
What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money? - bkurtz13
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/
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bko
I was thinking about this issue when I attended a meet up for independent game
developers. I was shocked at the number of people I had met that just develop
games full time. I met an entire team of 4 people that have been working full
time over the last year designing and developing a mobile game. They have a
playable prototype and it's fairly entertaining but nothing ground-breaking in
my opinion. Running the numbers in my head, I thought that this game would
have to clear over a million dollars for it to even be considered a break-even
for 4 well educated, hard working young people working over a year on the
venture. I didn't know their personal financial situations, but I couldn't
help but be both envious and terrified.

I met another person who worked on indie game development for two years and
now works for a company designs games for others for money up front. He told
me he hadn't made any money in the years working for himself.

It's incredible how many young people devote their time to passion projects
with the very limited social safety net of the US. Surely a basic income will
increase the allure. The question is, does the world need more indie mobile
game developers?

~~~
jjn2009
These people are the exception not the rule, for every person like this there
are many times more of those who would take the dole and do nothing with
themselves. Basic income might increase the allure of risky proposition, I
think in most cases these groups of people estimated some risk/reward function
of their endeavours, considering the reward more so than the risk, but there
is a healthy combination of the carrot and the stick. Basic income is to do
away with the stick, most people need the stick to get out of bed in the
morning, admittedly myself included, at least to some extent.

~~~
ahlatimer
Depending on the level of basic income, you keep the stick. You just don't
beat people to death with it. I don't know about you, but (let's say) $20k/yr
wouldn't keep me sitting on the couch. I'd continue to get out bed. That
amount, however, might allow someone otherwise unable to do so to go to
school, to pursue other interests, to spend more time with their family, and
so on. All things that could be long-term more positive than languishing in
poverty.

~~~
jjn2009
Frugal lifestyles at a modest UBI payout will never know the stick, if the
payout is high enough no one will ever know the stick. My point is merely that
if the payout allows for a 'basic' income and does as is advertised then there
really isn't much of a stick to fear, by some definitions of the 'stick' the
'stick' is eliminated in a scenario where everyone has basic income. Not
everyone runs on merely carrots.

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jmh42
I've spent some time thinking about basic income. At times arguing for it,
other times arguing against it.

Unfortunately we cannot resolve the scarcity problem, particularly when it
comes to real estate, i.e. the location one chooses to reside. There is a
simple physical constraint: only one thing can occupy a specific space at a
time. Cities in general are popular places to live because of their proximity
to "things", the Arts and that interesting stuff happens where more people can
collaborate in the real world. (Consider the demand to be close to your
child's school or near a dog park.)

Given this (assumption if you will), let's consider a few rounds of economic
cause/effect. Round 1: if everyone were given a basic income, many more people
will be able to afford to live in a city. Round 2: not all people, but some,
will seek housing (rent or buy) in this city. Round 3: owners will need to
choose between [1] renting/selling at current price for which there is
suddenly higher demand or [2] increasing their price until there is less
demand. Round 4: most owners choose option [2] and excess income begins to be
sucked up by higher and higher prices.

The issue is basic income increases the demand (perhaps good for today's
global economic ailments) while supply of goods/housing will take time to
adjust. Of course, given the opportunity to sell apartments in a city at
higher margins will cause developers to build new supply, but this takes
years.

One way to deal with the supply/demand issue is having a basic income that
starts low ($100 a month?) and increases to a basic living wage over the
course of 5 years. This way, investments can be planned ahead of time so
supply increases with demand.

~~~
caseywoolley
This is the basic flaw that everyone seems to be missing. Cost of living will
just rise to meet the increase in demand resulting in no one except private
landowners being any better off. Henry George identified the solution over 100
years ago. Basic income requires something like the Henry George land-value
tax to be successful. At the same time, a land-value tax would also be the
best way to raise funds for a universal basic income.

~~~
jmh42
I had not heard of Henry James and his book "Progress & Poverty" (1879). More
info for anyone interested [0]

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

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jakeogh
I bet China does it first. The opportunity to control the population by
putting everyone on the take is very attractive to power structures.

Also it furthers the long-term social engineering regarding "if the gov does
it (theft in this case) then it's OK".

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flashman
I'm less worried about the economic aspects (western countries can afford
this) than the social ones, namely the new forms of resentment this will
encourage when taxpayers see all the things 'their' money is buying people.

~~~
notduncansmith
The key is to culturally shift from a scarcity-rooted value system to an
abundance-roots one. Call it "The New American Dream".

~~~
caseywoolley
As long as there are greedy people and a limited supply of earth and its
resources there will always need to be an accounting system for it. But that's
not to say the system can't be improved. A full land-value tax would give the
inherent value of land and natural resources back to the public and compensate
those who use less of our limited resources from those who use too much.

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boznz
A great idea, however I doubt in practice it would work as well as everyone
thinks.

What may work for a school leaver may not work for a guy with a family of
6/debts/drug or alcohol problems/medical needs/etc. that person may be much
better off with housing benefits/family benefits/medicare etc than an equal
slice of the pie.

Anyway I dont know but I am in favour of doing the experiment and hope it
works, but I seriously doubt it will be as cut and dried as people think.

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exacube
How do the economics of providing Basic Income work?

I guess you would have increase taxes or provide lesser services? e.g., expect
that basic income will cover some parts of the medical costs and provide a
lesser health care for the average person. I'm guessing an implementation will
be somewhere in between.

Money has gotta come from somewhere.

~~~
larubbio
The article discusses this. Basically you take the current set of services,
and by removing the means testing and eliminating all the separate departments
that facilitate them you save money and repurpose it towards this single
program.

~~~
Sir_Substance
In addition, most western countries are sitting on a sea of wasted talent.
About 40% of graduates in the USA never get jobs in their field[1], and it's
similar world-wide. It's lower in the engineering fields, but that still
leaves a lot of smart people with formal education experience doing things
like staffing the reception counter at the local gym.

Graduates take these jobs because the alternative is the hell that is student
debt collection, but these are jobs that could easily be done by less educated
people. The more educated people have the capacity to explore the kind of
home-grown science, arts and social projects that brought us to discover
electricity, progress to giving women the vote.

We're sitting on top of a new renaissance because of short sightedness, but
the potential boon of having that much home grown R&D could dramatically
increase global wealth.

[1]
[http://www.mlive.com/jobs/index.ssf/2011/05/40_percent_of_co...](http://www.mlive.com/jobs/index.ssf/2011/05/40_percent_of_college_grads_end_up_settl.html)
or just google that phrase, it makes for depressing reading

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glasz
it would loosen the chains of capitalism for the 90% who haven't, aren't and
won't get lucky. that's even most of us around here.

"we" can afford it. wall street is creating money every second. with a proper
tax structure there'll be no problem. but that's politics-land and shit will
happen until sheep are casting apt votes.

long story short: things will stay the way they are.

