
Time for a Guaranteed Basic Income? - joeyespo
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2016/01/14/universal-basic-income-government-welfare
======
themartorana
Just came here to say that the tired argument that UBI "start[s] creating some
pretty powerful disincentives to work" is really just old at this point. What
someone that trots that out is saying is that more people would be able to
forgo wasting their lives in menial jobs and instead create art and new
businesses, or stay home to raise a family or care for elderly parents, as if
either of those is somehow morally wrong or shameful.

There will still be incentive to working - cars and houses and jewelry and
iPhones and etc and etc will still cost money, likely above what a basic
income gives you (except for the most basic apartment and car maybe). But
people will be able to choose to not work in deplorable conditions or for
terrible wages or for below minimum wage because tips, and won't have to live
in constant fear of losing a minimum wage job and losing the leaky roof above
their family's heads, or going bankrupt when your kid breaks his arm.

When people claim UBI will disincentivize working, they mean disincentivize
being taken advantage of by a system meant to keep them under foot and under
served - and that not willingly participating in such a system is somehow
morally reprehensible. Which I find morally reprehensible.

~~~
strictnein
Sorry, but I don't feel like paying more in taxes so that people can "create
art" and take care of their own families. When did it become my responsibility
to work harder so that they can do that?

Taking care of my family involves me working hard, so why are you willing to
make me work harder so that others can work less?

An no one thinks taking care of your own family is shameful or morally wrong.
Taking more money from me to pay you to take care of your family, on the other
hand, is morally wrong.

~~~
themartorana
Answers like this consider a society of one (or one plus family) and doesn't
comprehend how the health and well being of a society directly correlates to
the health and well being of the one.

But put that aside for a second. You _also_ get this basic income, which is
basically just printed money, so your taxes aren't helping someone else create
art with UBI (but they sure are now, in actual reality). Your moral outrage
about someone "creating art" as though it's less hard than your job is
laughable, and oh by the way, your reward is income far above UBI, so you
exist on a different financial plane for your hard work anyway.

But lower crime and happier people and less burden on courts and properly fed
kids that lead to a better educated generation and less terrible schools in
inner cities and every other benefit you receive from basic income and not one
ounce of your "hard work" is just a step too far for you?

~~~
aklemm
An excellent answer. It's alarming how easy it is for young, childless, well-
off people to simply not have any capacity to understand these points. I say
that having been such a person, so it really is sad how long it can take to
learn such lessons!

~~~
LyndsySimon
It seems like you're projecting your own bias onto those who disagree with
you. What makes you think the GP is young, childless, and well-off?

I oppose this, and I certainly don't fit your preconception.

~~~
aklemm
You'd be right if I said all young people feel that way and all parents above
a certain age felt my way. But I didn't say that, and I don't believe that. To
rephrase: it is alarming the _rate_ at which young, childless, and well-off do
not support family-centric public policy.

Do you make a distinction between "projecting" and simply having an opinion? I
do.

~~~
LyndsySimon
You said "It's alarming how easy it is for <group>" \- that does not imply
that you are alarmed at the rate at which something occurs, but that you
believe that the condition is an attribute of group membership.

My sincere apologies if I've misread your intent, but it certainly seems to me
that you've taken a viewpoint with which you don't identify, and assigned it
to a group with which you also don't identify.

If you have any evidence that young, childless, well-off people tend to hold
these beliefs, I'd love to see it.

------
11thEarlOfMar
$12,000/year per American adult who is not already on welfare or social
security would cost about $2 Trillion per year. To put that into perspective,
Social Security cost $1.3 Trillion in 2013. The cost of all social welfare
programs was $529 Billion. The GDP came in at around 17 Trillion.

The US could afford it if we really wanted to.

\- Is it inflationary? Prima facia, it has to be. But then it would also
increase the flow of money and put more people to work in places that the
$1,000 gets spent.

\- Is it fair? If every American receives it, regardless of their wealth, then
I don't see how it would be unfair.

\- Is it realistic politically? It seems that the US was pretty close to
something along these lines in the 60's[0] and Obama finally got universal
health care through. Perhaps it is realistic enough to at least put a true,
modern pilot program in place and convince ourselves one way or the other. It
really seems better than the alternative: Status quo for the homeless and the
poor.

A real value is that lower financial stress across the entire country would
free parents to focus more on raising their kids. Many, many social problems
subside when families do better.

So my question is, how can we construct a valid experiment to convince
ourselves one way or the other that this will benefit society overall, and
provide enough value to actually do it?

[http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/guaranteed-
income%E2%...](http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/guaranteed-
income%E2%80%99s-moment-sun)

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
>$12,000/year per American adult who is not already on welfare or social
security...

Is not what's being proposed by pretty much anyone.

$12,000/year per American adult who isn't already earning $X/year is how I
understand it. A negative income tax, effectively.

Even if it's not administered that way (i.e., everyone gets a $1k check every
month), then you raise taxes in such a way that every dollar earned means you
earn more, but that by, say, $48k/year you're paying at least $12k/year in
taxes.

~~~
11thEarlOfMar
The proposal is to pay all citizens the same amount. No means testing, no
qualification except perhaps an age limit.

Individuals are not the only tax payers, and the wealthy do pay far more than
$12,000 per year already.

~~~
icebraining
Everyone does get the $12k, but you can effectively raise taxes to "cancel
out" those $12k for the rich, maintaining the same effective tax rate for
them.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
My point is that you can adjust the tax code so that people over some
threshold are paying $12k more than they used to, cancelling out the $12k of
income. And counting people who are going to have their taxes raised by $12k
in the overall cost is disingenuous. Below that threshold taxes will also
likely go up, eating up some of the $12k there as well.

~~~
icebraining
Then we agree :)

------
aklemm
Something ought to be done to: A) take advantage of our technical advancements
to provide better for all B) decrease hoarding of wealth at the very top
(that's not to say inequity can/should be solved for all).

That said, I don't see how a UBI works as long as people's appetites remain,
basically, insatiable. Providing a UBI would seem to end up increasing
inflation of basic goods and services.

~~~
GavinMcG
How would that inflation work, exactly? UBI doesn't mean creating new money.

This article [1] addresses that concern in a little more depth. Basically, the
evidence we have from places that have tried this is that it might _decrease_
inflation, and that in any case, the value of the income would far outstrip
increased prices.

[1] [https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-
basic-...](https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-
just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7#.qbg5o78cq)

~~~
aklemm
I'm looking forward to reading that. I think of a UBI as a redistribution, not
creating new money. So once it's redistributed, how do we keep that money
circulating and growing among the populations who need it? How do we prevent
it not all floating back to the top. For example, if the low-income population
in a town suddenly has a little more resources and groceries are no longer
quite so difficult to procure, how do rents not rise soon after?

I hope the answers are in that article! Thanks.

~~~
SolarNet
Because we constantly keep redistributing it via income taxes. Because if they
raise the rents they loose their UBI customers to someone who doesn't (of
course that assumes there's no collaboration nor a monopoly). Already I see
this in college housing. Some company increases their prices, a bunch of
people move out to the place two blocks down with the old prices, and then
they lowered them again to get those people back.

~~~
aklemm
Right, but that's absent an income increase among the students. You're missing
that key piece of the question.

------
bsurmanski
What happens in the case I am working in a foreign country on a visa? In that
case, I can imagine the home country would refuse GBI because I am no longer
resident, and the host country would refuse because I am not a citizen.

If that is the case, I can imagine that GBI would put a drag on workers
abroad. Maybe people would even refuse to emigrate because they wouldn't be
able to afford the few years without GBI before they are a citizen in their
new country.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
I think that what you describe is a good thing, when you look at the complete
picture.

GBI could (should?) function, effectively, like a negative income tax -- below
a certain income level the government pays you. Above that level, you earn
nothing from the government, because you're making more than some specific
threshold already (probably at least 1.5x GBI, preferably higher [1]).

So yes, it would discourage people from going to a new country _for fun_ and
lounging around there and not working. People who want to move to a new
country should do it because there's a _job_ for them in that new country, and
if it doesn't pay above the GBI threshold, then yes, they should probably stay
home. If you're a consultant who can work from anywhere, and you make more
than the cutoff (which I would hope!), then GBI is similarly irrelevant.

GBI for a backup income while you're starting a company is also something to
think about: Where would the US prefer that you start a company? Here, of
course. So I think that GBI encouraging people to work in the country is
absolutely appropriate.

Finally, GBI could be provided to US citizens and permanent residents who
spend more than X% of their time in the country. If that's 51%, then you could
spend nearly six months in another country getting situated before GBI would
cut off, which should be more than enough time to pick up a job there. Even if
it only paid you for 2-3 months of living abroad, that's not bad for a paid
vacation and/or job hunt.

[1] This may be obvious to most; apologies in advance. If you phase out GBI at
a 1:1 rate with what you earn, as in, if you earn $10, you get $10 less GBI,
then taking a job that paid less than GBI would earn you _nothing_ (unless
you're being paid under the table, but let's assume we don't want to
_encourage_ people to cheat). EDIT: My math was wrong. The idea is that you
set the marginal tax rates such that every dollar you earn earns you more
money, but that by the time your income is at some arbitrary level, you're
paying more than GBI in taxes. Figuring out the exact rate curve is left as an
exercise for the reader. ;)

~~~
reustle
> So yes, it would discourage people from going to a new country for fun and
> lounging around there and not working. People who want to move to a new
> country should do it because there's a job for them in that new country, and
> if it doesn't pay above the GBI threshold, then yes, they should probably
> stay home.

Absolutely not. I've been traveling through many countries over the past >year
working remotely on my personal business based at home in the US. Who are you
to say I should be tied down in my home country to receive the same benefits
everyone else does, especially since I pay taxes like everyone else?

* Sent while on a train traveling through Vietnam

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
Please re-read my reply, especially the line that says:

> If you're a consultant who can work from anywhere, and you make more than
> the cutoff (which I would hope!), then GBI is similarly irrelevant.

------
jsnk
Are the proponents for basic income willing to cut other social programs
related to food, housing, child care, unemployment, etc and cut down costly
bureaucratic infrastructure supporting government programs??

Or are they trying to double down on basic income + all these government
programs?

~~~
seba_dos1
As far as I understand it, the whole point of basic income is replacing most
of other social programs, especially those related to unemployment.

~~~
JonFish85
There's no way you'd be able to get rid of them all. What happens when people
spend their entire income on lottery tickets? You can't let them starve, you'd
need a way to divorce money from services in that case, which is part of what
the US welfare system tries to do in part.

~~~
rbritton
At the risk of downvotes, why can't you? At some level, personal
responsibility must come into play. There's a limit on how much you can
protect people from themselves, though where that limit is can be a very
political topic.

~~~
JonFish85
People aren't responsible though, especially not people who are needing social
services like welfare. People think short term, and some need to be protected
from themselves.

~~~
aninhumer
Poor people don't always make the best financial decisions, but I think the
number of people who would waste all their money without buying any food is
relatively small.

------
vezzy-fnord
C.H. Douglas and the Social Credit movement were absolutely immense during the
Depression period and slightly afterwards (especially in Canada). His
philosophy was a syncretic mix of positive economic theory, Christian
philosophy and policy proposals that amounted to a UBI among other things.
Today, it is nearly dead and largely unknown.

The MMT people have made their strides on the blogosphere, and did get
Stephanie Kelton into the Senate Budget Committee. They loathe the UBI,
however. They want to go straight for a job guarantee, as advocated in e.g.
Hyman Minsky's writings. Assuming a Sanders presidency, their vulgar
Keynesianism might pass.

These things tend to come and go, especially after crises. Sometimes they
succeed. The Townsend Plan was a major impetus for Social Security. But I
wonder if in some years we'll still be debating this.

------
overgard
If society values innovation (questionable!), UBI totally makes sense. How
many skilled, capable people are working bad jobs or are afraid to start a
venture because they're concerned about ending up on the street? Safety nets
encourage risk taking, and risk taking is necessary for innovation. This
always gets characterized as subsidizing free-loaders, but perhaps naively, I
think most people want to have an impact on the world, and you don't need to
threaten them with starvation to get them to do important work. You only need
to threaten them with starvation if you're asking them to work against their
interests.

------
oldmanjay
Do we need this story over and over? Nothing new is ever said, and the
comments are just as predictable. I get that some segment of HN thinks this is
super important and should be constantly flogged but I question the purpose.

------
afarrell
The incentives aren't quite aligned to make this happen, but I wonder if a
private entity could jump-start this.

Lets take an organization engaged in a massively profitable activity that is
unpopular because it eliminates large numbers of peoples' jobs. As an example,
lets assume that Alphabet has a company working on driverless long-haul
trucking. Suppose they take a pile of capital and start an endowment that then
pays a small monthly amount to everyone in the political entity that could
possibly stop them. To whom do they cut a cheque? Voters. They only need to
get access to a voter database with names and mailing addresses. So now
everyone who votes is getting a cheque from that entity every month, however
small. Their marketing department comes up with some way to brand it so as to
make those voters now feel warm and fuzzy about this scheme.

They then structure their company in such a way that the profits from their
job-killing activity add to the monthly amount paid. In effect, they give
every voter a stake in them continuing to do this. Then, when any law comes up
which threatens their activity, they defend it as strongly as they would
defend social security. Over time, this activity has generated enough profit
that what was once a tiny cheque is actually large enough for people to pay a
few bills.

The problems with this are:

1) I'm pretty sure the math wouldn't ever work out to paying anyone anything
significant. 140 million voters is a lot of people to pay. The cost of postage
alone would eat up the payout in the beginning.

2) There isn't enough incentive for an organization to do this just for the
sake of profit. It would be cheaper to maintain a skilled team of lobbyists.

3) I suspect that people would be suspicious of cashing a random cheque that
purports to be from a well-known company.

4) It might make voter fraud a non-trivial problem.

------
pithic
As optimistic as they seem on the surface, calling for GBI is, in a way, a
call for throwing in of the towel by the human race. It's a hasty concession
that continued human well-being is no longer compatible with nature or
morality. Oddly, such defeatist calls invariably ignore a raft of dreadful and
immediate societal effects: the end of meaningful work and self-esteem as both
an option and a goal for the masses; the justifiable resentment of productive
people whose living standard will be forcibly degraded; and the institutional
bifurcation of the human race into producers and parasites, with the reduction
of the whole to a sort of government-managed bi-pedal livestock.

------
mojoe
I've thought about this a lot, and if you assume that automation will continue
to put more and more people out of work, then there seems to be two probable
paths forward: either bureaucracy continues to grow, causing more and more
people to do meaningless busywork, or a UBI is established. Neither option
seems great to me, considering human nature, but if I were to bet I'd say that
current inertia is moving us toward the bureaucracy option.

------
Madmallard
Basic income will not work when fiat currency drops and devalues our dollar to
be worth almost nothing. Everyone surviving off of it will have to fend for
themselves. National debt continues to skyrocket and quantitative easing
cannot continue to happen without severe inflation coming. This crap is just a
nice idea but will not work in reality when our economy goes into the
dumpster.

------
choxi
I'm excited for this idea to hit the mainstream, it's compelling enough to
warrant a public discussion.

------
edward
See also: Silicon Valley's Basic Income Bromance by Lauren Smiley
[https://medium.com/backchannel/silicon-valley-s-basic-
income...](https://medium.com/backchannel/silicon-valley-s-basic-income-
bromance-97595cd35d5d)

~~~
mmagin
That essay seems unnecessarily ad hominem and I find it hard to read with the
unnecessary amount of neologism. Certainly people are welcome to find ideas
advocated for by fairly socially well-off groups to be suspect, but it doesn't
make those ideas inherently bad.

------
seba_dos1
Is there some transcript available or is it only in audio form?

------
jurassic
Can anyone here recommend any good books on the topic of UBI?

------
sly_foxx
Why are people on HN supporting basic income so much? Do you support
'Guaranteed Basic Sex' as well? You know, there are guys like Elliot Rodgers
who would be thrilled with something like that.

~~~
afarrell
The reason that folks on HN are so in favor of UBI is that large numbers of us
are employed as software engineers. We automate things that were previously
done by humans. We make our money by destroying jobs. From a gods-eye
perspective, this is actually a good thing, as it brings down the costs of
serving peoples' needs. From the perspective of someone who loses their job,
it sucks because that person now has no way to feed themselves. So, we want to
get around that by being able to say to someone: "Here is a free $700/month.
Move to rural Maine and spend 6 months learning to code and eating food
delivered by the driverless truck which stole your job. Then join us in
automating more people's jobs away."

Why not Universal Basic Sex? Very few people think that sex is a basic right
or think that the existence of sexually frustrated folks indicates a flaw on
the part of society. Most people don't put sex and food/shelter/medicine/etc
in the same categories. Also, HN readers aren't doing things to make sex
harder to find, so we feel no responsibility for people's sexual frustration.
Also, we can't really automate the production of sex. If someone wants to
seriously argue that we should give everyone a free Autoblow 2...well I would
be interested in reading that argument.

~~~
sly_foxx
"From a gods-eye perspective, this is actually a good thing, as it brings down
the costs of serving peoples' needs."

Why do you define 'good' as servicing needs of members of homo sapiens
species? What if a good thing(objectively) is actually servicing members of
'fire ant' species? You attitude smells like speciesism.

"From the perspective of someone who loses their job, it sucks because that
person now has no way to feed themselves."

Yep, just like a lot of other animals. You look at some of those animals in
the jungle - maybe you'll eat if you're lucky and survive long enough to
reproduce. It's a struggle for them. When a zebra is killed by a lion, it
ain't nice for the zebra.

"So, we want to get around that by being able to say to someone: "Here is a
free $700/month. Move to rural Maine and spend 6 months learning to code and
eating food delivered by the driverless truck which stole your job. Then join
us in automating more people's jobs away."

Again, this smells like speciesism. Why do you want to spend your time helping
members of homo sapiens species? Was that the result of brainwashing during
your childhood or did you independantly discover that it is your duty to help
members of homo sapiens species?

"Very few people think that sex is a basic right or think that the existence
of sexually frustrated folks indicates a flaw on the part of society."

You forgot to add 'today' or 'these days'. Why is what majority thinks an
indicator of truth?

"Most people don't put sex and food/shelter/medicine/etc in the same
categories."

Again, you're going by what majority thinks. Do you care about truth or what
majority thinks?

"Also, we can't really automate the production of sex."

Modern tech can certainly help. For example, you spy on people to see who is
attractive and having lots of sex. Then, you sexually tax those people. You
locate, kidnapp and take them to someone who is unattractive. From the
perspective of the receiver, it will be automated, 'cause they'll be getting
women frequantly with no effort.

~~~
drdeca
I was looking at the start of this comment, which I found merely wrong, and
then I got to the end.

Wat.

An approximately rational truth seeking community can reasonably be expected
to come to a reasonably good approximation of the truth, compared to what they
have access to. As such, such a community can be used as an (approximate)
indicator of the truth.

Moral relativism can fall down a well. (emphasis on the ism. I don't mean
ists. It is a rhetorical statement, not a literal one.)

~~~
sly_foxx
"An approximately rational truth seeking community can reasonably be expected
to come to a reasonably good approximation of the truth, compared to what they
have access to. As such, such a community can be used as an (approximate)
indicator of the truth."

\- You're writing about a rational truth seeking community when the user
@afarrell is writing about majority of people. Do you see the difference?
People (members of homo sapiens sapiens species) have not evolved to seek
truth, but to survive and reproduce.

"Moral relativism can fall down a well."

\- How can moral relativism fall down? What does that even look like? Fall
according to what standard? Is the standard relative or not?

~~~
drdeca
see: "It is a rhetorical statement, not a literal one."

I was expressing [distaste/dislike/disapproval] [for/of] moral relativism. Was
this somehow not obvious to you? Are you merely feigning incomprehension? If
you are, to what end? (Would you think that I would think that it benefits
your reproductive fitness?)

> You're writing about a rational truth seeking community

I included the word "approximately". Do you think that if I was asked if I
included it for no reason, that I would answer "yes"?

Which would occur more, with nothing else changed arbitrarily: A collection
which is more capable of achieving ends, or one which is less capable of
achieving ends, becoming more prevalent than the other over time, if both have
being prevalent as an end?

Would a correct understanding of decision theory predict that having more or
less true information, all else being equal, would result in an entity being
more or less successful in achieving its ends?

What do you mean when you use the word "to"? Do you mean "such that ___
occurs"? Is that what the word is commonly used to mean? (What about in the
question immediately preceding this one?)

