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I think you are ignoring some bad things that could come out of UBI. The greatest danger is that people may be comfortable near the BI level until they are abo

I think you are ignoring some bad things that could come out of UBI. The greatest danger is that people may be comfortable near the BI level until they are about 30, and not really work or educate themselves much (lacking motivation). Then, they want to have a family, and all of a sudden their desires for consumption skyrocket. They can't just join the workforce then, because it will be 10 years before they advance enough to get what they want. Then you have a bunch of undereducated, inexperienced people who want a lot of stuff. I'm not saying it will happen, but we have to be careful.

xedrac 10y ago
I think you hit on one of the biggest risks in my opinion. Right now there is a strong motive to educate yourself, because it will likely result in a more comfortable future. Having a highly educated population is hugely beneficial. I suppose if UBI provided just enough to keep you alive, then it might not be so bad.
- sokoloff 10y ago
  Mathematically, I can't imagine we could fund a UBI scheme that would even barely keep you housed and fed. At $1500/mo for everyone in the US, that comes to just shy of 6 trillion USD. For comparison, the total federal tax revenues for 2016 are going to be approximately 3.5 trillion USD, including payroll taxes. At $1500/mo/person, this one program would present 5/3rds of all federal tax revenues. A more realistic figure is probably much closer to $650/mo, assuming you take ALL of the current federal spending on healthcare, social security, veteran's benefits, pensions, and welfare and direct it into UBI. This says nothing of the legality of cancelling existing or contractually promised federal pensions, nor the morality/practicality of changing the existing social security and Medicare systems, of course. $650/mo/person still leaves us with a deficit (as today) and is a pretty meager existence for sure!
  - zanny 10y ago
    UBI isn't black hole spending like the military. A lot of money is moving through the fed in taxes but that money isn't going into a black hole or having a huge inefficiency quotient taken out of it, the vast majority of UBI checks will be immediately spent and recirculated without any overhead.
    - sokoloff 10y ago
      It is undeniably true that the majority of UBI checks will be spent as "fast money". Nevertheless, the money is going to come from somewhere and that somewhere is taxes. It would be unreasonable to not calculate the total sum of taxes required for various levels of UBI funding, IMO.
      - zanny 10y ago
        It depends on how you phrase it. If you treat it like an expense, people will balk at the proposal as unreasonable. And while a lot of tax revenue ends up being wasted and becomes effectively an expense, 6 trillion taxed to maintain a $1500/month UBI for all adults is not going to slow the economy the way 500Bn for the military does. At worst, the wealthy are getting a fraction of their tax money back in their UBI check and putting it right back where the tax revenue came from - investment accounts. It is the same way infrastructure investment works. Nobody wants to do it because the upfront bill looks big. But the decades long projection of efficiency of most high-demand projects would eclipse the cost by an order of magnitude. Meanwhile special interests (mainly those who would not immediately benefit from the infrastructure themselves) keep phrasing the conversation around "how much it will cost" these projects never get done, and the national economy suffers as a whole for it.
        sokoloff 10y ago
        Are you prepared to double current taxes? If not, you need to plan spend less than double what you're currently spending.
- gozur88 10y ago
  It's not just education. Somebody who didn't get out of bed before noon until he was 30 will probably never be able to hold down a job. This is the reason I think UBI will be disastrous, but it's going to take a generation or two for the rot to set in.
bitJericho 10y ago
Ubi should never be about owning anything. It should be about providing housing, food, healthcare, clothes, and nothing more. It should be for all citizens, including children. This way you can have a family. But if you want a tv, phone, car, you're going to have to work. Since people are living to their 70s plus, lounging around isn't a big deal. I think you'll find people become very creative too, or focus on high level education.
- jeffdavis 10y ago
  It's not about what people need though, it's about what they want. I'm not saying the children will starve, I'm saying the parents will want a lot of stuff all of a sudden.
- ploxiln 10y ago
  Adding children is pushing it - because the parent controls the child's money, so there is a conflict of interest.
  - 3825 10y ago
    > Adding children is pushing it - because the parent controls the child's money, so there is a conflict of interest. I absolutely agree. I'd push it further though. Not just children but anyone who is not in a capacity to freely spend the money. To make a contrived example, someone may not simply kidnap a person and take their universal basic income. I go farther to say that local/state/federal government may not take the money for people in their custody. There ought to be some way to protect it from being garnished as well. I think we should not oversell this. There might be a lot of people who are perfectly content with being able to survive and get by. If they do not want to participate further in the economy, I think we should say that's fine. The ax I have to grind in this is that maybe if people are not scared of starving to death after leaving a job they don't like doing, maybe we will have more people doing jobs they do like doing and maybe just maybe me and others will have a better shot at doing what we love doing even if it is at a slightly lower (after taxes) pay than before.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
beachstartup 10y ago
> Then you have a bunch of undereducated, inexperienced people who want a lot of stuff. it's already happened, and it caused the subprime mortgage crisis and the college debt crisis. not to mention the up-and-coming problems of payday loan debt, credit card debt, and subprime auto loans.
thlst 10y ago
That already happened in Venezuela (and is happening in Brazil).
erik14th 10y ago
People can already get comfortable living an "easy" life of party and shitty jobs till a child happens and then they're screwed. Worse than that, lots of people have no choice, they inherited no capital and thus can't afford to educate themselves to get a good job since they need to work to supply for themselves and their families, effective UBI would give those people breathing room to work/study what they want and actually achieve enough to have a good family.

xedrac 10y ago

I think you hit on one of the biggest risks in my opinion. Right now there is a strong motive to educate yourself, because it will likely result in a more comfortable future. Having a highly educated population is hugely beneficial. I suppose if UBI provided just enough to keep you alive, then it might not be so bad.

sokoloff 10y ago
Mathematically, I can't imagine we could fund a UBI scheme that would even barely keep you housed and fed. At $1500/mo for everyone in the US, that comes to just shy of 6 trillion USD. For comparison, the total federal tax revenues for 2016 are going to be approximately 3.5 trillion USD, including payroll taxes. At $1500/mo/person, this one program would present 5/3rds of all federal tax revenues. A more realistic figure is probably much closer to $650/mo, assuming you take ALL of the current federal spending on healthcare, social security, veteran's benefits, pensions, and welfare and direct it into UBI. This says nothing of the legality of cancelling existing or contractually promised federal pensions, nor the morality/practicality of changing the existing social security and Medicare systems, of course. $650/mo/person still leaves us with a deficit (as today) and is a pretty meager existence for sure!
- zanny 10y ago
  UBI isn't black hole spending like the military. A lot of money is moving through the fed in taxes but that money isn't going into a black hole or having a huge inefficiency quotient taken out of it, the vast majority of UBI checks will be immediately spent and recirculated without any overhead.
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    It is undeniably true that the majority of UBI checks will be spent as "fast money". Nevertheless, the money is going to come from somewhere and that somewhere is taxes. It would be unreasonable to not calculate the total sum of taxes required for various levels of UBI funding, IMO.
    - zanny 10y ago
      It depends on how you phrase it. If you treat it like an expense, people will balk at the proposal as unreasonable. And while a lot of tax revenue ends up being wasted and becomes effectively an expense, 6 trillion taxed to maintain a $1500/month UBI for all adults is not going to slow the economy the way 500Bn for the military does. At worst, the wealthy are getting a fraction of their tax money back in their UBI check and putting it right back where the tax revenue came from - investment accounts. It is the same way infrastructure investment works. Nobody wants to do it because the upfront bill looks big. But the decades long projection of efficiency of most high-demand projects would eclipse the cost by an order of magnitude. Meanwhile special interests (mainly those who would not immediately benefit from the infrastructure themselves) keep phrasing the conversation around "how much it will cost" these projects never get done, and the national economy suffers as a whole for it.
      - sokoloff 10y ago
        Are you prepared to double current taxes? If not, you need to plan spend less than double what you're currently spending.
gozur88 10y ago
It's not just education. Somebody who didn't get out of bed before noon until he was 30 will probably never be able to hold down a job. This is the reason I think UBI will be disastrous, but it's going to take a generation or two for the rot to set in.

bitJericho 10y ago

Ubi should never be about owning anything. It should be about providing housing, food, healthcare, clothes, and nothing more. It should be for all citizens, including children. This way you can have a family. But if you want a tv, phone, car, you're going to have to work. Since people are living to their 70s plus, lounging around isn't a big deal. I think you'll find people become very creative too, or focus on high level education.

jeffdavis 10y ago
It's not about what people need though, it's about what they want. I'm not saying the children will starve, I'm saying the parents will want a lot of stuff all of a sudden.
ploxiln 10y ago
Adding children is pushing it - because the parent controls the child's money, so there is a conflict of interest.
- 3825 10y ago
  > Adding children is pushing it - because the parent controls the child's money, so there is a conflict of interest. I absolutely agree. I'd push it further though. Not just children but anyone who is not in a capacity to freely spend the money. To make a contrived example, someone may not simply kidnap a person and take their universal basic income. I go farther to say that local/state/federal government may not take the money for people in their custody. There ought to be some way to protect it from being garnished as well. I think we should not oversell this. There might be a lot of people who are perfectly content with being able to survive and get by. If they do not want to participate further in the economy, I think we should say that's fine. The ax I have to grind in this is that maybe if people are not scared of starving to death after leaving a job they don't like doing, maybe we will have more people doing jobs they do like doing and maybe just maybe me and others will have a better shot at doing what we love doing even if it is at a slightly lower (after taxes) pay than before.
- kalleboo 10y ago

beachstartup 10y ago

> Then you have a bunch of undereducated, inexperienced people who want a lot of stuff. it's already happened, and it caused the subprime mortgage crisis and the college debt crisis. not to mention the up-and-coming problems of payday loan debt, credit card debt, and subprime auto loans.

thlst 10y ago

That already happened in Venezuela (and is happening in Brazil).

erik14th 10y ago

People can already get comfortable living an "easy" life of party and shitty jobs till a child happens and then they're screwed. Worse than that, lots of people have no choice, they inherited no capital and thus can't afford to educate themselves to get a good job since they need to work to supply for themselves and their families, effective UBI would give those people breathing room to work/study what they want and actually achieve enough to have a good family.