
Coronavirus Is Making Universal Basic Income Look Better - avoidboringppl
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-15/coronavirus-is-making-universal-basic-income-look-better
======
keiferski
I've still never come across a decent answer to this question, so maybe
someone can help: why is Basic Income (in the US) preferable to a Great
Depression-style Works Progress Administration?

 _The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects
Administration) was an American New Deal agency, employing millions of job-
seekers (mostly unskilled men) to carry out public works projects, including
the construction of public buildings and roads._

 _Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed
during the Great Depression in the United States, while developing
infrastructure to support the current and future society._

 _Above all, the WPA hired workers and craftsmen who were mainly employed in
building streets. Thus, under the leadership of the WPA, more than 1 million
km of streets and over 10,000 bridges were built, in addition to many airports
and much housing._

Much of the infrastructure in the US is crumbling and needs to be replaced or
fixed in the coming decades. Wouldn't society benefit more from training and
hiring people to clean streets, rebuild infrastructure, beautify urban areas,
etc. than simply sending everyone a check?

I know that Basic Income isn't simply to replace jobs lost to automation, but
I don't see how _paying people to improve aspects of civilization_ is not
obviously better than _paying people with no expectations._

~~~
Mengkudulangsat
Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource
allocation than their citizens. People will still work with UBI, but they are
much better positioned to choose the kind of work they personally do best.

~~~
supernova87a
This opinion is pretty flawed. When will aggregations of individuals making
$24k per year get together and build a hydroelectric dam or nuclear power
plant, or assemble themselves to form a genomics research institute or space
agency?

There are things that individuals, left to their own preferences and
entrepreneurial habits, will never create.

~~~
friendlybus
Weird opinion to see on HN. People who forsee and can execute on building a
nuclear power startup can get outside investment. Fusion research is moving to
the small and cheap entrepreneurial projects.

You prefer to have nuclear physicists digging ditches like parent poster..?

~~~
godelski
There was a story my undergraduate advisor told me about a guy who built a
particle accelerator at his home. Got him a job at Fermi.

There's plenty of people doing stuff at home, even on crazy projects. Zhang
solved the twin prime conjecture while he worked at subway because he couldn't
get an academic job[0]. I think many also know Grigori Perelman[1] turning
down the Fields Medal. There's the nuclear boy scout. Michio Kaku built an
accelerator as a teenager. How many SV startups came out of garages? It is so
weird to hear the GP comment on a site where we glorify those that rose from
shoestring budgets. In fact, what is more American than that kind of story?
Maybe the dream died, but maybe it shouldn't have.

[0] [https://gizmodo.com/a-former-subway-worker-made-a-
breakthrou...](https://gizmodo.com/a-former-subway-worker-made-a-breakthrough-
discovery-in-508987652)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman)

~~~
friendlybus
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Laberge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Laberge)

Michel started a prototype fusion reactor in a shed that turned into General
Fusion. Einstein was of course a patent clerk. It all starts somewhere.

------
BelleOfTheBall
> Another positive sign for UBI is that most Americans seem keen to return to
> their workplaces. One fear has been that UBI would lead to a couch-potato
> culture, with people choosing to stay at home even when they’re finally able
> to leave.

This is an old take that has very rarely (if at all) seen tangible evidence.
The Guardian reported on this [0] and so did QZ [1] Even if UBI pushes a small
percentage of people to quit their jobs, those people will either move into
different jobs that they enjoy more, free to pursue a career they like thanks
to financial security, or contribute to society in other ways: creating art,
volunteering, etc.

[0]:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/12/univer...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/12/universal-
basic-income-work-finland-experiment-payments)

[1]: [https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits-
workin...](https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits-working/)

~~~
luckylion
> This is an old take that has very rarely (if at all) seen tangible evidence.

It's literally what we face in Germany. Our unemployable are getting housing,
health care, TVs etc + cash and they do _not_ move on to jobs they enjoy more,
they do _not_ volunteer more, they do _not_ start companies etc.

If you don't see evidence of that in the US, it's because you don't have
anything that comes close to unlimited perpetual income with no requirements
to work. If you have an economic shut down for a month or two and people
expect the "free money" to run out eventually, they'll be eager to get back to
work. The situation changes very much if they do not expect it to run out and
adapt to the new circumstances where work is optional and considered a hobby.

~~~
akvadrako
Germany doesn’t have a UBI. When people start earning they lose many of those
benefits quickly. That’s the difference.

~~~
luckylion
As far as I understand, most UBI-proposals would essentially be the same. If
you work, you pay more taxes on your income to fund the UBI. You'll still get
the UBI, but you'll pay significantly more taxes which will leave you pretty
much even.

~~~
lmm
No. The whole point of UBI is to remove the cliffs and high marginal tax rates
that the working poor face; people in low-income jobs would benefit the most,
approximately doubling their income (someone on minimum wage would instead get
the equivalent of minimum wage + unemployment). Also it becomes more practical
to ease into work, since if you work e.g. 5 hours/week you get full pay for
those 5 hours rather than losing more in lost benefits than you gain. Of
course this has to be balanced by higher earners paying more tax.

~~~
luckylion
We have some of this already included. If you work in so called Mini-Jobs (up
to 450€/month, employers do not need to pay into social security, reduced
bureaucracy and public health insurance premiums), 100€ won't change your
benefits and 20% of whatever more you make will also not affect your benefits.
This is primarily meant to be exactly that: low-threshold ways to work for a
few hours and have extra benefits.

Imho the primary issue remains: it's not required to work, you won't get a
massive improvement if you're okay with the current situation and you have to
expend energy and do stuff you don't love. Open source projects that rely on
donations often face similar issues. Donations are not mandatory, so few
people will donate, as they can still use the software without contributing. I
don't believe that "donating is difficult" is the issue there either, most
accept paypal, github sponsors etc.

------
spyckie2
I think the 2nd/3rd+ order effects of UBI needs to be understood better. Most
arguments for or against UBI look no further than first order effects, and get
most of the 1st order effects wrong because they don't take into account the
cascading ripples of the more indirect unknowns.

A collection of second order effect questions that people don't really have a
strong cohesive argument for or against:

1) What are the impacts of UBI on cost of labor, and how will businesses react
or adapt? (will UBI ultimately lower cost of labor for businesses or will it
raise it? Will it cause businesses to seek out investment into AI instead to
replace manpower? etc)

2) Are there any situations where UBI's cost will spiral out of control? (Do
we have smart enough people modeling out long term costs of UBI in a
comprehensive, risk accounting way so it doesn't become another social
security)

3) What is the change in percentage of people who will couch potato with UBI?
How about percent change in entrepreneurial activity with UBI? (at the very
least, is it in the single digits, double digits? A fraction of 1%?)

3rd order effects:

1) What will the economy look like 20 years from now with UBI? How will the
structure of society change?

2) How will UBI change how the majority of people grow up and what they end up
pursuing?

3) How will UBI impact the global economic climate? (My sci-fi dystopian
vision of UBI's butterfly effects, not that globalization hasn't already done
this: UBI will spur one country to develop so much AI due to lack of people in
the workforce, and that AI is so good that it gets exported to all countries
over the world, centralizing most of the money in the world to that one
country, making that one country able to afford UBI while the rest of the
world is jobless and has no money to take care of their own people.)

I'm just scratching the surface of the complexity of the topic.

~~~
lidHanteyk
Your questions aren't hard.

1) People will exit the labor market, especially in cheaper jobs, since some
folks currently only need to work in order to make up a small income disparity
and will gladly quit their part-time jobs. Labor might get more expensive, but
given how long minimum wage has been depressed, I wouldn't count on it.

2) No, UBI is as expensive to administer as the existing tax code. Also, the
fuck are you talking about? Social Security has gotten cheaper to administer
over time [0].

3) Who cares? Literally, it doesn't matter how many people "couch potato" or
otherwise decide not to work when they already weren't in the labor market.
Think about it for a bit.

4) Hopefully less wage slavery, less food insecurity, less homelessness, less
wealth inequality. That is, UBI is hoped to do what it is marketed as doing.

5) In e.g. Sweden, the constant availability of funds from the government has
enabled people to be more fully actualized, as they choose whether they want
to go into secondary education, start a small business, buy a farm, or open an
art studio. All of these are also subsidized in the USA, but poorly. UBI acts
as an ideal prototype system for this sort of funding, without having to
commit to a particular usage of funds.

6) Uh, we've had a global economy for _centuries_. All that has happened is
that places with UBI and similar social programs have become well-known and
globally visible. But UBI in Alaska exists [1] and does not draw people to
move to Alaska, so I can easily conclude that it doesn't matter _that_ much to
the global economy.

More generally, I think that you are afraid of nothing.

[0]
[https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/admin.html](https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/admin.html)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanent_Fund_Dividend)

~~~
spyckie2
most of your answers don't even address the questions.

1) impact on businesses?

2) not about administration, about the cost of UBI itself. cost of social
security is ballooning, not administration of it

3) it's important to judge UBI's costs and impacts relative to other social
programs

4) "Hopefully" it will end world hunger too and also discover the cure for
cancer.

5) Sweden doesn't implement UBI though? How does looking at Sweden allow you
to say how UBI will affect people growing up?

6) comparing Alaska, the 46th on the list when looking at the size of US state
economies, with the US (#1 economy in the world) is not a good comparison.

It's not fear that are motivating these questions. The larger the investment,
the more robust the plan needs to be and it's common sense for anyone to want
to know more detail about a LTV ~100s of trillions of dollar investment.

~~~
lidHanteyk
Okay, I think I see the root of the misunderstanding. UBI can be fully paid
for by taxes [0], and the resulting system is administered using existing tax
authorities. In the USA, this would mean that the IRS, which already
administers taxes, would incur a one-time cost of setup but no additional
ongoing costs.

This means that we can analyze the impact of UBI as if it were a tax
adjustment. The impact on businesses will be that, since laborers will have
more job mobility, businesses will have less negotiating leverage over
employees. This is a good thing.

Because cash can pay for anything, UBI is cheaper than any equivalent social
program which purchases goods on behalf of recipients. When combined with the
overall lower cost of administration, this makes UBI _definitionally_ less
costly and more impactful than other social programs, dollar by dollar.

Sweden is worth mentioning because, for basically any reasonable path in
society that one can imagine, there is government money available to motivated
citizens. This is the vaunted alternative listing of "other social programs"
that your perspective values so much. Similarly, Alaska is worth mentioning
because they really do send no-strings-attached money to every resident. This
demonstrates that UBI does not have to disrupt the social and economic fabric
of our society.

UBI is not an investment. UBI is a reassessment of taxation principles. You
are not an investor, but a member of society.

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

~~~
spyckie2
> The impact on businesses will be that, since laborers will have more job
> mobility, businesses will have less negotiating leverage over employees.
> This is a good thing.

Again, 2nd order effects. Businesses will rely on employees less too. It might
make businesses more capital reliant, lowering the entrepreneurship rate
further. It might not, but the point is that saying it will be good because of
labor mobility is like looking 1 move deep in a chess game.

> Because cash can pay for anything, UBI is cheaper than any equivalent social
> program which purchases goods on behalf of recipients. When combined with
> the overall lower cost of administration, this makes UBI definitionally less
> costly and more impactful than other social programs, dollar by dollar.

UBI is 3 times as much as our current social programs. It doesn't matter how
cheap it is to administer if the actual allocation amount is so different.
It's 15% of GDP, and yearly, not a one time cost.

I strongly disagree that increasing the budget for social programs from 800b
to 2.3t is not worth thinking about the potential 2nd order effects, which was
my original point.

> Sweden is worth mentioning because, for basically any reasonable path in
> society that one can imagine, there is government money available to
> motivated citizens. This is the vaunted alternative listing of "other social
> programs" that your perspective values so much.

I don't think Sweden avails government money the same way UBI does. If you
could buy weed, alcohol, video games, vacations, travel, pets, furniture,
sports equipment, or any other recreational activity in Sweden with their
social programs then I would take this point more seriously.

> Similarly, Alaska is worth mentioning because they really do send no-
> strings-attached money to every resident. This demonstrates that UBI does
> not have to disrupt the social and economic fabric of our society.

Alaska's UBI is literally a dividend from an investment fund. 25% of oil's
profits would be put into the fund and payed out as a dividend, and the fund
was well managed, leading to around $1000 a year in peak years. This is a very
different structure, both in quantity of money payed out as a dividend as well
as how the money is being taken from, to what is proposed in many UBI policy
implementations.

Alaska's money doesn't come as a re-distribution of tax, it's literally an
investment fund. Alaska's amount is also 10x lower than most UBI proposals.
When we have a $60 trillion dollar fund that we can draw 5.25% every year to
pay for UBI, then I'll agree that Alaska is an example that UBI doesn't
disrupt the economic fabric of our society.

~~~
lidHanteyk
Businesses are not inherently desirable; they are a concession that we haven't
agreed as a society how to distribute capital. Lowering their ability to
dominate laborers is morally good for basic utilitarian reasons. If it gets a
little harder to run a business, oh well; I don't really have a problem with
that. However, the prospect of ending the massive exploitation of the
impoverished and raising some 40% of the population out of financial purgatory
is far more important than any business-oriented metrics.

Looking at actual models for UBI costs [0], there is a solid argument that GDP
will grow. Keeping in mind that we are currently seeing trillions of dollars
in bailout money being pulled out of nowhere, I feel that complaints about the
sources of money are a little facile; there are clearly enough money sinks to
handle all of the wealth not currently trickling down. We can pay for it. More
importantly, there's a clear gaping hole in tax revenue where corporations are
not paying taxes that they could clearly afford, and this has gotten worse
over time [1][2]. Going back to Obama-era corporate tax rates of 35% would be
worth $473b; going back to Eisenhower-era rates of 50% would be worth $676b.
Combine that with the idea that social programs wouldn't allow double-dipping
into both e.g. Social Security and the Freedom Dividend [3] and everything is
now paid for.

Sure, we don't have to talk about Sweden or Alaska. But it's really hard to
take the core counter-argument here, the idea that giving money to folks is so
harmful, without pointing out all of the places around the world where giving
money to folks is not only not harmful, but positive.

[0] [https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/Mo...](https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/Modeling-the-Macroeconomic-Effects-of-a-Universal-
Basic-Income.pdf)

[1]
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Share_of_Federal_Rev...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Share_of_Federal_Revenue_from_Different_Tax_Sources_\(Individual,_Payroll,_and_Corporate\)_1950_-_2010.gif)

[2]
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Effective_Corpora...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Effective_Corporate_Tax_Rate_1947-2011_v2.jpg)

[3] [https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-
faq/](https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/)

~~~
spyckie2
judt pointing out - there's a lot of other threads you can talk about your own
inspiration and topic of choice. My specific post was about the difficulty of
understanding 2nd and 3rd order effects of a UBI at scale because no one
studies it enough. I think you can do well to stick to topic if you are going
to respond. still havent heard from you a clear a counter argument why making
policy on UBI is easy or why you shouldnt look into 2nd or 3rd order effects.

i have nowhere claimed that giving money to people is harmful. in fact I love
andrew yang's work on UBI and am a huge fan. He's done incredible work on the
narrative on why we need it. just no one has done the work on actually
creating a policy that has a sound investment thesis because its hard work.
andrew yangs proposal on how we will pay for it "data is the new oil" is paper
thin, especially if you dig into how Alaska pays for it. he even uses Alaska
as an examole of it being affordable - again, excellent narrative, very poor
policy.

you claim it isnt hard to answer these questions, and then waive off that we
dont need to care about businesses, how the policy is implemented, or any
second or third order effects of a massive 15% shift of economic value, and
then fundamentally misrepresent my point that i am anti UBI.

you probably would grow some if you spend more time listening to other people
and engaging in their arguments, not dismissing their points and putting forth
your own idealogical narrative.

feel free to call me out on your own threads if i do the same to you

~~~
lidHanteyk
Honestly, you got three replies, when you deserved zero. I discussed your
original questions with real people offline, and everybody else was unable to
get through your first three questions without making personal attacks against
you; your opinion is just that odious.

I've tried to help you see how UBI proponents have not only anticipated your
line of reasoning, but have long finished figuring out things like impact on
business. Quoting from the summary of the Roosevelt Institute's study:

> When paying for the policy by increasing taxes on households, the Levy model
> forecasts no effect on the economy. In effect, it gives to households with
> one hand what it is takes away with the other.

> However, when the model is adapted to include distributional effects, the
> economy grows, even in the tax-financed scenarios. This occurs because the
> distributional model incorporates the idea that an extra dollar in the hands
> of lower income households leads to higher spending. In other words, the
> households that pay more in taxes than they receive in cash assistance have
> a low propensity to consume, and those that receive more in assistance than
> they pay in taxes have a high propensity to consume.

As long as you are predisposed to look down on so many people for supposed
moral failings, and look at people as "couch potatoes", you are going to have
a blind spot where you don't recognize how essential cheap labor is to our way
of life.

~~~
spyckie2
quote from the article:

> Another positive sign for UBI is that most Americans seem keen to return to
> their workplaces. One fear has been that UBI would lead to a couch-potato
> culture, with people choosing to stay at home even when they’re finally able
> to leave. But blue-collar service workers are continuing to brave the front
> lines even when faced with reasonably high risks of infection. They are not
> trying to get fired so they can collect unemployment. White-collar workers,
> meanwhile, are feeling restless and unproductive. Working from home may
> become more common, but most people seem eager to get back to the office —
> especially if the alternative is a combination workplace/schoolhouse.

I have no idea why you think I'm predisposed to look down on people as couch
potatoes. The article used the term, that's why I put it in quotes. My
intention with the question was actually, "great, the article says there's
evidence anecdotally that it won't happen, anything more concrete?"

------
Rogach
I've always had this question when UBI comes up, maybe now will have a chance
to have an answer.

Total US budget income for 2019: $3.422 trillion. US population: 328 million.

Assuming that we simply divide the entire budget amongst everyone, we get:

>>> 3.422e12 / 328e6 / 12 = $870 per month

Minumum wage in US is $7.25, so assuming usual 40-hour work week minimum
income is about $1300 per month.

So even if US just drops all other concerns - healthcare, military,
infrastructure - and just distributes money among the population, then it's
still less than 70% than minimum wage. If we assume that only 50% of the
budget is spent on UBI (still unsustainable in my opinion) then the number
will get even lower.

And that's US, arguably the richest and most powerful country. For other
countries this calculation is even worse.

Maybe there's an error in my calculations? How is UBI even supposed to work,
where the money should come from?

~~~
manquer
Couple of problems with your calculation . Not everyone of the 328 million
will be covered by UBI , definitely not children for example .

UBI is not meant to be full replacement of a minimum wage salary , like you
said we don’t yet live in a resource rich utopia were people only work when
they want to, not because they need to.

sensible UBI proposals posit that it is efficient to directly disburse money
without all the bureaucracy in programs for the economically affected , it
also means trusting the recipients to make better judgements on how to spend
that money than the government.

They could be wrong , while early studies have shown positive indicators, they
are small and long term impact is not really well understood.

Personally I don’t think it is a good idea for a country. From what I have
seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a shitty job because
everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. This has been
solved in ME by bringing in immigrants as effectively slave labour. Either you
end up with nobody doing that work or you have to import labour who don’t
enjoy the same benefits creating a classist society.

~~~
rumanator
> From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a
> shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does
> those jobs.

That's because those jobs are shitty to begin with.

From where I'm standing, it's clear that the problem is the inherited
shittyness of those jobs, not UBI.

Perhaps it's worth a shot investing some work making those jobs less shitty?

I mean, FAANGs felt the need to invest heavily in job satisfaction to reduce
attrition and improve their public image. Why are some companies, and even
government entities, complicit in perpetuating the shitty nature of the
occupations they expect others to have?

~~~
manquer
Well some jobs are shitty but some one needs to do them . Economic incentives
help in making sure someone does them.

Richer a country becomes lesser people in that country want to do those jobs,
it is true even here in the U.S. most of the jobs illegal immigrants do, have
few takers in the legal job market .

FAANG outsource the ugly work to other companies , for example watching
flagged video content is one worst jobs out there , most of this is not done
in-house . Many of the service jobs in their campuses are done by staff not on
their payroll, who don’t enjoy the same benefits . Even for pure tech roles
they use contract staff in good amounts who don’t necessarily get the same
benefits .

There are good reasons for this Facebook is not expert at say building a good
team of security guards and they should perhaps leave it to experts

The point remains someone got to do these jobs , it does not mean UBI should
not happen. Localised implementations mean these problems have to studied and
solved for .

The drive to automate jobs increases when average pay is higher , for example
you will find a lot more cooks, maids and security (gatekeepers) in developing
countries in wealthier economies you will find more roombas, more home
automation etc.

There is no incentive for self driving in say India , economically it won’t
make sense given cheap availability of labour . Self driving is going to
replace millions of jobs in the U.S. the upfront investment all the big
companies are doing will not make economic sense if labour was cheaper.

UBI will increase the standard of living which in turn drives the need to
automate making UBI more needed as lesser jobs are out there etc.

------
lifeisstillgood
In Talking Politics this week, Helen Thompson pointed out that UBI is a
solution for every crisis - it does not diminish the potential upside for UBI
(or Land Tax reform also mentioned in the podcast) but UBI and Land Tax are
such disruptive changes to our social contract that it can be brought up in
context of every crisis - I guess like Covid it affects everything.

The point being if you think UBI will be positive, it will be positive across
its whole range of impacts, and that range of impacts is soo huge it can be
brought up in almost any context.

Edit: UBI and Land Tax are big enough we should consider them on their own
merits, not look for "opportunities" to bring them into the conversation.

~~~
nabla9
I'm strong supporter of UBI in my home country (Finland) and I think it would
work in in Nordics and likely in EU too. I don't think it would work in the US
because it's sold in completely different premise. US has the least developed
welfare system and the plan seems to be just replace it with small sum of
money.

In Nordics UBI would be in addition to free healthcare, education etc. and
funding it would not be a problem. Unemployed already get benefits. Even small
housing allowance would probably remain to discourage segregation due to
income differences. It's the combination of welfare that low income workers
get that creates high effective marginal tax rate that UBI neatly solves. It
would create incentives for working and reduce bureaucracy.

~~~
GordonS
> In Nordics UBI would be in addition to free healthcare, education etc. and
> funding it would not be a problem

I was interested to see some numbers on this, so I did some quick and dirty
googling.

It looks like Finland has about 4.5 million people, and currently spends
around 4,491,000,000 EUR/year on around 370,000 people - around 13,500
EUR/person. I'd guess that would be a reasonable amount for a UBI program.

Scaling that up to 4.5M people means a _huge_ number, 60,750,000,000 EUR/year
- which I believe is larger than the entire yearly budget for Finland. Sounds
like funding UBI would actually be a pretty big problem.

------
SeaSeaRider
Basic Income is Utopianism. Every generation thinks they can solve the ills of
society with this “one simple trick.” Like the failed Utopias of the 20th
century, it would fail when confronted with the reality of human nature.

------
oliverx0
I am not sure about whether UBI would work or not. I am mostly against the
idea of just giving people free money without having to work for it. But
leaving my political views out of this:

1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like that
and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this as a
strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more? This
then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for
everyone else.

2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A
problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to take
it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What
politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are
cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month?

3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at
McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there won't
be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because a lot of
businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work, someone has to be
willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will be "free to explore
more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If everyone gets money, then
prices will increase accordingly.

~~~
lmm
> 1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like
> that and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this
> as a strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more?
> This then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for
> everyone else.

The whole point is to avoid all the problems of means-testing, application and
so on, and just give every citizen the money.

> 2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A
> problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to
> take it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What
> politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are
> cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month?

Well, if you believe in democracy then democracy should be able to solve
difficult problems. If UBI were disastrous, surely a democratic majority could
be found to vote against it; to the extent that it remains popular, it can't
be going that badly.

> 3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at
> McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there
> won't be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because
> a lot of businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work,
> someone has to be willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will
> be "free to explore more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If
> everyone gets money, then prices will increase accordingly.

Businesses that rely on a supply of people doing really crappy jobs for very
low money will go under, yes. If no-one is forced to flip burgers in order to
eat, then if you want a burger you'll have to pay enough to make it worth
someone's while to make it for you, or figure out a way to automate it, or do
it yourself. The end result would probably be fewer atomised person-as-robot
jobs and more people doing their own cooking / cleaning / repairs / childcare
/ etc.. Would that be so bad?

~~~
codeisawesome
OT but it also means less burgers eaten overall, leading to a smaller burden
on the healthcare system. Sounds like a win to me :)

------
koonsolo
US really seems to have a problem with black-white thinking. There are gray
areas you know.

You don't need to choose between no social support vs UBI. You can actually
just have a proper unemployment and healthcare support system (like EU).

Same goes for guns. There seems to be a thought that either everyone has the
right to buy guns, or you outlaw guns. There is a middle ground where people
get a license for a gun (proven with a blank criminal record, sanity
confirmation from doctor and theoretical/practical examination), like EU you
know.

So why don't you first try something like giving people that need support,
better support. That would be a good start without going all in with UBI.

Maybe that would already help the many homeless people that are living on your
streets.

------
tanilama
But US government is adding 3+ trillion dollars debt to pay for it.

If anything, the current way of implementing UBI is not sustainable.

------
esfandia
Interesting at least to me: one of the article co-authors is Garry Kasparov (I
imagine THE Garry Kasparov?).

~~~
bushin
He is a political activist now.

------
marcell
I think Elon Musk summed up the counter argument to this pretty well on Joe
Rogan's podcast:

"If you don't make stuff, there's no stuff. Obviously."

~~~
TheDong
I would think we, as hackers, on hacker news, would have some unique insight
into this.

The software world is built on the back of stuff that was made, not for money,
but out of a labor of love, or to impress others, or to scratch our own itch.
Our servers run linux, but linux was mostly just linus hacking around. The
free software community is about helping each other and building cool things.
Most programming languages were birthed not for money, but because the person
building them cared about it a lot and wanted to solve a problem for
themselves.

UBI would let people who wanted to make stuff actually make stuff, not have to
flip burgers 9-5 just to go home and feel too drained to code or write or do
whatever it is they really want to do.

There are countless examples throughout history of people building great
things and advancing science, not for money, but for recognition or passion.

~~~
kriro
That's a bit too idealistic. Maybe some of the stuff was started this way but
by and large all hobby projects that are now widely used depend on paid people
working on it full time/a lot. The Linux kernel is a great example.

But I agree with your overall point. Software has a good chance of "leading
the way" mostly because of the lack of required starting capital to get first
traction for an idea (a person and a laptop) and the theoretical high mobility
of the workforce (a lot can be written basically everywhere, local is only
required for customer contact).

~~~
notahacker
Software also has a good chance of being the exception to the rule, not just
because of the lack of capital and coordination needed to start writing it but
also because the open source software movement is pretty unusual in creating
stuff people would happily pay for for fun. Most people's hobbies aren't that
useful

------
z3t4
To be eligible to basic income you need to first work for 5 years, then you
will experience how its like to be stuck in the hamster wheel, if you're lucky
you will also save up a buffer and enough to buy your own living quarter, and
will have enough experience so that it will be easier to come back to the
workforce, and be more likely to succeed if you do your own venture.

------
beaker52
Is it only me who worries that UBI is a precursor to a dystopian slavery?

~~~
friendlybus
I worry its a crutch for an upcoming period of hardship. The longer it takes
to get manufacturing off the ground and self sufficiency in place for most
people, the more likely any shocks to the system will need more and more UBI.

------
fpoling
The article rises a good point that emergency universal income is better than
paying companies to keep people at work as done in many European companies.
Post COVID world will require different jobs and many companies will cease to
exist so paying them now is just waste of money and delays inevitable while
locking people at doomed jobs.

------
scotty79
Worst thing about UBI is that when you introduce it, the rents will just go up
by its amount and all the money will end up in pocket of landlords not the
poor people you were intending to support.

You'd have to shake up real estate market too for example by introducing
progressive real estate tax to counter that.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I'm not sure. It would need to be funded so I would assume that for the
average person the income would be offset by taxes. There would be no extra
money to inflate housing costs.

~~~
mFixman
There won't be for the average person, but there will be for the average
person with below-average income.

------
dimitar
UBI gives money to everyone equally, those that really need it don't get
enough. For example - I can get a a $500 (or X amount in your country) check
every month that I don't need as I can work just fine from home, but someone
who might be laid off can barely pay for his rent, food and other necessities.

There is not enough wealth to redistribute in any country (except maybe the
Gulf states) so that both anyone in a job or health emergency has enough and
also give the same amount to everyone else.

So you have to deliver smaller sums - a patch to this system is to have
everyone pay for insurance, proportionally to their income and need, but this
the current welfare scheme UBI is supposed to replace.

Covid-19 exactly how disproportionate and random a crisis can be, so a one-
size fits all solution doesn't fit anyone.

~~~
akiselev
_> There is not enough wealth to redistribute in any country (except maybe the
Gulf states) so that both anyone in a job or health emergency has enough and
also give the same amount to everyone else._

[Citation needed]

The global population grew from about 1.6 billion to about 6 billion in the
span of a hundred years (1900-2000). Before the pandemic, over twice as many
people were considered part of the "global middle class" than there were
people alive in 1900. In that time, quality of life indicators have
skyrocketed for all except the most isolated tribes.

Humanity has known that "wealth" isn't a zero sum game since the fall of
mercantilism. Universal basic income is just the next phase of that
realization.

------
jokoon
And yet I still see people arguing either:

* for social darwinism or survival of the fittest, trying to say inequality is normal

* that labor is necessary despite the great advances in technology. Those people would rather see people working as servants, in fast food, uber, cashiers, etc, than have those people educating themselves or lead more fulfilling lives.

The level of pedanticism I read from people arguing about "basic economics",
is just a problem of politics.

------
twblalock
The virus crisis makes UBI look worse. We are ~2.5 months into lockdowns in
the United States and all people got so far has been a check for $1200.

People who support UBI need to provide a compelling justification for how it
can be paid for, especially given how hard it has been, politically and
financially, to give a one-time $1200 payment to American households. If it's
so hard to do it even one time, how can we do it forever?

~~~
namdnay
I think the usual solution is to increase income tax? So basically the
introduction of UBI is neutral for the average household, the extra money from
UBI being equivalent to the extra money lost on taxes

~~~
notahacker
Except that it won't be fiscally neutral, because you've also got to pay for
all the people who don't work enough to pay [non-trivial amounts of] income
tax but also don't receive any form of benefit under the existing system. The
usual unemployment rate hovers around the 4% mark. The usual working age
economic inactivity rate hovers around the 25% mark. At least some people are
going to have to be worse off to subsidise those people who are neither
employed nor looking for employment.

~~~
namdnay
> At least some people are going to have to be worse off to subsidise those
> people who are neither employed nor looking for employment

Yes, those in the upper tax brackets will pay more than they do today, to
cover the situation you describe

------
amelius
Since time is our enemy at this point, perhaps a better idea is to suspend all
rents and mortgages and put landlords and banks on a modest subsidy, for the
duration of the lockdown. That would give a lot of financial room to a lot of
people (also companies like restaurants), while I bet that the costs are
overseeable.

------
FartyMcFarter
Article is behind paywall. Does it explain how to pay for UBI in a sustainable
way?

Taking the USA as an example, UBI costs trillions per year. How will this get
paid for, even taking into account that some of the money gets taxed?

------
stuaxo
Not surprised this article says the economy needs to be more productive before
using UBI, after all Bloomberg is owned by a billionaire.

There isn't much point in hanging around, it should start now.

------
pasquinelli
In a time of plague, with a healthcare system not designed to treat everyone
who needs it during the best of times, bloomberg publishes an article about
the benefits of ubi.

------
negamax
I have read pretty much all the comments. Many European countries have some
form of basic income. I don't think Americans commenting here realizes how
unsustainable that is. You can't mix high growth that US enjoys (look at
disposable income and strength of USD) with UBI.

If the choice is low/no growth where population sustain itself than UBI is the
way.

But what happens if for e.g. a country A moves to UBI but country B remains
high growth? Country B will continue to invent new things and country A will
be forced to inflate and moan and sacrifice its children and grandchildren to
debt. That's pretty much what will happen.

~~~
SeaSeaRider
No European country has implemented any form of UBI, nor do they intend to.

~~~
negamax
Large welfare states are very basic income like. Have you checked the numbers
on how many people get some form of government support in France? Many
European countries' have their 30%+ budget for welfare

~~~
SeaSeaRider
Welfare state and UBI are completely different things.

~~~
negamax
The whole argument for UBI is that "the last failure didn't do socialism
right".

~~~
akvadrako
UBI is not socialism. Compared to jobs programs, welfare and almost anything
else the government does, it is less centrally managed.

That's why many of the 20th century supporters were libertarians.

~~~
negamax
It's a similar evil that sounds good on paper as the other evil

------
CryptoPunk
I believe universal income, along with every other manifestation of the social
democratic welfare state, is a civilizational dead end, and any society that
adopts it is putting itself on the path to irrelevance and national
extinction.

My thought is that if you value your own life, and the lives of your
descendants, you must make the drastic decision to escape any society that
embarks on the path to UBI.

------
buboard
UBI is making Bitcoin Look Better

This is not UBI though. UBI is forever, this is exceptional, and people are
aware that they 'll lose their jobs if they quit. The premise behind this
article is false, hard to believe it came from exceptionally intelligent
people.

Tell hospital workers that they 're guaranteed UBI for 5 years if they quit
and watch what happens.

------
daenz
Alternative title: People not allowed to work need money more than ever.

~~~
toastal
This is such a cold take. There's a on-going international health crisis so
don't understate it. You can't have workers either if everyone is sick... Or
dead. People need to both stay home AND put food on the table and this is
precisely where UBI, even temporarily, helps.

~~~
sparkie
There's an argument that can be had that lockdown measures will be much more
deadly than COVID in the long run. Increased suicides due to disemployment,
poverty, more cancers and other illnesses gone untreated because of health
service mis-prioritization. There's a compound effect where businesses going
bust can have a domino effect on others. Hospitals could go bankrupt. Everyone
is going to be paying more for basic goods due to inevitable price inflation.

If it saves one life, it's worth ending the lockdown, right?

Why is there nobody running computer models estimating how many people are
going to die _as a result_ of the lockdown?

Because it contradicts the narrative. COVID is unknown and the government is
as clueless as you are. They're in hysteria and are not thinking rationally.

What people need is the freedom to make their own choices. If people are
scared of the virus and think staying couped up in a confined home is going to
keep them from getting sick - I have nothing wrong with them doing that.
Please stop forcing everyone else to live that way.

~~~
toastal
Good idea. Government healthcare should cover mental health patients as well
during this crisis. Structurally, at least in the US, too much of one's
identity is tied to career and this is the same existential issue society will
be facing in the coming age of automation.

Now if you think your 'right' to put your own body at risk, you've failed to
understand how contagious the virus is and how much you put others at risk by
thinking you matter more. This will only prolong the quarantine, and this is
why everyone is super concerned about the second wave and pandemic history
repeating itself because some people are so arrogant and don't see their
privilege compared to the at risk.

~~~
sparkie
> Now if you think your 'right' to put your own body at risk, you've failed to
> understand how contagious the virus is and how much you put others at risk
> by thinking you matter more. This will only prolong the quarantine, and this
> is why everyone is super concerned about the second wave and pandemic
> history repeating itself because some people are so arrogant and don't see
> their privilege compared to the at risk.

I'm arguing that people who accept the risk upon themselves should be free to
do what they want to do - and those who are afraid of the virus keep
themselves "quarantined".

If you are in quarantine, you are not being put at risk.

Why do you think that some people's livelihoods are more important than others
that you can justify locking them up in their homes to protect those others,
who have elected upon themselves to live a life of fear?

You are putting lives at risk by enforcing a lockdown. This is not a one-way
street. Why is your justification any better than mine?

I'm suggesting that far more people are going to die _because_ of the lockdown
and its secondary effects than the combined waves of COVID. The rational
conclusion is that the cure is worse than the disease. The position of the
lockdown should be reversed in order to spare the greater number of lives.

"There are no solutions, only trade-offs." \- Thomas Sowell.

------
calmchaos
If you want hyperinflation, that's the route to take. The more government is
injecting money to businesses, society and people, the more expensive
everything is getting.

At the same time this dilutes the wealth of people and companies who have
actually saved money.

Countries need LESS socialism and government control - not more.

~~~
econcon
>The more government is injecting money to businesses, society and people, the
more expensive everything is getting.

It only matters to people who have lot of cash saved up. Value of their money
might decrease.

But vast majority of population does not have cash saved up, they do not care
about money losing its value as long as they are able to get more money today
and buy the stuff they need.

~~~
calmchaos
UBI benefits are quickly nullified because prices start to go up. Inflation
effects everyone - not just people with cash reserves. It just radically
increases government spending and debt which eventually leads to crash of
currency value.

~~~
econcon
If prices will go up, some of the UBI receivers might want to capture that
price increase by launching new businesses.

I think more serious threat comes from existence of global market. It means,
the local supply does not need to react to local increase in demand but people
elsewhere can capture that demand by shipping cheaper goods.

To make UBI work you possibly need to become an island or already have huge
exports to offset whatever your population might be interested in buying from
other countries.

This is not a fact/experiment based, it's merely a hypothesis.

~~~
calmchaos
If country X introduces UBI, the prices WILL go up (it's not a question of
"if" \- it's guaranteed). UBI will nullify itself quickly. And if everyone
gets UBI, then we are at the starting point. Anyone can start new businesses
even today.

Government spending goes through the roof (due to money printing) OR they have
to raise taxes ridiculously high. This will make working even less appealing
and people start to downshift - until they quickly realize that they can't. If
you raise taxes, many companies simply move their operations to some other
country -> loss of jobs.

What's worse is that due to prices going up, the businesses become non-
competitive in the global market. Why would you buy product Y from country X
if the price is a lot higher than in any other country?

When the export business dies, companies start to die and people are out of
jobs. It's a ripple effect that goes through the entire economy.

Then it doesn't matter how much money the government is giving you because
prices are high and as jobless you are quickly dead broke.

If due to introducing UBI all other social welfare support is removed, sick
and disabled people start getting homeless and dying left and right because
UBI simply isn't enough for them.

The final nail to the coffin is that other nations tell country X: "We don't
accept your currency anymore. Pay with something else or you don't get the
goods."

Frankly I'm surprised that this hasn't already happened on larger scale - UBI
or not.

------
bavell
What a garbage article. Poorly thought out and researched.

~~~
akvadrako
That's what you should expect from Bloomberg.

------
TomMarius
The economy is crashing, the inflation is rising and _that_ makes UBI look
better? How?

~~~
cko
Where can we check inflation rates? I thought it was something that was
calculated in retrospect.

~~~
ct520
Yeah - someone said the same comment. Me not knowing anything researched it
and what I seen trending indicated the opposite. How is this reliably checked
?

------
sand_castles
The value of money is linked to how much tax revenue can be raised.

UBI means lower taxes = value of money diminishes.

Jobs guarantee is how you implement UBI.

Jobs given out by the state doesn't have to awful.

------
lcall
I tried to explain in this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922)
...a number of separate reasons why a UBI at the US _federal_ level takes away
freedom to try better ideas to do good at other levels, is harmful and wrong,
and that we can do much more good with persuasion, fundraising, letting states
handle it (or smaller scopes), etc etc. States are like nations in some ways,
and can learn from each other and find the best ways to do things, even
forming alliances between them, without violating the constitutional limits on
federal power. :)

(If down-voting, a thoughtful comment is appreciated; thanks.)

------
therufa
Didn't read the article but this is the worst possible idea ever. With UBI you
reduce the number of working people and shift all the responsibility to an
even smaller group of individuals. Based on human nature, with UBI one would
have an even larger lazy population who would end up just sitting around,
doing nothing within the first 20 years of this wonderful idea. Now back to
the reduced group of responsibility bearing individuals; these are the
entrepreneurs, motivated workers, the ones that can't just sit around and do
nothing, the ones who get bored on a hotel vacation. These are the people who
would profit the most from UBI, since they are usually the ones capable of
strategic thinking. They would end up with all the surplus generated from UBI
because most people are just mindless consumers spending money as quickly as
they get hands on it. How i see it, this would lead to massive inflation in
value of products and in the end the government would have to raise UBI which
soon would get into an endless loop.

Also, there are so many downsides, that it's not even worth digging into the
few upsides.

