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Moving Forward on Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#881

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

adrianN wrote: post #876
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The right to turn down a job is essential for a well functioning labor market, and for a civilized society. And to have that right, a genuine right, to turn down a job, you must have an alternative: An outside option. Because desperate people will accept to do desperate things..." i think it will bring downs the salary for a number of professions - why bother to pay when you can get volunteers on basic income for f…

It also increases the salary for other professions. Who wants to clean toilets for minimum wage if basic income is an alternative.

Great, so we will see highly trained people cleaning toilets, because they happen to need some money and cleaning toilets pays better than the jobs that they were trained to do.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#882

Post by pif »

Drakim wrote: post #878
adrianN wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also increases the salary for other professions. Who wants to clean toilets for minimum wage if basic income is an alternative.

Isn't it part of the point with basic income in that it doesn't disappear if you have a job? The choices would be "basic income" vs "minimum wage + basic income". There is also the fact that there is no inherent reason why toilet washers should have minimum wage. It's exactly because of economic uncertainty among the lower class that they can be coerced into accepting such sub-par situations such as doing an undesire…

Well, from one point of view, cleaning toilet can be a very desirable job because of one fundamental property: you need no prior training!

Yes, cleaning toilet is awful, but investing years of your life into a degree before being able to apply is a considerable price, too.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#883

Post by webXL »

adrianN wrote: post #876
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The right to turn down a job is essential for a well functioning labor market, and for a civilized society. And to have that right, a genuine right, to turn down a job, you must have an alternative: An outside option. Because desperate people will accept to do desperate things..." i think it will bring downs the salary for a number of professions - why bother to pay when you can get volunteers on basic income for f…

It also increases the salary for other professions. Who wants to clean toilets for minimum wage if basic income is an alternative.

We all want clean toilets and most of us want to respect the health and dignity of others. Therefore we'll continue to see technological advancement in cleaning supplies, dirt resistant materails, and eventually automation. That's the whole basis of BI, at least for the techno optimists. Most janitors will just retire early, but some might discover new applications for their know-how, and we'll all benefit.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#884

Post by emerongi »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #881
adrianN wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also increases the salary for other professions. Who wants to clean toilets for minimum wage if basic income is an alternative.

Great, so we will see highly trained people cleaning toilets, because they happen to need some money and cleaning toilets pays better than the jobs that they were trained to do.

And? What's the problem?

I see it as a net positive for society. If someone wants to clean toilets, they can do so. Right now, the people who clean our toilets might not want to do it. They are forced.

The "non-highly-trained" people can spend their time to get "highly trained", since they're not locked in to cleaning toilets anymore.

How is this a worse scenario than the one we have now?

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#885

Post by illumin8 »

xienze wrote: post #60

So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…

If you paid it weekly, or even daily electronically, this would be a non-issue. Joe doesn't have enough cash to buy food? Tough shit; he'll get $20 in his account tomorrow and can buy breakfast at 12:01am if he's hungry.

Every welfare or social safety net has a similar schedule. We would not give someone a $12,000 welfare check on January 1st and expect it to last very long. People reliant on welfare or BI have proven that they have very low financial literacy.

The way we solve giving money to people with low financial literacy is the same - don't give them their money all at once - spread it out over time to limit the financial harm they can do to themselves.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#886

Post by wyager »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #804

The most compelling case I've seen made recently for basic income is from Yanis Varoufakis (the infamous Greek finance minister who resigned after refusing to agree to the terms of the bailout that the Greek people voted against in a referendum): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y0Ss There were many gems in that talk, but this one stood out to me in particular: "The right to turn down a job is essential for a w…

What a foolish analogy. The Mafia uses violence to force people to "agree" to things. If one "can't say no" to a contract because their pre-contract situation sucks and will be improved by adopting the contract, they have suffered no violence.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#887

Post by dilemma »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #807
lewisl9029 wrote: post #804

The most compelling case I've seen made recently for basic income is from Yanis Varoufakis (the infamous Greek finance minister who resigned after refusing to agree to the terms of the bailout that the Greek people voted against in a referendum): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y0Ss There were many gems in that talk, but this one stood out to me in particular: "The right to turn down a job is essential for a w…

Basic income has a whole host of pretty interesting self-reinforcing feedback loops that seemingly would improve things overall. For example, people would be more likely to leave jobs that were unsafe, treated people poorly, etc. Including situations where employers weren't following labor laws and regulations (which is a huge problem today). Meaning that maybe it'd be more likely that the fire code, sanitary regulat…

Scenario: You're married with 2 kids and live in San Francisco. Is an $8,000/year UBI going to enable you to quit your $100,000/year job without another lined up?

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#888

Post by grecy »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #804

The most compelling case I've seen made recently for basic income is from Yanis Varoufakis (the infamous Greek finance minister who resigned after refusing to agree to the terms of the bailout that the Greek people voted against in a referendum): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y0Ss There were many gems in that talk, but this one stood out to me in particular: "The right to turn down a job is essential for a w…

> The right to turn down a job is essential for a well functioning labor market, and for a civilized society.

I agree 100%, and I must say having immigrated from Australia, it's probably the worst thing about America.

It feels like Employers have all the power in America, and therefore all the Employees are basically slaves, and are treated as such.

I think it's important for a functioning society to value it's workforce over the profits of businesses.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#889

Post by skeeper »

grecy wrote: post #888
lewisl9029 wrote: post #804

The most compelling case I've seen made recently for basic income is from Yanis Varoufakis (the infamous Greek finance minister who resigned after refusing to agree to the terms of the bailout that the Greek people voted against in a referendum): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y0Ss There were many gems in that talk, but this one stood out to me in particular: "The right to turn down a job is essential for a w…

> The right to turn down a job is essential for a well functioning labor market, and for a civilized society. I agree 100%, and I must say having immigrated from Australia, it's probably the worst thing about America. It feels like Employers have all the power in America, and therefore all the Employees are basically slaves, and are treated as such. I think it's important for a functioning society to value it's workf…

"I think it's important for a functioning society to value it's workforce over the profits of businesses" I agree. Corporate greed. That's exactly the issue being addressed in this article: https://medium.com/@LevelWorkingField/do-you-like-new-pricin...

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#890

Post by JoeAltmaier »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #804

The most compelling case I've seen made recently for basic income is from Yanis Varoufakis (the infamous Greek finance minister who resigned after refusing to agree to the terms of the bailout that the Greek people voted against in a referendum): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y0Ss There were many gems in that talk, but this one stood out to me in particular: "The right to turn down a job is essential for a w…

Its a replay of something called "Enclosure" in Britain in the 1700s (actually for several hundreds of years) where the commons got fenced and contracted out. It meant laborers could no longer live for a while off the land - a brace of rabbits, a partridge for the pot. So labor had to work for an employer to live, at whatever pay the employer chose. Which essentially enslaved them. Or so the argument went.
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