
Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI - bobrenjc93
https://www.businessinsider.com/andrew-yang-talks-tech-san-francisco-sam-altman-fundraiser-2019-11
======
kyledrake
"Altman, who favors UBI, said in exchange for a floor, he’d like to see no
ceiling on earnings, as some, like presidential hopeful Vermont Sen. Bernie
Sanders, have suggested. And like Friedman, Altman suggested tying the amount
of the basic income to a fixed percentage of GDP. “Right now, because people
are rightly angry that there's no floor, and that most people have no real
chance to be super successful, we sort of say billionaires are inherently
evil,” he said. “I think it would be great to say, we as a society will allow
trillionaires in exchange for a floor for everyone.”"

The problem with having a handful of people be billionaires and trillionaires
is that money is power, and with that amount of money you have nearly
unlimited power and influence over everyone and everything. A system that will
concentrate that much power _will_ be inherently evil, it will and does serve
the needs of that few over the needs of the many.

UBI just doesn't solve that, and it especially doesn't solve that when it's
being funded by a highly regressive VAT tax that none of these ultra wealthy
people will ever pay as Yang is proposing.

Honestly, this whole Yang project just strikes me as a weird 10x play by
wealthy bay area VC types to get out of paying more progressive income taxes
by attempting to bamboozle voters into a regressive tax based UBI they will
shoulder the burdon on, so we will forget about major structural problems like
wealth concentration.

Regardless, no, I don't think trillionaires should exist and I'm pretty
confused why anybody thinks that is going to work out well for them,
competition, or democracy.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> UBI just doesn't solve that

Doesn't it though? You create a floor, so that anyone with a miserable job can
say "screw you" and quit and go start their own business without having to
worry about how they're going to make rent before the new business starts
making money, and you get a lot more competition. More smaller companies
instead of fewer bigger companies. And the big companies would have to pay
more to get some people to not do that, so you get less inequality.

How _isn 't_ that solving the problem?

~~~
anovikov
Seriously there is NO WAY in the world an UBI will cover the rent - even the
rent alone - in any place where it makes sense starting a business.

I would imagine an UBI will be mostly used by people to exclude themselves
from active workforce to "retire" in low-cost destinations. Because that will
be the only thing it will really allow doing.

Say you impose a super huge 30% income tax (anything above that will cause a
revolt in the middle classes, and mass exodus in upper classes), that will
only give an equivalent of a minimum wage to everyone (ok 20% above national
minimum wage but some states have it higher)... how far does that get you?

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Seriously there is NO WAY in the world an UBI will cover the rent - even the
> rent alone - in any place where it makes sense starting a business.

You can get a one bedroom in Austin for less than $800/month, to say nothing
of arrangements that involve roommates or shared facilities or couples who
would then have a second UBI.

> I would imagine an UBI will be mostly used by people to exclude themselves
> from active workforce to "retire" in low-cost destinations. Because that
> will be the only thing it will really allow doing.

You're forgetting the possibility for supplemental income. Combine the UBI
with a part time job and you could live just outside of New York City and
spend the other half of your time on the business for as long as it takes
until it makes enough for you to quit the part time job.

There is also a whole lot of work that really doesn't care about location at
all. You can do software development in Kansas if you want to, as well as
anything else that involves selling your product over the internet.

> Say you impose a super huge 30% income tax (anything above that will cause a
> revolt in the middle classes, and mass exodus in upper classes)

The marginal rate isn't what causes revolts, it's the effective rate. Middle
class people don't care about paying $12,000 in tax if they also get a $12,000
UBI. Upper middle class people aren't going to revolt over a difference
between the two of an amount similar to what they pay already for the existing
welfare system we would no longer need.

And the whole point of using VAT is that billionaires and international
corporations _can 't_ avoid it.

~~~
gonational
> You can get a one bedroom in Austin for less than $800/month

... because there is currently no program in Austin whereby residents each get
$1,000 of free money month.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
True, if only people in Austin got a $1000 UBI then many people would want to
move there for the UBI and rents there would go up by supply and demand.

But if everybody in the country gets the same UBI then people are going to
move from where to where exactly?

If the answer is from places with higher housing costs to places with lower
housing costs, I think you're going to find that there's more than enough
empty space in the middle of nowhere to satisfy _all_ of that demand without
significant rent increases.

~~~
gonational
You’ve misunderstood. I’m not suggesting that the rent would go up because of
the increased demand for a living in Austin. I am suggesting that the rent
would go up because everybody has at least $1,000 per month of free money, on
top of whatever income they earned.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
By what mechanism does that cause the rent to go up?

The entire reason people are setting up shop in Austin is that it's so much
less expensive than San Francisco. If landlords in Austin tried to raise rents
then people would go to Kansas City or Buffalo or Louisville.

Some of the landlords would figure out that it's more profitable to have
tenants at lower rents than higher rents and no tenants.

~~~
maxsilver
> If landlords in Austin tried to raise rents then people would go to Kansas
> City or Buffalo or Louisville.

In the real world, most people can't just relocate their life on a whim, and
the majority of citizens are more-or-less locked into a specific area for long
periods of time, for a whole bunch of reasons. (Employer, Spouse, Children,
Extended Family, Networks, etc)

It's not _impossible_ to relocate or anything. But most people can't do so,
and the few who can usually can't do so easily. It's not like window shopping
for cars or clothes, these markets are effectively soft-Monopolies.

If landlords in Austin raised rents, _most people_ would just have to eat it,
unless it got to dystopian levels that _forced_ them to relocate.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
They still can't, because they're not even _local_ monopolies.

There are a thousand local landlords. If they all decided to double rents,
maybe only 5% of the local population would move out, but then 5% of the
landlords would have empty properties. They're individually better off to get
someone in there at a lower rent than have an empty unit, so they advertise a
lower rent and take one of the tenants from a landlord across the street. Now
that landlord has the empty unit and they do the same thing.

Which means Kansas City is competition for Austin even if 95% of the people
there would never actually move. (Assuming cities where the job market,
amenities and so on are similar.)

Also, when rents are higher, there is incentive to build new housing to
capture the profits.

Rents only get high when they're not just eager to arbitrarily raise rents but
somehow colluding to constrain supply, which is hard for thousands of
landlords to do except through zoning. But that's completely independent from
how much money the local people have. There are cities that have the same
median income and higher rents because the local government imposes housing
supply constraints.

------
sethammons
I like the idea of freeing people to be able to quit and get a new job any
time, where quitting today means a real threat of losing one's home,
transportation, or ability to eat (never mind fueling the cycle of debt that
keeps so many down). I think it would be a net benefit if people could tell
oppressive employers to fuck off without fear.

However, a welfare state is a real thing to be worried about. My sister works
up in Alaska. Tribal members up there have exactly what UBI promises: a
baseline check every month. This has not stirred people to innovation. It has
led to a gluttony of drug and alcohol addition and a forgetting of the ways to
live off the land. There are a few elders who would like to teach the young
how to do so, but they are not interested. Nobody wants to do better and there
is high resentment towards the federal government.

I've seen it in other places. When you are outside the balance of exchange
with someone (or some organization), resentment breeds. I can see UBI causing
more resentment on both sides, the receivers and the payers.

Economically, we would have to produce enough "extra" that a full, regular
distribution of that wealth could continue to work with producers continuing
to produce, and a growing collection of people who would lose all interest in
contributing. We would have to have a way to deal with a dramatic rise in
apathetic people. We would have to have a way to deal with producers just
leaving the country.

In The Expanse, Earth has a UBI like thing. The whole planet. You get
subsistence living, and if you want to be a producer, you start by doing
menial work for a period of time to prove you are willing to work hard. It is
also sci-fi for a reason :).

Again, I would love to free people from tyrannical employers and the fear and
stress of not knowing what next month brings due to finances (I've lived that
the majority of my life). I don't see how UBI can work.

~~~
kmonsen
If we want to free people from tyrannical employers, isn’t free healthcare
step one? Perhaps some sort of more available food stamps step two?

I would agree with a lot of the criticism of government should not target too
closely etc, but those two programs seems pretty well run compared to the free
market alternatives. At least when they are allowed to.

~~~
rustybelt
Yep, that's why Yang completely lost me when he dropped Medicare for All.
Universal healthcare would dramatically reduce the dependance of workers on
exploitative employers and it's way more feasible than UBI. Over 50% of
healthcare today in the US is already funded by the government.

~~~
Reedx
He supports healthcare for everyone, that's literally the goal[1]. He just has
a different approach to get there. And some argue it's a more realistic
approach than Medicare for All, which (at this point) doesn't seem terribly
likely to get widespread support and pass.

1\. [https://www.yang2020.com/policies/medicare-for-
all/](https://www.yang2020.com/policies/medicare-for-all/)

~~~
kyledrake
None of the stuff Yang is proposing will pass the current Senate, including
and especially UBI. Why not drop UBI then as well?

The fact is that he is trying to call his fake health plan "Medicare for All"
when it doesn't even have a public option and was recently called out on it,
and frankly it makes him look more like a swindler than a serious candidate.

[https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1211317868555423744](https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1211317868555423744)

~~~
Reedx
Aye, that is disappointing. It's oddly out of character for him and I think he
made a big mistake using that label. Not sure what's going on there and hope
they revise that.

As for UBI, I have the same concern and worry he's too far ahead of the
zeitgeist for it. Though he makes a strong case when you hear him talk about
it and answer questions in depth, even to many across the aisle. And generally
I think he'd have a good shot of at least bringing people together enough that
they could have a good faith debate. Outside of UBI I suspect he'd make a
surprising amount of progress.

------
intuitionist
Altman and Yang are a natural fit because they’re both very invested (Altman
literally so) in the narrative that automation is coming for huge numbers of
jobs. But the economic statistics just don’t back this up. Total factor
productivity, a (rough) measure of the technological contribution to economic
production, is growing considerably more slowly than it was during the early
2000s, and _much_ more slowly than during the 1930s, when the Second
Industrial Revolution really came for the masses (and helped catalyze a huge
labor shift away from agricultural work—but didn’t put all former farmers out
of jobs).

~~~
grecy
Even if automation isn't coming for people's job, isn't it time we moved away
from this idea that every single person has to work for 40 hours a week for 50
years of their life just to survive?

What about spending time with family, or learning a new language or just
enjoying one's time?

When do we reach that magical future where we actually have leisure time and
can enjoy the fact we're more advanced than we were a hundred years ago when
everyone worked hard?

I'd like to get there now.

~~~
JorgeGT
Answer is: never. The average person in the West has already surpassed the
comfort and standard of living of the average monarch a couple centuries ago,
but instead of settling we want more: traveling, more and more advanced tech,
vast amount of entertainment, etc.

Consider the multi-billion dollar media productions (games, TV series, movies,
music, books, etc.) that you can access at the command of your voice vs. the
same ol' jester, resident poet or occasional travelling theater company that
were the only option for a monarch not so many centuries ago.

~~~
snidane
So you are saying that we should feel like monarchs because we have TVs,
Netflixes, Games, gadgets, toys etc.

I would argue that many people nowadays feel more like slaves than monarchs
since they can hardly even afford healthcare in many cases, they probably
won't have a pension due to current demographics, they have to hand over half
of their salary to various land lords, tax lords, pension lords, healthcare
lords and other various fee lords.

True, It does feel like Feedalism again, but for many not from position of
monarchs but serfs.

~~~
paulddraper
> So you are saying that we should feel like monarchs

18th century monarchs, yes. (Not 21st century monarchs.)

> hardly even afford healthcare in many cases

Better than leeches though.

> they probably won't have a pension

The reason that's a problem is precisely because health is good.

> hey have to hand over half of their salary to various land lords

Most adults in the U.S. own their own home (modulo mortgage...but even very
wealthy people still choose to take mortgages for yet bigger houses). And
expensive housing is generally driven voluntary by urbanization.

If you offered me the choice of life as King George III or the average
American, I would choose the latter.

------
pascoej
Yang does have an interesting idea for campaign finance reform too. 100$ a
year for any citizen to spend on political campaigns. In some ways I think
this is bigger than the UBI. If everybody spent this voucher it would be ~23B,
almost 4x what was spent on federal races in 2016.

I think it will be more likely that our elected officials make better policy
for normal people if their campaign funding also comes from them. In federal
budget terms, 23B is cheap to increase political participation / trust.

While it’s entirely possible that corporations / billionaires increase their
expenditures to match, having “enough” money is more important than having
more money in political campaigns (or so I was taught in school.)

~~~
zpallin
As you pointed out, special interests will just raise the value of a
politician so the $100 disappears in value. That or buy out ads to convince
people to spend on their corporate sponsored candidates rather than the ones
seeking direct support from voters. Both of these already happen, so why
wouldn't they happen more? Solving this issue of corruption in campaign
finance requires a solution that only publicly financed campaigns can give.
Make it so that voting is all that matters in deciding an elected official and
sterilize campaign funding so it's not easy to corrupt.

~~~
aoeusnth1
The ratio of special interest funding would have to increase by 80x to
outweigh the $100 by a factor of 10:

Currently, the $100 democracy dollars would outweigh special interest
politician funding by 8:1, so for the pendulum to swing back in the other
direction implies that political favors go up nearly 100x in price. That seems
like an easy win to me.

~~~
zpallin
Special interest money absolutely does not need to outweigh the "democracy
dollars" contributions in order to be effective. It just needs to be enough to
sway the vote of the politicians. Most of the time voters aren't even aware of
the agreements their representatives had made with donors. This won't change
with "democracy dollars." Politicians will gladly take voter contributions,
but they'll continue to take special interest money until the laws change.

------
sak5sk
Great to see tech leaders get behind UBI. Now is the time and Yang is the
candidate of a lifetime. I never understood how people buy into the whole
"break up the tech giants" argument. It makes no sense, just a great platitude
with no real accomplishment. Who wants to use the 2nd best Twitter or
Facebook? Not a single person.

~~~
echelon
How does UBI even work? Won't it just lead to rampant inflation where the
basic income is spread thin, eaten up almost entirely by the rising cost of
goods? It seems like this in turn will require an even higher basic income,
which exacerbates the problem.

Isn't an analogous situation that of private loans for tuition? Tuitions have
risen across the board to eat up all the new "free" money in the system.

Won't UBI make goods much more expensive for everyone and also increase our
taxes? Wouldn't a better expenditure be providing healthcare?

I'm earnestly curious.

~~~
chr1
It depends on how government would get the money for UBI. If it goes ahead and
just prints more money then there will be rampant inflation, but if it
redirects money from other programs, the prices of some goods may change, but
there won't be inflation.

~~~
GarrisonPrime
Then there’s the behavioral factor to consider. Will UBI truly relieve
pressure and give people a hand up? Or will it result in a large swathe of the
population dropping out of the labor force and accepting a life of poverty and
marginalization? Could some UBI pushers actually see the latter as the true
goal?

Ask any Native American how empowering a UBI-esque system worked out for them.

Not that I’m rejecting the idea of UBI out of hand, but I’m very concerned
about the lack of such discussion.

~~~
jostylr
There is a Native American example with UBI (North Carolina, casino-based UBI)
and it sounds like it immediately improved outcomes and did not impact
working:

[https://thecorrespondent.com/4664/why-do-the-poor-make-
such-...](https://thecorrespondent.com/4664/why-do-the-poor-make-such-poor-
decisions/179307480-39a74caf)

Also, would you stop working if you got 12k a year for free? How much do the
wealthy make in dividends a year? Do they stop working? Maybe to ensure that
the wealthy continue to work, we should prevent any kind of returns on capital
investment. Maybe people should only make money through their labor?

But seriously, who wants to do nothing all day long? The UBI money takes away
stresses and maybe some will stop working for a boss, but they will find other
things to do with their time and, if it is valuable to others, they will
profit from it and do it more. So it goes.

~~~
hanniabu
As a personal anecdote, I would love volunteering with building homes, helping
elderly, or helping animal conservation and rehabilitation efforts. I would
also like to work on some inventions (I'm a mechanical engineer). However,
volunteering doesn't pay anything and inventing something is really risky, so
as a result I can't contribute in such ways to society and instead am working
at a job I hate contributing to my deteriorating quality of life and mental
health (i feel like a slave working towards having enough money to buy myself
from my owner).

~~~
echelon
> However, volunteering doesn't pay anything and inventing something is really
> risky, so as a result I can't contribute in such ways to society and instead
> am working at a job I hate contributing to my deteriorating quality of life
> and mental health (i feel like a slave working towards having enough money
> to buy myself from my owner).

I often wonder how many people feel this.

I don't feel quite as dire about it, but I absolutely agree that my best
contributions to society will be those I initiate and see to fruition on my
own accord. Unfortunately, I too have many ideas, yet so little time to work
on them.

It's too risky to quit work and embark on my own, so I only get 1/10th of my
vision done during the evening and weekend hours I can spare. And even then
I'm burning the last remaining cycles of effort I have during the day. It's a
slow, painful slog. But I am making progress.

If I were in the flip side position of being a CEO with a product vision and
lots of workers to see my ideas through to fruition, how many of my employees
would be stuck in the same trough of apparent underutilization and under-
fulfillment? If I empowered them to follow their own path and dreams, wouldn't
they quit and leave me with nobody to work on my vision?

If you get rid of the perhaps boring and mundane "keeping the lights on" jobs,
which are ever so important, then the product dies.

This is a hard problem.

~~~
hanniabu
> my best contributions to society will be those I initiate and see to
> fruition on my own accord

This is pretty much the essence I was getting at and what the goal is to solve

------
hnbreak
Yang says that breaking up tech monopolies won't help (with giving a very weak
example) but he doesn't give a proper answer how to get competition back. Why
does China have 20 different kind of Youtubes and the western world just one?

~~~
3131s
Yang wants to give everyone legal ownership of their own data. That is going
to be more disruptive to the tech industry than antitrust rulings against a
few companies.

~~~
paulgb
What does that actually mean in practice? From a technical perspective, thanks
to GDPR, Facebook and other sites now let you download your data (even outside
EU), but it hasn't led to a resurgence of competition in social networks. From
a legal perspective, you _do_ own the content you provide to Facebook, you
only provide them a non-exclusive license to use it.

------
root_axis
My main issue with UBI is that businesses will aggressively raise prices to
capture that money. Not every business will, but most will, so you can be damn
sure everyone's rent is going to increase at the highest rate legally
permissible all around the country.

~~~
darawk
Yes, prices will likely go up. However, they will not capture all of that
money. And UBI will allow people to have more choice in where they live. UBI
will give you the flexibility to move somewhere new and figure things out when
you get there, rather than having to have a job lined up immediately. This
should, at the margin, decrease the lock in effect of big cities, and maybe
even cause rents to decline over time.

~~~
thrower123
I'm hoping UBI exists in 10-20 years. I could take on my parents' home on that
kind of salary without thinking, and just dub along as a subsistence farmer/
occasional contractor.

------
outlace
There is already a UBI in place for veterans who suffered one of a number of
qualifying disabling conditions during as a result of military service.
Veterans can receive nearly $4000/mo if they are 100% service connected. Some
veterans have significant disabilities like missing limbs and others qualify
for things like arthritis or tinnitus. Many (in my estimation most) of them
could work but choose not to once they get this basic income.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
Do they lose that income if they start to work?

~~~
outlace
I don't believe so

------
gonational
I’m confident that we can all agree that large corporations are efficient at
extracting value from the economy (not to suggest that they don’t also add
value).

If we were to take the current system, with no changes made to the rules, and
send it forward 100 years in a time machine, I’m confident we can also agree
that consolidation by large corporations will have increased significantly
during this period of time.

If we can increase the velocity of the economy, I’m confident we can agree
that this would have a similar effect as the aforementioned time machine
scenario.

Indiscriminate injection of capital into an economy necessarily increases the
velocity of the economy.

If you’re with me this far, then you have come to the conclusion, for
yourself, that UBI will increase the velocity of the economy and further
consolidate wealth into the hands of large corporations.

Has it not occurred to you that there could be reasons, other than
philanthropy, that many of the proponents of UBI are
millionaires/billionaires, large corporations, and both of these in their
roles at economic think tanks?

~~~
PudgePacket
Multiple parties can benefit from UBI.

You also handwave and make a load of assumptions in each of your statements.

~~~
gonational
What are the statements I’ve made that are not A) rooted in generally accepted
economic theories or B) syllogism based on the other statements?

I don’t expect you’ll reply :]

~~~
PudgePacket
Of course not, you made so many statements it's not worth my time at all. Care
to provide sources for all your generally accepted economic theories ?

------
baron816
Andrew Yang is too early with the UBI, which in this case means he’s wrong. We
still need humans to make things and the future. A negative income tax would
work better now and would be a better segue to UBI.

~~~
tempsy
$12K/year is hardly a free ride to a life of no work. There will be a tiny
minority that somehow game it and live off that, but for the vast majority
it’s a cushion and not a replacement for work at all.

~~~
GarrisonPrime
I wish for your assessment of human nature to be accurate, but I’m quite
doubtful.

~~~
hacknat
What do you even mean? The average income in this country is ~45k. If that is
what he was proposing than maybe we’d have an issue, I guess, but I doubt it.
Everyone is so sure that people on UBI would stop working, and there is no
evidence to back it up. In the studies that have shown people who stop working
it is usually caregivers, which I would argue is a positive thing.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
The median US individual income ($31,099) is a better metric to use since the
average is more weighted by extremes that don't represent the "typical"
experience of people.

[1] According to google from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States)

------
shafyy
There are videos of this here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHuyuzcjSrw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHuyuzcjSrw)

------
banads
How can a US Dollar based UBI solve the problems of automation when the Super
Admins of the US Dollar are explicitly pursuing the opposite goal?

According to the Federal Reserve website, 2/3 of their main goals are:

1\. Seeking to maximize employment

2\. Maintaining stable prices

[https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/what-economic-goals-
does...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/what-economic-goals-does-federal-
reserve-seek-to-achieve-through-monetary-policy.htm)

Automation and ephemeralization minimize employment and prices, but the money
system seeks the opposite. Until these contradictions are reconciled, how can
a US Dollar based UBI _not_ fail?

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Simple proposition, but the Federal Reserve is not part of the US Government.
Perhaps it’s time that system be re-evaluated?

~~~
banads
Indeed, the Federal Reserve is over 100 years old. However, I fear the Fed is
such a powerful and entrenched legacy system that it is extremely unlikely for
it to be politically re-evaluated unless there were some sort of catastrophic
system failure.

------
carapace
Is anyone interested in starting a member-owned "General Automation Corp" to
just go ahead and UBI ourselves without waiting for politics?

I'm seriously you guys.

Bootstrap off some desert land, convert it into e.g. Village Homes[0] (but up
to date) using Permaculture, et. al. including local carbon-neutral fuel
production integrated into the ecosystem[1], lease/sell units, rinse and
repeat.

Alongside that, develop a kind of super-RepRap[2] to manufacture e.g. the
contents of a Daiso store[3].

(BTW, no cult shit, no radical new lifestyles, just a small town built as if
the last few centuries of progress actually happened: food production, power
capture & storage, automation, etc... You know: Star Trek TNG _sans_ fictional
technology.)

Anybody?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes)

[1] [http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/](http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/)

[2] [https://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap](https://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap)

[3] Not all human problems can be solved by a few ounces of plastic or metal,
but those that can, can be solved at Daiso for $1.50.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
If you invent a time machine, go back to places like Taos in the 1960s, lots
hippy communes that are now weird architecture AirBNBs. History repeats
itself, reality always wins.

~~~
carapace
Sorry, I have no idea how your comment connects with what I wrote.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
It’s been tried before. Lots of times. The reality of “let’s form our own
utopia town/city/commune” always loses out to reality of primal human
interests.

~~~
carapace
Ah, no, that's exactly what I _don 't_ want to do, more-or-less for just that
reason.

Just riffing...

It would be a kind of vertically-integrated real estate development company,
along with some manufacturing and tech/software company-ish.

Essentially, it's a terraforming company and the eco-cities it makes are the
product.

We have the technology: Christopher Alexander's "Pattern Language" et. al.;
Permaculture (applied ecology if you prefer), including carbon-neutral
integrated alcohol fuel production (also, tug on this thread: "New Alchemy
Institute" "living machines" [1] ); Bucky Fuller's "Design Science Revolution"
for inspiration and large-scale efficiency[0]; etc... (Those are just my own
"favorite hits".)

The idea is both 1) sell/lease cheaply ("affordable housing") to alleviate
economic pressure, and 2) provide a steady income to members to offset
economic obsolescence.

(I maintain that UBI makes sense only in the context of wide-spread inability
for the "average person" to compete in the job market. And I think that's
already happening. I mean, if I wasn't good at computers I don't know wtf I
could do to make a living. I'd probably be homeless!)

I don't want this hypothetical company to be political or ideological (not
even Hippie ideology) just economic (to the extent that that's realistic, eh?)
We can work out the politics of everything once people have a place to live
and a steady "three square meals a day", and it's ecologically harmonious,
which is another way to say cheap and bountiful.

Frankly, I'm not qualified to run this sort of thing. I'm a recluse, with ways
different than your own. But it seems to me that it would be sooooo easy, and
that there are enough people and enough "free-floating" capital to make it
happen.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project)

> It is moon-crater-shaped: the crater's truncated cone top opening is a half-
> mile in diameter, rim-to-rim, while the truncated mountain itself is a mile
> in diameter at its base ring. The city has a one-mile (1.6 km)-diameter
> geodesic, quarter-sphere transparent umbrella mounted high above it to
> permit full, all-around viewing below the umbrella's bottom perimeter. The
> top of the dome roof is 1,000 feet (300 m) high. The bottom rim of the
> umbrella dome is 500 feet (150 m) above the surrounding terrain

Some more information and a couple of pictures of the model at:
[https://solutions.synearth.net/a-community-dwelling-
machine/](https://solutions.synearth.net/a-community-dwelling-machine/)

[1]
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22New+Alchemy+Institute%22++%22li...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22New+Alchemy+Institute%22++%22living+machines%22&atb=v60-1&ia=web)

------
ALittleLight
Yang's proposal doesn't seem like UBI to me. A key component of UBI being the
U - i.e that it is universal. However, Yang wants to pay for it, in part, by
adding new taxes. In order for some people to make money, others must, on net,
lose money.

To actually have a UBI I think the government needs something valuable, and
can then sell that valuable and distribute the money equally. For example, in
Alaska, the state has the rights to oil. The state of Alaska sells that right
to private companies and splits the proceeds with the citizens. That's a UBI
in a way that taxation and redistribution is not.

Automation could play a role with UBI. I imagine that eventually industries
could reach complete automation. When that happens, in my view, they should be
nationalized. The government should run the automated industries and pay the
proceeds to the public. The more we automate, the more basic income everyone
will get. This also answers the "Why not 2,000 a month, or 30,000?" Objection
to Yang, by having a natural brake - we'll give as much basic income as we
can. And it gives an incentive to keep automating.

~~~
snidane
I agree, but about the part about nationalization of companies. Historically
it tended to produce bad outcomes. People just don't put the same effort if
they don't own it.

What actually works is government stepping in by producing a competitor when
it sees oligopolies developing and the participating companies not innovating
further but just undermining each other or colluding to undermine interests of
their customers.

For example in the early railroads there were tons of companies building their
own railroads instead of coopearing with others to reuse. Telecommunication
networks tend to get stuck similarly. That's how AT&T was created to have a
single infrastructure entity and lot of competition on top of that
infrastructure. Similar situation can be observed in social networks today.
The business model for them is not that great unless you infect them with
advertisement. Twitter struggled a lot with monetization because it feels more
like a infrastructure project similar to roads or phone lines. Perhaps it is
time for government to create competing social network or just pump support
money to a community created one.

------
mensetmanusman
If instead of the federal government paying the Egyptian military millions of
dollars, or building billion dollar buildings in Iraq, they were were giving
out micro payments to citizens, I don’t see how that could be worse than our
current model of spending.

------
DoreenMichele
UBI is not going to fix our problems. You would do more good rebuilding the
million SROs we've torn down in recent decades.

Small, affordable residential spaces in walkable neighborhoods mostly don't
exist in the US. Injecting funds won't change that fundamental fact.

Most likely, passing out UBI will actually make it harder to solve underlying
problems of that sort because rich people, who have zero need of UBI, will
have a new excuse to ignore such problems. UBI will become a reason to say
"Quit your bitching!" without having fixed anything.

------
nixpulvis
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Welfare is a tax, and a much needed one
since the alternative costs even more. I don't really see how a universal
basic income (UBI) solves much of anything that other welfare programs
couldn't solve more effectively. If the argument is that it's easier to just
give everyone $1,000, then I think you're a lazy policymaker.

~~~
Reedx
Giving people the money directly, for them to use where it's needed in their
particular case, is far more efficient than any program could ever possibly
be. It's just the math and physics of it. Programs have all sorts of overhead
and need to be generalized. They introduce inefficiency by default. And the
larger it is, the more inefficient it becomes. That's just how it works with
any organization. Even in the private sector (startup vs corporation).

With UBI, are they a citizen and 18+? Send check. Not much overhead there.

~~~
nixpulvis
I'd love to know exactly how you figure it's more efficient. Sure, it's more
efficient for the bureaucrats, but for the market as a whole? If you give me
$1,000 a month, I can promise you I won't just be spending it on my _needs_
every month. Even people in massive debt don't always spend towards their
needs effectively.

------
Larrikin
Everything I've read about UBI in experiments sounds great. But I've never
heard anyone address the idea that when everyone is getting it, my landlord or
some other rent seeker also knows this information, and simply raises my rent
by however much I'm getting from the government because they know I can pay it
and everyone else in the industry has done the same.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The solution to that is remove the rent seeking by introducing new supply of
housing. Or regulating it like utilities.

------
ColonelSanders
It's not UBI, it's a rolling stimulus package :)

That money is going to spent. For startups, 100 bucks, 300 bucks, 800 bucks.
Some of that is going to go to subscriptions. That's for the digital service
economy.

And it's good for early startups - because if someone has spare change,
they're going to be willing to take a chance on an up and coming app.

~~~
tells
In a way very true but also subsidized by the wealthy's spending habits. To
mention UBI without the accompanying VAT would not properly show how
progressive this system can be with higher taxes applied to non essential
goods.

People concerned with it wiping out safety nets needs to understand how under
equipped and under utilized they are for numerous reasons. The average
benefits also average to only about $500/month. UBI is a new economic floor in
which we can mobilize large swaths of the population and revitalize small
towns that are falling apart. The shift in economic power will be massive and
it's incredible to think about.

[https://www.urban.org/research/publication/five-things-
you-m...](https://www.urban.org/research/publication/five-things-you-may-not-
know-about-us-social-safety-net)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/13-million-p...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/13-million-
people-in-poverty-are-disconnected-from-the-social-safety-net-most-of-them-
are-white/2019/02/04/807516a0-2598-11e9-81fd-b7b05d5bed90_story.html)

~~~
GarrisonPrime
If history is any indication, the recipients are likely to become just more
complacent and detached. I fail to see how people would become “mobilized” and
towns revitalized when they have even less incentive to leave the house.

If anything, I see UBI shifting power even more into the hands of the elites,
as massive numbers of the lower classes drop out of the workforce and no
longer care about anything the politicians or big businesses do, so long as
the cash keeps flowing.

This could very well be the intent.

Take a look at any Native American reservation, or any caged animal for that
matter. Hardly vibrant.

------
moralsupply
The government would need to get money somewhere for the UBI program.

It can only do so either through taxation, or by printing money, as the
government is not a value-generation enterprise.

If UBI gets its funding by taxation, UBI can't work economically (not to say
it wouldn't be "UBI"). Even if you tax all the rich people, it won't provide
enough money for the program. Besides, you can't really tax the rich, the
moment you declare an aggressive taxation regime on them, they fly their money
out of the country (and possibly their businesses too, which would generate
poverty). If the assumption is that it would tax "everyone but the poor" then
it's not universal "income", it's just another "social program" paid by the
middle class.

If UBI is funded by printing money, then it's a debt generation engine. The
USA is already heavily indebted due to at least 100 years of irresponsible
governments spending a lot more than what they made through taxes. UBI would
only make matters worse, and could easily lead to a currency crash within at
most a couple decades (which would wipe out retirement funds, savings, etc.
therefore generating poverty and causing social unrest)

~~~
atq2119
> the government is not a value-generation enterprise

This is incorrect. The value generated by providing a stable framework in
which people can go about their daily lives is incredible. It's hard to
measure this value, of course, but our modern way of life is impossible
without this framework.

~~~
moralsupply
Without prices it's not possible to measure the "value" of goods or services.
Which is the same thing as saying that without prices there's no "value"
generated.

The government makes its own money (generating inflation, which is taxation on
savings), and takes money from people through taxation in various ways. It
then spends that money in any way it wants, without a price system to signal
where that money should be spent. Therefore, it ends up generating
"malinvestments", where money is poured in the government functions, social
programs, war, "economic incentive" programs, etc. according to the current
political agenda, which is generally of low time preference (as politicians
have to keep promising on things they can deliver within their mandates).

The modern state (which dates from the 1700's) might have had its historical
justification on the basis of making management costs smaller (as in: property
records, basic infrastructure, etc.). But as time goes by and technology
improves, making both management and transaction costs diminish, the need for
a centralized state becomes less important. The problem, however, is that
governments want to persist (as they have a large amount of politicians and
public workers), and instead of lowering taxes and being less invasive over
time, they are progressively doing the opposite.

~~~
atq2119
> Without prices it's not possible to measure the "value" of goods or
> services. Which is the same thing as saying that without prices there's no
> "value" generated.

It's really, really not the same. Just because you can't measure something
properly, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Just how absurd that thought is becomes obvious when you translate it to a
different topic: Magnetic fields did not spontaneously begin to exist when
humans started to be able to measure them accurately, for example.

What it does mean is that we don't have as good an understanding of the
concept of value as we have of electro-magnetism. That's not surprising, of
course, since the inherent complexity of the notion of value is much greater.

------
keiferski
I haven’t read all of the literature on basic income, but my (admittedly semi-
educated) impression is that one potential downside is that it fosters
dependence on the state and is thus not anti-fragile.

I’m just thinking out loud here, but: what if instead of a flat cash payment,
the basic income program provided free technologies that covered basic needs.
For example, a small greenhouse device that can grow enough food to sustain a
family. Or a 3D printer that can turn raw materials into clothing or shelter.
In terms of cash needs, you could create a sort of minimum-wage Uber-style
online mechanical Turk system that allows one to put in work and generate
cash. You would theoretically get the benefits of basic income without having
them be controlled by an external actor.

I don’t know enough about farming, 3D printing or biology to know whether this
is feasible, but it seems within the realm of possibility. Have any economists
explored options like this?

~~~
pdonis
_> what if instead of a flat cash payment, the basic income program provided
free technologies that covered basic needs_

What if, instead of yammering about UBI, Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur, went
out and started a company to _make_ such technologies? The way to innovate is
to innovate, not to try to milk money out of the government.

The whole discussion about UBI misses this basic point: to make it easier for
people to make a living, you don't give them more money, you _make the basic
needs of life cheaper_. And why doesn't that happen? Because the government
keeps putting its thumb on the scale and preventing people from doing it. For
example, the government subsidizes large agribusinesses instead of letting
innovators and entrepreneurs find cheaper ways of providing people with food.
The government prints money and gives it to banks for mortgage loans to keep
home prices high while rigging building codes so the only method of
construction that's feasible is two by fours and drywall, instead of letting
innovators and entrepreneurs figure out cheaper and more durable methods of
construction for homes.

~~~
randomdata
_> For example, the government subsidizes large agribusinesses instead of
letting innovators and entrepreneurs find cheaper ways of providing people
with food._

The primary subsidy afforded to farmers is effectively assistance in paying
insurance premiums. Insurance that exists to keep farms afloat during bad
years in an environment that is highly volatile. The intent is not to make
food cheaper (although that may happen as a side effect), but rather to ensure
there are still farmers around next year to grow the next crop.

I am not sure that really limits the desire of innovators and entrepreneurs to
seek out ways to provide cheaper food. I would argue that there is still great
incentive to do exactly that. Someone who can successfully do so is in a great
position to become the next large agribusiness. Those who have large
agribusinesses today do so because they were the innovators and entrepreneurs
of the past who figured out how to sharpen their pencil to a finer point than
their neighbours.

The insurance system probably limits innovation in finding ways to survive bad
years independent of government support, but I'm not sure how much that
relates to the particular topic at hand.

~~~
pdonis
_> The primary subsidy afforded to farmers is effectively assistance in paying
insurance premiums._

But the vast majority of the subsidy goes not to small individual farmers, who
might need such insurance (although even on the assumption that they do,
private sector insurance companies and speculators could provide it more
efficiently than the government does), but to large agribusinesses who have
more than enough resources and diversity to self-insure. So the entities who
are getting the subsidy don't actually need it. But it makes a great way for
politicians to stealthily transfer wealth to their donors and supporters.

 _> The intent is not to make food cheaper (although that may happen as a side
effect)_

It doesn't make food cheaper, it makes it more expensive and creates a
mismatch between supply and demand.

 _> I am not sure that really limits the desire of innovators and
entrepreneurs to seek out ways to provide cheaper food._

It might not limit the desire, but it certainly limits the ability. It's hard
to compete with large businesses that get government subsidies they don't
actually need.

~~~
randomdata
_> But the vast majority of the subsidy goes not to small individual farmers,
who might need such insurance_

You are quite right that there is no preferential treatment for smaller
farmers. It is simply for each dollar in premiums required, 60¢ is paid for by
the farmer, 40¢ is paid by the government. It is true that those who pay the
most in premiums (i.e. the largest farms) will receive the most in subsidies.
It is designed to be a fair system without preference for any particular farm.

 _> large agribusinesses who have more than enough resources and diversity to
self-insure._

On the flip side, small farmers have off-farm jobs so a loss on the farm is
not likely to sink them. They still have their day job to pay the bills.

 _> private sector insurance companies and speculators could provide it more
efficiently than the government does_

I'm a tad bit skeptical. Private insurance has done well to serve individual
events like a house fire or automobile accident, but when things happen on a
grand scale like a major flood or widespread fire, it seems they fall back to
government bailouts. The trouble with insurance on the farm is that it isn't
usually just one farmer with failure. It is all the farmers at the same time.
Private insurance hasn't proven a model to handle such cases, and if you're
going to rely on the government to step in anyway as we've seen many times in
the private insurance space when disaster strikes a large area, why not codify
that action?

 _> It's hard to compete with large businesses that get government subsidies
they don't actually need._

I am quite interested in your elaboration on this as I am not seeing how large
businesses are advantaged by the subsidy in a way that small business are not.
Proportionately, the subsidy given to each farmer is equal.

~~~
pdonis
_> for each dollar in premiums required, 60¢ is paid for by the farmer, 40¢ is
paid by the government_

I have no idea where you are getting this from. There are no actual
"premiums". There is no actual insurance involved. The "insurance" is, as you
originally said, "effective"\--for certain crops, if their market price is
below a certain price set by the government, the government pays farmers the
difference as a subsidy. But only for certain crops, and those crops (the
biggest one is corn) are mostly grown by large agribusinesses, not small
farms. (The corn subsidy is even worse because much of the corn produced
doesn't get eaten, it gets turned into ethanol to put in gasoline, for no good
reason.)

 _> small farmers have off-farm jobs_

I don't know which small farmers you are talking about. Most small farms are
family owned businesses and provide the entire income for the family members
who participate. Family members who have off-farm jobs are the ones who have
left the farm and switched to other careers.

 _> Private insurance has done well to serve individual events like a house
fire or automobile accident, but when things happen on a grand scale like a
major flood or widespread fire, it seems they fall back to government
bailouts._

First, while that may be true, it doesn't mean the government provides the
insurance more efficiently.

Second, private insurance companies are often restricted by the government in
the premiums they can charge. For example, while flood insurance in regions
which flood frequently is not cheap, it is cheaper than it would be in a free
market, because in a free market the premiums would be based solely on
actuarial data on the frequency of flooding and the expected losses from
flooding, which would go up as more things of value were built in such areas.
But the government, due to political pressure, doesn't allow the premiums to
get that high, which means that people who choose to live in such areas, or
companies that choose to build infrastructure there, don't see the full costs
involved and so have less incentive to find somewhere else to go.

 _> I am not seeing how large businesses are advantaged by the subsidy in a
way that small business are not_

They are advantaged by being able to lobby to have the subsidies go to crops
that they can more easily grow. But they are further advantaged by the mere
existence of the subsidies, since they don't need them while smaller farms
might.

~~~
randomdata
_> I have no idea where you are getting this from._

Experience. I am a farmer.

 _> if their market price is below a certain price set by the government, the
government pays farmers the difference as a subsidy._

Yes. This is insurance. A claim is made if the price fails to meet the insured
value. There is also insurance against production output, which covers things
like weather events. This is where the vast majority of the subsidy dollars
go. Farmers pay 60% of the cost, the government pays 40% of the cost. As such,
like I mentioned, for every dollar required in insurance premiums, you pay
60¢, the government pays 40¢.

 _> I don't know which small farmers you are talking about_

The data indicates most farmers have off-farm jobs, myself included. I can
certainly talk about my small farm, if you wish. Let's face it, unless you
have a large farm, there simply isn't much work to do. You need an off-farm
job to remain viable. The customer isn't going to pay you to sit on HN all day
long. They will pay enough to justify the time you do spend farming, but the
rest of your time is up to you to figure out how to make it pay.

 _> because in a free market the premiums would be based solely on actuarial
data on the frequency of flooding and the expected losses from flooding_

It is interesting you mention data, as that is the primary reason why the
government operates this insurance system. It gives reason for farmers to
report what they are going to produce ahead of time, allowing the government
(and private sector) to make informed decisions.

 _> They are advantaged by being able to lobby to have the subsidies go to
crops that they can more easily grow._

I'm not sure what you mean? The subsidies give no preference to what you want
to grow. It is simply a matter of you paying 60¢ on every dollar or premium
required to insure you. The reason corn producers receive the most subsidies,
which is likely what you are thinking of, is simply because corn is the most
frequently grown crop – by a large margin. More acres means greater overall
risk, and therefore more overall insurance premiums. Which means that the 40¢
on each premium dollar equals a greater amount than a crop with lesser premium
demands.

If you want to grow tomatoes, you'll still get 40¢ on every premium dollar you
need to spend to enrol in the insurance system. The reason you'll probably
choose corn over tomatoes is simply because the market for corn is
tremendously larger. It is mostly eaten by animals and cars, which dwarf the
number of humans eating tomatoes by orders of magnitude, not to mention much
more easily shipped across the entire world. The market for tomatoes is highly
localized due to shipping issues (before reaching the processor) and a fairly
tough sell in comparison due to the much smaller market.

~~~
pdonis
_> Experience. I am a farmer._

Fair enough.

 _> This is insurance._

Not by any reasonable definition of that word. It's a subsidy. The fact that
you "file a claim" is just a way of using words to obfuscate what is really
going on.

 _> There is also insurance against production output, which covers things
like weather events._

This isn't really insurance either, because weather events that affect farm
output are not rare (neither are price fluctuations, for that matter), and
insurance is only supposed to insure against rare events. (Not to mention that
risks that affect everybody, instead of just a small percentage of people, are
not really insurable, as you yourself have already pointed out.)

 _> for every dollar required in insurance premiums, you pay 60¢, the
government pays 40¢_

What premiums?

Also, it makes no sense for the entity that is insuring you (the government)
to pay part of your premium.

 _> The subsidies give no preference to what you want to grow._

Yes, they do, since there are only subsidies for certain crops.

 _> unless you have a large farm, there simply isn't much work to do. You need
an off-farm job to remain viable. The customer isn't going to pay you to sit
on HN all day long. They will pay enough to justify the time you do spend
farming, but the rest of your time is up to you to figure out how to make it
pay._

In other words, you are confirming that small farmers are at a disadvantage
compared to large agribusinesses. Do you think large agribusinesses complain
that customers don't pay enough for them to make a living at farming?

To some extent this could be due to economies of scale, but given modern
technology I have difficulty believing that that alone is enough to account
for the obvious disparity between your description of how tough it is for
small farms to stay in business, and the position of large agribusinesses. If
the government is supposed to be helping farmers stay in business, it clearly
is not doing a very good job.

~~~
randomdata
_> What premiums?_

The money you have to pay to enrol in the insurance system? I'm not sure I
understand what you are asking here. The agriculture policy was reconfigured a
number of years ago. My farming career is admittedly too young to know how the
way things used to be, but perhaps that is our point of contention? That
you're remembering the way things used to be?

 _> This isn't really insurance_

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

 _> because weather events that affect farm output are not rare_

In aggregate across the entire country, sure. I doubt an individual farmer
will have many claims in their career. Disastrous weather events aren't that
common when observed within a single area. Areas that are naturally risker, of
course, pay higher premiums. This is no different than any other type of
insurance. When observed across the entire country, people make claims each
and every day within the private sector insurance system.

 _> Yes, they do, since there are only subsidies for certain crops._

But the insurance – and thus the subsidy on the premium – is available for
anything you'd ever want to grow. I guess if you want to start farming ragweed
you might be out of luck. Is that something you see viability in or are we
simply looking at made up hypotheticals that have no bearing in reality?

Besides, if you do want to start growing ragweed for whatever reason, since
there is no government insurance available you can buy your insurance from the
private sector at much lower cost, as you stated earlier in this thread. No
need for a subsidy in the first place thanks to the efficiency of the private
sector.

 _> In other words, you are confirming that small farmers are at a
disadvantage compared to large agribusinesses._

I suppose that in terms of economies of scale, larger farmers have an
advantage. The insurance system (and thus the subsidies we speak of) seems
quite fair to me, however. There is no preference given to any farmer. You pay
60% of your cost no matter how big or how small your farm is. If you want to
give preference to smaller farmers, I guess I'll take it, but I'm okay with
things being fair. It is only fair.

 _> Do you think large agribusinesses complain that customers don't pay enough
for them to make a living at farming?_

I'm not sure why anyone would complain, to be honest. On a per-hour basis, on
average, it pays better than software development, my other career. But it
only takes me a couple of months out of the year to do all the work. Why would
I sit around doing nothing the rest of the time? That seems rather silly. Why
would you, the person who eats my food, want to pay me to sit around 10 months
of the year when I'm happy to have another job to keep me busy? The big
farmers have to keep busy in order to make ends meet. Should there be
preference given to smaller farmers? And if so, shouldn't the consumer make
that choice on their own by choosing to buy from the smaller farmers?

~~~
pdonis
_> The money you have to pay to enrol in the insurance system?_

What money is that? I'm looking for some reference that explains to me what
"insurance system" you are talking about, because so far I have not found one.
Everything I have found talks about subsidies, not insurance.

 _> If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck..._

Which is exactly my point: what you are describing does not walk or quack like
insurance. It walks and quacks like a subsidy.

 _> the insurance – and thus the subsidy on the premium – is available for
anything you'd ever want to grow._

Again, I am looking for some kind of reference that says this, because so far
everything I have found talks about subsidies for certain crops only.

------
wufufufu
Using a concept from software engineering, why can't they just partially roll
this out by percentage or by state? Try swapping current benefits w/
equivalent UBI in a handful of states and study what happens?

------
tells
The most exciting thing about UBI is how versatile its benefits are for human
resilience.

Work conditions unfair? you have a much easier time quitting knowing you won't
be stuck with 0 income.

Politics overrun with corporate money? flush it out with grassroots donations
now that you have some pocket money.

Sick of the day to day grind? take your money to a community that fits with
your personality now that every community is getting a massive cash injection

Worried about a president like Trump cutting your SNAP benefits again? Opt-in
to UBI and never worry about your funds getting cut without the entire country
getting infuriated.

People rarely feel this level of freedom. I've only felt this level of
security recently but I believe everyone deserves this. I was only lucky to
have made it this far from the opportunities given to me by my parents and the
support I had when I couldn't stop fucking up. People need to be able to take
risks and have retries. Without it, you get people working jobs they hate
while envying lives they'll never have.

~~~
GarrisonPrime
Yes, free money magically appearing would make life easier for the individuals
receiving it (at least, in the short term). No one is arguing otherwise. The
concern is that it may have even greater negative effects on the economy as a
whole.

~~~
matz1
As for right now, the US economy as a whole is looking great. GDP number is
good, stock market at high, etc but for most ordinary people those means
nothing, they still suffer.

------
babycake
What's to stop companies from just upping their prices to absorb the $1k given
to us? We need a real UBI scheme, this policy won't solve anything.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
All companies won't do this because they're looking to maximize their profits.
One of the key factors that consumers look at is the price of a product, so if
3 competitors raise prices (due to UBI) and one keeps it the same or lowers
their prices, in a well functioning market I would expect that competitor to
start to take over more marketshare.

------
dublidu
With unemployment rate at below 4%, where is the evidence that we have enough
automation to warrant UBI?

------
ubiopinion
UBI is just an excuse to do the real fix, and that's tax the wealthy and the
corporations their fair share.

It's ridiculous my tax rate is over 30% while wealthy people has it at 15%,
and Amazon has it at 0%. That's the real problem! Yang wants to give people
#1kBro so they can shut up about the real issue here is tax fairness.

~~~
roenxi
I agree with your overall point that this result is backwards to what people
probably want. That being said the situation is hardly ridiculous.

Eg, To a pretty reasonable first approximation, all of Amazon's income is
either going to be (1) distributed to shareholders and trigger income/capital
gains tax or (2) invested in making goods cheaper for amazon's customers.

It isn't immediately obvious that it is a good idea to tax a system designed
to get goods to people cheaply. The money Amazon reinvests in itself is in the
short term all about making life better for its customers, not its owners. In
the long term that reverses, but the reversal triggers additional tax events.

> It's ridiculous my tax rate is over 30% while wealthy people has it at 15%

The wealthy will be paying much more tax than you though. In raw amounts, the
wealthy are doing much more to run the government financially than you are by
orders of magnitude.

It isn't immediately laughable. A billionaire is making an absurd contribution
vs. other taxpayers even at a 5%. And again, that part of their money isn't
going towards themselves, it is difficult to consume that much in real
resources in a year. It is likely going to investing in things that other
people want.

There is no obviously-right or obviously-wrong with tax. Systems are
complicated.

~~~
mwilcox
In reality Amazon is accumulating cash faster than it can spend it, same as
the rest of big tech. If it had things to reinvest it into it wouldn't be such
a problem

~~~
throwno
Once your business is accumulating cash faster than it can spend it, it's time
to pay a dividend.

------
Unsimplified
My problem with UBI is

1\. It's not fair work-sharing, if people can live on it.

2\. There's no economic mechanism that guarantees we'll have enough money to
fund it every month.

I propose another solution. Accessible, high paying jobs. If someone is
unskilled, train them. Once they are skilled, guide them to useful work.

~~~
Red_Leaves_Flyy
This forces the bag holders to pay more. What happens when companies expenses
increase? They increase their costs, cut jobs, cut benefits, and in very rare
cases take short term losses to implement one of the former methods.

There are not enough high paying jobs. Period. Hard stop. There won't ever be.

Now, we need gas station attendants, room cleaners, baggers, bus drivers.
These jobs will be replaced by much less expensive robots. Just like
switchboard operators, seamstresses, tailors, cobblers, shoe shiners,
appliance repairmen have all largely been replaced.

Pray tell, what high paying jobs will these people be given when they're put
out of work? Who will pay to train them? How will they afford to live during
the 2-120mos of training they'll need to get these high pain paying jobs?

UBI should be funded by a proportional tax on every product and the man hours
of work it replaces. A calculator can do in 15 minutes what an average
American would spend a day doing. Just as an example everyone should
immediately grok. Then scale these up and require companies applying for
patents, patent renewals, or business licenses to figure out how long it would
take to do a job without their tool by comparing to other available
alternatives. A positive net benefit of this is all the new jobs made figuring
out how damn hard shit is to do without tools. Companies can then use their
numbers to advertise.

Mind you, both our solutions are wholly unrealistic.

~~~
Unsimplified
I'm doubtful of any tax-based plan as a longterm solution. Here's why. Money
needs to flow in a circle for a sustainability. But we can't force people to
spend all their money monthly and even then tax is not 100% so net negative
monthly shortage risk. Maybe we need a spend it or lose it basic-credit
system.

About high paying jobs, suppose we pay 100$/hr for people to monitor the
machines, up to a cap of 1K$/mth.

Here's one of the semi startrek-esque longterm solution that works reliably
but not yet possible. Suppose basic goods productivity improves 10000X. Then a
small number of people can produce the basics for everyone without any money
issues involved.

~~~
Red_Leaves_Flyy
Just to be clear. You're doubtful that this will work so we shouldn't try, and
should continue to watch people living and dying on the streets from the
comforts of the lavish accommodations?

Then you go on to propose fantastical, never gonna happen, jobs just poofing
into existence at some indeterminate date in the future? Perhaps when enough
people have died on the streets as to make UBI palatable over more food and
housing riots? That's where we are headed if we can't start fixing these
problems there will be riots.

