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I use to be a proponent of UBI, but in recent months have changed my mind after moving to a shared accommodation(mostly students). In this house there are 4 stu

• max76 7y ago
  > There should be no free money The video states that 60% of the wealth in the U.K. is inherited, which is essentially free money for the receiver. Why is it okay for rich people to receive free money but not everyday people?
  • raducu 7y ago
    I guess because the rich are 1% of the population and if they play video games all day nothing bad happens, but if 99% of the population did the same, society would collapse. I'm not saying this is fair, not saying the parent post is right, but motivating people to do useful things for society after an UBI would be a concearn.
    • max76 7y ago
      > but motivating people to do useful things for society after an UBI would be a concearn. None of the UBI experiments show people that receive UBI participate in the labor market at lower rates. This is not a data-driven concern. All date points to this not being a problem.
      • Simon_says 7y ago
        Has there ever been a UBI experiment? My understanding is that all experiments were time-limited and the participants knew that at the end of 5 years they would be on their own. Makes one approach life in the short run very differently.
      • danaur 7y ago
        But also I don't know of UBI experiments that don't have an end. The fact that the money will stop after some time is sure to affect people's behavior in a way that convolutes the study greatly, no?
        • geomark 7y ago
          I agree that this is a key difference between limited time UBI experiments and actual UBI.
  • autokad 7y ago
    > "The video states that 60% of the wealth in the U.K. is inherited" I hate statements like this because they are completely misleading. other similar ones like "top 1 % controls ~50 % of wealth" etc. This goes by networth. Imagine this, there are about 20 million college students, nearly all of then have a negative net worth. By that logic, if you hand a homeless person a single $ bill, they 'control' the wealth of at least 20 million Americans. you can add in tons of americans who have a positive net worth to make up for all that negative net worth. Its an absurd way of thinking. its especially problematic since most net worth is paper net worth (stocks that not even the owners can really touch). Surely someone who just graduated college and has 100k negative net worth is far better off than a starving person in a desert, distended belly and all.
    • max76 7y ago
      Are you really saying a statistic about wealth inequality shows exaggerated inequality because we have lots of people heavily in debt?
      • autokad 7y ago
        thats only one issue, there are many others. there are also a ton of people who just dont save/invest any of their money, even those making 100k a year. furthermore, we are in a bit of bull market for stocks, which networth overly focuses on. also networth is just a terrible metric. it ignores income streams, it ignores things that produce income like degrees, etc. it over inflates paper wealth as mentioned before.
        • max76 7y ago
          I understand that a person's networth isn't the same as their value. It's still a reasonable approximation of someone's current financial position.
    • AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      > Surely someone who just graduated college and has 100k negative net worth is far better off than a starving person in a desert, distended belly and all. And a big part of that is just the way we do the accounting. If you put the degree on the balance sheet as an asset it would change everything.
  • mantas 7y ago
    Is it ok for parents to provide free roof and food for their kids?
    • ido 7y ago
      the actual equivalent would be: is it ok for the government to provide free roof & food for kids in case their parents don't? I would say yes & generally (at least in wealthy countries) it is already the case with welfare services.
      • mantas 7y ago
        I think OP was trying to say that inheritance is "free money" which is on the same level as UBI "free money". I can't agree with that since it's slippery slope to saying that parents reading fairytales to kids is racist because it gives kid unfair advantage in life and all that BS.
  • jedmeyers 7y ago
    > Why is it okay for rich people to receive free money but not everyday people? Because consent of the giving person is present in the inheritance case but not in case of the government redistribution?
  • koonsolo 7y ago
    Because wealth is built over generations. You too can build wealth for your children and grandchildren. All my grandparents were farmers, and most of their grandchildren have university degrees and a very good wage. I'm sure our grandchildren will have the means to start companies. The western world is sometimes too focused on individuals, but make no mistake, wealth is build over generations. And I don't see the issue with that.
    • dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Because wealth is built over generations. By why should this be allowed? By what right does there exist more than a life estate in any property? Fee simple ownership is administratively simpler which clearly has short term benefits, but absent some corrective mechanism to mitigate generational wealth fee simple ownership is thanatocracy; rule by the dead. > The western world is sometimes too focused on individuals, but make no mistake, wealth is build over generations. And I don't see the issue with that. The inherent consequence of significant wealth (for a small minority) being built over generations is the inherited disadvantages of poverty for a larger number. Generational wealth and equality of opportunity are mutually incompatible.
      • koonsolo 7y ago
        > By why should this be allowed? Because I want my genes to have a higher chance to survive. It's pretty natural. > Generational wealth and equality of opportunity are mutually incompatible. That is true. But there are degrees in which you can enforce this. I'm very much a proponent of the European educational system, where there are more fair educational chances for everyone (compared to the US). This creates equality of opportunity on an educational level. But I don't agree with high taxes on inheritance. That's not possible anyway. Rich business owners have plenty of ways to pass on wealth to their children without it being considered as inheritance. When you would have high taxes, or even discard inheritance, then you would only hurt the middle class.
      • deleted 7y ago
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  • Ntrails 7y ago
    Worth noting that there is a very significant tax on larger inheritances here, but in the end it is a drop in the ocean. Passing wealth down obviously drives inequality but i cannot see a sane proposal to mitigate the impact. The more difficult you make it the more likely it is that only the very wealthy are able to pass on wealth. It is also obviously very unpopular with parents to suggest they cannot provide for their children. Are there good ideas around?
    • ido 7y ago
      50% inheritance tax. not just large ones, all inheritance with no loopholes.
      • mantas 7y ago
        You poor and living with your old parents? Your parents died? Well, fuck you, pay up for roof over your head!
        • ido 7y ago
          In the proposed scheme you will have money for a roof over your head even in that case.
          • mantas 7y ago
            What if you don't have 50% in cash on top of the supposed value of the housing?
            • ido 7y ago
              Then you sell your parents' house that you inherited & live elsewhere with 50% of its value. Remember the context this is discussed at, the inheritance tax will not be the only change: the point is to make basics like housing affordable to everyone. You will still have 0.5 * house-value more than someone who had no inheritance & is supposedly also meant to afford housing.
  • IshKebab 7y ago
    I don't think that is ok. But it is very difficult to stop.
  • RickJWagner 7y ago
    Is inherited money much different than UBI money? Either way, the recipient didn't work for it. It spends the same.
• SubiculumCode 7y ago
  So two lazy young men convinced you that UBI won't work for society at large? This is not good empirical thinking. There will always be examples of bad behavior. There will be examples where it caused great good as well.
  • wyxuan 7y ago
    I agree. The idea that there are people who are leaches on the welfare state is an idea that only rings true for a minority of recipients. Although this doesn't mean there isn't room for reform, this kind of thinking seems a little misguided.
• badestrand 7y ago
  Well they are living on government money already, so a UBI wouldn't change much for them or for how they burden society. You will always have freeloaders. But it will work if it is only very few of them. It will be much more important to provide somewhat fulfilling jobs to people to encourage working. Because working in a coal mine sucks but having a passion-driven career is actually fun and rewarding.
• mbrock 7y ago
  Do you think there might also be some people who are currently working in a job that's not really the optimal use of their time, who would be able to substantially improve their lives with the help of a basic income? What do you think about the proportion between these two groups?
  • mantas 7y ago
    Define "optimal use". Giving someone no-strings-attached money to someone will sure improve their lives, at least for a short moment.
• tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  UBI isn't necessarily the cause because there's just no guarantee they would better themselves without UBI. You might think they would get jobs if UBI didn't exist, but they might just move in with family or friends instead, or start getting in relationships just for economic purposes. Or maybe start dealing (and/or doing) drugs.
• jdashg 7y ago
  UBI is contingent on enough people not being on the dole. There is a balance between everyone getting 0 and everyone getting Ferraris. There will always be net-negative contributors, but as long as the net societal good is positive, it's worth it.
• AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  You're forgetting the structural flaws in the existing welfare system. The way things are right now, if you qualify for benefits, you can get thousands of dollars a year in free stuff. If you take any full time job, you immediately lose most of the benefits. If you give people the choice between free stuff where they can do whatever they want all day vs. working 40 hours to get substantially the same thing, no kidding there aren't a lot of takers for the option to work full time in exchange for what amounts to a gain of only around $5000/year. The point of a UBI being universal is that you don't get that perverse incentive. There is no means testing, you don't lose the benefit from taking the job, so a job that pays $20,000/year after taxes gives you $20,000 in additional money, not $5000 because taking the job costs you $15,000 in benefits.
  • ido 7y ago
    I disagree with the parent you replied to but still think there are other solutions that may work better than UBI. My idea (disclaimer: not an economist, sociologist, etc just some guy on the internet): Free (i.e. public funded) education at all levels, healthcare, mass transit & access to public housing at restricted cost (we already have that in many western countries but means-test who can get into public housing & do not build nearly enough of it). stuff like unemployment payments can stay but all other benefits are no longer required as they are provided to everyone. And make sure that each 1$ you earn reduces your benefits by less than 1$ (maybe 50 cents) so that you're never disincentivized from taking work. The chronically unemployed in socialist Western Europe will remain at a situation more or less the same as they are in now but will have lower bureaucratic overhead & be less disincentivized from searching even part time work. It's the working poor to lower/middle class that just about keep their head above the water that will be in a much better position. And for the well off it will be more or less the same as now only they'll pay some more taxes (but also benefit from the services above, like free education).
    • AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      > Free (i.e. public funded) education at all levels, healthcare, mass transit & access to public housing at restricted cost (we already have that in many western countries but means-test who can get into public housing & do not build nearly enough of it). There are two possibilities when you provide stuff instead of money. One is that people actually need the exact specific stuff you're providing. They want to live in government housing and eat government cheese; it's what they would choose if you just gave them the money. But then there is zero difference between that and giving them the money. You're not keeping them from using the money to buy drugs or whatever because giving them $500 worth of housing means they have $500 of their other money they didn't have to use for housing that they can go use to buy drugs. The other option is that they wouldn't buy the same stuff, in which case the restriction is waste. You give them government housing 30 miles from where they work even though the non-government housing across the street from their job is higher quality and has a lower underlying cost. You deprive them of the option of living in a smaller space in order to use the money for something more productive -- or the other way around, renting a place slightly larger than the allocated government housing unit so it can be used as a studio or home office. You're basically assuming that the government can do better than the market. That may actually be true for things like mass transit with huge up-front costs and trivially small incremental costs per rider, but there is no reason to expect it to be for things like housing and education. (In practice, existing government involvement in both of those markets has done nothing but inflate costs dramatically.) > And make sure that each 1$ you earn reduces your benefits by less than 1$ (maybe 50 cents) so that you're never disincentivized from taking work. 50% is still crazy high. There is no reason the poor should be paying higher marginal rates than the rich. > It's the working poor to lower/middle class that just about keep their head above the water that will be in a much better position. This really has more to do with how redistributive a policy is than what (as opposed to who) the resources are allocated to. The ways to help lower/middle class people are to give them more money (independent of which form, but very expensive and hard to pass) or to use the specified amount of money more efficiently so that the same dollar goes further, which is what you get from a UBI instead ordering people to buy specific stuff.
• pietroglyph 7y ago
  Part of the argument for UBI is that with increasing automation it doesn't make sense to force everyone into a job anymore. If you buy into that then not working and doing what you want (e.g. video games) is actually how the system is intended to function. Obviously, that argument only makes sense if you believe that we can automate away a sufficient number of jobs.
• onion2k 7y ago
  It's not really the fact they're living on government welfare that's the problem, it's the fact they're not living your idea of how people should live. If they were coding all day under the guise of "doing a startup" most HN readers would admire them. You just want to be able to dictate how other people live; that's fundamentally anti-freedom. It's not a good position to take.
  • koonsolo 7y ago
    > You just want to be able to dictate how other people live. People can choose to not work, but that also means they choose to not earn money. It's pretty simple. Freedom is about choice. But choices have consequences. You cannot choose one thing, but then still expect to not have the drawback of that choice. If you like freedom so much, then why do I have to pay for people that don't produce anything for society? You are taking my freedom away from earning the money that I earn. And if the majority of people would not work, who will make your bread, your computer, your computer games, your electricity, your car, ... ? Good luck in a world full of consumers, but no producers.
    • skybrian 7y ago
      Are you also against trust funds? Same thing, really. Whatever their parents did, it's todays' workers doing the work to provide any goods and services they use. Enough people need to be willing to do the work to get the work done. Doesn't need to be everyone; that's a fallacy.
      • koonsolo 7y ago
        You might not realise this, but their trust fund does offer a service. Any investment always has another end. You have a person that has too many resources, and you have a person with too few. They are both making a deal where one rents out the resources. So although these kids do not "work", their money is working for them, offering other people rented resoures. That's how that works. Else there would be no return on that investment. This is very different than taxes. Not everyone needs to work indeed. But again it has 2 sides that are equal: you can only consume what you produce. This works on a large scale, but also on a small scale. Communism has shown that if you take away the small scale, and people are able to consume no matter how much they produce, that production goes down. Which is pretty logical if you think about it.
• deleted 7y ago
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