likely that the cost of housing will increase in this situation, again I think people will still be better off overall. People w…

> Housing is interesting because it's one of the few things we buy that is priced mostly around our ability to pay for it rather than the value of what we are buying.

No, its not. Real estate -- including housing -- is very much driven by value, and for most real estate -- and definitely housing -- and key component of value is location.

> That's why in SF it seems that housing prices rise in lock step with wages in the dominant industry (tech).

Convenience to work of a given pay is a key component of the value of housing; its not priced according to what the buyer can pay, its priced according to value, and the buyers are the ones who can pay that value.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#818

Post by tstrimple » Wed, May 04, 2016, 6:58 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #714

pvnick wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come it has to be progressive? Wealthier folks consume more and therefore pay more.

Wealthier folks consume less as a percentage of their income than poor people do. If you add a 10% sales tax on food, the poor are hit harder, as a percentage of their income.

This is such an important point that so many seem to miss. The more income you have, the higher your disposable income. A person who earns $20k per year probably spends $20k per year. A person who earns $50 million a year isn't going to spend $50 million every year. Even if their income skyrockets to $150 million, they likely aren't going to spend $50 million in a year. It's just not feasible. Therefore, any sort of FairTax or FlatTax is hitting the poor a lot more than the rich and is regressive by definition.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#819

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, May 04, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

WWKong wrote: post #816

habosa wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing is interesting because it's one of the few things we buy that is priced mostly around our ability to pay for it rather than the value of what we are buying. That's why in SF it seems that housing prices rise in lock step with wages in the dominant industry (tech). So while it's very likely that the cost of housing will increase in this situation, again I think people will still be better off overall. People w…

Also education cost spiked because of easy availability of student loans. Could there be many more products/areas like this?

> Also education cost spiked because of easy availability of student loans. Could there be many more products/areas like this?

Anything that isn't provided by a freely competitive market can be like this in the long term, and anything where the supply side can't quickly respond to demand-side changes can be like it in the short term.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#820

Post by taurath » Wed, May 04, 2016, 7:09 PM UTC

tstrimple wrote: post #818

taurath wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealthier folks consume less as a percentage of their income than poor people do. If you add a 10% sales tax on food, the poor are hit harder, as a percentage of their income.

This is such an important point that so many seem to miss. The more income you have, the higher your disposable income. A person who earns $20k per year probably spends $20k per year. A person who earns $50 million a year isn't going to spend $50 million every year. Even if their income skyrockets to $150 million, they likely aren't going to spend $50 million in a year. It's just not feasible. Therefore, any sort of…

Its a basic fallacy of the fairtax/nonprogressive tax movements that consumption equal to income. It is true, until you have your basic needs met. Go around to your local rich neighborhood - not everyone has the latest Maserati, because their transportation needs are fully met by a cheaper vehicle. If you're well off much more of your income is going to go to investments and savings.