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The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

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Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#91

Post by rev_bird »

remarkEon wrote: post #60

There's two issues that I don't think have been adequately addressed, or that I missed, in the banter over this issue. 1) What would stop us from recreating the inefficient welfare state that already exists on top of this new one when some people inevitably blow their UBI on drugs/cheetos/whatever and don't have money for rent? It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no"…

>It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country.

I'd argue that the culture is currently overwhelmingly biased toward saying "no," usually under the guise of "freedom" -- if we couldn't say "no" to the chronically homeless, we probably wouldn't have a half-million of them on the streets. If we couldn't say "no" to low-income mothers, we wouldn't have the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#92

Post by Density »

vonnik wrote: post #32

I support some form of UBI. My concern is that UBI is a classic redistributive strategy, and redistributive strategies have done poorly in America's long and ongoing class war. The most recent tax plan is a good example the haves winning another battle in that war. So the basic question for anyone who believes in UBI and economic justice is: How do you convince the wealthy and powerful to give up some of their wealth…

Oh they can be forced to do it.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#93

Post by LrnByTeach »

babaganoosh89 wrote: post #11

Doing some back of the envelope math, US gov revenue is 3.31 trillion and the population size is 323.1 million. Which leaves about $10244 per capita to play with. How would a BI work, give people $7k per year and save 3k for military and basic services? Seems like BI would need big tax increases to become viable.

Interesting numbers !!!

> US gov revenue is 3.31 trillion and the population size is 323.1 million. Which leaves about $10244 per capita to play with.

> How would a BI work, give people $7k per year and save 3k for military and basic services? Seems like BI would need big tax increases to become viable.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#94

Post by staunch »

AmericanOP wrote: post #6

In ancient Rome there were a few honest reformers who felt bread subsidies (classical UBI) were deserved by the people. It was an economic argument (as is Sam's) since Roman conquest generated massive wealth that did not reach the masses who made it possible. It was an honest attempt at economic reform by a few forward thinking leaders. Within a generation the movement was captured by politicians who used its popular…

Not a good comparison.

The reformers (Gracchi brothers, Caesar, etc) wanted Roman citizens to have their fair share of the actual land that Rome conquered. Not regular hand outs of grain. The idea was that citizens would actually own a piece of The Roman Dream. Land is income, then and now.

Never happened. The wealthiest Romans were successful in assassinating reformers and dominating the Roman 99% for a thousand years.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#95

Post by gamblor956 »

jpao79 wrote: post #85

If I were Sam A. instead of (or in addition to) funding UBI, I would fund R&D projects which enable people to live as off grid and self-sufficiently as possible with all the comforts of urban/suburban living without all the costs. Basically strive to enable Amish style living but instead of trying to maintain an complete early 19th way of life, include elements which are near free due to automated manufacturing. You…

You've just described the SoCal suburbia...but with backyard farms and solar rooftops and worse internet.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#96

Post by jpao79 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #41
jpao79 wrote: post #15

"We’re still in our pilot. It turns out that giving money to people is much harder than you might imagine. We’ve had to work with state, local, federal governments so that people in our study don’t lose their housing eligibility, lose their food assistance just because we’re giving them money and raising their income level. And what we don’t want is to make anyone worse off." It feels like this statement is what woul…

> Isn't the main benefit of UBI to make it so everything is streamlined into a single program and administrative overhead is reduced? No, the main benefit is that eliminating means testing eliminates perverse effects which reduce the benefit of outside income when in means-tested benefit programs. Reduced total program overhead is a peripheral benefit of a mature UBI vs. existing means-tested benefit programs.

Ok I agree. The main thought was that the pilot doesn't seem to be eliminating the means testing (i.e. conditional welfare). The pilot seems to be just piling UBI onto people's existing federal/state/local welfare checks. And additionally the pilot is giving it to people not already on welfare.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#97

Post by longerthoughts »

jpao79 wrote: post #85

If I were Sam A. instead of (or in addition to) funding UBI, I would fund R&D projects which enable people to live as off grid and self-sufficiently as possible with all the comforts of urban/suburban living without all the costs. Basically strive to enable Amish style living but instead of trying to maintain an complete early 19th way of life, include elements which are near free due to automated manufacturing. You…

This speaks to me personally but think about what happens if you try to practically apply this beyond an experimental phase. When members of some of these communities start to see others that have developed more favorably, they're likely to converge on them, resulting in heavily populated urban centers and decreasingly populated rural areas like have now.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#98

Post by jedmeyers »

geodel wrote: post #73
dougmany wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One of the things that people forget is that if the robots really do come, yes, they will eliminate or change a lot of jobs, but the cost of goods and services will just go down and down and down. So maybe $7000 can get you everything you need, including healthcare. People pay extra money for their house to be close to work. With no work, maybe that will open up places people will want to live.

India had tax rate of up to 93% in 1970s which was done all to support poor people. I am not sure it worked very well. But may be US is very different and 90% or so tax rate will drastically improve living conditions for everyone.

> 90% or so tax rate will drastically improve living conditions for everyone.

As a person who was born in the USSR those kind of proclamations always amuse me. I am wondering how much taxes are being paid by those people thinking that 90% tax rate will not create a feedback loop that will drastically worsen living conditions for everyone. My personal ancodote is that when I check it turns out those people rarely pay any taxes at all.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#99

Post by rev_bird »

Suncho wrote: post #86
Danihan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The math doesn't work and has never worked. UBI proponents will never talk math because it doesn't add up, even with the most casual analysis. $12k is the cited number that you see a lot in basic income discussions. That's just over the poverty level. That's not enough to live on and it's practically a bonus for some members of this site. It's not enough to do anything with. Even upon receiving that, many people woul…

> The math doesn't work and has never worked. UBI proponents will never talk math because it doesn't add up, even with the most casual analysis. I'm happy to discuss the math with you any day of the week. One of the biggest misconceptions that many people have is that the basic income (or any government funding) must somehow be funded through taxes. That's not how money works. There's a limit to the amount of governm…

>If you try to do this using conventional budget math, you're not going to get the right answer.

I'm very curious about this part, particularly in light of your comment elsewhere that "It's possible to implement basic income without any direct government support." I feel like there are very interesting answers being alluded to in your posts but none actually presented.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#100

Post by blueyes »

> And there’s some country where it was, like, referendum. It got totally crushed a year, two years ago, maybe it was Sweden. I don’t remember.

Fwiw, the country that Sam is referring to here is Switzerland.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060

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