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The very first argument in the article is flawed which leads me to wonder how much of it is or isn't flawed. It talks about a Universal Basic Income for everyon
by nullsmack 10y ago
The very first argument in the article is flawed which leads me to wonder how much of it is or isn't flawed. It talks about a Universal Basic Income for everyone over 21.. then it complains that would cost 3 trillion dollars for all of the 300 million Americans. According to the Census Bureau as of 2015 there were 321 million Americans and 24% were under 18. No clue how many were under 21. But that still takes it down to 244 million people. If we left Social Security alone then that would cut another 46 million people out as well.
The article doesn't even attempt to explore cost savings by eliminating excessive management of all of the existing programs.
- newacct23 10y agoYou are arguing about specifics that do not make any difference to the overall argument the author is trying to make. UBI for 244 million is still unfeasible. UBI is just a bad idea, jobs in themselves have nice externalities that UBI wont give. People that have jobs generally don't commit crimes. Also a UBI will disincentivize working jobs that are undesirable but are necessary for a functioning society.
- otterley 10y agoHow about people who want to serve society with "jobs" that don't pay well (or at all) but are incredibly valuable, like charity work? Wouldn't a UBI free them up to do that?
- toomuchtodo 10y ago> Also a UBI will disincentivize working jobs that are undesirable but are necessary for a functioning society. That's kinda the point. You drive up the cost of undesirable jobs until you find someone who'll work it. If no one wants to work it, you'll need to automate it or do without.
- carapace 10y agoYes, this! I hate the "But who will pick up the garbage?" argument so much, the lazy thinker who says this is implying that our society only functions if there's an explicit hell waiting for those who fail it. And that's kinda fucked up, eh? If UBI fixed just that it would be worth it, IMHO. Also, have you ever talked to the people who pick up your garbage?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- marxidad 10y agoAnother option is that people deal with their own garbage and maybe learn to reduce and re-use and demand less packaging.
- vehementi 10y agoWhy do they not talk about the tax increase that pays for it? It's supposed to be closer to neutral. I.e. people making $100k get an extra $10k tax burden to cancel out the $10k they just got. Pretty important factor to include in the discussion, yeah?
- sharemywin 10y agoobviously someone else is going to have to pay for people making under 10k.
- vehementi 10y agoYes. Obviously. So the "cost of UBI" is clearly not $10k times (number of humans in the USA), but more like $10k times (number of eligible people making under $10k). The article omitting this pretty important thing basically discredits it and probably its parent site
- mason240 10y ago>So the "cost of UBI" is clearly not $10k times (number of humans in the USA), but more like $10k times (number of eligible people making under $10k). It is "$10k times (number of humans in the USA)," because the "number of eligible people" IS the number of humans in the USA.
- mod 10y agoHe's calling the veracity of the article into question by citing an example, not "arguing about specifics." When you can't get the simple things right, why should we think you got the harder things right?
- funkysquid 10y agoAre you saying that people commit crimes because they have too much time on their hands?
- swalsh 10y agoIt's an unfounded assumption, the reality is (and you can prove this with data) most people committing crimes today do it as an act of desperation. Professional criminals are definitely a real thing, but they'll exist with or without a basic income. However, if a basic income eliminates poverty, it may have a real impact on crime.
- newacct23 10y ago>Are you saying that people commit crimes because they have too much time on their hands? Partially, yes. Why do you think after school programs are so good at keeping kids out of crime?
- ahartman00 10y agoWhat about drunk/intoxicated driving? Ive seen a couple comments saying its ok if people smoke pot and play video games, but what about those who want to go out and drink? 33% of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related[1], and that adds up to be quite a few people. Ok, self driving cars will fix that eventually, but what about domestic abuse? 1. http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...
- pasquinelli 10y agopeople generally don't commit crimes for want of a job. and a better way to look at it is that it incentivezes changes in society that reduce the undesirable work that's necessary for it to function.
- mempko 10y agoNotice that people do undesirable jobs because they probably don't have many other options. UBI gives them another option. This would either make pay for undesirable jobs increase, OR people would be forced to automate them. Seems like a win win.
- newacct23 10y ago>OR people would be forced to automate them as if it were that easy. Why don't we worry about UBI once we actually reach the post scarcity economy?
- drabiega 10y agoBecause it's not the post-scarcity part that's the driver, it's the post-jobs part, which is a very real problem for a small but growing part of the population.
- drabiega 10y agoLook, this straw man has been beaten to death. I don't think anyone who has seriously considered UBI is arguing that all working age people should have +${UBI_AMOUNT} extra dollars. Most people would have extra taxes roughly equal to their income from UBI. If you want to argue against redistribution, then do so, but don't throw out this we can't afford it lame horse anymore.
- RamshackleJ 10y agoYep, and it doesn't even bother talking about the $21–32tn of untaxed assets(http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_R...). Or that we tax the rich too little while we tax everyone else too much to keep public perception focused on taxes being too high(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marginal_Tax_Rate_for_Highest_and_Lowest_Income_Earners.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marginal_...).
- refurb 10y agoOr that we tax the rich too little The top 3% of income earners pay 51% of all income taxes.[1] You think that's too little? What should that number be? [1]http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/13/high-income-americans-pay-most-income-taxes-but-enough-to-be-fair/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/13/high-income-...
- toomuchtodo 10y agoWhatever percentage it needs to be ratcheted up to in order to ensure that everyone is fed and has shelter. Seems like we can work backwards to determine that?
- ChemicalWarfare 10y agowhat if it's more than 100% of their income :) are YOU prepared to pay let's say an 80% income tax and a 25% sales tax for example ?
- toomuchtodo 10y agoI'm prepared to pay whatever is necessary, while also contributing to whatever tech is needed to drive costs down to reduce the monthly government-wide nut needed to pay for entitlements. Food too expensive? Robotics farming. More energy needed? Scale up solar, wind, and utility scale battery storage installations. Moar cheap transportation? Scale up bicycle and electric self-driving car manufacturing. It _can_ be done. We simply need the will to do so. Work backwards, first principles style. We have lots of atoms and electrons, lets organize them efficiently for everyone's benefit.
- otterley 10y agoAlso: "A universal basic income has many undesirable features, starting with its nonnegligible disincentive to work." I can think of two responses to this: (1) Perhaps work that doesn't pay more than a UBI can provide is not work worth doing -- (2) Except for charity work, which is extremely valuable, and which would be greatly incentivized because having a UBI would free up people's time to work on it.
- prostoalex 10y ago> Perhaps work that doesn't pay more than a UBI can provide is not work worth doing This is a frequent argument invoked in favor of a higher minimum wage, and the answer is maybe. But then you find out that some fairly useful work, such as running a convenience store or a corner bodega in a low-income neighborhood involves significantly lower margins than operating a Whole Foods or organic juicery in a ritzy residential neighborhood, and people start decrying "food deserts" http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/02/03/food-deserts-continue-to-plague-poor-neighborhoods/ http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/02/03/food-deserts-contin...
- otterley 10y agoGrocery stores in general, even large supermarket chains, have incredibly low margins (5%, typically). They survive on volume. So it's not about margin as much as it is about income. At any rate, a UBI could possibly make these low-income operations sustainable by providing a helpful boost to the owner's income.
- unprepare 10y agoits almost as if hiring a low income neighborhood worker for an extremely low wage isnt particularly beneficial to the neighborhood.....
- dragonwriter 10y ago> Perhaps work that doesn't pay more than a UBI can provide is not work worth doing Work doesn't have to pay more than a UBI provides to be worth doing in a system with a UBI -- the idea that it does is a failure to recognize the central difference between UBI and means-tested benefit programs. Because UBI doesn't get reduced for additional income (beyond the effect of regular income taxation), there is little to no disincentive for additional work; additionally, most UBI proponents favor UBI eventually eliminating minimum wage (though in an early-stage, not-yet-adequate-for-independent-support UBI, the UBI might merely reduce the minimum wage by some amount), so that UBI reduces the structural barriers for low-money-value work that remains mutually beneficial getting done.
- caseysoftware 10y agoIf we start excluding groups, can we stop calling it a "Universal Basic Income" and admit that it will be yet another political weapon to wield?
- mason240 10y agoAbsolutely, as soon as you introduce ANY means testing at all, it is not longer UBI.
- grahamburger 10y agoUBI will be yet another political weapon to yield, just on the taxes side rather than the payout side. Where do we draw the line between who nets positive on UBI after their tax increases, and who loses money? That would be an enormous political weapon to yield.
- bradleyjg 10y agoI did some back of the envelope math several months ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10172397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10172397
- jgdx 10y agoHe also haven't looked into the strong philosophical arguments for BI, dating back to Paine in the 18th century. Justice and freedom are keys to all of these arguments, e. g. that of Van Parijs, where if one looks at work as a fundamental resource, you should be free to take or not take a job. There's so much literature on this—why not look into it?
- prostoalex 10y ago> eliminating excessive management of all of the existing programs There are really just three - Social Security, Medicare+Medicaid, and EITC. Above you mentioned keeping Social Security around, so that really leaves just two programs, and it feels like the elephant in the room - Medicare - has been scrutinized by both parties so often, that one might wiggle a few percentage points of savings here and there, but nothing critical, especially in light of baby boomers retiring in larger numbers. If you have a good plan for drastically cutting down the costs of Medicare, those are worth hearing about, whether or not UBI is involved.