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Once again no answer to the main Question: What to do with people that blow their UBI by the 2nd of each month on SAAS Startups? Let them starve? Go without Sh

Once again no answer to the main Question: What to do with people that blow their UBI by the 2nd of each month on SAAS Startups? Let them starve? Go without Shelter?

dnautics 10y ago
Same question is valid for food stamps, EITC.
teddyh 10y ago
From the article: > Some people will still behave irresponsibly and be in need before that deposit arrives, but the UBI will radically change the social framework within which they seek help: Everybody will know that everybody else has an income stream. It will be possible to say to the irresponsible what can’t be said now: “We won’t let you starve before you get your next deposit, but it’s time for you to get your act together. Don’t try to tell us you’re helpless, because we know you aren’t.”
- dnautics 10y ago
  I wonder if this is bad because on the net it will make society less compassionate.
  - brbsix 10y ago
    Less compassionate to those undeserving of it, sure. Isn't that a good thing? I'm not a fan of UBI but this aspect might turn out to be really beneficial in reversing the perverse incentives and dysgenic effects of current social benefits programs.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      > Less compassionate to those undeserving of it, sure. Isn't that a good thing? Only if we want to continue to have addicts and the mentally ill homeless, abused, and taken advantage of.
    - prawn 10y ago
      Who's undeserving though? Someone lazy, sure. But someone impaired through birth defect or accident or mental illness? How do you determine whether someone is lazy but claiming anxiety/depression, or actually suffering?
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    Maybe. Hopefully it lets us do a better job picking our compassionate response. Someone who can't get by with a sufficient regular income needs help of a different character than further handouts - giving more of the latter is not a sign of greater compassion.
- riskable 10y ago
  The problem here is the assumption that everyone on Medicaid, Social Security, etc is capable of spending money responsibly. Take away their benefits and hand them some cash. This will result in millions of vulnerable seniors and mentally disabled individuals being scammed out of their money each month. Whether it be "tech support" scammers or local fraudsters or even simply not being able to budget money (at a basic level) these folks will be in trouble. I live with (and care for) a mentally disabled individual (IQ: ~60) that receives benefits through Social Security, Medicaid, and other government programs. If it were not for our help in managing these benefits she would spend her money (which is supposed to be for food/living expenses) on Amazon on $100 anime-themed coffee cups and similar widgets the moment she receives it. Not to mention the fact that she will never understand how to sign up for such services or know who to trust when receiving services. If someone in a lab coat told her they were a government doctor and she "had to pay" for her upcoming appointment she'd likely just hand over all her money. There's no way to "educate" her out of this problem. I've taught her all sorts of things... many times and I'll have to teach her again and again. It's not so dissimilar to walking an old person through accessing a web app/site over and over again ("no, that's the search bar"). Handing vulnerable people money every month won't solve their problems. It's a great idea for the economy in general though! Just don't do away with government services for the needy. Especially medical care.
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    This is a solved problem (at least, it's solved about as well as you could expect we could do). Social Security has the notion of a REPY or "Representative Payee" for recipients deemed unable to spend their own money, a trustee who manages it on their behalf. It's similar to (but not the same as) the concept of a legal guardian. All in all, the Social Security Administration has a huge amount of experience with all the details and problems involved in efficient day to day administration of a massive payments program like this, so there's no reason not to just reuse the existing bureaucratic infrastructure and just swap out the eligibility rules.
    - greedo 10y ago
      And if you retain the SSA, one of the biggest arguments for UBI (dismantling wasteful government agencies) gets defenestrated.
- adynatos 10y ago
  how is that different from telling lazy bums today to get a job, but without extra layers of complexity?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kylec 10y ago
Essentially, yes. It should encourage them to make better choices in the future.
brador 10y ago
Pay out UBI daily? The technology exists, no reason not to do it that way. Also the only way to make a basic income work is through a land or land value tax. Else you get massive inflation.
- mac01021 10y ago
  How does the redistribution of wealth by using taxes on personal spending or on earned income to fund UBI cause inflation?
  - brador 10y ago
    In difficult times people stop spending money, even with UBI. This means less income to spread around, the solution, print more money = inflation. Second, under UBI a proportion of the population stops working and this increases over time as robots replace workers. Reducing earned income, lowering UBI cash availability. Solution? Print more money = inflation. With a land value tax you get a known relatively unchanging set amount of $ based on land value. Balancing the inflation/deflation curve.
    - chimeracoder 10y ago
      > In difficult times people stop spending money, even with UBI. This means less income to spread around, the solution, print more money = inflation. This is... not really correct. It's true that expansionary monetary policy is often practiced in times of economic recession, but that's not really because there's 'less income to spread around'. And the reason expansionary monetary policy is practiced isn't to give people more income. (Printing money doesn't give individuals more income - if you want to do that, you need expansionary fiscal policy - that's the goal behind tax cuts). So what does printing money do? Expansionary monetary policy reduces the costs of loans and investments. The goal is to spur long-term investment projects by making capital cheaper, which serves to jump-start the economy. But that has no direct connection to people's personal income. They're interconnected, sure - everything in the economy is, at some level. But the connection to inflation (and the connection to printing money) are completely different things.
yulaow 10y ago
I have another (hope not stupid) fundamental question: do we have to give people a different UBI based on their location (aka cost-of-life)? If no, it will be pretty hard to find a right value. If yes, should we also change it as soon as they relocate?
- trishume 10y ago
  My preferred answer (although others may differ) is that it should be the same for everyone. If you can't afford to live where you are now, move somewhere cheaper or get a job. If you're jobless and can't afford an expensive city that means the economy is telling you to make room for someone who can make productive use of the limited space in an area that many need to be to work together. If you want to stay near family and friends, find a nice cheap place an hour or two away, if you want a shorter commute that's a luxury, not a necessity, and you should work for it. Basic incomes are for the minimum needed to live a decent life, living in a specific expensive location is a luxury you should have to work for.
  - zo1 10y ago
    >"If you can't afford to live where you are now, move somewhere cheaper or get a job. If you're jobless and can't afford an expensive city that means the economy is telling you to make room for someone who can make productive use of the limited space in an area that many need to be to work together." That's exactly how it should work, even in a system with no UBI. Sadly, people see the state as the grand fixer and enabler of everything. Eventually, we'd all realize that certain places simply cost more to live in due to reasons outside of everyone's control. E.g. maybe it's hard to create affordable safe housing in a very earthquake/tornado prone area. Or hard to deliver fresh healthy produce to a city in the middle of nowhere like a desert. I exaggerate, of course, but these minor details still affect prices to a certain extent. We can't have cosmic-justice.
- mac01021 10y ago
  That doesn't seem like a huge issue to me. Give everyone the same amount and then let them work harder to live where they want or relocate to a place where the UBI exceeds the cost of living. There are already neighborhoods now where most people, including me, cannot afford to live, and I don't see it as a tremendous injustice.
trishume 10y ago
Have them stop paying for SAAS Startups next month? Many existing welfare systems fail in this same scenario. For any feasible welfare plan it is possible to invent scenarios where someone can torpedo themselves. The goal should just be to make it harder for external forces to hurt people, and maybe a bit more difficult to torpedo yourself. At some point welfare programs must say something along the lines of "if you take help we give you and set it on fire, that's past the line, go find a charity or psychiatrist to help you"
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > "if you take help we give you and set it on fire, that's past the line, go find a charity or psychiatrist to help you" Ideally, social service workers could still help these folks.
brbsix 10y ago
This question is out of scope. UBI is meant to be unconditional income (to be allocated as each individual sees fit), not unconditional food, shelter, or other necessities.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  > This question is out of scope. UBI is meant to be unconditional income (to be allocated as each individual sees fit), not unconditional food, shelter, or other necessities. Well, if it's being paid for by eliminating programs which do provide food, shelter, and other necessities, then it's not really out of scope to ask how we're going to provide those.
seanwilson 10y ago
If you created a department to give out money for emergencies, the number of people applying and the amount of paper work required would surely cost less than the current system for benefits?
patrickg_zill 10y ago
Give them a $2 a month vps/cloud instance and ensure that Jekyll is installed on their laptop.
- JorgeGT 10y ago
  Why would one need a vps if using Jekyll?
  - patrickg_zill 10y ago
    They have to test deployment, of course!
zoul 10y ago
How is this different from our current situation with pensions?
yetanotheracc 10y ago
Put them in prison for all I care.
vasilipupkin 10y ago
You could have a special program for those who can be shown to be mentally incapable of managing their ubi. If you don't pass the test, but accidentally waste your ubi and have no other income, there can be a loan program to be repaid at reasonably high interest rates out of your future ubi
- vasilipupkin 10y ago
  And yes, if you are mentally capable but choose to waste your ubi, and can't repay the loan, we would let you starve. Same if you take your food stamps today and throw them in the river - we would let you starve
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  More realistically than administering some kind of test would be to force people to opt out of basic necessities care. So a person's UBI would be portioned off for food, health, state living facilities etc. so they would always have the bare minimum to survive. If I happened upon a person in need I would merely need to simply bring them to the nearest grocery store and their food needs would be taken care of. Since its opt out, they likely won't have the facilities to opt out. My biggest concern is how you logistically provide money to people. What do you use to distribute it? Some sort of state owned bank? What about identification?

Once again no answer to the main Question: What to do with people that blow their UBI by the 2nd of each month on SAAS Startups? Let them starve? Go without Shelter?

dnautics 10y ago

Same question is valid for food stamps, EITC.

teddyh 10y ago

From the article: > Some people will still behave irresponsibly and be in need before that deposit arrives, but the UBI will radically change the social framework within which they seek help: Everybody will know that everybody else has an income stream. It will be possible to say to the irresponsible what can’t be said now: “We won’t let you starve before you get your next deposit, but it’s time for you to get your act together. Don’t try to tell us you’re helpless, because we know you aren’t.”

dnautics 10y ago
I wonder if this is bad because on the net it will make society less compassionate.
- brbsix 10y ago
  Less compassionate to those undeserving of it, sure. Isn't that a good thing? I'm not a fan of UBI but this aspect might turn out to be really beneficial in reversing the perverse incentives and dysgenic effects of current social benefits programs.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > Less compassionate to those undeserving of it, sure. Isn't that a good thing? Only if we want to continue to have addicts and the mentally ill homeless, abused, and taken advantage of.
  - prawn 10y ago
    Who's undeserving though? Someone lazy, sure. But someone impaired through birth defect or accident or mental illness? How do you determine whether someone is lazy but claiming anxiety/depression, or actually suffering?
- dllthomas 10y ago
  Maybe. Hopefully it lets us do a better job picking our compassionate response. Someone who can't get by with a sufficient regular income needs help of a different character than further handouts - giving more of the latter is not a sign of greater compassion.
riskable 10y ago
The problem here is the assumption that everyone on Medicaid, Social Security, etc is capable of spending money responsibly. Take away their benefits and hand them some cash. This will result in millions of vulnerable seniors and mentally disabled individuals being scammed out of their money each month. Whether it be "tech support" scammers or local fraudsters or even simply not being able to budget money (at a basic level) these folks will be in trouble. I live with (and care for) a mentally disabled individual (IQ: ~60) that receives benefits through Social Security, Medicaid, and other government programs. If it were not for our help in managing these benefits she would spend her money (which is supposed to be for food/living expenses) on Amazon on $100 anime-themed coffee cups and similar widgets the moment she receives it. Not to mention the fact that she will never understand how to sign up for such services or know who to trust when receiving services. If someone in a lab coat told her they were a government doctor and she "had to pay" for her upcoming appointment she'd likely just hand over all her money. There's no way to "educate" her out of this problem. I've taught her all sorts of things... many times and I'll have to teach her again and again. It's not so dissimilar to walking an old person through accessing a web app/site over and over again ("no, that's the search bar"). Handing vulnerable people money every month won't solve their problems. It's a great idea for the economy in general though! Just don't do away with government services for the needy. Especially medical care.
- galdosdi 10y ago
  This is a solved problem (at least, it's solved about as well as you could expect we could do). Social Security has the notion of a REPY or "Representative Payee" for recipients deemed unable to spend their own money, a trustee who manages it on their behalf. It's similar to (but not the same as) the concept of a legal guardian. All in all, the Social Security Administration has a huge amount of experience with all the details and problems involved in efficient day to day administration of a massive payments program like this, so there's no reason not to just reuse the existing bureaucratic infrastructure and just swap out the eligibility rules.
  - greedo 10y ago
    And if you retain the SSA, one of the biggest arguments for UBI (dismantling wasteful government agencies) gets defenestrated.
adynatos 10y ago
how is that different from telling lazy bums today to get a job, but without extra layers of complexity?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kylec 10y ago

Essentially, yes. It should encourage them to make better choices in the future.

brador 10y ago

Pay out UBI daily? The technology exists, no reason not to do it that way. Also the only way to make a basic income work is through a land or land value tax. Else you get massive inflation.

mac01021 10y ago
How does the redistribution of wealth by using taxes on personal spending or on earned income to fund UBI cause inflation?
- brador 10y ago
  In difficult times people stop spending money, even with UBI. This means less income to spread around, the solution, print more money = inflation. Second, under UBI a proportion of the population stops working and this increases over time as robots replace workers. Reducing earned income, lowering UBI cash availability. Solution? Print more money = inflation. With a land value tax you get a known relatively unchanging set amount of $ based on land value. Balancing the inflation/deflation curve.
  - chimeracoder 10y ago
    > In difficult times people stop spending money, even with UBI. This means less income to spread around, the solution, print more money = inflation. This is... not really correct. It's true that expansionary monetary policy is often practiced in times of economic recession, but that's not really because there's 'less income to spread around'. And the reason expansionary monetary policy is practiced isn't to give people more income. (Printing money doesn't give individuals more income - if you want to do that, you need expansionary fiscal policy - that's the goal behind tax cuts). So what does printing money do? Expansionary monetary policy reduces the costs of loans and investments. The goal is to spur long-term investment projects by making capital cheaper, which serves to jump-start the economy. But that has no direct connection to people's personal income. They're interconnected, sure - everything in the economy is, at some level. But the connection to inflation (and the connection to printing money) are completely different things.

yulaow 10y ago

I have another (hope not stupid) fundamental question: do we have to give people a different UBI based on their location (aka cost-of-life)? If no, it will be pretty hard to find a right value. If yes, should we also change it as soon as they relocate?

trishume 10y ago
My preferred answer (although others may differ) is that it should be the same for everyone. If you can't afford to live where you are now, move somewhere cheaper or get a job. If you're jobless and can't afford an expensive city that means the economy is telling you to make room for someone who can make productive use of the limited space in an area that many need to be to work together. If you want to stay near family and friends, find a nice cheap place an hour or two away, if you want a shorter commute that's a luxury, not a necessity, and you should work for it. Basic incomes are for the minimum needed to live a decent life, living in a specific expensive location is a luxury you should have to work for.
- zo1 10y ago
  >"If you can't afford to live where you are now, move somewhere cheaper or get a job. If you're jobless and can't afford an expensive city that means the economy is telling you to make room for someone who can make productive use of the limited space in an area that many need to be to work together." That's exactly how it should work, even in a system with no UBI. Sadly, people see the state as the grand fixer and enabler of everything. Eventually, we'd all realize that certain places simply cost more to live in due to reasons outside of everyone's control. E.g. maybe it's hard to create affordable safe housing in a very earthquake/tornado prone area. Or hard to deliver fresh healthy produce to a city in the middle of nowhere like a desert. I exaggerate, of course, but these minor details still affect prices to a certain extent. We can't have cosmic-justice.
mac01021 10y ago
That doesn't seem like a huge issue to me. Give everyone the same amount and then let them work harder to live where they want or relocate to a place where the UBI exceeds the cost of living. There are already neighborhoods now where most people, including me, cannot afford to live, and I don't see it as a tremendous injustice.

trishume 10y ago

Have them stop paying for SAAS Startups next month? Many existing welfare systems fail in this same scenario. For any feasible welfare plan it is possible to invent scenarios where someone can torpedo themselves. The goal should just be to make it harder for external forces to hurt people, and maybe a bit more difficult to torpedo yourself. At some point welfare programs must say something along the lines of "if you take help we give you and set it on fire, that's past the line, go find a charity or psychiatrist to help you"

toomuchtodo 10y ago
> "if you take help we give you and set it on fire, that's past the line, go find a charity or psychiatrist to help you" Ideally, social service workers could still help these folks.

brbsix 10y ago

This question is out of scope. UBI is meant to be unconditional income (to be allocated as each individual sees fit), not unconditional food, shelter, or other necessities.

chimeracoder 10y ago
> This question is out of scope. UBI is meant to be unconditional income (to be allocated as each individual sees fit), not unconditional food, shelter, or other necessities. Well, if it's being paid for by eliminating programs which do provide food, shelter, and other necessities, then it's not really out of scope to ask how we're going to provide those.

seanwilson 10y ago

If you created a department to give out money for emergencies, the number of people applying and the amount of paper work required would surely cost less than the current system for benefits?

patrickg_zill 10y ago

Give them a $2 a month vps/cloud instance and ensure that Jekyll is installed on their laptop.

JorgeGT 10y ago
Why would one need a vps if using Jekyll?
- patrickg_zill 10y ago
  They have to test deployment, of course!

zoul 10y ago

How is this different from our current situation with pensions?

yetanotheracc 10y ago

Put them in prison for all I care.

vasilipupkin 10y ago

You could have a special program for those who can be shown to be mentally incapable of managing their ubi. If you don't pass the test, but accidentally waste your ubi and have no other income, there can be a loan program to be repaid at reasonably high interest rates out of your future ubi

vasilipupkin 10y ago
And yes, if you are mentally capable but choose to waste your ubi, and can't repay the loan, we would let you starve. Same if you take your food stamps today and throw them in the river - we would let you starve
dclowd9901 10y ago
More realistically than administering some kind of test would be to force people to opt out of basic necessities care. So a person's UBI would be portioned off for food, health, state living facilities etc. so they would always have the bare minimum to survive. If I happened upon a person in need I would merely need to simply bring them to the nearest grocery store and their food needs would be taken care of. Since its opt out, they likely won't have the facilities to opt out. My biggest concern is how you logistically provide money to people. What do you use to distribute it? Some sort of state owned bank? What about identification?