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Moving Forward on Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#981

Post by sievebrain »

wtvanhest wrote: post #823
sievebrain wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you back up the statement that more people are working than ever before? In the USA at least, labor force participation has been trending downwards since 2002 i.e. fewer people are working: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/labor-force-pa...

The population of the US in 1950 was roughly 100m and it is now 300m. The participation rate has stayed roughly around 60% during that time. That means a lot more people are working than in 1950. Globally, populations have increased dramatically as well. More people are working than ever before.

Good point.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#982

Post by prodmerc »

namenotrequired wrote: post #274
prodmerc wrote: post #189

This shit again. NO ONE has given me an answer to the question: what will happen when basic income inevitably raises the overall price of basic stuff because now "everyone can afford it"? It will be back to zero, people with basic income will not be able to afford both housing/bills and food. Moreover the ones without will be totally fucked. So, what gives? Run BI in a few small counties and call it a success? Gee wo…

Honest question: no matter how much confidence you have in your own predictions, why would you oppose privately funded research into it?

I don't oppose it, but this research will get skewed results. Because it's only in a small part of the state.

It would be like those people suddenly got a raise, which doesn't usually lead to landlords increasing rent for newly-freed properties and prices going up because they know everyone gets more money now.

BI applied country/state-wide, I'm pretty sure the results would be different.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#985

Post by unprepare »

alttab wrote: post #938
godspiral wrote: post #929

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Send us a fat portion of your workers' pay to fund our Utopian vision. Or else. The freedom that UBI provides includes your freedom to refuse the oppressive burden of becoming rich and having to pay taxes in the process. The more people who do object to the burdens of wealth, the easier it will be for the non-retarded to become rich in their place. Paying income taxes is completely voluntary. Don't earn any/much in…

"Object to the burdens of wealth." I'd rather have the burdens of the wealthy than the poor. Losing money or whatever seems less of a burden than starving or freezing to death.

>Losing money or whatever seems less of a burden than starving or freezing to death.

huh its almost as if thats the entire point of UBI

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#986

Post by unprepare »

talmand wrote: post #949
aaroninsf wrote: post #945

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not after workers' pay. I'm after your 'package' and your contractually guaranteed returns and your windfalls. I'm going to reverse a 55 year trend of ever more wealth going to a limited number of people. I'm going to crack off as much of that as I can and redefine how we play this game for the next round. Defining this as 'taking money from your employees' is akin IMO to claiming you're replacing unskilled labor…

So, when someone with knowledge of the fast food industry directly states that robots will be implemented if the minimum wage goes up is somehow misinformed?

you have to be pretty naive to think robots wont be in fast food places either way.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#987

Post by unprepare »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #874
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. 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…

What job is currently well paid that you would do for free?

and that includes the shitty parts of the job: commuting, paperwork, emails, on call rotations?, dealing with vendors, dealing with customer complaints, etc etc.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#988

Post by isleyaardvark »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #894
DonaldFisk wrote: post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to come from income tax. It could come from unearned sources of income, such as a tax on land, or on interest.

How taxes aren't coercion?

How is democracy not coercion? There are plenty of laws passed that I didn't want passed, yet I am forced to obey them.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#989

Post by jpindar »

twblalock wrote: post #613
someguydave wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/05/arnold_kling_on_1.h... Arnold Kling's opined on this point (the particular distortion of the US political process) in his interview with Russ Roberts on the EconTalk podcast: Kling: Well, let me make another point before I get back to that. Which is a point I also make in the book. Which is that, it isn't that the political process kind of just makes random errors. I think it…

It's not just the US that is like this. Every country is. Put another way: Things are the way they are for powerful reasons (which may or may not be justifiable). You can't just ignore these reasons when you create policy, otherwise those reasons will cause things to revert to the way they were before. Proponents of basic income will have to overcome many peoples' moral intuitions about who deserves help, and who sho…

And then the threat of losing your income becomes just another way for the government to control people's behavior.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#990

Post by InclinedPlane »

dilemma wrote: post #887
InclinedPlane wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yup, definitely.

The more you make the more you can save. And the more you can own. People who make that much aren't the ones you need to target to improve their bargaining power or labor mobility, but UBI is still a benefit. Some cash flow is better than no cash flow. Even if it's only enough to pay the interest on their credit cards, that's still a big deal. And might be enough to convince people to leave jobs they hate.

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