
Universal Basic Income Explained – Free Money for Everybody? [video] - shaunlgs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl39KHS07Xc
======
Joeboy
(in the context of first world countries with functional welfare states)

I'm deeply skeptical of the idea that we're going to get some sort of new deal
where the rich are suddenly happy with increased subsidy of the poor, in
return for increased social cohesion or whatever. The rich generally resent
paying taxes and avoid it where possible. Why are they suddenly going to be
happy to pay _more_ tax, to subsidize people who have no specific need for the
subsidy? Supposing the US replaces its welfare system with basic income,
surely the next thing that happens is that the rich buy a government that guts
or kills basic income (which is, by definition, not needed). I suspect if you
want the rich to pay for this you're going to have to be prepared to go full
French revolution.

I'm glad the video briefly touches on this question, but I find it frustrating
how much of this debate focuses on the silly question of whether receiving
free money morally taints people or whatever.

Edit: I mean, one of BI's highest profile advocates is Mark Zuckerberg. Does
Mark Zuckerberg seem enthusiastic about paying tax?

~~~
rpiguy
The true long term vision for basic income, which this video does not touch
on, does not involve the rich subsidizing the poor.

When birthrates stabilize at or below the replacement rate it becomes
difficult to grow an economy. Typically countries turn to immigration to make
up the difference, but there are other ways (see below).

Furthermore for economies such as the US economy, it needs consumers more than
it needs producers. We are a consumer driven economy.

So what does this have to do with UBI?

Another way to grow the economy is to print money, and ultimately I think this
is where UBI is headed. Instead of importing bodies to consume more, you
simply create money so your existing individuals can consume more.

Supply side economics seems to win when populations are growing, but good old
aggregate demand style economics may win out the day once populations
stabilize.

In the near term I agree with you, I don't see giving up a giant military, or
high enough tax rates to pay for a basic income scheme.

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notzorbo3
I still haven't found an solution anywhere for the following problem: Living
(not just housing, but everything) expenses are a lot less for dual, or even
triple, income households than for single people. So there's going to be a lot
less pressure on dual income households to work beyond their basic income.
Logically, this would put double (or even triple) the additional pressure on
single income households. Under UBI, they'd have to provide enough in taxes to
provide the UBI for themselves AND dual income households.

How do UBI proponents solve that problem?

~~~
dmm
UBI encourages marriage whereas traditional social programs discourage it.
What's the problem?

~~~
notzorbo3
Traditional social programs are a safety net for single people like those
going through divorce and such. Under UBI, it just puts a lot more pressure on
those people, while at the same time alleviating the pressure on multi-income
households. It's might force people to stay together in unhappy marriages,
etc. I see that as a problem.

~~~
rev_bird
>It's might force people to stay together in unhappy marriages, etc. I see
that as a problem.

How many people are held captive in marriages because their spouse is the
breadwinner? How many people stay for health insurance, or because they've
spent so long raising children that their profession, if they had one to begin
with, has passed them by? I shudder to think of how many abusive spouses have
yelled, "Where would you even go?"

I think we agree that it's distasteful for financial concerns to put people in
danger in unhealthy relationships, but I have a hard time seeing how "Making
sure everyone has enough money to live" would make people MORE trapped.

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sharemywin
I still don't see how UBI doesn't cause inflation enough to offset any
benefit(in the near term ie before robot job apocalypses).

~~~
bryanlarsen
Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. As long as you are paying for UBI through
taxes rather than by printing money, there shouldn't be any overall inflation.

Certainly there will be price adjustments: the prices of some things will go
up while others will go down. But that definitely wont "offset any benefit".

~~~
dmm
> Inflation is a monetary phenomenon.

Is it? The US monetary base has more than tripled since 2008 but inflation
since then is only 14.6%.

For comparison between 1999 and 2008, the us monetary base increased by about
a third and inflation between those years was around 29%.

~~~
craigkilgo
Inflation being a monetary phenomenon is the technical definition of
inflation. When you mention the 14% number, that is based on market price for
basket of goods which is not technically inflation (under the definition used
by economists, not the definition used by journalists).

~~~
colorint
The technical definition of inflation is raising prices. It's only a strictly
monetary phenomenon if output and velocity are fixed with respect to the money
supply. In other words, inflation meaning "more money" is only a technical
definition in the kooky world of monetarism.

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DoreenMichele
If you want to see a solid critique of practical challenges facing UBI that
most proponents do not really address, I highly recommend this piece:

[https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/after-universal-basic-
incom...](https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/after-universal-basic-income-the-
flood-217db9889c07)

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lumberjack
What a dystopian future. So then, 99% of the population will be powerless,
barely subsisting, as if they were rabbits in a cage in the pet store, while
the remaining 1% own the entire world.

~~~
shams93
Its not even going to turn out THAT nice. The new tax cuts assume that the
poor will always be working, but between the loss of net neutrality and the
automation of driving jobs we're looking at the loss of 95% of male work
within the next 10 years. But the rich have divested themselves from society
so state and local government will break down and most likely when you lose
your career you will land in a concentration camp. The only working class jobs
will be capturing torturing and executing the former working class.

~~~
rev_bird
>between the loss of net neutrality and the automation of driving jobs we're
looking at the loss of 95% of male work within the next 10 years

I'm pessimistic about the same legislative issues you are, but what on earth
does this mean? "Transportation and warehousing" accounts for 3.2 percent of
all jobs in the U.S. and is actually projected to hold steady between now and
2026.[1] What does net neutrality have to do with anything? Is this... a real
comment? Do you really think they're going to send all the boys to
concentration camps because their jobs got taken by self-driving cars?

[1]
[https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm](https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm)

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fpgaminer
When it comes to UBI, there's an interesting psychological phenomenon.

I believe that McDonald's and similar establishments could have automated away
the vast majority of their work force years, maybe even decades ago. And yet
there are still people working there. In fact, McDonald's is often viewed as
many people's first entrance into the work force, and as a safety blanket if
anything goes south (well worst case at least I can go work at McDonald's or
something).

In other words, I believe McDonald's and its kin are a form of social welfare.

We see this elsewhere, in less subtle ways. Tons of jobs that shouldn't exist,
but which are kept afloat by regulation designed specifically to preserve
those jobs.

We pay either higher taxes or higher pries to achieve both of these forms of
social welfare.

And yet, support for these jobs and social actions is generally quite strong.
Hence why restaurants haven't fully automated themselves; the market would
vomit at the idea of those thousands of jobs being replaced by machines.
Regardless of whether that would save people an incredible amount of money,
they are willing to accept those sacrifices in exchange for those jobs being
available.

In that light, what's the difference between what we have today versus UBI?
Either you're paying someone to do functionally meaningless work, or you're
paying them to do "nothing". Under the former, their work is _truly_
meaningless. Under the latter they at least have the chance to do something
beneficial for either themselves or others.

Personally I haven't formed a real opinion of UBI. Even in light of the above
arguments, the complexities make it a problem not so easily reasoned through.
But I suppose my point is that UBI isn't as drastic a step as many imagine it
to be. It would be more of an evolution of our existing, de-facto social
welfare programs.

EDIT: Addendum: When I use the term meaningless here I'm really just using it
for the sake of argument. Obviously no one's work is meaningless. Just because
a machine could do the exact same job that a human can do, doesn't mean that
the task, as performed by a human, is meaningless. The true thrust of my
argument is that a human performing the task subtracts value from the economy
relative to a machine doing the job. It's sub-optimal.

~~~
skybrian
Or possibly, service jobs are harder to automate than it appears? What
evidence do you have that it's easy to automate?

In theory, you could replace a McDonalds with a vending machine, but it's not
the same thing.

~~~
fpgaminer
Possibly. Customer facing service is certainly difficult to automate away. But
I believe behind the counter workforce should be relatively simple. It's hard
to fathom that the unskilled masses who end up working there can't be
automated away.

It's not like we don't already have automated cooking lines. All the precooked
foods at stores are from automated cooking lines. Just replicate that in the
back of a McDonald's. I don't find that hard to fathom.

Some will say that "Well if McD's could have automated away those jobs already
they would have." Market optimization and whatnot. But the market is always
optimal from a _human_ perspective. Case-in-point: McD's switching away from
their "pink goo" because of the backlash against it. Using pink goo was
cheaper, but the uproar threatened demand, so they have to use more expensive
alternatives. In the same way that I believe many, many jobs have not been
automated away simply because the public backlash would destroy any business
that tried.

~~~
skybrian
If you have a store that sells food without people making it for you on
demand, I believe that's called a 7-Eleven. They have lots of vending machines
and prepackaged food. To the extent that people are okay with eating that way,
they'll stop going to McDonald's.

There was a great article about the sandwich industry in the UK that goes into
this [1]. And yet, even for sandwiches, Subway does well making them on
demand; selling prepackaged sandwiches is an enormous and growing market but
it's not the entire market.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-
sandwic...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-
consumed-britain)

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lev99
A UBI of $12,000/year given to every adult by the goverment would double the
annual government expenditure.

That is fine, but we should have a talk about how the program is funded. This
is one of the reasons I prefer talking about negative income tax. Yes, the
concept is more complex, and has a worse acronym, but it is largely self-
funded.

~~~
peterwwillis
Take it out of the 576 Billion dollar defense budget that makes up more than
half of all federal spending?

~~~
aaron-lebo
That's not 3 trillion dollars.

~~~
peterwwillis
Correct. The defense budget could not pay for it all, but it could contribute
a sizeable chunk.

A gradual buildup using the funds available (say half, about 288 Billion)
could be done, infusing more money into the system and growing opportunities
for people to improve their economic standing. At the same time you'd need to
gradually pressure corporations and wealthy individuals to shift investment
back into US-based work instead of imports and shifting jobs overseas.

Basically, redistribute wealth very very slowly, and work trade deals to
subsidize the production of our own goods until their price becomes
competitive again (because we're not going to build electronics cheaper than
the Chinese any time soon). But you'd have to base all this around trade
deals, because globalization will just eventually crush our poor, which will
keep increasing in number.

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bjt2n3904
> There would be still be very rich and poor people, but we could eliminate
> fear, suffering, and existential panic for a substantial part of the
> population. #6m28s

I actually laughed when I heard them say this, given their videos on things
like the Fermi Paradox.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Can you break that down a little more? I'm having trouble connecting those two
statements.

~~~
bjt2n3904
Many of their earlier videos (before they started to do "What If" videos a la
XKCD) focused on the confusing, absurd, and seemingly meaningless existence of
humanity -- so much so, that they made a video on "Optimistic Nihilism".

They're quite reserved in the statements that they make, as well. They won't
say life _is_ meaningless, only that we haven't found something we truly agree
upon as meaningful, and given that the universe is headed towards big crunch /
heat death, what does it all matter?

Given those two points, I found it amusing that they'd go so far to say that
simply giving someone $1000 a month _COULD_ resolve misery, suffering, and
existential angst. It seems to fly in the face of their ethos.

~~~
rev_bird
I think "existential panic" in this case maybe isn't referring to
existentialism, but... existence? Like if you aren't going to have food
tomorrow, and there's no solid prospect of figuring out how to get food the
next day, that's a panic fueled by the desire to continue to exist. It's kind
of an imprecise term in this case, but that's what I took it to mean.

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IncRnd
Would UBI be available only for citizens or everyone living within the
borders?

Thoughts?

~~~
delecti
Ideally eventually it will be truly universal (at least on a global scale). In
the short term, the question of "citizens only?" is a pretty big complication.
It means countries that start UBI sooner will be incentivized either to
discourage or restrict immigration, or to limit it to citizens.

------
hypertexthero
Here's a good FAQ on Basic Income:

[http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-
faq](http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq)

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PatientTrades
Universal Basic Income is necessary for humanity to reach to higher goals in
their evolution. Wasting 8-10 hours of the day doing a job that robots could
do much better is not the best use of human intelligence. Imagine the
discoveries and inventions that would happen if humans could devote all of
their time to their passion. The benefits drastically outweigh the minuscule
downsides

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b6
5:23 _... many argue that it might be time to distribute the spoils more
evenly to preserve the social peace._

This does not come from principles. It sounds like a stickup.

~~~
rev_bird
Workers have been generating increasing productivity for decades—Americans
have never created more wealth. Yet wages have stagnated, companies have
trillions of dollars squirreled away, and the richest families in the country
have more money than many millions of the rest of us. Who's getting robbed?

~~~
b6
> Who's getting robbed?

Is it the really the case that anyone is being robbed?

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exabrial
First line: "What if the state covered the cost of living?"

Who is paying for the income? It's not "The state". It's everyone else, by
taxation. You're telling people you have a right to seize their earnings for
their labor. You're literally taking someone else's money, and giving it to
someone else. UBI is nothing but people ignoring the moral problems of seizing
assets and saying "The end justifies the means."

If a billionaire philanthropist wants to sponsor UBI voluntarily, that's a
different matter. Or if you want to donate to a charity that funds UBI, please
do. It'll be an interesting economic experiment. But taking assets from people
and giving them to another person is wrong, no matter how good the outcome is.

~~~
CaptSpify
You aren't complaining about UBI, you are complaining about taxes (yes, I get
how they are related, but they aren't the same thing).

We've long ago decided that we as a society are OK with taxes. If you don't
want to pay them, go somewhere that doesn't make you pay them.

~~~
ameister14
No, no he isn't. There is a difference between paying taxes so that the
government can provide services and an A-B transfer.

For example, the government can, in some situations, seize land. The
government is not generally allowed to then give that land to other citizens.
There have been a couple of cases that came close to that, and if you read the
majority opinions on them you'll see the logical foundations.

~~~
CaptSpify
I fail to see how UBI isn't a service. It's using a made-up system (money), to
make sure that people have viable options in life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not convinced UBI is the way we should go, but I
genuinely don't see the difference between that and any other service.

