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That's a very US-centric view. Finland disagrees.[0] Now you can say, "Well Finland has the population of Colorado, so whatev'", but that's just silly. The enti

That's a very US-centric view. Finland disagrees.[0] Now you can say, "Well Finland has the population of Colorado, so whatev'", but that's just silly. The entire, "Well this is just too big," argument has no merit. It's just arguing for the status quo for the sake of the status quo. It's an argument from helplessness. What's too big? Who says? Why can't we kick the can down to a county or town, or a ward, or a street? It's not a hard project to implement you cut an identical check to every tax payer. The tax collection agency already has everyone's name and address, and has the infrastructure to cut checks, as does the welfare agency. It's really really simple. Anything beyond arguing what the check size should be, is a distraction. [0] http://yle.fi/uutiset/kela_to_prepare_basic_income_proposal/8422295 http://yle.fi/uutiset/kela_to_prepare_basic_income_proposal/...

aaron-lebo 11y ago
Why is that an argument from "helplessness"? It does matter that Finland has the population of Colorado because that has historically led to very different societies. You can't just ingore that. Finland's entire population is smaller than some demographics in the US. You are correct, it is US-centric and I apologize for that. Backtracking now, a smaller nation-state such as Finland is a good place to test this.
chimeracoder 11y ago
> Now you can say, "Well Finland has the population of Colorado, so whatev'", but that's just silly. The entire, "Well this is just too big," argument has no merit. It's just arguing for the status quo for the sake of the status quo We're on Hacker News, a website maintained by an investment firm focused on startups, created by a man (Paul Graham) who has written at length about why startups are better-positioned to tackle certain problems, address certain markets, or try radical management tactics internally, specifically due to their size[0], and the lack of overhead that larger companies use to manage their size. I think it's a little silly to dismiss the claim that size matters as having "no merit" and "arguing for the status quo [just] for the sake of the status quo". [0] e.g, http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html
- jonathankoren 11y ago
  Putting aside that the idea that companies and societies are the same thing, this argument is still wrong. The reason why small companies take risks is because they are not invested in the status quo and ossified. They innovate not only because the have to, but because they have a culture where it's possible to do that. The lack of innovation at large companies isn't that they've looked at the innovation and said, "No. Not for us. We'll let someone else do that." It's that they can't even see the opportunity for innovation. It's arguing for the status quo why you see the opportunity, and say "No. Not for us," which is exactly what what the grandparent was arguing.
- wtallis 11y ago
  Startups are trying to create something new. Governments are just trying to deploy the same thing across different numbers of cities/states/etc. There are certainly reasons why a larger-scale deployment of a public policy could be more likely to run into problems that might not have been encountered in a smaller scale trial, but that's a vastly weaker argument than for startups.
cubano 11y ago
> It's not a hard project to implement you cut an identical check to every tax payer. The tax collection agency already has everyone's name and address, and has the infrastructure to cut checks, as does the welfare agency. Who pays for this? The bottom 46% of income earners already pay zero tax, and the top 10% pay almost 50%. Yes you can argue, I guess, that they should pay more but careful...at what point do you kill the golden geese? We keep borrowing, you say? Well we are almost $20tril in debt right now and current unfunded federal liabilities are somewhat north of $200tril.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  >We keep borrowing, you say? Well we are almost $20tril in debt right now and current unfunded federal liabilities are somewhat north of $200tril. And yet inflation (the real measure of "borrowing too much") is basically below zero.
  - cubano 11y ago
    It won't last forever, that's for sure. The only reason we haven't seen real inflation yet is because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world and that other countries are in even worse shape, thus we have natural inflation-resistant situation where we get to finance our debt on the backs of the world.
    - crdoconnor 11y ago
      Which would be very convincing if Japan: A) weren't the reserve currency of the world. B) didn't have 20 or so years of no inflation. C) didn't have legions of economists saying that massive inflation was just around the corner since ~1993 - exactly like you are now. D) didn't use a different, equally unconvincing excuse for why they too are special.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > The bottom 46% of income earners already pay zero tax No, that's not true. Not even if you are just referring to federal taxes. And not even if you are just referring to federal taxes on income (which include both the "income tax" on the "payroll tax".)
ctdonath 11y ago
That works out to $3T in checks to every US citizen every year. That's about equal to federal revenue. Sure, a lot of people would just get their own money back (a waste of redistribution efforts), but half of recipients don't pay taxes so that's really $1.5T ... still half of federal revenue, when the gov't is spending nearly twice revenue. Yes, it really just comes down to arguing about what the check size should be ... leaving a whole lotta people with a whole lotta motive to argue it should be a whole lot bigger than austerity-sized and covering little more than staple foods etc.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > but half of recipients don't pay taxes Wrong. (Even though, actually, in a redistributive scheme, this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, as you don't actually need the net recipients paying in anything at all, since that just means more shuffling for the same effect.)
eanzenberg 11y ago
It's actually an extremely hard project to implement because if it fails good luck removing the entitlement from those people who now "cannot live without it."

aaron-lebo 11y ago

Why is that an argument from "helplessness"? It does matter that Finland has the population of Colorado because that has historically led to very different societies. You can't just ingore that. Finland's entire population is smaller than some demographics in the US. You are correct, it is US-centric and I apologize for that. Backtracking now, a smaller nation-state such as Finland is a good place to test this.

chimeracoder 11y ago

> Now you can say, "Well Finland has the population of Colorado, so whatev'", but that's just silly. The entire, "Well this is just too big," argument has no merit. It's just arguing for the status quo for the sake of the status quo We're on Hacker News, a website maintained by an investment firm focused on startups, created by a man (Paul Graham) who has written at length about why startups are better-positioned to tackle certain problems, address certain markets, or try radical management tactics internally, specifically due to their size[0], and the lack of overhead that larger companies use to manage their size. I think it's a little silly to dismiss the claim that size matters as having "no merit" and "arguing for the status quo [just] for the sake of the status quo". [0] e.g, http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html

jonathankoren 11y ago
Putting aside that the idea that companies and societies are the same thing, this argument is still wrong. The reason why small companies take risks is because they are not invested in the status quo and ossified. They innovate not only because the have to, but because they have a culture where it's possible to do that. The lack of innovation at large companies isn't that they've looked at the innovation and said, "No. Not for us. We'll let someone else do that." It's that they can't even see the opportunity for innovation. It's arguing for the status quo why you see the opportunity, and say "No. Not for us," which is exactly what what the grandparent was arguing.
wtallis 11y ago
Startups are trying to create something new. Governments are just trying to deploy the same thing across different numbers of cities/states/etc. There are certainly reasons why a larger-scale deployment of a public policy could be more likely to run into problems that might not have been encountered in a smaller scale trial, but that's a vastly weaker argument than for startups.

cubano 11y ago

> It's not a hard project to implement you cut an identical check to every tax payer. The tax collection agency already has everyone's name and address, and has the infrastructure to cut checks, as does the welfare agency. Who pays for this? The bottom 46% of income earners already pay zero tax, and the top 10% pay almost 50%. Yes you can argue, I guess, that they should pay more but careful...at what point do you kill the golden geese? We keep borrowing, you say? Well we are almost $20tril in debt right now and current unfunded federal liabilities are somewhat north of $200tril.

crdoconnor 11y ago
>We keep borrowing, you say? Well we are almost $20tril in debt right now and current unfunded federal liabilities are somewhat north of $200tril. And yet inflation (the real measure of "borrowing too much") is basically below zero.
- cubano 11y ago
  It won't last forever, that's for sure. The only reason we haven't seen real inflation yet is because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world and that other countries are in even worse shape, thus we have natural inflation-resistant situation where we get to finance our debt on the backs of the world.
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    Which would be very convincing if Japan: A) weren't the reserve currency of the world. B) didn't have 20 or so years of no inflation. C) didn't have legions of economists saying that massive inflation was just around the corner since ~1993 - exactly like you are now. D) didn't use a different, equally unconvincing excuse for why they too are special.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> The bottom 46% of income earners already pay zero tax No, that's not true. Not even if you are just referring to federal taxes. And not even if you are just referring to federal taxes on income (which include both the "income tax" on the "payroll tax".)

ctdonath 11y ago

That works out to $3T in checks to every US citizen every year. That's about equal to federal revenue. Sure, a lot of people would just get their own money back (a waste of redistribution efforts), but half of recipients don't pay taxes so that's really $1.5T ... still half of federal revenue, when the gov't is spending nearly twice revenue. Yes, it really just comes down to arguing about what the check size should be ... leaving a whole lotta people with a whole lotta motive to argue it should be a whole lot bigger than austerity-sized and covering little more than staple foods etc.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> but half of recipients don't pay taxes Wrong. (Even though, actually, in a redistributive scheme, this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, as you don't actually need the net recipients paying in anything at all, since that just means more shuffling for the same effect.)

eanzenberg 11y ago

It's actually an extremely hard project to implement because if it fails good luck removing the entitlement from those people who now "cannot live without it."