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From a completely different point of view, a lot of countries already have some form of social security. If you run into some bad luck, you are not left to die

From a completely different point of view, a lot of countries already have some form of social security. If you run into some bad luck, you are not left to die in the streets; instead you get enough money to have a roof over your head and food to eat. The person who originally thought up this concept was Otto von Bismarck, a highly conservative prussian politician. The idea was that people who are not destitute but merely poor are less likely to start a (communist) revolution. In more modern times, it means that if you fall on hard times, you need not immediately be written off from society. Eg. people who are made redundant during an economic down-turn will still be available to the working pool during an economic recovery. Of course, the implementations are not perfect. In eg. the Netherlands, one issue is that getting a job and going from social security to minimum wage actually leads to a negative change in net income. This means that a rational agent might actually choose not to work once they become jobless the first time. What one might prefer is a situation where working will always yield a larger net income than not working. In such a situation, the rational choice for most people would be to always at least try to do (some) work. In such a situation where funds are already allocated, and the downsides are already proven to be minimal; a form of UBI might be one way to provide that dynamic. In such a situation it may prove to be a rational tweak to increase the working population.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
You seem to be missing the detail that UBI is being proposed as a means to help keep people afloat in the face of mass permanent unemployment. Then articles that propose that as the raison d'etre for UBI don't actually explore that dystopian scenario where robots have eliminated jobs paying $20k to $50k and you get like $10k to live on with no hope of a job. Instead, they tell glowing feel-good stories about how social workers could pay down debt and save a few bucks or whatever. https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2017/05/20/tech-giants-elon-musk-sam-altman-push-universal-basic-income-concept/ https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2017/05/20/tech-giants-elo...
- Kim_Bruning 7y ago
  Obviously, a "Kim-style" UBI would be a bit different from the one proposed in that particular article. I'm looking at something that might be a good workaround to actually get to a workable implementation of Negative Income Tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax ... which is definitely financially feasible and quite likely a good idea (and likely to save money in so many ways). In itself it's just a little bit impractical due to the sheer amount of work that rewriting tax laws would take. Hence: workaround. Also note that I am speaking from experience-on-the-ground in Europe, and my reasons to propose UBI are thus a little different from those of Elon Musk or Sam Altman.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Ah, saving money. Sure. Let's disinvest in solving the hard problems that are typically the root cause of intractable poverty. To save money. That makes me think of this line: UBI Is a Transfer of Wealth from the Needy to… Everyone From this excellent analysis: https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-income-the-flood-217db9889c07 https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-income... I'm not for UBI. If you are looking to convince someone otherwise, you are wasting your time. I know plenty of things that actually do work to solve problems and bring down expenses. No one cares to listen to any of that. But you do you and let's just agree to disagree. Some desperately poor American woman who thinks UBI is nonsense is zero threat to your plans to change European tax codes or whatever. Adieu.
    - Kim_Bruning 7y ago
      Hum, well, you opened the topic, and you've dragged me much off-topic only to leave me in the woods. I guess you've very effectively trolled me. And for that, my hat off to you ma'am. Have a good one! (If you're actually a real person, note that you initially came across as a conservative with a silver spoon and at least 6 figures of net worth based on the opinions you hold, so I figured my best strategy was to convince you I wasn't just some socialist out to tax all your money and give it to the poor. )
      - 7y ago

DoreenMichele 7y ago

You seem to be missing the detail that UBI is being proposed as a means to help keep people afloat in the face of mass permanent unemployment. Then articles that propose that as the raison d'etre for UBI don't actually explore that dystopian scenario where robots have eliminated jobs paying $20k to $50k and you get like $10k to live on with no hope of a job. Instead, they tell glowing feel-good stories about how social workers could pay down debt and save a few bucks or whatever. https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2017/05/20/tech-giants-elon-musk-sam-altman-push-universal-basic-income-concept/ https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2017/05/20/tech-giants-elo...

Kim_Bruning 7y ago
Obviously, a "Kim-style" UBI would be a bit different from the one proposed in that particular article. I'm looking at something that might be a good workaround to actually get to a workable implementation of Negative Income Tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax ... which is definitely financially feasible and quite likely a good idea (and likely to save money in so many ways). In itself it's just a little bit impractical due to the sheer amount of work that rewriting tax laws would take. Hence: workaround. Also note that I am speaking from experience-on-the-ground in Europe, and my reasons to propose UBI are thus a little different from those of Elon Musk or Sam Altman.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Ah, saving money. Sure. Let's disinvest in solving the hard problems that are typically the root cause of intractable poverty. To save money. That makes me think of this line: UBI Is a Transfer of Wealth from the Needy to… Everyone From this excellent analysis: https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-income-the-flood-217db9889c07 https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-income... I'm not for UBI. If you are looking to convince someone otherwise, you are wasting your time. I know plenty of things that actually do work to solve problems and bring down expenses. No one cares to listen to any of that. But you do you and let's just agree to disagree. Some desperately poor American woman who thinks UBI is nonsense is zero threat to your plans to change European tax codes or whatever. Adieu.
  - Kim_Bruning 7y ago
    Hum, well, you opened the topic, and you've dragged me much off-topic only to leave me in the woods. I guess you've very effectively trolled me. And for that, my hat off to you ma'am. Have a good one! (If you're actually a real person, note that you initially came across as a conservative with a silver spoon and at least 6 figures of net worth based on the opinions you hold, so I figured my best strategy was to convince you I wasn't just some socialist out to tax all your money and give it to the poor. )
    - 7y ago