
Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being - rgbrgb
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242937-universal-basic-income-seems-to-improve-employment-and-well-being/#Echobox=1598028651
======
coopsmgoops
The thing I don't really see accounted for in these experiments is that UBI is
not really "universal". It's a group, or a town who or are not isolated from
the outside economy, and the participants are usually aware/suspect that this
bonus income probably won't last forever, so they know they need to keep
working to maintain their careers etc.

I'm not sure there's any way to account for it unfortunately, it is such a
compelling idea though I think we kind of all want it to be real.

~~~
Lammy
Your first paragraph is exactly how I would word a defense of a UBI trial that
had a bad outcome. Let’s talk about the good things that happened and were
measured instead of speculating about the hypothetical bad things that are out
of scope for this trial. A successful small trial will lead to larger future
trials that might answer your question in a more satisfying way.

~~~
luckylion
It's not a UBI study if it only studies whether people like getting money they
don't have to do anything for.

I'm repeating it every time: these kinds of studies are the same as measuring
the output of "free energy machines" that supposedly work by breaking
physics... while ignoring that they are plugged into a wall-socket. To prove
that they work, you'd have to unplug them, otherwise you don't need the
sophisticated machine and the fancy theory, an extension cord will do the same
much cheaper and more efficiently.

~~~
pwinnski
Any test that doesn't involve full nationwide UBI is subject to the same
criticism, and I predict that even a large-scale three-year-long test that
involved every western state will still be dismissed as unworkable for the
same reasons: no barrier between eastern and western states, and everyone knew
the test would end in three years.

~~~
luckylion
> Any test that doesn't involve full nationwide UBI is subject to the same
> criticism

No, not really, unless the money for the experiment comes from outside the
region. The problem is that the argument _for_ UBI is either that "it'll pay
for itself" or "it doesn't cost more than today's system". So we'll need a
test that actually tests that.

Maybe it doesn't work and we'll see "okay, it'll be 10% more expensive than
today's systems". That can be achieved by raising taxes, and the result of
doing that can be seen in the experiment as well: do people leave the region
because they don't want to pay an extra 10%, or do they find UBI's benefits to
society at large to be so large that they don't mind?

Maybe we'll see that UBI does what the proponents promise: free human
innovation and productivity and easily more than pay for itself. Once that
result is proven, you'll have no issue to convince anyone.

Not trying to test that at all and then saying "well, even if we would, nobody
would accept that" isn't the right approach in my opinion. And it feels like
there's something left unsaid: that the proponents also don't believe that it
would work and _therefore_ don't want to actually test it, because they're
convinced the test will prove that it doesn't work. And as long as it's not
tested, they can claim that it totally would work (in theory) without having
to prove it.

~~~
pwinnski
So how do you propose a better test? It seems like you slid easily past that
point. To determine whether or not it requires 10% higher taxes, as you
suggest, we would have to conduct a test large enough to have an appreciable
impact on tax allocation, which seems like it would need to be a _really_ wide
test, like state-wide, that lasts for a at least a few years, no?

I guess that's what I'm not seeing: any tests done so far are too small and
not long enough and are known ahead of time to be a test. Okay, fine, let's
conduct a test that's larger and long-term, with an eye toward permanence. How
large, though?How do we avoid the criticism seen on this very page that
limiting the number of people involved distorts things? How do we avoid the
converse, which is that unless you're Alaska, letting it be known that
everyone in a certain area gets free money means an artificial boom in that
area?

~~~
luckylion
I don't think it's fair to ask those that are skeptical of a claim to provide
a test that proves it doesn't work, the duty to prove is on those making the
claim.

But still: yes, you'll need a larger unit. It won't necessarily have to be a
state, though that depends on the country and the tax-setup within. It would
have to be something that can set their own taxes. A village would likely be
too small, but a medium sized city of 20-50k should certainly see the benefits
if they exist. And it wouldn't need to be limited to a few years: convince the
inhabitants and you can democratically vote it in, it'll run in perpetuity, or
until the money's gone in the case that it doesn't work.

> How do we avoid the criticism seen on this very page that limiting the
> number of people involved distorts things?

That's not really what's criticized. The issue lots of people have with these
tests is that they're _only_ testing the distribution of money, but not the
funding. You don't need to have millions of people. I'm pretty sure if you can
get 10000 people that are broadly representative of the population at large
and get them to fund their own UBI, collectively, and play it out, that'll be
a good test in most people's eyes. I'll certainly pay attention, because it'll
actually test UBI, not just "if we take money from the national taxes and give
it to 500 people, what will happen?"

> How do we avoid the converse, which is that unless you're Alaska, letting it
> be known that everyone in a certain area gets free money means an artificial
> boom in that area?

An artificial boom would still be a boom. Would people invest in an area if
they knew that they'd have to pay high taxes? If so: great, let them do it,
that's not so bad. The problem arises when the number of people asking for UBI
grows faster than those investing & funding the UBI. But that's exactly what
has to be tested, because it's pretty obvious that the same would happen on a
state or national level - unless we're talking about closed borders, which
sounds anachronistic.

~~~
pwinnski
Thanks for the detailed reply!

> It would have to be something that can set their own taxes

In the US, at least, income taxes are levied at the state or federal level,
not anything more local than that. Even sales taxes are generally limited by
the state, if not set outright. I haven't lived in every state, so it's
possible that there are exceptions somewhere, but generally I think such a
test would have to come from elsewhere.

TL;DR: the smallest unit in the US that can set their own taxes _is_ a state,
making any test smaller than a state somewhat unhelpful.

> I'm pretty sure if you can get 10000 people that are broadly representative
> of the population at large and get them to fund their own UBI, collectively,
> and play it out, that'll be a good test in most people's eyes.

Ah, this strikes at the game theory heart of it! And yet still seems to be
unworkable in the US. A representative cross-section would need to include
both rich and poor, as the nation as a whole does. Either all are asked to pay
additional taxes over and above their normal taxes, or the state in which they
reside is asked to do with less tax income than normal, as some or all the
taxes of those 10k would instead be redirected to the UBI trial. Both seem
like a tough sell, either to the richest of the cross-section or to the state
itself.

> unless we're talking about closed borders, which sounds anachronistic

Speaking of the US, while we're very poorly suited to doing a small-scale
test, we're actually reasonably well suited for having _somewhat_ closed
borders, on account of being separated from most countries by big oceans.
Movement _within_ the US is trivial, while movement into or out of the US is
very difficult. Presumably UBI would have _some_ measure of buy-in that would
exclude people who cross the border without documentation, at least initially.

It's even possible that we would end up with a situation like we have now, in
which people working without real documentation pay taxes into social
security, while never having the ability to draw on social security later in
life.

Given the difficulty of finding a cross-section of volunteers and a willing
state government, I wonder about alternatives. I think a case could be made
that funding a UBI trial from normal revenue could still be instructive _IF_
people participating in such a trial were opted out of all other benefits.
That is, let's test the claim that UBI would be cost-effective in part because
it would replace existing programs. Pick a cross-section of people, track how
much is sent to them and how much is received from them, and make it closed
system by denying them access to other support programs. We should be able to
track what difference that makes for revenue and expenses, no?

------
blueterminal
Wouldn't nationwide UBI just make everything more expensive? Most people who
work will continue to work, most people who don't, won't. More money in
circulation = higher prices.

If you care about poor people, why not just try to fix welfare with e.g.
Negative Income Tax proposed by Milton Friedman
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax))?

~~~
thinkingemote
Do prices rise when consumers have more money to spend? Is consumer inflation
tied to employment rates? Does inflation slow when poverty grows?

Intuitively it kind of makes sense that everything would get more expensive
but if you consider millionaires spending on stocks, the stocks don't rise in
price when the millionaires get more money, they are kind of independent. I
think the same for poor people. Prices shouldn't rise because more people can
afford to buy something but it makes sense that some would rise prices as more
people will be able to afford the product. I guess the market and competitors
is meant to keep prices down.

~~~
Guthur
This feels very much like a false dichotomy. Many millionaires, I assume we
mean the extremely wealthy, have the majority of their wealth tied to the
extreme growth of stocks based on some extreme economic forces. E.g. bezos
with Amazon, Bill gates with Microsoft etc. And so some how comparing that to
standard consumerism seems a little off.

~~~
thinkingemote
Yeah the millionaire thing feels off to me, but the idea behind it.... Do
prices for consumer goods rise when there are more consumers?

Do things rise in price when the people who usually buy the things have more
money?

Are things more expensive in more populated areas or less?

~~~
imtringued
Come on, that is basic supply and demand. The only confusing part is that
inflation is often considered to be it's own independent thing and it can be
controlled exclusively through e.g. the central bank when that's really not
the case.

Consumer inflation = price of consumer good increases

Consumer deflation = price of consumer good decreases

demand exceeds supply = price of consumer good increases

supply exceeds demand = price of consumer good decreases

Now use these four basic definitions to answer your comment.

>Do prices for consumer goods rise when there are more consumers?

more consumers = more demand

UBI = less people work = supply stays the same or goes down

In this scenario "demand exceeds supply" is true. Prices do rise and that rise
is called inflation.

>Do things rise in price when the people who usually buy the things have more
money?

Again. UBI = less people work = supply stays the same or goes down

more money = more demand

People may buy more than one product if they can afford it or they may buy a
higher quality one.

In this scenario "demand exceeds supply" is true again. Prices do rise and
that rise is called inflation.

If you were to introduce price controls and set a maximum price for TVs then
it is possible that one person buys 3 TVs and two other people can't get a TV
at all. The answer is to raise the prices until everyone who wants a TV can
get one.

>Are things more expensive in more populated areas or less?

Well, it depends on what "things" you are talking about.

A UBI does not influence the amount of land available so the supply of land
would be fixed but the amount of money being received through UBI grows with a
greater number of people.

supply = stays the same

demand = increases as more people live in a community

Therefore we see inflation in land prices.

If you were talking about something like an iPhone that can be manufactured in
China and then shipped to New York then no, it would not cause inflation
because denser populations do not prevent the Chinese (or any other company
that's operating outside your city) from building bigger factories and thereby
increasing supply to match demand.

supply = increases with demand

demand = increases as more people live in a community

------
creddit
1) I think UBI would probably be a very good thing.

2) I can’t help but laugh at how comical these tests are at measuring the
impacts of a UBI policy. 2yr temporary welfare payments of 6,720 Euro a year
to a tiny, biased subset of the populace is NOT going to give us an idea of
the impacts of a UBI policy. Please, someone, at least agree to the payments
in perpetuity.

------
0-_-0
When UBI comes up lot of people on HN ferociously debate the merits of UBI vs.
negative income tax, but they are _mathematically equivalent_.

For example, a UBI of $1000 and 25% tax is the same as a (possibly negative)
income tax of 25% above $4000. That's because:

    
    
        (1-0.25)*x+1000 = x+0.25*(4000-x)
    

You can convert from one to the other.

~~~
zajio1am
They are equivalent under certain assumptions, but there are still differences
(assuming negative income tax would operationally work in the same manner as
current tax systems), e.g.:

1) UBI is targeted to citizens, while income tax affect tax residents, these
may be different groups of people.

2) tax refund is paid once a year, which would be problematic for people with
bad money management abilities.

~~~
imtringued
2) Taxes are already being deducted from your paycheck every month. Negative
taxes would instead increase your monthly paycheck.

------
skocznymroczny
I don't understand. What under UBI is preventing me from quitting my job and
spending the rest of my life playing videogames? I know it's unpopular opinion
on HN, but most people don't really learn and explore in their free time, and
they don't have high requirements from life. A place to stay, food and
electricity is all they need for the most part.

~~~
_Understated_
^^This

This is the only argument I present to people that talk to me about UBI in a
positive way, ie they want UBI.

If people are given enough money to live on for free I would wager there is
zero incentive for them to be productive within society. Zero.

Change my mind!

~~~
spyckie2
UBI isn't enough money to live on for free. It's about half that.

12k is enough money to live but your standard of living is worse enough to be
visibly felt.

If you look at [https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-
street/](https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/), 12k / yr generally the
level where most essentials are visible around the world. But you're likely
not going to have:

1) A car

2) A house

3) Feed a family

4) Savings

5) An expensive hobby

You'd need about another 5-10k on the UBI check to really make this argument
for UBI... which you get through working.

~~~
AdrianB1
First, you don't need savings if you have UBI forever.

Second, you ignore the basics of economics of demand and supply: if a large
enough proportion of the population lies on UBI you will even find cars cheap
enough for them, either second hand or purpose built. True story, Renault is a
car manufacturer that sells their cars for prices very similar to everyone
else, but they built for some years a model that was selling for 5000 Euro
(about $6000 at that time) new, with a modern and solid engine and all the
safety features mandated by law in Europe. That car was also sold in France
for a lot more (8000 euro or more) just because people in France afforded to
pay more. Now Renault is still selling 7000 Euro cars (Dacia Sandero) that are
really good for the money, while selling Renault branded cars for around
20,000 Euro and more.

~~~
spyckie2
Not sure if you're a student or never had an income, but savings are not just
for retirement. Savings, as opposed to a retirement plan, are for major life
decisions like buying a car, getting married, supporting a family, upgrading
your standard of living, taking care of emergencies, and affording expensive
opportunities (like moving or traveling, for instance).

Also, no, the basics of supply and demand will not make cheap cars a thing.
It's not the cost of a car that you can't afford, it's the cost of
maintenance. Fuel, maintenance, and insurance (mandatory in the US btw) are
all costs to use the car - the average being around $100/mth.

[https://newsroom.aaa.com/tag/cost-to-own-a-
vehicle/](https://newsroom.aaa.com/tag/cost-to-own-a-vehicle/) -> 1.1k

And also no, new cars will not become cheaper over time in the US. There's
already 19% of the US families who make under 24k a year (we roughly double
UBI to account for 2 adult UBI incomes and one car per household rule). That's
24 million households already out of the 130m households in the US. The market
for used cars is actually quite big (17.6 million transactions / yr) which is
probably why there isn't an $8200 new US car offering (which, btw, requires
savings in order to purchase).

Back to my original point, if you have a budget of 1k/month, you could spend
~$400 on rent, $300 on food, $100 on your car, $100 on personal needs, and
$100 on misc / emergencies in a small suburban town (like the outskirts of
Pittsburgh) -> I've done this in college before. But realistically you would
need an extra ~$600-1000 a month to pay for things like - internet, health
insurance, furniture, clothes, laptop, phone, heating / ac bill, eating out
every so often, a social life, hobbies, travel, etc. So yes, you'd still want
double of your UBI income.

~~~
AdrianB1
Not a student, but probably older than many people here. I am quite familiar
with countries with very low income and the economics of it, the 19% you
mentioned is too small to make an impact in pricing, wait until it goes to
60-80%. I read a study made by my employer in China on how people were living
on $1/day in rural areas a few years ago, it all makes sense and it matches
the examples from other countries. Just consider the car factory would be
crewed by people earning $15-20k, same for suppliers of parts and you can see
how a car can get cheaper. Also the cars for low income people are modestly
equipped with non-essential features like displays, radio, air conditioning
and people with $12k income will accept it this way.

The kind of people that live on UBI (with no other job) are not the kind of
people that care about savings.

------
the-dude
If there is anything boring about HN, it must be the UBI articles.

Reading the comments I see no new arguments. It feels like Groundhog Day.

------
Kiro
Isn't this experiment widely considered unsuccessful?

[https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/nordic-welfare-
news/heikki-h...](https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/nordic-welfare-news/heikki-
hiilamo-disappointing-results-from-the-finnish-basic-income-experiment)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/finland-basic-income-
experim...](https://www.businessinsider.com/finland-basic-income-experiment-
reasons-for-failure-2019-12)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/08/finland-
free-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/08/finland-free-cash-
experiment-fails-to-boost-employment)

[https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/12/basic-income-finland-
expe...](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/12/basic-income-finland-experiment-
kela)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-08/finland-f...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-08/finland-
finds-basic-income-failed-to-boost-employment)

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-
univ...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-universal-
basic-income-trial-unemployment-experiment-trial-a8769621.html)

------
achenatx
The total spent on all welfare programs is about 1T. If all adults got UBI,
assume around 256 million people above 18

1) 256 million @ 12K each is 3T, the current budget is 4.7T, current revenue
is 3.5T. Good luck raising taxes by almost double. It will _never_ happen. So
UBI will need to be means tested. Ideally it would slowly phase out so there
is no disincentive to work.

2) how do you handle UBI for large families? Does each child get UBI? If so I
promise you people will have more children to get more UBI. If people dont get
more UBI per child, people will have too many children, UBI wont be enough and
children will go hungry. Which is why we give food instead of cash

3) How will you handle people selling their UBI income stream for a lump sum,
blowing it all, then starving anyway?

4) 10% of the population is pretty much incompetent either in IQ or in
emotional intelligence. That would be 30 million that simply wont be able to
handle being given money.

~~~
zajio1am
> 1) 256 million @ 12K each is 3T, the current budget is 4.7T, current revenue
> is 3.5T.

Always seems to be that 12K is too big for first iteration. 3T is about 15 %
of US GDP. When i computed UBI for my home country (not US) with the same
level as existing (means tested) minimum income social welfare benefit, i got
that it would need 8 % of GDP.

> Good luck raising taxes by almost double

I also found that about 1/3 of necessary money could be get by removing basic
per capita tax deduction. Which is technically tax increase, but it is neutral
if one counts UBI as negative tax money.

Another more than 1/3 could be get from state pensions by relabeling part of
pension income as UBI. Some small part could be get from removing the minimum
income social welfare benefit (but not other social welfare). Altogether that
would cover more than 80% of necessary money and one would only need
additional taxing of 1-2% of GDP (compared to existing 35%).

3) How will you handle people selling their UBI income stream for a lump sum,
blowing it all, then starving anyway?

Personal bankrupcy laws?

4) That would be 30 million that simply wont be able to handle being given
money.

If they had not be able to handle UBI money, then they would not be albe to
handle wage money or existing means tested welfare money as well.

------
topbanana
> Between November 2017 and October 2018, people on basic income worked an
> average of 78 days, which was six days more than those on unemployment
> benefits.

That could be at least partially accounted for by previous under-reporting of
working hours, when benefits are means-tested.

------
spyckie2
In the preliminary survey, the average working days was 49 for both UBI and
control group. In the final, the average was 78 for UBI and 72 for control
group. What happened to make the numbers jump up so much for both? Data error?

------
spyckie2
A much better article covering the same experiment here:

[https://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-
archive/-/asset_publisher/lN...](https://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-
archive/-/asset_publisher/lN08GY2nIrZo/content/results-of-the-basic-income-
experiment-small-employment-effects-better-perceived-economic-security-and-
mental-
wellbeing#:~:text=In%20the%20basic%20income%20experiment,were%20actively%20looking%20for%20work.&text=The%20experiment%20was%20implemented%20by,Social%20Insurance%20Institution%20of%20Finland)).

------
cycomanic
This article makes it seem like we did not know this already. There has been
numerous experiments on UBI and pretty much everyone showed that it was
working and in fact saving money. One of the biggest examples are the Mincome
results [1] which showed significant reduction in hospitilization by 8.5% and
only very minor reduction in working hours (mostly women using the money to
have more time to care for their children) [1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome)

~~~
onion2k
_This article makes it seem like we did not know this already._

Having multiple repeated studies that replicate the same outcomes is a good
thing.

~~~
atoav
Indeed. However I wish we could celebrate that replication a little more
instead of selling everything as the hottest new finding since sliced bread.

~~~
donw
To be fair, sliced bread replicated _really_ well.

------
collyw
Interesting the way that this is reported.

"The findings suggest that basic income doesn’t seem to provide a disincentive
for people to work."

Meanwhile the BBC reported:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-47169549](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47169549)

"Giving jobless people in Finland a basic income for two years did not lead
them to find work, researchers said."

Nothing actually different is said, but the way it is spun will likely lead
the reader to different conclusions.

------
xchaotic
In the end there will always be critics of UBI just as there were critics of
combustion engine and now EVs. It’s progress and not everyone gets along but
UBI does circumvent some evolutionary barriers in modern society- the fact
that even the most rich still hoard stuff is just natural instinct and you
need some artificial mechanisms to work around that.

------
selckin
Why is this never framed as a universal right for food, housing, medical care.

Feel like that has a much bigger chance of going somewhere

~~~
agent008t
Because you cannot have something as a 'right', if it requires someone else to
be compelled to provide goods and services for you. Because then your right to
food means that someone else does not have the right to the fruits of their
labour.

Rights are something that can be enjoyed by everyone simultaneously. For
instance, your right to travel does not mean that someone else has to buy you
a car or a plane ticket - all it requires from others is non-interference.

~~~
adrianN
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights disagrees with you. It says

> Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and
> well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing
> and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in
> the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other
> lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

In Article 25.

------
agent008t
How is it that people are both against generational wealth which is a sort of
a UBI on a family level (£500k, which is not too far from median household
wealth in the UK, means you could roughly draw £15'000/year in perpetuity),
and for UBI on a national level?

~~~
akuji1993
Median household wealth is actually at £280k according to government
resources, which would about half your 15k to 7.5k roughly. Also, this is not
money, it's property value.

If you take a look at the wealth of the average population, two thirds are
either pensions or property wealth. This is longterm money which I cannot draw
on until retired (and most certainly won't affect my children) and property
which I might depend on and therefore not be able to turn into money.

Also people are largely not against generational wealth, they're just
demanding that rich people pay their fair share when inherting property wealth
to their children. Taxing the top 10% correctly and without fraud would bring
in enough cash to support the bottom 30% a lot more through public housing,
health care and childcare support.

A UBI for contrast, is direct payment to my bank account that I can use
however I like, it's not locked by its form of wealth. I CAN use that payment
to save more of my own money to eventually get property wealth, but it gives
the people at the bottom possibilities that they won't have without it. Also,
poor people don't give a fuck about the median household wealth. Because they
won't have any. The UBI however applies to all, poor and rich alike,
supporting poor families a lot more than property wealth they don't have.

~~~
spyckie2
> If you take a look at the wealth of the average population, two thirds are
> either pensions or property wealth. This is longterm money which I cannot
> draw on until retired (and most certainly won't affect my children) and
> property which I might depend on and therefore not be able to turn into
> money.

Having to not pay rent is a form of income though.

> Also people are largely not against generational wealth, they're just
> demanding that rich people pay their fair share when inheriting property
> wealth to their children. Taxing the top 10% correctly and without fraud
> would bring in enough cash to support the bottom 30% a lot more through
> public housing, health care and childcare support.

Another way to say it is that the top 10% got there because they use their
money to make more money. Countries need their money to make more money but
not at the cost of society falling apart, so we probably need to reallocate
the usage of that money to support a better society overall rather than to
just make more money.

What would be interesting is to force rich people to invest in social efforts
with their money. Instead of taxing them and taking away money from them
(which is quite un-American), instead any monetary amount above X should have
some percentage of it devoted to social funds or have to pay a penalty fee
(which is effectively a tax) if they don't.

~~~
akuji1993
> What would be interesting is to force rich people to invest in social
> efforts with their money.

Ever heard of tax deductible donations? Also, what makes you think that a
private person is better at deciding where to put their money and has less
inclination to donate this money to a social cause that has direct positive
outcome for them (for example, investing in their already well-financed
community and being the 'hero of the town', gaining also political power that
way) instead of letting a state, capable of overseeing ALL of its people
redistribute the taxed money to the poorest communities or those that need the
help the most in some area?

Edit: And I didn't even touch on this point, because it's a whole other
discussion but:

> Another way to say it is that the top 10% got there because they use their
> money to make more money.

Wealthy people are increasing their wealth through financial tools without
contributing anything to society. Also, except for a small number of family or
solo entrepreneurs, they didn't get rich on their own. They had employees.
Most of those people did not benefit like the business owner did, while they
actually did the work. So is it really that unjustified to tax this money and
redistribute it to the poor and the workers?

~~~
spyckie2
> Ever heard of tax deductible donations?

Tax deductible donations have the same intent but is a poor policy
implementation for rich people who already pay so little in taxes. It doesn't
accomplish the effect of redistribution of wealth because so little
redistribution actually happens. We want our wealth to return social good, not
extra wealth -> that's the point of the policy.

I should have been more explicit that I was proposing a wealth transfer
alternative to UBI, which is to create privatized social funds that rich
people are effectively forced to contribute money to or lose their wealth
significantly over time.

> Also, what makes you think that a private person is better at deciding where
> to put their money and has less inclination to donate this money to a social
> cause that has direct positive outcome for them

> instead of a state, capable of overseeing ALL of its people redistribute the
> taxed money to the poorest communities or those that need the help the most
> in some area?

Uh... who do you think runs the state? Rich people.

And if you really think the state is the perfect ideal father figure that
cares for all of its people... please tell me where you live so I can move
there too. "The state", in most of human history, is woefully inept at making
good, centralized decisions, and it's decentralization (which is btw a UBI
principle) that has given us equal rights, fairness, and societal mobility.
For most of history, anytime you aggregate power to a central state, bad
things happen.

Back to my point though, the interesting thing about social funds is that they
can be privatized and form their own market economies. For instance, Elon musk
could use his social fund to combat climate change. Bill gates is already
doing this to tackle large humanity issues. Warren buffet will probably use it
to help middle america. Jeff Bezos... will probably give half of the fund to
his wife.

But it's a pretty interesting policy that goes with the spirit of the American
ideal which puts the power of changing the world into the individual's hand
rather than centralizing it into the government, which is why I described
wealth transfer to a government as "un-American".

Social funds with a committed vision towards non profit activities is really
not a bad idea the more I think about it. Some rich people will definitely
fund UBI with it.

~~~
akuji1993
> please tell me where you live so I can move there too. "The state", in most
> of human history, is woefully inept at making good, centralized decisions

Germany. I'd also add that the countries doing the most for their citizens are
probably the Nordic European States plus Germany and France. All of them
Social Democracies, so what Americans would probably call a "strong state"
oriented approach. I have a lot to critize about my own country, but the
social support structures are probably still among the best in the world only
toppled by aforementioned Nordic countries like Norway or Denmark.

I really don't think we should rely on the goodwill of millionaires and them
running the state is, on a scale, mostly an american issue. Of course we also
have lobbies, with which I have a problem, but our European countries are less
controlled by wealth than the US for sure.

Regarding "good" billionaires, I'd suggest you listen to this:
[https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-45-the-not-so-
be...](https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-45-the-not-so-benevolent-
billionaire-bill-gates-and-western-media-b1f8e0fe092f) You seem to support
Chicago school style approaches, with which I will disagree, being a pretty
standard Frankfurt school believer. I'd still like to discuss this further.
Find my email in my profile, if you want.

~~~
spyckie2
Hard to comment on societies I don't know well. Instead I'd like to offer this
explanation of my point of view:

There are two competing ideas of governance. One is the umbrella (ie.
Godfather) and one is the public servant / slave (ie. Jesus).

\- The godfather creates an empire and everyone who lives under him lives
really, really well.

\- The public servant is an invisible figure that solves all the problems of
its people and serves the people, meeting their needs.

The US has most likely lived under a godfather system for the last 70 or so
years, after WW2. Like it or not, our billionaires have created empires (their
companies) and we live really well because of them. If the people of the US
want to continue in their standard of living, they need to keep propping up
the billionaires' empires because it's those empires that create the umbrella
for the high standard of living we have.

This does turn the US economy into... either you serve in the empires and live
well, or you live poorly not enjoying the empire's provisions. So you have a
dual economy - those in the US who are running the empire's money printing
machines, and those who can't help those companies print money. And the dual
economy has two results -> really well off people, institutions, and society,
and poor people. The poor people are actually rich compared to the rest of the
world, but are poor because the rich economy has inflated the prices and
expectation for a normal standard of living for those poor people, and they
are getting squeezed by both income and cost of living.

Both capitalism and socialism alludes to this kind of situation, with
differing opinions of what to do about it.

Capitalism says we should use godfathers to make everyone live well. Prop up
the godfathers enough and everyone can live better off than they used to (very
key point is relative to the past).

Socialism says no we need to move towards the public servant model to make
everyone live well. Remove all the umbrellas and replace them with servitude
and everyone can live in an ideal and fair society (also a key point, standard
of living is not relative to the past, it's relative to the ideal).

In capitalism moral judgment is based on if you live better than you used to.
If you want to see where we started from, just watch BBC's planet earth -
you'll see starving lions with rib bones showing, trying to catch gazelle in
scorching heat in Africa in order to eat, since they haven't eaten in weeks.
You'll see eagles and dozens of birds fighting over dead carcasses that are
rotting. From a capitalist point of view, going from having to hunt for your
next meal 10,000 years ago to robust supply chains for groceries and upgrading
your iphone every year for practically everyone in the world is what they
consider moral accomplishment.

In socialism, moral judgment is based on if you live in society as close to
the ideal of fairness that it can be. It looks at the relativeness of the
current structure of society instead of the relativeness of standard of living
improvements over time. If rich people are enjoying more things than poor
people right now, that's considered immoral. If everyone has the opportunity
and privilege to live a decently comfortable life, that is moral.

The US is very capitalist in mindset. Keep in mind that in capitalism,
companies also help those not within the company by creating better quality
goods for consumers (everyone else), so the more empires grow, the
cheaper/better the consumer goods are, and the better quality of life is for
everyone, not just those who work for the empire.

The US is so capitalist that it cannot imagine a world where standard of
living and company growth stagnates. That's how dependent the US is on empires
and on capitalism. In some ways, if you accept the capitalist moral judgment
as a good moral judgment, the US is trying very hard to be moral even when
it's practically impossible to do so!

But then again, tell US citizens that their standard of living is going to go
down - that they will not get everything at the quality that they expect, that
their income is going to shrink, that their livelihood will take a slight hit
- and that's too much to bear for the US population's ego because we've never
had to tighten our belts in the history of the US for that past 70 years.

But that's exactly what needs to happen for:

1) healthcare costs to come down (doctors and hospitals need to earn a lot
less, like maybe 50-60% less)

2) income inequality to stabilize (basically 10% wealth transfer for GDP every
year)

3) climate change to be mitigated (reduce carbon emissions which is basically
shrink GDP by 1-2%)

4) housing prices need to go down (basically tell everyone that their primary
asset needs to depreciate by 30-50% or even more)

So yeah we live and die by the godfathers and their empires - that's the way
the US is. And it really doesn't matter who is in the governance seat -
neither rich people nor a strong state will do a good job making policy to
cause the above to occur - you first have to change the willingness of the
American people to willingly accept systematized and distributed personal
loss.

To be fair to Americans, social fairness is growing on the importance scale -
but you have to tailor the changes in a way that aligns with existing US
values and behaviors. You can't just say "oh, implement the way the
Chinese/Germans run their government in the US", it's just too foreign to get
any traction or pragmatic action (which is what Frankfurt school eschews,
right?).

Implementing policies where rich people keep their empires and wealth but
instead are forced to use their empires to not keep printing money but to
solve other problems - that's very American sounding to me. No one is saying
that Bill Gates is a beloved figure btw; we are saying that he's effective at
investing into getting rid of malaria though. Same with Elon musk, he ain't no
saint but he can sure get us to the moon. He might also get us to clean and
renewable energy if he put his mind to it, you never know.

A lot of my inspiration for my thoughts on these issues comes from the
waitbutwhy blog. The whole series on the story of us is fascinating, but
especially chapter 4 talks about the American view of consumer capitalism
which I recommend to read.

[https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/enlightenment-
kids.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/enlightenment-kids.html)

~~~
akuji1993
> our billionaires have created empires (their companies) and we live really
> well because of them

I'd disagree with the statement, that most of the US citizens live a good life
while 40% are in danger of being evicted right now. That's only the first
example coming from the top of my head. You could easily make an argument how
most people living paycheck to paycheck is not a great status also.

> So you have a dual economy - those in the US who are running the empire's
> money printing machines, and those who can't help those companies print
> money.

Wouldn't you consider this amoral from the start? There is proficiencies that
won't ever be able to get out of poverity for this exact reason. Most artists,
writers, philosophers, social workers, health care workers won't ever be able
to get out of poverity / low middle class, because they are not "worth" as
much, as people working IT, finance, governance.

> The poor people are actually rich compared to the rest of the world

This comparison doesn't really matter when they can't live where they are
right now. If you want to analyse their quality of living you have to only
consider their material conditions where they live, not how their money would
be able to make them live in South Africa or Swasiland.

> The US is very capitalist in mindset. Keep in mind that in capitalism,
> companies also help those not within the company by creating better quality
> goods for consumers (everyone else), so the more empires grow, the
> cheaper/better the consumer goods are, and the better quality of life is for
> everyone, not just those who work for the empire.

In theory this would lead to better lifestyles for others, but as the
capitalist tries to minimize cost and maximize profit, they are moving away
from US based production and produce cheaper in China, South East Asia etc.
leaving their US workers behind with no wage to buy their products. Capitalism
has reached the stage of maxizing profit through globalization, chasing for
the cheapest production possible around the globe. This is why US poverity is
increasing and unemployment becomes a more and more desperate issue. The
capitalist, in the end, doesn't care about the people outside of his profit
scope. He should though, since those people buy his products. If nobody is
left buying product, their is no profit. Some people argue this can be
corrected by "ethical capitalism" which I think is a dream castle, but you
might disagree.

I'd argue that we can reach those goals easier, through socialist companies
where not one capitalist is controlling the company, but all the workers
collectively. They won't go oversees with their production, as they protect
their own jobs. They won't cut safety measures for the same reason. Same for
health care etc. Workers will protect themselves way better and lead the
society to a more balanced way of living this way in general.

I kind of have the feeling you're not that big of a proponent of capitalism as
I thought in the beginning... You have some interesting analysis with the
appended criticisms.

> you first have to change the willingness of the American people to willingly
> accept systematized and distributed personal loss.

We agree that this needs to happen. I don't think the numbers have to be quite
as drastic as you proposed, if we just take 80% of the wealth accumulated by
the rich (there will be enough left for them) and do a sensible tax reform
targeting the Top 10-20% correctly. That would be a start. Going the way of
reform, we'd start with that and health care reform and see what's the next
step from there. The alternative of revolution is an existing alternative, but
costs lives and can hurt the system for the next 20-30 years, so not really
desirable. The first step towards reform would be getting Biden into office
and then pressuring him to actually take the steps he promised after talking
to Sanders.

Regarding instead of taxing, making it so that billionaires need to
redistribute privately, I don't agree that that's better than a for example
workers council deciding what to do with tax money. The Gates Foundation has
distributed their donations 96% to US and European organisations and just 4%
to African owned and run organsations. I appreciate them trying to help, but I
think you need to put more of this money directly into the hands of African
orgs as they for sure know best, what their citizens need.

I'll check out your link later today, thanks. And also thanks for not making
this an aggressive, unproductive conversation.

~~~
spyckie2
> I'd disagree with the statement, that most of the US citizens live a good
> life while 40% are in danger of being evicted right now. That's only the
> first example coming from the top of my head. You could easily make an
> argument how most people living paycheck to paycheck is not a great status
> also.

My point is that minimum wage in the US -> ($16.50 / hr in many states), is
really high compared to many other countries. For instance, the median wage in
Taiwan / China is 1/3 of the minimum wage in the US. Why does the US have the
minimum wage so high? Why do bus drivers in the US get paid 10-100 times more
than bus drivers in India? It's because of "trickle down" economics - because
the US economy is so strong we can have really high wages for the lowest
skilled jobs in our economy.

> Wouldn't you consider this amoral from the start? There is proficiencies
> that won't ever be able to get out of poverty for this exact reason. Most
> artists, writers, philosophers, social workers, health care workers won't
> ever be able to get out of poverty / low middle class, because they are not
> "worth" as much, as people working IT, finance, governance.

I wouldn't consider it amoral. The reality is that creating great environments
for people to grow up in is hard work, and not a "universal right" by any
means. Nature does not give everyone super comfortable and fair lives -
consider the cold north or the scorching deserts and you'll realize that this
assumption that everyone deserves the same life is... not grounded in the real
world. Life is fundamentally unfair. You have certain populations of animals
growing up in fertile galopagos without any predators, and you have other
animals growing in 10000 ft deep oceans with extremely harsh environments to
survive. That's life.

Fairness in life is a good ideal but a bad policy. It's like saying, I don't
like how the world has deserts and tundra, I'm going to make the entire world
have perfect weather and homogenous, ideal environments for everyone - the
engineering effort would be astronomical and also probably cause a lot of
problems to the environment. I'd rather have a policy that is grounded in how
the world works, which I think capitalism is (as opposed to socialism).

> I'd argue that we can reach those goals easier, through socialist companies
> where not one capitalist is controlling the company, but all the workers
> collectively. They won't go oversees with their production, as they protect
> their own jobs. They won't cut safety measures for the same reason. Same for
> health care etc. Workers will protect themselves way better and lead the
> society to a more balanced way of living this way in general.

The assumption that collectives can allocate resources better than individuals
is flat out wrong. The reality is that the decision making and skill of the
person(s) in charge determine the efficiency of allocation.

This is basic business theory. You don't put a random joe to allocate budget
and policy decisions for billions of dollars at the top level; you put a
skilled CFO or COO who has 20+ years of experience and has done it many times
before to make those decisions.

Capitalism naturally causes the people who have the best allocation skills to
be assigned the seat of being the one to allocate resources. This is opposed
to socialism, which has no policy or strategy towards who gets the control of
the resources.

Where capitalism goes wrong is in hyper focusing on allocating resources to
money making. You want the focus to be distributed evenly across money making,
social welfare, and innovation.

If you told these CEOs and CFOs running organizations to allocate resources to
build better communities instead of just making more money, they would have
the skills to do a good job at it. We just don't tell them to do that...
because I dunno, American ideals?

> I don't think the numbers have to be quite as drastic as you proposed

I think they have to be much worse than what I proposed. Bloat in the current
system is really, really high. In Taiwan, they live the same standard of
living as the US with basically 1/4 of the cost.

> if we just take 80% of the wealth accumulated by the rich (there will be
> enough left for them) and do a sensible tax reform targeting the Top 10-20%
> correctly.

Understand you may not be from the US, but its probably more accurate to say
"for us" rather than "for them". If you're a programmer on hacker news, 95%
chance you'd be in the top 5% of the US in terms of income generation.

> just 4% to African owned and run organsations.

It's because most African owned and run organizations are not skilled enough
to be entrusted with the money to actually produce results.

If you've tried to run an organization before, it's extremely difficult to
allocate resources efficiently to solve problems. That's the key bottleneck of
economics and I suspect its the major perspective difference between you and
me. I view resource allocation as the absolutely hardest problem in the world,
where you think everyone can do it well. 99.999% of people, if given $1
million and a difficult mission, will fail that mission, not because they lack
heart, morality, ethics, or understanding, but because they don't know how to
use the resources given to solve problems.

------
rv-de
philosophically I like the idea of a UBI. but realistically I don't believe
anymore in solutions based on financial reorganizations. the society needs a
fundamental shift of how resources are allocated and used. I expect a UBI to
only produce a low-income class that depends on UBI and can't find a job that
pays sufficiently well and another high-income class that just gets the UBI on
top of their ample salary. prices will factor in the new offset and adapt
positively. we'll see more low paying jobs for UBI-dependent people who can't
choose.

------
tjchear
I understand they're not the same, but I'm wondering if it would be reasonable
to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 stimulus checks as a data point to
inform the effects of UBI.

~~~
captainbland
There are presumably too many confounding factors to make that a worthwhile
comparison. It's pretty hard to control for businesses semi-voluntarily
closing their doors and people actively avoiding the ones that are staying
open.

------
zajio1am
Seems to me if people had required similar trials before establishing public
pensions and public healtcare then it would never have been established.

------
axilmar
Truly universal UBI will result in reductions in paychecks by the amount of
UBI.

Business owners will think like this:

"Hey Joe, from today we all are getting X amount of dollars from the
government. Thus, I am going to reduce your paycheck by the almost the same
amount. You will have more money than now, and our business will get a break
in these unfortunate economic times".

For Joe, that would be a good offer: we will get effectively in increase in
the money in his pocket, while minimizing the danger of being laid off since
the business he works for will get 'a break'.

~~~
dogma1138
Unlikely since UBI will likely be essentially offset by income tax so above a
certain threshold (likely just slightly above full time minimum wage) the net
benefit will be zero.

If businesses reduce their pay they’ll have to pay higher rate taxes on their
end (CIT, payroll tax, business rates).

Also in many countries reducing income is illegal, especially in western
countries. It’s often can only be done during restricting after going through
an employment court as an alternative to redundancy and it’s limited both in
amount and duration.

That said truly universal UBI would require a considerably change to how and
what we tax as well as the general employment market you likely won’t see
basic income until there will be no means of offering sufficient employment to
the majority of the population until then UBI is often less effective than
direct benefits simply because it’s less.

The main less from these UBI studies is that the threshold for cutting off
means tested benefits is way too low and there is quite a bit of benefit to
gain at continuing proving direct cash benefits at higher income levels. That
said we currently don’t have any reasonable way to fund it, as well as to
ensure that UBI isn’t going to be just a wealth transfer program from the
working and middle class to corporations.

------
eqdw
What does it do to the poor suckers who keep working only to have all their
money given to people who sit on their asses all day doing nothing?

------
dschuetz
I don't understand why Germany's _socialist_ ministers don't accept the
concept of universal basic income. It's baffling to me.
[https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/id_88448378/...](https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/id_88448378/auch-
heil-lehnt-bedingungsloses-grundeinkommen-ab.html)

~~~
akvadrako
Why would anybody in government support UBI? If it works, a huge amount of
decision making power is moved from the government to the free market.

------
known
"Give me control of a nation's currency print/supply, and I care not who makes
its laws" \--#Rothschild (b. 1744)

------
fallingfrog
Since wealth attracts more wealth, and power attracts more power, in any
capitalist system, without constant redistribution of wealth to the bottom,
eventually you wind up in a situation where a tiny group of people at the top
have all the wealth and power. It’s a basic feature of any society where
property can be used to make money.

UBI would appear to be a pretty straightforward way to keep things balanced
and stable, in the long term.

------
known
May be we should call it Universal Basic INSURANCE;

------
jakeogh
It's re-branded Socialism. Incremental as always. Paired with the social
credit score, it's every authoritarians dream.

~~~
akuji1993
Definition of socialism: Worker owned means of production.

That's it. You're feeding on 100 years of western propaganda and neoliberal
ideas.

China is state capitalist, UdSSR was state capitalist.

If you want to see a working socialist state, even though it's suppressed by
the US government for 70 years now, which explains most of its problems btw,
look to Cuba.

~~~
jamisteven
Cuba is a "working socialist state"? Have you been to Cuba lately?!

~~~
akuji1993
Do you understand the concept of being cut off from 90% of the world market?
They're struggling to maintain their system while being systematically
targeted by the one of largest economic and military powers on the planet.

------
throwaway4747l
These articles are interesting not by themselves, but for the reactions they
stir on HN. It's interesting how aware of cognitive biases and critical minded
one suddenly becomes upon encountering a study that challenges one's
worldview. It's also interesting to note the shift between two demographics:
old-school libertarians/right-wingers who hold that "you should earn your
bread in sweat unless you happen to have private means" (Kalecki 1943), and
pro-UBI tech workers who rationally see it as a direct subsidy for their
industry. Unlike many other viewpoints where one usually dominates I feel this
is one of the few where opinion is fairly evenly divided, and the back-and-
forth is interesting.

~~~
tomp
> study that challenges one's worldview

The study doesn't challenge any worldviews. People like money, news at 11.

But the study _does_ challenge one's intelligence. " _Some_ people given money
for _some_ time" does not imply anything about " _all_ people given money
_forever_ ".

