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There's two issues that I don't think have been adequately addressed, or that I missed, in the banter over this issue. 1) What would stop us from recreating th

There's two issues that I don't think have been adequately addressed, or that I missed, in the banter over this issue. 1) What would stop us from recreating the inefficient welfare state that already exists on top of this new one when some people inevitably blow their UBI on drugs/cheetos/whatever and don't have money for rent? It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country...which gets me to my next, perhaps more contentious, point. 2) What role do immigrants play in this? Google's telling me there's 11m illegal immigrants in the US right now (though I've seen higher estimates from more hawkish folks). What about people on a visa who pay taxes? Would they both get UBI from Uncle Sam? My view for both would be no, but some of my peers who support UBI have argued that they should, pretty emphatically. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm detecting, at least in my circles, a lot of overlap between people who believe in the "global citizen" model and those who support this. Perhaps Altman's idea of basically just issuing shares of USG is meant to get around this, but that sounds still half-baked at this point, even if it is just a branding strategy. This, at its heart, is more of a rights question and I don't think we've been thinking about it that way.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>1) What would stop us from recreating the inefficient welfare state that already exists on top of this new one when some people inevitably blow their UBI on drugs/cheetos/whatever and don't have money for rent? It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country...which gets me to my next, perhaps more contentious, point. Exactly! UBI needs to go on top of our existing welfare system. It's a problem of freedom. Say I give you $300 and tell you that's what you live on this month. Well with $300 you can find a (crappy) shelter. You could buy food, pay your existing debt obligations, etc. But you can't do all of them. The money gives you freedom but not enough to do everything you need. Our existing welfare system is a god awful patchwork but the existence of all these separate systems makes sure that someone who is poor is still free to buy food AND pay for shelter AND pay off debt. UBI is adding another AND on to the list. We've progressed as a society, wealth is abundant but not shared so now you can buy food AND pay for shelter AND pay off debt AND ... whatever you can do with $12k a yr (or whatever the figure is.)
maxpupmax 9y ago
For issue (1), the articles I've seen suggest that the vast majority of people just don't do this. Certainly some do, but I don't see why a couple bad actors invalidate a scheme which can work for most of the population. I don't have an authoritative source on the above claims, but here's a 538 article which talks about the issue a bit. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-welfare-dollars-dont-go-directly-to-poor-people-anymore/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-welfare-dollars-do... "[reduction in cash assistance] has happened despite a burgeoning economics literature suggesting that direct cash transfers are in many cases the most efficient tool to fight poverty." Issue (2) seems less cut-and-dry to me.
- remarkEon 9y ago
  My point is not meant to imply that bad actors invalidate the scheme, but that it seems likely that a political regime wishing to maintain (or gain) power could capitalize on our empathy for marginalized groups, adding complexity and building quite the leviathan.
rev_bird 9y ago
>It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country. I'd argue that the culture is currently overwhelmingly biased toward saying "no," usually under the guise of "freedom" -- if we couldn't say "no" to the chronically homeless, we probably wouldn't have a half-million of them on the streets. If we couldn't say "no" to low-income mothers, we wouldn't have the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world.
- ameister14 9y ago
  There is significant debate over the causes of maternal mortality and in particular its recent rise in the us; almost noone thinks it has to do with income.
  - rev_bird 9y ago
    I agree there are lots of reasons to be discussed, but it's my understanding that access to postpartum healthcare is certainly one of the factors, one that varies widely by insurance company. Medicaid, for example, only covers two months of care for mothers after they give birth,[1] and even then care compares poorly to other countries with more equitable healthcare systems. [1] https://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-during-childbirth-leaves-u-s-moms-in-danger https://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-du...
EGreg 9y ago
The scale issue is a big one. The USA is at once too big and too small at the same time. The intercoin project was started with the aim of letting communities issue and control their own smart cryto currency, and seamlessly integrate it into apps. Same as Paypal, VISA network, Venmo, FB do. UBI becomes just an app on top of that. Then community membership becomes a question of the community members or government. Harvard university knows who its students are. Other communities might make decisions via direct democracy (polling not voting). intercoin.org
- hyprCoin 9y ago
  Discussing actual production-ready UBI avenues results in downvotes. I'm guessing it's a knee-jerk reaction to crypto currencies doing so well and there being many who are either tired of hearing about it or who feel as if they missed out. There is a reason they keep getting mentioned.
  - EGreg 9y ago
    The downvoters never explain. My own guess is they hate when someone links to their own project. Every time I put any link to my projects I get a few downvotes no matter HOW good the rest of the comment is.
    - sjg007 9y ago
      My concern is the lack of debate beyond two or three comments. Basically someone says something, another replies, there’s a follow up and then nothing. It’s weird that there’s no discussion, just hit pieces. You see the same thing in the media both in articles/reports as well as callers and comments. We’ve lost the capacity to debate as a society. Or at least we now debate in 123 character tweets or memes.
      - EGreg 9y ago
        Yep. Each forum has its own flavor. I have found the factor that earns downvotes is a link to your own project - the downvoters don't engage you fairly after that.
Suncho 9y ago
1. Why is it a problem for people to spend their money how they choose? If people buy drugs and cheetos or whatever, then isn't that their call? If people who need housing have the money to buy housing, but they're not buying buying housing, then I agree that's a problem that needs to be addressed. Do we see this in practice? Is there an epidemic of people who can afford homes but are choosing to suffer in homelessness? If so, then maybe we can add some free level of shelter to everyone in addition to the basic income. 2. If you give the basic income to immigrants too, then they'll spend that money into your economy. This is a good thing. Withholding it from immigrants would probably be harmful. I know you brought up the "global citizen" model. An easy way for us to achieve that model is just to start paying everyone in the world a basic income. Whichever country does this first will probably become the world's final superpower.
- autokad 9y ago
  > "Whichever country does this first will probably become the world's final superpower." or Venezuela.
- remarkEon 9y ago
  1. It isn't, that's not what I'm saying (if you're talking about their freedom to do something...if you're talking about society in general it seems obvious that certain behaviors are bad and should be discouraged). But if you're going to tax me, and then give this money away to people it seems reasonable that I should have at least some say in what it's spent on...which just gets us back to the same discussions about what UBI evolves into and the kind of culture changes required for it to work (if it's even possible for it to work...that is not a certainty). 2. This "if you give the money they'll spend it in your economy" thing is I think by no means clear. The largest cash source in Mexico is remittance payments from the US. The reason I brought up the "global citizen" model is because there's a lack of skepticism and critical analysis on it and people make blanket statements like "the first country to give everyone in the world money" are actually taken seriously.
  - Suncho 9y ago
    Good points. > if you're talking about their freedom to do something...if you're talking about society in general it seems obvious that certain behaviors are bad and should be discouraged Okay. So you want to discourage people buying cheetos and drugs. That's fine. I agree that they can both be unhealthy. What's a good way to discourage the purchase of these items? Furthermore, pretty much any activity choose to spend your time doing can fall somewhere on the continuum of worthwhileness. And different activities are worthwhile to different extents to different people. But to what extent should we be judging people's activities and disallowing certain activities? Should it extend into how they spend their money? Does it make sense for these restrictions only to apply to poor people? Why? I'm not saying there's an easy answer here. I agree with you that some people need help making the right decisions sometimes and I agree with you that we need laws to protect people. > but if you're going to tax me, and then give this money away to people it seems reasonable that i should have at least some say in what it's spent on I haven't said anything about taxing you. I'm not talking about taking your money and giving it to someone else. I understand that some basic income proponents think that it has to be "funded" through tax revenue, but I feel that it's a mistake to frame things in this way. Increasing taxes doesn't increase the level of basic income we can afford. That being said, the purpose of the government is to represent the collective interests of the people, so you absolutely should have a say in how the government spends their money (it's not your money). And if you have strong feelings about how certain types of spending will help or hurt people, then you're obviously free to voice those concerns. But I don't see how it hurts people to give them money they can spend on anything they choose. And if we really want to deter people from buying drugs and cheetos, I'm not sure that putting absolute conditions on how poor individuals spend their income is an optimal way to achieve that. > which just gets us back to the same discussions about what UBI evolves into and the kind of culture changes required for it to work (if it's even possible for it to work...that is not a certainty). You've been alluding to a required culture change. What would that entail, specifically? > This "if you give the money they'll spend it in your economy" thing is I think by no means clear. The largest cash source in Mexico is remittance payments from the US. Well, some of the basic income will get spent in our economy. To the extent that some of it goes straight to Mexico never to return, it's roughly the equivalent of the government spending money by tossing it down a hole. That portion of the spending has no effect on our economy. This means that we can increase the amount of the basic income even further because our economy has left over capacity to absorb more spending. > The reason I brought up the "global citizen" model is because there's a lack of skepticism and critical analysis on it and people make blanket statements like "the first country to give everyone in the world money" are actually taken seriously. Fair enough. I am often not taken seriously when I say things like that. But that doesn't mean I haven't thought about it thoroughly. So thanks for taking me seriously and asking me questions to try to understand where I'm coming from.
hyprCoin 9y ago
My answers, maybe not the same as yours. 1) Let people make their own decisions and don't try to be their caretakers. 2) UBI should be universal. Ideally the impetus would not be on the US government or any other local government to implement it. Let's not conflate their responsibilities further, they are a large enough centralized point of failure.
- gutnor 9y ago
  > Let people make their own decisions and don't try to be their caretakers. That's some harsh darwinism that seems to go against the principle of UBI. You are mentally unfit (young, ill, sick, depressed, ...) ? Here is some cash, good luck with the wolves.
  - akvadrako 9y ago
    > That's some harsh darwinism that seems to go against the principle of UBI. The principle of UBI is exactly that; give people some money with no strings or instructions and let them make their own decisions. If it's conditional, it's not universal.
    - gutnor 9y ago
      For context of GP question was "How do we prevent creating the same inefficient welfare with UBI", to which parent said roughly "Don't care, just give everyone cash". You can't just give a lump sum of money to a guy with down syndrome and hope he will figure out what he needs without some sort of external assistance, i.e. some sort of welfare program. So either UBI is just the most cynical attempt at social darwinism and eugenics in a long time, or UBI needs to be complemented by something that looks very much like the current set of welfare program. It is easy to see that UBI can somewhat easily be funded, however (UBI + welfare) is a completely different matter.
      - hyprCoin 9y ago
        Ideally the hypothetical down syndrome man will be able to seek help and pay someone for their time if their immediate support network fails them. Perhaps an assisted living center. No need to introduce a nanny state to account for an edge case, need based market dynamics will do that easily enough if the person in need has the financial means. Right now the solution to that hypothetical poor down syndrome man is the salvation army and living on the street. I see it every day with a variety of mental health issues outside my luxury apartment. The disparity is sickening, and our system is failing it's people immensely. Personally I'm very hopeful that a combination of gene editing and AI will alleviate malodies and allow everyone clarity of thought.
vec 9y ago
For issue (1), what's wrong with keeping a vestigial means tested welfare state around? If a UBI works as advertised, the number of people who need further assistance will shrink dramatically. Who cares how inefficient (say) food stamps are if, to a first approximation, nobody uses them? Besides, the existing American welfare system is ostensibly focused on providing a minimum standard of living to children, on the theory that kids shouldn't be punished for their parents' dumb decisions. A lot of the more glaringly stupid and inefficient bits are places where the relevant politicians wanted it to be for everyone in need but had to find some way to claim it was only for families without actually making it only for families. Having a UBI backing the welfare system removes a lot of the impulse to game the system and gives a lot more heft to the argument that children really should mean children and the archetypal broke 30-something bachelor actually should be on their own. Issue (2) is likely to be a fraught issue no matter where the line is, but luckily in an American context we've already spent decades hashing out the boundaries of a well defined Social Security system. Have an SSN, get a UBI; no SSN, no UBI. That's probably not the best answer, but it's probably good enough to keep relatively small immigration issues from derailing the whole project.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> What would stop us from recreating the inefficient welfare state that already exists on top of this new one when some people inevitably blow their UBI on drugs/cheetos/whatever and don't have money for rent? It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country The US has cut back welfare programs in both nominal and real terms many times, broad increases have been less popular. The fortitude to say no to benefits is not missing from our culture (if it were, the suggestion of UBI would have quickly led to its adoption without substantive debate.)

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

>1) What would stop us from recreating the inefficient welfare state that already exists on top of this new one when some people inevitably blow their UBI on drugs/cheetos/whatever and don't have money for rent? It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country...which gets me to my next, perhaps more contentious, point. Exactly! UBI needs to go on top of our existing welfare system. It's a problem of freedom. Say I give you $300 and tell you that's what you live on this month. Well with $300 you can find a (crappy) shelter. You could buy food, pay your existing debt obligations, etc. But you can't do all of them. The money gives you freedom but not enough to do everything you need. Our existing welfare system is a god awful patchwork but the existence of all these separate systems makes sure that someone who is poor is still free to buy food AND pay for shelter AND pay off debt. UBI is adding another AND on to the list. We've progressed as a society, wealth is abundant but not shared so now you can buy food AND pay for shelter AND pay off debt AND ... whatever you can do with $12k a yr (or whatever the figure is.)

maxpupmax 9y ago

For issue (1), the articles I've seen suggest that the vast majority of people just don't do this. Certainly some do, but I don't see why a couple bad actors invalidate a scheme which can work for most of the population. I don't have an authoritative source on the above claims, but here's a 538 article which talks about the issue a bit. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-welfare-dollars-dont-go-directly-to-poor-people-anymore/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-welfare-dollars-do... "[reduction in cash assistance] has happened despite a burgeoning economics literature suggesting that direct cash transfers are in many cases the most efficient tool to fight poverty." Issue (2) seems less cut-and-dry to me.

remarkEon 9y ago
My point is not meant to imply that bad actors invalidate the scheme, but that it seems likely that a political regime wishing to maintain (or gain) power could capitalize on our empathy for marginalized groups, adding complexity and building quite the leviathan.

rev_bird 9y ago

>It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country. I'd argue that the culture is currently overwhelmingly biased toward saying "no," usually under the guise of "freedom" -- if we couldn't say "no" to the chronically homeless, we probably wouldn't have a half-million of them on the streets. If we couldn't say "no" to low-income mothers, we wouldn't have the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world.

ameister14 9y ago
There is significant debate over the causes of maternal mortality and in particular its recent rise in the us; almost noone thinks it has to do with income.
- rev_bird 9y ago
  I agree there are lots of reasons to be discussed, but it's my understanding that access to postpartum healthcare is certainly one of the factors, one that varies widely by insurance company. Medicaid, for example, only covers two months of care for mothers after they give birth,[1] and even then care compares poorly to other countries with more equitable healthcare systems. [1] https://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-during-childbirth-leaves-u-s-moms-in-danger https://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-du...

EGreg 9y ago

The scale issue is a big one. The USA is at once too big and too small at the same time. The intercoin project was started with the aim of letting communities issue and control their own smart cryto currency, and seamlessly integrate it into apps. Same as Paypal, VISA network, Venmo, FB do. UBI becomes just an app on top of that. Then community membership becomes a question of the community members or government. Harvard university knows who its students are. Other communities might make decisions via direct democracy (polling not voting). intercoin.org

hyprCoin 9y ago
Discussing actual production-ready UBI avenues results in downvotes. I'm guessing it's a knee-jerk reaction to crypto currencies doing so well and there being many who are either tired of hearing about it or who feel as if they missed out. There is a reason they keep getting mentioned.
- EGreg 9y ago
  The downvoters never explain. My own guess is they hate when someone links to their own project. Every time I put any link to my projects I get a few downvotes no matter HOW good the rest of the comment is.
  - sjg007 9y ago
    My concern is the lack of debate beyond two or three comments. Basically someone says something, another replies, there’s a follow up and then nothing. It’s weird that there’s no discussion, just hit pieces. You see the same thing in the media both in articles/reports as well as callers and comments. We’ve lost the capacity to debate as a society. Or at least we now debate in 123 character tweets or memes.
    - EGreg 9y ago
      Yep. Each forum has its own flavor. I have found the factor that earns downvotes is a link to your own project - the downvoters don't engage you fairly after that.

Suncho 9y ago

1. Why is it a problem for people to spend their money how they choose? If people buy drugs and cheetos or whatever, then isn't that their call? If people who need housing have the money to buy housing, but they're not buying buying housing, then I agree that's a problem that needs to be addressed. Do we see this in practice? Is there an epidemic of people who can afford homes but are choosing to suffer in homelessness? If so, then maybe we can add some free level of shelter to everyone in addition to the basic income. 2. If you give the basic income to immigrants too, then they'll spend that money into your economy. This is a good thing. Withholding it from immigrants would probably be harmful. I know you brought up the "global citizen" model. An easy way for us to achieve that model is just to start paying everyone in the world a basic income. Whichever country does this first will probably become the world's final superpower.

autokad 9y ago
> "Whichever country does this first will probably become the world's final superpower." or Venezuela.
remarkEon 9y ago
1. It isn't, that's not what I'm saying (if you're talking about their freedom to do something...if you're talking about society in general it seems obvious that certain behaviors are bad and should be discouraged). But if you're going to tax me, and then give this money away to people it seems reasonable that I should have at least some say in what it's spent on...which just gets us back to the same discussions about what UBI evolves into and the kind of culture changes required for it to work (if it's even possible for it to work...that is not a certainty). 2. This "if you give the money they'll spend it in your economy" thing is I think by no means clear. The largest cash source in Mexico is remittance payments from the US. The reason I brought up the "global citizen" model is because there's a lack of skepticism and critical analysis on it and people make blanket statements like "the first country to give everyone in the world money" are actually taken seriously.
- Suncho 9y ago
  Good points. > if you're talking about their freedom to do something...if you're talking about society in general it seems obvious that certain behaviors are bad and should be discouraged Okay. So you want to discourage people buying cheetos and drugs. That's fine. I agree that they can both be unhealthy. What's a good way to discourage the purchase of these items? Furthermore, pretty much any activity choose to spend your time doing can fall somewhere on the continuum of worthwhileness. And different activities are worthwhile to different extents to different people. But to what extent should we be judging people's activities and disallowing certain activities? Should it extend into how they spend their money? Does it make sense for these restrictions only to apply to poor people? Why? I'm not saying there's an easy answer here. I agree with you that some people need help making the right decisions sometimes and I agree with you that we need laws to protect people. > but if you're going to tax me, and then give this money away to people it seems reasonable that i should have at least some say in what it's spent on I haven't said anything about taxing you. I'm not talking about taking your money and giving it to someone else. I understand that some basic income proponents think that it has to be "funded" through tax revenue, but I feel that it's a mistake to frame things in this way. Increasing taxes doesn't increase the level of basic income we can afford. That being said, the purpose of the government is to represent the collective interests of the people, so you absolutely should have a say in how the government spends their money (it's not your money). And if you have strong feelings about how certain types of spending will help or hurt people, then you're obviously free to voice those concerns. But I don't see how it hurts people to give them money they can spend on anything they choose. And if we really want to deter people from buying drugs and cheetos, I'm not sure that putting absolute conditions on how poor individuals spend their income is an optimal way to achieve that. > which just gets us back to the same discussions about what UBI evolves into and the kind of culture changes required for it to work (if it's even possible for it to work...that is not a certainty). You've been alluding to a required culture change. What would that entail, specifically? > This "if you give the money they'll spend it in your economy" thing is I think by no means clear. The largest cash source in Mexico is remittance payments from the US. Well, some of the basic income will get spent in our economy. To the extent that some of it goes straight to Mexico never to return, it's roughly the equivalent of the government spending money by tossing it down a hole. That portion of the spending has no effect on our economy. This means that we can increase the amount of the basic income even further because our economy has left over capacity to absorb more spending. > The reason I brought up the "global citizen" model is because there's a lack of skepticism and critical analysis on it and people make blanket statements like "the first country to give everyone in the world money" are actually taken seriously. Fair enough. I am often not taken seriously when I say things like that. But that doesn't mean I haven't thought about it thoroughly. So thanks for taking me seriously and asking me questions to try to understand where I'm coming from.

hyprCoin 9y ago

My answers, maybe not the same as yours. 1) Let people make their own decisions and don't try to be their caretakers. 2) UBI should be universal. Ideally the impetus would not be on the US government or any other local government to implement it. Let's not conflate their responsibilities further, they are a large enough centralized point of failure.

gutnor 9y ago
> Let people make their own decisions and don't try to be their caretakers. That's some harsh darwinism that seems to go against the principle of UBI. You are mentally unfit (young, ill, sick, depressed, ...) ? Here is some cash, good luck with the wolves.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  > That's some harsh darwinism that seems to go against the principle of UBI. The principle of UBI is exactly that; give people some money with no strings or instructions and let them make their own decisions. If it's conditional, it's not universal.
  - gutnor 9y ago
    For context of GP question was "How do we prevent creating the same inefficient welfare with UBI", to which parent said roughly "Don't care, just give everyone cash". You can't just give a lump sum of money to a guy with down syndrome and hope he will figure out what he needs without some sort of external assistance, i.e. some sort of welfare program. So either UBI is just the most cynical attempt at social darwinism and eugenics in a long time, or UBI needs to be complemented by something that looks very much like the current set of welfare program. It is easy to see that UBI can somewhat easily be funded, however (UBI + welfare) is a completely different matter.
    - hyprCoin 9y ago
      Ideally the hypothetical down syndrome man will be able to seek help and pay someone for their time if their immediate support network fails them. Perhaps an assisted living center. No need to introduce a nanny state to account for an edge case, need based market dynamics will do that easily enough if the person in need has the financial means. Right now the solution to that hypothetical poor down syndrome man is the salvation army and living on the street. I see it every day with a variety of mental health issues outside my luxury apartment. The disparity is sickening, and our system is failing it's people immensely. Personally I'm very hopeful that a combination of gene editing and AI will alleviate malodies and allow everyone clarity of thought.

vec 9y ago

For issue (1), what's wrong with keeping a vestigial means tested welfare state around? If a UBI works as advertised, the number of people who need further assistance will shrink dramatically. Who cares how inefficient (say) food stamps are if, to a first approximation, nobody uses them? Besides, the existing American welfare system is ostensibly focused on providing a minimum standard of living to children, on the theory that kids shouldn't be punished for their parents' dumb decisions. A lot of the more glaringly stupid and inefficient bits are places where the relevant politicians wanted it to be for everyone in need but had to find some way to claim it was only for families without actually making it only for families. Having a UBI backing the welfare system removes a lot of the impulse to game the system and gives a lot more heft to the argument that children really should mean children and the archetypal broke 30-something bachelor actually should be on their own. Issue (2) is likely to be a fraught issue no matter where the line is, but luckily in an American context we've already spent decades hashing out the boundaries of a well defined Social Security system. Have an SSN, get a UBI; no SSN, no UBI. That's probably not the best answer, but it's probably good enough to keep relatively small immigration issues from derailing the whole project.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> What would stop us from recreating the inefficient welfare state that already exists on top of this new one when some people inevitably blow their UBI on drugs/cheetos/whatever and don't have money for rent? It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country The US has cut back welfare programs in both nominal and real terms many times, broad increases have been less popular. The fortitude to say no to benefits is not missing from our culture (if it were, the suggestion of UBI would have quickly led to its adoption without substantive debate.)