4 ms·

That's not really a fair response to the parent's comment, but I suppose the parent's comment was entirely charitable to the proposed hypothetical either. A mo

by dsacco 10y ago

That's not really a fair response to the parent's comment, but I suppose the parent's comment was entirely charitable to the proposed hypothetical either. A more rigorous question with which to start (though maybe a bit leading...) would be: Would you rather pay qualified labor force participants to do labor/construction/civil engineering, or would you rather pay the same number of qualified participants to start high growth technology companies? The nice thing about this question is that it lends itself to empiricism - we can figure out the most rational answer by looking at the ratio of successes to failures in each category of achievement. To put it very precisely: at what percentage of successes out of total attempts are we willing to choose to fund extremely rare but huge successes that employ a lot of people over very consistent but modest successes that employ only the workers and a smaller ongoing number in the long term? I haven't actually done the math, but my intuition (which could be wrong!) is that it makes more sense to pay for people to e.g. fix America's insanely expensive and inefficient transportation system than to pay for them to sit in a garage and try to "innovate." Then again, you could argue that America's transportation projects are inefficient and expensive because they support an elaborate jobs program already :)

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> That's not really a fair response to the parent's comment, but I suppose the parent's comment was entirely charitable to the proposed hypothetical either. That was the point. > Would you rather pay qualified labor force participants to do labor/construction/civil engineering, or would you rather pay the same number of qualified participants to start high growth technology companies? To which the answer is almost certainly, both. Because we need roads and infrastructure, but we also need a safety net, and they are not the same thing. > I haven't actually done the math, but my intuition (which could be wrong!) is that it makes more sense to pay for people to e.g. fix America's insanely expensive and inefficient transportation system than to pay for them to sit in a garage and try to "innovate." Literally starting a multibillion dollar company is obviously not the one most people are going to do. But a UBI also lets you quit your terrible job and still pay rent while attending community college, so you can get a better job tomorrow. Or use the safety net go to a new place where you're more likely to find better employment opportunities. Or start a normal small business that nobody ever expects to be Apple or Walmart but after a couple years will be able to pay you a middle class wage. And the best part is that you have self-interested people figuring it out for themselves.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >That was the point. That was actually my point. >But a UBI also lets you quit your terrible job A guaranteed job that isn't horrible makes terrible jobs better since employers will have to compete to keep their employees.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    How do you guarantee a non-terrible job to people with minimal skills? And how do you finance it? With a UBI you don't have to pay as much because people can supplement it with an actual job even if pays less than current minimum wage, and everyone who works is offsetting part or all of their own cost by paying taxes. 100% of people can collect the UBI because most of them will still be working and paying taxes, and if they don't it's only because the amount is too high. What if 85% of people choose the "basic job", and the only way to change that is to either make the "basic job" degrading or have it pay less than a living wage?
    - crdoconnor 10y ago
      >How do you guarantee a non-terrible job to people with minimal skills? Don't overwork them, don't be unreasonable towards them, don't disrespect them and pay them a living wage to do some sort of meaningful work (e.g. care work). This isn't that hard. The US has done it before. >And how do you finance it? There's a hundred different ways. >With a UBI you don't have to pay as much You have to pay more because it goes to everybody instead of just the unemployed and you don't get anything in return for that money. >What if 85% of people choose the "basic job" That's kind of like asking "what if programmers all gave up their jobs at once to become cleaners?". > the only way to change that is to either make the "basic job" degrading A "basic job" can establish a floor on job quality and wages. Private employers will respond to this market force by paying more and treating people better and they will complain bitterly about it.

by dsacco 10y ago

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> That's not really a fair response to the parent's comment, but I suppose the parent's comment was entirely charitable to the proposed hypothetical either. That was the point. > Would you rather pay qualified labor force participants to do labor/construction/civil engineering, or would you rather pay the same number of qualified participants to start high growth technology companies? To which the answer is almost certainly, both. Because we need roads and infrastructure, but we also need a safety net, and they are not the same thing. > I haven't actually done the math, but my intuition (which could be wrong!) is that it makes more sense to pay for people to e.g. fix America's insanely expensive and inefficient transportation system than to pay for them to sit in a garage and try to "innovate." Literally starting a multibillion dollar company is obviously not the one most people are going to do. But a UBI also lets you quit your terrible job and still pay rent while attending community college, so you can get a better job tomorrow. Or use the safety net go to a new place where you're more likely to find better employment opportunities. Or start a normal small business that nobody ever expects to be Apple or Walmart but after a couple years will be able to pay you a middle class wage. And the best part is that you have self-interested people figuring it out for themselves.

crdoconnor 10y ago
>That was the point. That was actually my point. >But a UBI also lets you quit your terrible job A guaranteed job that isn't horrible makes terrible jobs better since employers will have to compete to keep their employees.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  How do you guarantee a non-terrible job to people with minimal skills? And how do you finance it? With a UBI you don't have to pay as much because people can supplement it with an actual job even if pays less than current minimum wage, and everyone who works is offsetting part or all of their own cost by paying taxes. 100% of people can collect the UBI because most of them will still be working and paying taxes, and if they don't it's only because the amount is too high. What if 85% of people choose the "basic job", and the only way to change that is to either make the "basic job" degrading or have it pay less than a living wage?
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    >How do you guarantee a non-terrible job to people with minimal skills? Don't overwork them, don't be unreasonable towards them, don't disrespect them and pay them a living wage to do some sort of meaningful work (e.g. care work). This isn't that hard. The US has done it before. >And how do you finance it? There's a hundred different ways. >With a UBI you don't have to pay as much You have to pay more because it goes to everybody instead of just the unemployed and you don't get anything in return for that money. >What if 85% of people choose the "basic job" That's kind of like asking "what if programmers all gave up their jobs at once to become cleaners?". > the only way to change that is to either make the "basic job" degrading A "basic job" can establish a floor on job quality and wages. Private employers will respond to this market force by paying more and treating people better and they will complain bitterly about it.