
Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial - tosh
https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-begins-universal-basic-income-trial-three-years-2020-8
======
missedthecue
These studies don't really prove anything.

Common arguments in favor of these studies -

 _" They prove people don't quit work on UBI!"_

\- No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly
temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means
nothing.

 _" They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!"_

\- No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program each month, you
spend the $1k from the pilot on legitimate bills and now you have $1k to spend
however you like. The study can't trace that money. (This isn't to say
everyone on UBI uses it for drugs, rather, it's to point out that you cannot
deduce they don't just by tracing the way the transfer payments are spent)

 _" The studies prove people's life and happiness improved because of UBI!"_

\- No kidding. You gave someone several thousand dollars no strings attached
in a situation where neither taxes nor inflation would rise as a result.

What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can
afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't
hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause
inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these
questions.

~~~
skybrian
Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course
this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities,
depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are
certainly feasible because the net effect is small.

UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of
everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of equality
are important. But from an economics standpoint it’s not a complete plan, and
it’s a bit nebulous because the choice of which taxes to include in your
analysis is arbitrary.

Assuming a progressive tax system, though, it does mean automatic benefits for
people without other income and more financial security for almost everyone,
assuming you think you have some risk of losing your job.

This is similar to insurance. We don’t buy it because we think we will make
money on average.

~~~
baconandeggs
And that is why it will fail.

Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for
that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same
rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and
politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided
instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.

~~~
Fargren
Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are
inheritances. People who are born in wealthier families are not playing under
the same rules (just imagine if a person playing Monopoly started with ten
times the initial amount of money).

I prefer a definition of fairness that is actually achievable[1]: everyone has
at least the bare minimum, regardless of fitness and deserving. You can
quibble about what the definition of bare minimum, but to me it should include
housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those
things by asking for them is not fair, as people who don't have access to
those don't have the minimum to compete with those who do.

We can't have an equal playing field. But we can perhaps make the bare minimum
livable.

[1]This is almost impossible, as opposed to entirely impossible

~~~
vorpalhex
What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood
actor?

They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone. Sure, your Hollywood actor is
probably driving an exotic sports car and their iphone is diamond studded, but
fundamentally, what does it matter?

> housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get
> those things by asking for them is not fair

I agree in the general but I suspect we disagree quite differently on the
details. We do provide housing for the poor, and short term homelessness
outcomes are actually generally positive - we tend to get people who lose
their home back into another house. We provide free education through a high
school diploma and community college in most areas is exceedingly affordable
with massive scholarship opportunities available for ivy leagues. You can walk
into any hospital and it's illegal for them to refuse you treatment.

Does this mean our society is without fault? Of course not - we've shown
repeatedly that we're terrible at finding real solutions for the persistently
homeless (and no, shoving them into homes doesn't actually fix their problems
as much as it fixes the stats), and healthcare is at best described as
"horrifically abberant".

And we should fix those things. But that some Hollywood starlett is flying
around in a gulfstream has nothing to do with those fundamental problems - it
is not a lack of resources but a lack of willingness and deep understanding of
the problem space.

It's easy to blame the wealthy, it's much harder to solve the actual problem
set.

~~~
biomodel
And this is why UBI was supported by right leaning economists like Milton
Friedman. If we believe that people in wealthy societies should have a minimal
standard of living including basic food, housing and health care then we can
provide it through the market in the form of a basic income

It will avoid the perverse incentives that lead people to get costly health
care in the ER (which is then covered by other patients) instead of having
health insurance and receiving preventative care

It can prevent people from avoiding getting a higher income lest they start
earning too much to qualify for the social programs they depend on

No UBI won't fix all problems - but it may very well pay for itself through
better externalities

~~~
manigandham
Friedman proposed a negative income tax which is different, and arguably
better, than a standard flat payment.

~~~
balfirevic
It's barely distinguishable from UBI for any practical purpose.

~~~
manigandham
Not really. It scales with income, motivates working, is more fair, and avoids
a blanket handout which would just raise the prices of everything in response.

~~~
balfirevic
I think you are confused about how either UBI or negative income tax works.
The most important difference is that negative income tax would do payouts
once a year, and even that is not a hard requirement. Other differences are
accounting differences and not practical differences in how much money people
have available (as they can be made identical by tweaking the tax rates and
tax brackets).

~~~
manigandham
Of course both programs will guarantee a certain income, that’s the point
after all.

But UBI decreases motivation while also inflating the cost of goods and
services so that they rise to meet the new money supply.

NIT avoids both problems by scaling with income. It provides motivation
without paying every one. More fair, less cost, and better purchasing power.

~~~
balfirevic
You are, frankly, just making stuff up. UBI proposals are not necessarily (nor
usually) funded by creating new money supply.

~~~
manigandham
Perhaps that was the wrong wording, but giving everyone money would only
inflate costs as they rise to meet the new income levels (whether that money
is printed or redistributed). What else are you claiming is made up?

~~~
balfirevic
> What else are you claiming is made up

"Motivates working, avoids a blanket handout which would just raise the prices
of everything in response"

"More fair, less cost, and better purchasing power"

I mean that it's a made up difference between UBI and NIT, they are simply
equal in this regard, for better or for worse.

It makes no sense that they would be different, as the net money flow between
individual (or household) and the government can be made exactly the same
between UBI and NIT scheme, and how much money someone actually has in their
hands is what determines motivation, fairness, purchasing power, inflation
etc.

Under UBI: NetMonthlyIncome = income + UBI - taxes_ubi(income)

Under NIT (where taxes_nit can yield a negative value): NetMonthlyIncome =
income - taxes_nit(income)

You can make taxes_ubi(income) == taxes_nit(income) + UBI and you get the same
exact real life result, it's just that the accounting is different.

~~~
manigandham
UBI and NIT are two different systems that provide the same minimum income
guarantee. Saying they both provide a min income is obvious. That's what
they're designed to do.

However _the way they do it_ is very different and that's what changes
everything. NIT guarantees min. income without just paying everyone. This
costs less than UBI. NIT pays a (negative tax) bonus on the first dollars
instead of immediately taxing earnings. This provides more motivation. Not
giving everyone the same helicopter money prevents cost of living inflation.
This provides better purchasing power.

How you provide the income is more important the final amount because the
economy is an interconnected system with secondary effects. This is why
Friedman recommended NIT instead of UBI. The mechanics of the system matter.

------
OneGuy123
Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required
sooner or later.

Now the only question is: how to you phase in UBI while still rewarding extra
productive people to keep creating/innovating?

Some will say "those people will innovate out of love". This is not always the
case, many people are good at what they do and create many awesome things but
given the chance they would rather do something less productive because on
some level they don't like what they do that much.

~~~
thisisbrians
Isn't this like saying that the invention of agriculture will mean society has
to start feeding hunter gatherers for free? That's not how it went. People
find new ways to create value all the time, and yet every time we invent
anything new people keep saying "all the jobs are going away." It has yet to
happen in spite of the agricultural, industrial, and now tech revolutions.

~~~
TigeriusKirk
Which new way of creating value will be immune to automation?

~~~
BLKNSLVR
Maintenance of automation objects, although that's not entirely new it will
expand at the same rate as the automation itself, maybe slightly lagging
behind.

Improvements to automation; automation on top of automation.

Planetary colonisation planning.

~~~
totony
I can see all of those being done better by an AI in the future. Maintenance
is already done a lot by machines right now, I don't see that changing.

------
molmalo
I see the claims that this won't produce inflation with extreme scepticism.

And I say this, living in a country that has had something similar to a basic
income for years, although not fully universal (universal for kids, and people
below certain income line), the vast majority of people get it and ended up
resulting in that around half the public budget goes to social expenses. Every
year that bag gets bigger, deficit gets bigger and having more currency
flowing, inflation gets bigger and bigger.

So, this income is increased and salaries get adjusted, and it ends up in a
never-ending cycle of income trying to catch up with inflation.

It's very hard to get out of that situation once you are in it, because now
people depend on this money, and the political cost to cut it is so enormous
that nobody dares trying to do it. It would mean the end of their political
careers.

Maybe Germany can show us that it can be done, it will be very interesting to
see the results. But from what I've experienced, this is not as simple as many
people think it is.

~~~
vsareto
> I see the claims that this won't produce inflation with extreme scepticism.

I haven't seen price drops since many people stopped working and can afford
less, so I don't expect the system to work logically in the other direction
either.

~~~
molmalo
You probably won't see prices dropping, as many businesses are selling much
less and they need to keep prices to cover the costs.

------
superkuh
Basic-income already exists.

New money is created by chartered banks as debt on their balance sheets by
fiat through fractional reserve banking practices. This is how money is
created and distributed in the USA; centralized in ~4500 institutions and a
few tens of thousands of people deciding things. It would be just as easy,
though controversial, to remove this pure profit stream from the banks and
instead give it directly to people.

Of course people would probably re-invent the banking system in a distributed
way. But then at least it would be clear that the money banks are literally
making isn't through some business skill or value addition or even the
physical services they provide: it's from being able to magic up new money for
circulation.

There is plenty of money for basic income. The system for basic income already
exists and is the foundation of modern society. It just needs to be made
universal.

------
elchin
[https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/gehaltsrechner-
geh...](https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/gehaltsrechner-gehoeren-sie-
zu-den-oberen-zehn-prozent-a-f5a19d00-84b3-407f-aff2-bce27e8088cf) An article
in German, but 1943 Euros a month in Germany is the median income. And it
takes only around 6100/month to be 1%.

~~~
wil421
Is that gross or net income?

~~~
germandude123
net. also, calling it "only 6100" is completely crazy by german standards.

------
zxcvbn4038
The one thing I've not seen discussed, and maybe I'm just not using the right
terminology, is how inflation is controlled in a UBI world. If everyone is on
UBI then it would be very simple to peg things like rent or auto payments to
the current UBI rate - the same way apartments in New York City today are
often priced based on the average bonus paid financial services workers.
Granted that not having to worry about housing would relieve a huge burden for
many people, but if other necessities like food or fuel are similarly pegged
to the UBI, in the same way food costs changed during the Euro conversion,
then it seems like we might ultimately end up in the same place where a
percentage of the population needs assistance beyond UBI.

------
koonsolo
Last time I asked this question here, I got downvoted without any answers. So
here is my second try, this time specifically for Germany:

Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying
their entire adult population this amount. And let's assume everyone will keep
working at their current job. (Which they won't since at a "Basic Income"
pricepoint, lots of people would prefer spending more time with their family
and so would opt-in working part-time etc).

So yeah, were is that realistic calculation of how to pay for full country
UBI?

~~~
dane-pgp
Here's a proposal for how it could be gradually implemented in the UK by
simplifying the tax code:

[https://atlaspragmatica.com/arguments-for-a-ubi-
conclusion/](https://atlaspragmatica.com/arguments-for-a-ubi-conclusion/)

It seems to roughly involve the top 22% of earners having a tax bill that is
up to 10% bigger than currently, while everyone in the bottom 78% of earners
is unaffected or a net beneficiary.

~~~
koonsolo
Let me get this straight, the starting point is taxed like this, assuming the
average wage in UK which seems to be 35k for a full-time job
([https://www.findcourses.co.uk/inspiration/articles/average-s...](https://www.findcourses.co.uk/inspiration/articles/average-
salary-
uk-2018-14105#:~:text=Their%20yearly%20survey%20showed%20that,for%20those%20in%20part%2Dtime.))

35k makes net 12k (not taxed) + 18.4k (at 20% tax rate) = 30.4k net

In the conclusion, everyone gets a "UBI" of 666 per month, which basically
doesn't even cover rent ([https://www.statista.com/statistics/752203/average-
cost-of-r...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/752203/average-cost-of-rent-
by-region-uk/)). If they would follow this German test, it would need to rise
to 1100 pounds per month.

So in this scenario, that average full-time employee pays 48% flat tax on
income:

35k taxed at 48% = 18.2k net, plus the 8k UBI leaves this average full-time
employee at 26.2k. That is 4.2K less than before.

Looking at that graph at the end, I think there is some "creative graph-
plotting" going on, unless I'm seriously mistaken in my calculation.

So how can this be the ideal calculation? The graph and conclusion seems to be
in complete error. And even then, 8k per year barely seems like a 'basic
income'.

~~~
ksrm
£35k is about £27.4k after tax. You have forgotten about national insurance.

~~~
dane-pgp
Well spotted. I actually asked the article's author to address the concerns
above, and they responded here:

[https://atlaspragmatica.com/a-united-federal-
britain/#commen...](https://atlaspragmatica.com/a-united-federal-
britain/#comment-71)

Like you, they calculated the current take-home pay of this hypothetical
person as £27,442 and, under the proposed UBI system, a take-home pay of
£26,550. That's a one-off decrease of £892 which is about 2.5% of their gross
salary.

For an imperfect comparison, Figure 5 here:

[https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/lessons-
dec...](https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/lessons-decade-
failed-austerity?page=2)

shows a similar real terms wage decrease in 2011, supposedly due to the
political choice of austerity.

As another comparison, the Department for Work and Pensions estimated that
3.5% of their 2010-2011 budget was spent on administration:

[https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/what_percentage_of_th...](https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/what_percentage_of_the_dwps_budg#incoming-288818)

Obviously replacing most benefits with a UBI won't remove all government
administration costs, but it could lead to multiple society-improving outcomes
(like improved health) which could reduce the over all tax level.

------
skocznymroczny
How do you make people work under UBI system? I think most people
underestimate how basic people needs are. Get me food, place to sleep and some
videogames and I can live like that forever. I won't be seeking new ventures
and constantly improving myself, and most people will do the same. Which might
be ok in itself, but we don't have robots working for us so we can't switch to
full UBI.

------
medievalMoose
I would think this study with suffer from a pretty obvious case of the
hawthorne effect:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect)
And a sample size orders of magnitude higher would be necessary to negate
that, or even be significant to a "universal" scale.

------
pmontra
Some goods are virtually in infinite supply in Western World societies. Basic
food, cloths, healthcare (most of Europe AFAIK, not the USA, by choice), even
cars and housing. It could make sense to give them for free or give the amount
of money that buys them.

However if one wants that kind of food which very few farmers produce and very
few chefs cook, or that car that is made in 100 units, or that house on that
hill (1 unit) then it's inevitable that you must pay a lot. This means you
have to find a way to get a lot of money. UBI won't buy special things and
special lifes. It's work as we know it that does.

So, I don't see problems with UBI. If you want to be Musk or Bezos you will
(very few persons anyway), if you care only about drinking beer you will (a
lot of people) and work to gain some extra for the occasional special thing.

The problem is where all that money comes from. Countries are printing money
now and nobody cares anymore. Is it possible to keep doing that for 100 years
if everybody agrees?

------
cuddlybacon
It's only 120. I don't think this is going to teach us anything new.

I think the main objection is whether it will work when made universal. We
know giving a small number of people money is both liked by those people and
economically viable.

I think to really add new information to the debate, we need something that is
self-funded by at least a state/province/prefecture/etc.

------
sologoub
A lot of these tests miss validating one of the key arguments against means-
tested assistance - that there is a cliff to scale for people who were on that
assistance, but crossed the imaginary line to slightly better means and are
now significantly worse off.

Consider a family who are receiving affordable housing program benefits in an
expensive urban area. If they strive to improve their incomes, they are
unlikely to afford the same home in the same area at market rate. However, the
threshold for that assistance is often a lot lower than the actual income
needed for the market rate unit. What would a rational self-interested person
do in this situation? Avoid going over the threshold at all costs, in other
words stay poorer than they could have been.

A test that would be super beneficial is to see what choices would people make
if you removed means-testing - would they feel empowered? Would outcomes
improve?

------
kpsnow
I don’t have a very good grasp of economics, but can anyone explain why it
makes sense to give someone $1000 to do nothing when you can pay them $1000 to
do something productive, like build a road? Ideas like negative income tax,
government supplemented minimum wages, or increasing EITC makes more sense to
me.

~~~
rabidrat
It's not $1000 to do "nothing", it's $1000 so they can do whatever they want.
If they're building some useless road (and many of the public works projects
of the past whose aim was to provide "full employment", were busy-work
projects moving rocks from one pile to another), then they don't have the
time/energy to work on something else that they deem more fulfilling or
productive.

------
LargoLasskhyfv
The headline makes it look like this would come from official sources, but it
doesn't. It's a private initiative by some non-profit/charity, financed by
private donations, and supervised by some researchers. Duration: 3 years.
Amount: 1200€ per month. Participants: 120. Control Group: 1300+. Start: 2021.

This is roughly the same as our unemployment benefits, supposedly without the
hassle. How health insurance is handled I can't see.

edit: People under 25 would probably benefit more, because currently they are
disadvantaged. Something about parents liable for them, having to live at
home, getting less because living at home with parents, and so on.

------
ponsin
The problem with UBI trials is that they cost a lot of money to be remotely
effective. That is because for it to be somewhat meaningful the amount has to
be high, it has to involve a lot of people, and it has to last a long time. I
was wondering, what if researchers try it in a very poor country where $10 a
month is meaningful. Many countries won't want to do it presumably because
money will be leaving their country. However, it will be a relatively cheap
way of seeing how UBI would effect inflation, self choice unemployment, and
creative inventions.

------
jb775
Why is the title of this "Germany begins..." when there's only 120 people in
the trial? This would be an appropriate title if it were a trial with 120,000
people.

------
drobert
UBI is only relevant if it's universal. Doing such a study on a small sample
is rather irrelevant and inconclusive.

A better idea might be to do it in a village and compare with another village
that doesn't have it. But even this cannot fully replicate the nation wide
effects of UBI. How about immigration laws? Germany is in EU, anyone can move
to Germany and ask for UBI.

Waste of effort and money to prove nothing.

------
pneill
Rather than funding programs like this, people would be far better served by
being educated on how to better use the money they have.

Just look at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on how people spend their
money.
[https://www.bls.gov/cex/2018/CrossTabs/sizbyinc/xtwo.PDF](https://www.bls.gov/cex/2018/CrossTabs/sizbyinc/xtwo.PDF)

For example, a couple making less than 15K a year is spending 2K on
restaurants! A couple with that income shouldn't know what the inside of a
restaurant looks like. But I don't blame people for that. I think we've let
people like this down by not educating them.

Nobody teaches you how to use money to improve your life.

And this isn't just for lower income folks. I can't tell you how many high
income people I know that foolishly spend their money (buying boats, new cars,
etc) and hardly have anything left for retirement.

------
dirtnugget
Why do I read this here? (German here).

It really baffles me that these things seldomly make it to our media.

~~~
hutattedonmyarm
It did though, I read it on Tagesschau:
[https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/grundeinkommen-
studie-101.h...](https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/grundeinkommen-
studie-101.html)

------
dghughes
Most countries give so many tax rebates to low-income individuals it's
essentially UBI. Welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, lowest taxable
income level.

The $1,400US/month Germany is proposing is less than their minimum wage of
$11US.

~~~
droopyEyelids
It's a really interesting point because, at least in the USA, we sort of make
people work for their 'tax rebates'.

They have to fill out complicated tax forms (really, a tax preparation company
fills it out and takes a cut) to get rebates like EITC. They have to spend
time visiting government offices to renew their food stamps. They have to be
subject to relatively invasive life inspections for welfare- and 'workfare'
programs that require people to leave their house, put their kids in daycare,
and rake leaves for 8 hours a day are always going in and out of fashion, with
over half the states usually implementing a form of that program under some
name.

I feel like if it were my choice, I'd like to get a little less money but have
it 'guaranteed' without a bunch of time obligations that would interfere with
my attempts to raise my kids, learn a skill, or get a basic job. Of course,
80%+ of people in the USA who are in poverty are children, carers, disabled or
the elderly, so it's not like they're learning a new skill or trying to find
other work. Their time is still valuable though.

------
nodesocket
I've said this before here on HN, but Naval Ravikant (of AngelList) nailed the
problem with government pay subsidies and universal basic income on a podcast
with Joe Rogan.

"A slippery slide transfer straight into socialism. The moment people can
start voting themselves money, combined with democracy it's just a matter of
time before the bottom 51 votes themselves into the top 49. By the way, the
slippery slope fallacy is not a fallacy; they haven’t thought it through.”

"The moment you start having a direct transfer mechanism like that in
democracy, you're basically doing away with capitalism which is the engine of
economic growth. You're also forcing the entrepreneur out, or telling them not
to come here."

"People who are down on their luck, they're not looking for handouts. It's not
just about money, it's also about status and meaning. The moment I start
giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class
citizen.”

"You have to teach a man to fish, not to basically throw your rod in and eat
the leftover scraps."

~~~
Sodman
> The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made
> you a second class citizen.

This is why the "Universal" part of UBI is important. Having everybody get it
reduces the social stigma. (Also providing the bonus side-effect of reducing
the admin overhead that comes with means testing)

~~~
nodesocket
But you are going to have outrage by people being upset that wealthy people
are getting UBI, even though the UBI amount for wealthy people is
inconsequential. This is exactly why the COVID-19 stimulus checks were only
sent to people making less than $100k.

The media will start writing posts and articles about X millionaire or X
billionaire getting a UBI or stimulus check and outrage ensues.

~~~
Sodman
> This is exactly why the COVID-19 stimulus checks were only sent to people
> making less than $100k.

I agree that this was why, but the end result was that many people fell
through the cracks, largely due to situations changing for many since the 2018
tax return it was based on. People who earned 90k in 2018 and 120k in 2020
were eligible, where people earning 100k in 2018 and unemployed due to covid
in 2020 were ineligible.

> ... X billionaire getting a UBI or stimulus check and outrage ensues.

If accidentally giving money to people who are "too wealthy" is really that
big of a deal, it can always be taxed back at the end of the year. Anyone who
earns over $X that received UBI has to pay it back in taxes or opt out
themselves? It doesn't seem like an unsolvable problem, and it avoids the many
pitfalls of means testing. I'd lean towards accidentally giving one of the
~600 billionaires in the U.S. a few thousand dollars over accidentally leaving
tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans excluded.

------
Sparkyte
UBI won't work at scale without fundamental changes in any government to
ensure that a UBI wouldn't be exploited by the renting infrastructure.

------
qwerty456127
... 120 people will receive ...

------
autisticcurio
Well as Science continues to steal everyone's privacy, and Capitalism is the
defacto remuneration system in place, I think its only fair we get a universal
income if Govt's want us to be good little citizens. Considering the current
laws in place, like Copyright, Patents etc etc, its very hard for new comers
to enter the market and compete, not to mention the massive setup costs to get
into some lines of business. Financial cleansing is perfectly legal in this
day and age.

------
jaco8
About 4 billion people will now ask themselves : Where is Germany and how can
I immigrate ?

~~~
triceratops
If what you say is true...why not all 7 billion?

~~~
dirtnugget
Dibs on the US

------
EdwinLarkin
I think UBI is a failed project from the beginning. We dont need UBI per se we
need to provide basic utilities at fraction of the cost or for free.

Housing should be free so should be food. We are incredibly efficient when it
comes to building real estate or producing food.

We can set a basic standard for quality of housing and food (you get seasonal
fruits,veggies,bread,flour,chicken etc etc).

You should be incentivized to learn how to cook and take care of yourself and
acquire additional skills.

The usefulness of UBI will be diminished by inflation and market behavior.The
money you get wont actually help you to get things that you need.

~~~
silverdrake11
Producing food makes more sense. Certain types of food is very cheap. Housing
and real estate though, it seems is much more expensive and difficult to
provide.

~~~
EdwinLarkin
Housing is actually very easy to do. And should be insanely cheap to do in the
US. You could build entire cities from scratch while providing jobs.

------
DoreenMichele
I'm not even going to bother to read this article. I'm not a fan of UBI and I
think this is an admission that we don't have real solutions for the pandemic
and we aren't even going to try to come up with real solutions, like helping
people get into remote work and creating germ control solutions (like Little
Caesar's pizza portal) for things where remote work is not an option.

I mean, glad to see they don't want their people to just starve. Three years
is maybe a good time frame for helping people come up with real solutions.

The problem is that if you aren't explicitly stating up front that we are
giving you three years to adjust to the new reality and we need you working on
solutions, then those three years are going to fly by without people working
on solutions and then the checks will stop coming and then what? You are just
delaying disaster, not resolving anything.

~~~
veddox
This isn‘t the government carrying out the trial, but a crowd-sourced private
non-profit.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Then the title is inaccurate. "Trial begins in Germany." would be fine. But
"Germany begins trial" means the nation-state -- the government -- is
beginning a trial. If the government isn't hosting it, it isn't "Germany"
beginning this trial.

It's also a minor detail that doesn't significantly impact my opinion of the
whole thing.

~~~
veddox
Yes, the title is inaccurate. Titles on the Internet often are. That is
precisely why it is generally a good idea to actually _read_ the article
before firing off a flaming reply.

Basically, you were trashing the German government for something they never
did, based on a faulty assumption.

~~~
DoreenMichele
No, I wasn't trashing the German government.

I'm well aware what I did is not a best practice. I've been on HN 11 years.

I've also thought a great deal about certain kinds of issues and formally
studied them etc and I'm extremely frustrated with how certain things are
being handled. I'm quite confident that reading the article wouldn't
fundamentally change my opinion. It would only allow me to say it in a
slightly more socially acceptable fashion.

The qualifier I gave covers any such inaccuracies and it's unimportant anyway
because no one takes me all that seriously, though they really should.

And I don't really feel like pointlessly rehashing that fact. It never
changes. It's the same BS as always and there's nothing I can do to fix that.

I'm done being silenced by that fact on subjects I'm knowledgeable about. I
have enough karma to withstand a few downvotes for the crime of admitting I
know something useful and never mind that no one is ever going to have a
goddamned ounce of real respect for me. Whatever.

------
michannne
Unless Germany has a secret fleet of human-level AIs that can do anything a
regular German worker can for free, this will fail. Even worse is that this
failure will make them think UBIs will never work.

~~~
traviswingo
You're making the hard assumption that, by distributing a UBI, people will
just sit around and do nothing. There is no data to back this statement up,
and it's very likely that people will actually work more while on UBI. UBI is
designed to provide _choice_ for workers, not force them to do something they
don't want to do.

For all we know, UBI could lead to solving some of the worlds biggest problems
by giving people, who otherwise wouldn't be able to, the freedom to solve
problems they're interested in, not just work some dead end job to barely make
ends meet. You'd be surprised at how much better humans are at doing things
when they actually like doing them.

Let's let the studies roll out before making assumptions. I do, however,
believe these studies are much too removed from reality to prove much of
anything. The dataset is much too small and 36 months isn't a great deal of
time. We will see.

~~~
michannne
I find it interesting that even after a worldwide pandemic has proved that the
majority of humans will prefer to act selfishly to maintain their own comfort
level, you still somehow hold out hope that given literally free money, that
the majority wouldn't also use this money selfishly to maintain their comfort
level.

~~~
GrinningFool
> find it interesting that even after a worldwide pandemic has proved that the
> majority of humans will prefer to act selfishly to maintain their own
> comfort level

Has that been proven?

~~~
michannne
The majority of humans are indeed acting selfishly to maintain their own
comfort level, yes. You can argue that they aren't, in which case I'd like to
see the indication that either A) the majority of people are acting in the
interest of others when they go about their daily business spreading the
illness, or B) the majority of people are not preferring to maintain their
comfort level.

It is proven for me as I can see both A and B are false.

------
tuna-piano
Am I the only one who hates both the term, the idea and frequent discussions
of "Universal Basic Income"?

-The term feels like just a rebranding of slightly-modified concepts that have been around forever

-The term also says "income" when it's really just "Forced Redistribution (FR)". ... why does the term focus on the money people receive and not the money people pay?

-The discussions in favor of UBI/FR generally revolve around new inventions which could lead to mass unemployment. These are such old arguments that have been debunked with every new mass-unemployment causing invention, from the rake to the tractor to the sewing machine. UBI/FR supporters have the same arguments as those who burned down sewing machine factories in the 1800s.

-What would the world look like if we implemented UBI/FR after the sewing machine or tractor? And would year 2500 look better with or without UBI/FR?

-Why do people support a government policy that they wouldn't support for their own children? Most of us have known of or heard of rich families where the kids got all the money and resources they need into adulthood vs those who were forced to earn their own way... it's obvious which parenting strategy turns out better.

~~~
Sodman
> Why do people support a government policy that they wouldn't support for
> their own children? Most of us have known of or heard of rich families where
> the kids got all the money and resources they need into adulthood vs those
> who were forced to earn their own way... it's obvious which parenting
> strategy turns out better.

UBI is about providing a floor for people. Most people like the idea of their
children having access to food, shelter, healthcare and education. From the
article, the amount here is "just above Germany's poverty line", so it's not
fair to compare it to "rich families where the kids got all the money and
resources". People earning this UBI have enough to survive, but not much more.
This isn't enough money to go on family vacations, buy fancy cars, live in
lavish homes, etc. There is still a strong incentive to work and improve your
personal circumstances, the main difference is that losing your job, or having
a medical issue, shouldn't be enough to put you or your family on the street.

