
Universal Basic Income – Poll Results from IGM Economic Experts Panel - cjlars
http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_bPBNf8WXrT4jmtf
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aresant
"It might also shift the norm whether to work. Work = being part of society "
\- Markus Brunnermeier(1)

I love how simply Markus arrived at the fundamental political issue with Basic
Income in the USA: American culture and society is a "work culture".

If you're not working you're not part of society.

That's a very plain and powerful statement that is central to many of the gut-
reaction trump-esque disparaging arguments vs. UBI.

(1) [http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-
panel/partici...](http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-
panel/participant-bio-2?id=45)

~~~
vkou
Unless you're rich. If you're rich, and not working, your opinions are valued
and respected.

~~~
harryh
I don't think that's necessarily true. It's true for some people, mostly those
that are rich because of their past work.

But I don't think it's true for people that didn't earn their money through
work like those that inherited it or won the lottery. Society can be pretty
dismissive of people in these categories.

I even think that we differentiate between people who are rich from work. Some
people are seen has "having really earned it" while others "just got lucky."
Shades of grey for sure, and people might disagree here but I think this is a
real phenomenon that those who are seen as having done more valuable work are
held in higher esteem.

~~~
nine_k
BTW most people who won a lottery end up spending up the fortune, not living
off it for a long time.

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jaimeyap
The formulation of the question frames Social Security and Medicare as being
mutually exclusive with a UBI.

UBI ought to replace things like food stamps and welfare. Not healthcare or
retirement benefits!

I am a huge fan of UBI, and I would have voted "disagree" the way that
question was framed.

A better formulation would be to frame UBI as an "automation dividend". Where
we dip into increased efficiencies produced by automating labor to fund a
basic income.

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eanzenberg
How do you reconcile the massive increase in spending this would cause?

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Retric
A flater tax rate would make up a large chunk of the difference. Basicly, at
50k you still get UBI, but it's offset by new taxes to leave your after tax
income more or less the same.

At 25k, you pay a lot more in taxes, but get a UBI for a net gain.

At 0k you just get UBI, not food stamps ect.

There would probably be a net cost increase, but as SS counts as regular
income it's not going to be huge for most retires. At some UBI levels it's
actually less than our current system.

Programs to be removed, food stamps, HUD, welfare, unemployment insurance,
Medical disability part of SS, and all the overhead associated with them.

PS: The economic gain from social mobility would likely be huge as long as you
don't adjust UBI for locations. Why be poor in NY when you can live well in a
cheap part of Florida.

~~~
wang_li
I thought the U stood for universal. If you take it back in new taxes, it's
just a transfer program from productive to non-productive.

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deathanatos
But I have to echo eanzenberg's comment,

> _How do you reconcile the massive increase in spending this would cause?_

If you're giving each person $13k/yr, does that not imply that you must then
collect $13k/yr/person in taxes? Unless you're thinking it is _all_ going to
come from corporate taxes, then at least some of it must come from a citizen's
taxes, no? (and if you do think this should come from corporations, do you not
think that would have an effect on what gets passed to an employee? Why not
pay a person $13k/yr less? — or more, since some people won't/can't work and
we must cover them too?)

I have no idea if UBI is a good idea or not … but if people want to do it, I
expect to know how it will be paid for.

~~~
maxerickson
You can just print the money or otherwise conjure it into existence. For
instance, by telling banks to change numbers in their databases.

It probably isn't a good idea, but it's possible.

~~~
thaumasiotes
That's still a transfer from productive people to unproductive people. It just
takes the specific form of hyperinflation.

There is no difference between taxing everyone 20% of their holdings, and
printing yourself 25% of everyone else's holdings. Either way you end up with
a fifth of the wealth, and everyone's purchasing power goes down so yours can
go up.

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maxerickson
Yeah, I get that. It still has economic impact. But you don't have to
explicitly account for the payouts with receipts, which the post I replied to
seemed to think was necessary.

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rubidium
I don't know a better way to put this. The whole UBI idea that shows up here a
lot (e.g. [https://stratechery.com/2016/the-brexit-
possibility/](https://stratechery.com/2016/the-brexit-possibility/)) is just
naive. And now we have a nice poll of the experts to justify that judgement.
UBI of $13k has the same support from experts as does denying climate change.

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apalmer
UBI, is one of those things I just cannot logically compute. I am completely
in support of the end goals of UBI. Just cannot fathom how UBI can even
theoretically works.

It seems to ignore Economics, Game Theory, and Human Nature. I just dont
understand how it could rationally be viewed as a workable solution.

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sutterbomb
Can you share details on what specifically isn't computing?

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runin2k1
I'm no "apalmer", but have a similar perspective...

From a simple supply and demand standpoint, how does the extra income
introduced not simply cause the cost of _basic_ * goods to rise accordingly
such that you end up with your UBI increasingly falling behind what is needed
to support a minimum standard of living?

* Added "basic" for clarity, I don't imagine this would affect the cost of luxury, or recreational goods to a large extent, but an extra $1000+/month per person would, I expect, have a drastic effect on housing rental rates amidst the lower to middle class residential areas

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thaumasiotes
In a closed system, it would. But if a US citizen can move to a location where
not everyone gets the US basic income, then their basic income will be worth
something.

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runin2k1
Like Baja! I'm in!

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sharemywin
The problem is the math don't add up. To give 13k per adult(242M) you need
3.2T. The total us Budget in 2015 was 3.8T so you need to increase taxes by
81%. If you subtract out all the welfare benefits you(615B(16%)) you still
need to raise taxes buy 65%.

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eanzenberg
This should literally always be the top comment until it's explained how to
handle the tremendous cost.

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PCMcGee
Stop paying retail prices for everything. In a market based economy, we need
everyone shopping, every week. But, in a resource based economy, we would
build things to last longer, and design things that are more efficient. The
cost is not the issue, it is the design of the product that is so wasteful. We
need waste in this system, it is profitable. I'm sure you"ll ignore me as some
quack. Too bad (for you and me), because this is the main problem with our
society. Try reading the book "The Best That Money Can't Buy", if you don't
understand what I am talking about.

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33a
Not surprising there are so many negative responses, the question was poorly
worded. No way that you can kill medicare and replace it with a $13k yearly
income.

~~~
_rpd
> > This is a dumb question. We are not going to eliminate Social Security and
> Medicare etc.

> \-- Richard Thaler

Yes, you're not alone in that thought.

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IanCal
> Work = being part of society

That's a sad state of affairs.

~~~
jcizzle
Society is a group of people whose collaborative efforts are able to
accomplish more than any one individual and more than simply a sum of
individuals. That means 'work', which is another word for 'doing something for
someone else'. It is selfish to believe that one can belong to a group of
people and obtain the benefits without contributing to it.

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vkou
A lot of work does little to benefit society. It is a collaborative effort to
enrich your employer.

~~~
jcizzle
That is a viewpoint that ignores the level at which humans, especially in the
US, live at. The amount of work and people that goes into having convenient
access to food, transportation and clean water is incredible. And those are
just basic needs that we take for granted. Your employer creates good and
services that people consume, therefore, the work enriches society. If your
short-sightedness only extends to the point where you are evaluating who is
making the bigger paycheck, I'd say that is a shortcoming of your self-
awareness, not of society.

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PCMcGee
The level most people in the US live at is called "poverty". The amount of
work that goes into food, transportation and clean water is incredibly small,
compared to the amount of people it supports, and it could be made immensely
more efficient if we weren't using technology that is 100 years old. The only
thing a market creates is blind demand for more useless crap, while destroying
the very firmament on which it operates. This libertarian "belief" in the
benefits of markets is utterly contradicted by scientific evidence which shows
that capitalism is the force that is destroying our environment, while
extenuating the inequality between the rent-seeking and the rent-paying. I'm
sure your dad taught you to "work hard", but we don't live in the forest
anymore. It's time for you to educate yourself about what would be beneficial
for society as a whole, rather than believing in adages that (shockingly)
uphold and entrench the advantages you have inherited from your birthplace and
skin color.

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lossolo
I think you need to look at it from bigger picture. It's only matter of time
when machines will take most of non creative jobs (we all see how ML is going
forward) because they will be cheaper and more efficient than humans. Tell me
then what you will do with hundreds of millions of people without work? In my
opinion basic income is the answer to this problem.

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brooklyndavs
"Raising taxes is costly and so redistribution should be targeted to those who
need help most." \- Oliver Hart

So what if most people are out of a job in 50 years due to automation? What if
"targeted to those who need help most" is 90% of all adults. Yeah raising
taxes is costly, but considering owners of capital will most likely see most
of the benefits from productivity gains in the future I'm sure they can afford
it.

More from Mr Hart "Bill Gates would get 13K, which is crazy."

Um yeah, Bill Gates also will get social security and medicare (and he
should). That's the whole point of a benefit. I wonder if Mr Hart is an
advocate for means testings of these programs? How lovely is it that "experts"
like this have the ears of our policy makers.

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roymurdock
Cristopher Udry, Yale: _The simplicity is attractive, but deceptive. Coupled
with universal health care & tax reform it could work. but we are far from
that._

The key is tax reform. UBI is just an interesting and controversial new name
for a more boring (and conventional) idea: wealth redistribution through tax
reform.

Nobody wants to talk about tax reform because it's boring, opaque, and
gridlocked at a political level, whereas anyone can have an opinion on the new
hot topic of UBI. Hopefully UBI will bring about a fruitful discussion of more
fundamental issues, such as tax reform, in the near future.

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PCMcGee
I don't begin to pretend to understand the delusions that people are citing as
reasons for supporting a "work" culture. Are the people who believe this
rhetoric blind to the destruction that is being caused to the Earth by
billions of people needing to "make money to live"? Poachers do not poach
because they are too stupid to understand the value of the life they are
taking. They are poaching because that's the only way to provide the resources
their family needs to survive. The same is true with every type of destructive
behavior humanity is practicing in response to economic pressures. Children in
mines and sweatshops, farmers burning down rainforests, or fishermen
exhausting the endless ocean's bounty. People need access to basic resources
in order to survive and prosper. They need food, water, shelter, healthcare
and education. Our monetary economic system CANNOT provide this to everyone,
it is built on the scarcity of money, and it distributes this scarcity
efficiently through the demand/market system. Until society steps up to the
plate and implements a system where these needs are met, we are effectively
living in middle age serfdom! "Civilization" is a society where we recognize
the needs of that society, and implement systems to meet those needs. What we
have today is a free-market slavery system. You are enslaved to the bank that
issues your currency against the "work" you will provide in the future. Your
National ID number is your bond number, and your countries credit-worthiness
is dependant on your productivity, en masse. Your money is a debt note, owed
to those banks, issued to you by your financial reserve system. Most of the
beneficial work performed by the participants of society goes unpaid.
Parenting, teaching, volunteering, caring about and helping your friends and
neighbors, not vandalizing public spaces, reporting crimes, speaking out about
abuses of power and educating your family and friends about social issues.
These things are the best things we do, and they are priceless. The jobs you
get paid to do, are because no one would do them unless they needed the money
to survive. Maybe they are the things that didn't need doing in the first
place. I want to suggest that people who believe in this imaginary money
system remove their head from their anus and find out what a resource-based
economic system looks like, and why it is superior to any type of system that
could ever be built through coercion.

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thinkt4nk
Isn't the confidence implied in the vote? i.e. isn't "Strongly disagree"
really just a vote for "disagree" with great confidence?

~~~
dllthomas
"Uncertain, confidence 10"

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abannin
The data is misleading; many of comments reject the context of the question
not UBI itself. Take Thaler's response: "This is a dumb question. We are not
going to eliminate Social Security and Medicare etc." The survey is not an
expert review of UBI, but rather a specific implementation of UBI.

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russelluresti
Scrolling through the participants list, I'm so glad they asked black people
and other minorities their opinion on the matter (if you're not familiar with
sarcasm, let me rephrase - this is a long list of nearly 100% white people).

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gabemart
How could you get rid of Medicare and Medicaid just by giving everyone $13k
per year? What happens when someone with no other income needs life-saving
medical treatment that costs more than $13k?

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exit
perhaps the "infulstructure" for ubi should already be rolled out. some bank
account tied to identity, receiving a nominal amount monthly..

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smokeyj
Why are economists being polled? Is it because economics is such a dismal
science it requires populism to claim the moral high ground? Does this mean I
can officially be smug to those pesky UBI supporters?

