India floats the idea of a universal basic income • Hacker News Board

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#91

Post by aminok » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 2:48 AM UTC

neffy wrote: post #81

aminok wrote: post #71

Forcibly redistributing income from low resource generators to high resource generators creates an incentive for people with fewer resources to have more children than they are capable of supporting. This dynamic will in the long run lead to more people that produce fewer resources. Currently government is redistributing income upward by economic prohibitions (regulatory barriers): http://cepr.net/publications/report…

That argument (Malthusian) goes back to the beginning of the industrial revolution. But since pretty much every technologist, scientist and engineer currently working can trace their lineage in less than 4 generations back to the working class, I think I'll go with greater and better distributed wealth and education solving more problems than it creates. The fundamental issue addressed by positive incomes is simply t…

The Malthusian argument has never been tested for an extended period in a situation where resource usage has been decoupled from resource generation.

From the brief experiment we've had with massive forcible income redistribution (social democracy), we've seen the following:

* slow down in wage growth and improvements in life expectancy

* slow down in productivity growth

* explosion in the rate of single parenthood (perfectly in line with economic theory on how availability of resources affects child rearing choices)

But hey since 40 years of social democracy has failed so utterly, clearly we should keep blaming the free market and doubling down on social democracy.

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#92

Post by bitJericho » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 2:50 AM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #83

whack wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning you're using is very flawed. Yes, we'll never get to a state where a small number end up with 100% of the wealth. Yes, there will be an equilibrium reached between the wealthy and the middle class. But this equilibrium point can shift more and more towards the wealthy. In fact, this has already been happening in the past few decades, as illustrated in books such as Capital. And as this equilibrium shift…

I think you are ignoring some bad things that could come out of UBI. The greatest danger is that people may be comfortable near the BI level until they are about 30, and not really work or educate themselves much (lacking motivation). Then, they want to have a family, and all of a sudden their desires for consumption skyrocket. They can't just join the workforce then, because it will be 10 years before they advance e…

Ubi should never be about owning anything. It should be about providing housing, food, healthcare, clothes, and nothing more. It should be for all citizens, including children. This way you can have a family. But if you want a tv, phone, car, you're going to have to work. Since people are living to their 70s plus, lounging around isn't a big deal. I think you'll find people become very creative too, or focus on high level education.

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#93

Post by aminok » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 2:50 AM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #78

aminok wrote: post #71

Forcibly redistributing income from low resource generators to high resource generators creates an incentive for people with fewer resources to have more children than they are capable of supporting. This dynamic will in the long run lead to more people that produce fewer resources. Currently government is redistributing income upward by economic prohibitions (regulatory barriers): http://cepr.net/publications/report…

> Currently government is redistributing income upward by economic prohibitions (regulatory barriers) Forgive me for the double post, but part of a sibling comment of mine is especially relevant here: > I'm regularly floored by people's ability to talk about network effects, economies of scale, information asymmetries, moats, winner-takes-all games, and mergers/acquisitions with one breath -- all of which are non-reg…

All regulations, except on natural resources like land, should be eliminated in my opinion, as they are forceful interventions against people exercising their legitimate right to freely contract and utilise their own private property. In industries where network effects emerge, the government should fund open-source protocols that can compete with privately owned options. For example, applications built on a distributed consensus public blockchain (e.g. Ethereum) could be competitive with many existing centralized services.

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#94

Post by aminok » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 2:56 AM UTC

MarkMc wrote: post #90

aminok wrote: post #74

>But as things stand now, the owners of the machines get richer, and the displaced workers get significantly poorer. No they don't. We've had 200 years of massive automation fueled job destruction, and wages and the demand for labour are massively greater now than 200 years ago. The last 20 years in particular have overseen the most rapid wage growth in human history.

In 1995 the real median US household income was $52,664. In 2015 it was $56,516 [1]. US Hourly Wages for nonsupervisory workers has certainly grown over the last 20 years, but not in the past 40 years [2]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...

The US isn't the world. The US has many traits that are peculiar to it, and not universal to economies that are becoming increasingly automated. The world has seen more wage growth over the last 20 years than any other period in history:

http://csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-global-...

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#95

Post by huh333i » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 2:58 AM UTC

whack wrote: post #67

felipeccastro wrote: post #38

I used to think a universal basic income would make sense, especially in developed countries, only for the near future scenario of machines taking ever more jobs. We know that this has always happened in history, and new jobs were always created, but that doesn't mean that the rate of job creation vs destruction will remain the same, forever. What made me change my mind about UBI was to realize that a) human desires…

The reasoning you're using is very flawed. Yes, we'll never get to a state where a small number end up with 100% of the wealth. Yes, there will be an equilibrium reached between the wealthy and the middle class. But this equilibrium point can shift more and more towards the wealthy. In fact, this has already been happening in the past few decades, as illustrated in books such as Capital. And as this equilibrium shift…

You want to thwart communism using UBI? That's like thwarting floodwater by calling your basement a swimming pool.

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#96

Post by beachstartup » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 3:04 AM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #83

whack wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning you're using is very flawed. Yes, we'll never get to a state where a small number end up with 100% of the wealth. Yes, there will be an equilibrium reached between the wealthy and the middle class. But this equilibrium point can shift more and more towards the wealthy. In fact, this has already been happening in the past few decades, as illustrated in books such as Capital. And as this equilibrium shift…

I think you are ignoring some bad things that could come out of UBI. The greatest danger is that people may be comfortable near the BI level until they are about 30, and not really work or educate themselves much (lacking motivation). Then, they want to have a family, and all of a sudden their desires for consumption skyrocket. They can't just join the workforce then, because it will be 10 years before they advance e…

> Then you have a bunch of undereducated, inexperienced people who want a lot of stuff.

it's already happened, and it caused the subprime mortgage crisis and the college debt crisis. not to mention the up-and-coming problems of payday loan debt, credit card debt, and subprime auto loans.

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#97

Post by nickpeterson » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 3:04 AM UTC

f_allwein wrote: post #51

From the longer (paywalled) version: "Over a fifth of its population lives below the poverty line. The scheme outlined this week by the chief economic adviser to the Indian government, Arvind Subramanian, would cut that figure to less than 0.5% by transferring about $9 a month to all adult Indians. If doled out to everyone, that would cost around 6-7% of GDP; the 950 welfare schemes soak up 5% of GDP." http://www.eco…

I guess I don't grasp how this will prevent companies from raising prices to capture some of that 9 dollars, effectively making the wealthy even wealthier.

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#98

Post by thlst » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 3:04 AM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #83

whack wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning you're using is very flawed. Yes, we'll never get to a state where a small number end up with 100% of the wealth. Yes, there will be an equilibrium reached between the wealthy and the middle class. But this equilibrium point can shift more and more towards the wealthy. In fact, this has already been happening in the past few decades, as illustrated in books such as Capital. And as this equilibrium shift…

I think you are ignoring some bad things that could come out of UBI. The greatest danger is that people may be comfortable near the BI level until they are about 30, and not really work or educate themselves much (lacking motivation). Then, they want to have a family, and all of a sudden their desires for consumption skyrocket. They can't just join the workforce then, because it will be 10 years before they advance e…

That already happened in Venezuela (and is happening in Brazil).

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#99

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 3:07 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #59

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? It seems like a great way to discourage people from consuming it unnecessarily while making sure no one actually suffers in dire poverty unnecessarily. The problem is the entire principle only works because it's universal. Having lower or middle income people opt out of it would defeat the entire purpose of having it, and having upper income people opt out of it wouldn't save you very much money because they'r…

What does "work" mean to you? By "work", I mean that we solve poverty at a cost as low as possible. Having the BI consumed by non-poor people doesn't help that goal. Also, India is a low inequality country - Gini is comparable to France since everyone is equally poor. So preventing the middle class from consuming a BI would significantly reduce the cost.

By "work" I mean you take some money from upper income people, give it to lower income people and by and large leave the middle class alone. Having the middle class pay $100 in tax and then receive $100 in UBI works perfectly well for that.

Changing that so the middle class pays $75 in tax but receives no UBI is exactly how you bring about the sort of hollowing out of the middle class we've seen recently in the US. It makes the middle class pay for the subsidies to the poor so that wealthier people can pay lower taxes.

And phasing out the UBI for middle class people so they don't have to pay the tax would imply having a UBI phase out rate that just substitutes for the equivalent tax rate, which is mathematically the same as having the higher tax rate and giving them the UBI, but is less transparent about what is actually happening.

Re: India floats the idea of a universal basic income

#100

Post by jeffdavis » Wed, Feb 08, 2017, 3:09 AM UTC

bitJericho wrote: post #92

jeffdavis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are ignoring some bad things that could come out of UBI. The greatest danger is that people may be comfortable near the BI level until they are about 30, and not really work or educate themselves much (lacking motivation). Then, they want to have a family, and all of a sudden their desires for consumption skyrocket. They can't just join the workforce then, because it will be 10 years before they advance e…

Ubi should never be about owning anything. It should be about providing housing, food, healthcare, clothes, and nothing more. It should be for all citizens, including children. This way you can have a family. But if you want a tv, phone, car, you're going to have to work. Since people are living to their 70s plus, lounging around isn't a big deal. I think you'll find people become very creative too, or focus on high…

It's not about what people need though, it's about what they want. I'm not saying the children will starve, I'm saying the parents will want a lot of stuff all of a sudden.