7 ms·

You didn't have UBI, you had a well-paying job. The main UBI proposals for the US target $1k per month and that target means a budget of about 3 trillion per ye

You didn't have UBI, you had a well-paying job. The main UBI proposals for the US target $1k per month and that target means a budget of about 3 trillion per year and does not take into account health insurance. I don't know about you, but living off $1k a month where I live (and it's a relatively cheap area) isn't feasible. Either you get roommates or you are going to end up in the cheapest most out of the way apartment you can find for $500 a month. If you are eating off $10 a day (which is reasonable, and isn't accounting for the odd pint), you're down to $200 for your monthly budget. You still have to pay for utilities and this isn't taking into account any modern necessities (phones, etc), nor certainly not a car, which you probably need because your cheap apartment isn't close to anything. You, even with this extreme skimping, basically have no room for anything to go wrong. Hopefully your shoes that you're walking everywhere in don't wear out. Doesn't sound peaceful to me, it sounds like something that would put me always on edge (I've lived making 3x that and it does put you on edge). You felt comfortable because you were lucky enough to have a website that you could make income on by babysitting it. Is that really anything like UBI? If we're going to discuss UBI, then we need to discuss UBI, not any form of passive income or welfare program, which by their definition are not UBI. Seeing stuff like this get upvoted only leads me to believe that a lot of UBI proponents aren't taking serious how many obstacles there are to overcome actually implementing it, nor what it will look like in practice.

logjammin 6y ago
You make good points, but you may be missing why OP's comment is getting the upvotes it's getting, or at least why I'd wager it is: he describes the kind of contentment that most of us can't even imagine possessing without winning the lottery, and he described having that contentment with surprisingly (to him/her) modest means. I can't speak for anyone else, but this is why I upvoted it. Hell, I can think of at least two times in my life where I've been scolded about being unproductive or ambition-less for even mentioning the possibility of living such a life (without being a millionaire). Solely with respect to this person's comment, what we call such an arrangement matters a lot less than the high quality of the life he/she describes.
- gustavo-fring 6y ago
  He's not giving us the full story. Did he have health insurance (seems like he's in Germany, so yeah)? I made under $30k this past year and did not have health insurance. I promise you that I'd rather have that than try to live off $1k a month. If it sounds so great to you, I challenge you to live off that amount and see if it is as grand as he describes. I'm guessing he's making more than $1k. There are a lot of menial part time jobs you can get if you want to live as he describes. It's not fun.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Implementing UBI without universal healthcare certainly would be a silly approach, yes.
    - gustavo-fring 6y ago
      Is the thought process that we can or are going to get both universal healthcare passed (even the Democrats can't agree on this) and UBI passed in this political environment? It's going to take a bigger crisis than covid-19 to do that. It's also not the usual argument you hear from UBI proponents (we can reduce costs because we only need UBI). I don't say this to be a dick, but political change has to happen within political realities.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        I share your skepticism that it can get done in the US any time soon. We can't even get people to wear masks during a pandemic. The article in question is about Finland, where healthcare is already universal, largely free, and much liked by the populace.
        gustavo-fring 6y ago
        That's totally fair. I am looking at this through a very US-centric lens, but I'd guess many HN readers are, and certainly Yang's tech supporters were. To also be fair, the user we are talking about doesn't appear to be Finnish or is the study in question true UBI. But that's all pedantic. :)
chillacy 6y ago
To get really pendantic, OP never said "UBI" anywhere in the post, they said "basic income", which is very different. UBI is the dream of many advocates of BI but a BI for instance could be given only to some and not others. Criticizing the post about a specific vision of UBI strikes me as overly combative (and putting words in OP's mouth).
yohannparis 6y ago
UBI is not meant to be without work on other incomes, it just meant to have a financial safety net without regulations and criteria (below poverty, disabled, location, children, etc.) If you get $1,000/month right now, things would go smoother, and you still have to pay tax on your new higher wage. UBI is not a "never work only consume" solution.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- blackrock 6y ago
  I think UBI would be easier to achieve if the government just paid for housing. And built more apartment homes for everyone. There is plenty of land and resources for everyone in America. But the oligarchs are super greedy, and force a fake scarcity, in order to have a supply-and-demand problem. They just printed $4 Trillion USD, so it’s apparently quite easy to print money out of thin air. And then they gave it to their other rich buddies that don’t need the money. It was a pure and disgusting money grab, at the expense of everyone else.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> living off $1k a month where I live (and it's a relatively cheap area) isn't feasible Nor is an additional $3 trillion/year expenditure feasible forever. That's what's so disturbing about discussions around UBI: there seem to be people who, genuinely and unironically, believe that the reason some of us are concerned about the concept is because we don't realize how happy not having to work would make people. They appear to believe that, once they've demonstrated that yes, it will really make people happy, they'll have won the fight for UBI.
- fartcannon 6y ago
  There will come a time when we are capable of a post-scarcity society. Is that now? Maybe. Maybe not. How do we know if we don't try. Make it our target, and we will solve the other problems. If we never change, we will never change. Let's try to make our lives better.
- danielscrubs 6y ago
  I agree. For anyone else that has a hard time knowing how much taxes the US has to play with, I checked the US military budget and it's around $721.5 billion for 2020.
- manicdee 6y ago
  So you wouldn’t plan an extra $3B in taxation to reduce inflation? Remembering that governments with fiat currencies don’t tax for income, they tax for constraining money supply.
voisin 6y ago
It is relevant that UBI is meant to replace all other social safety net income sources, so the net cost is not $3T.

logjammin 6y ago

You make good points, but you may be missing why OP's comment is getting the upvotes it's getting, or at least why I'd wager it is: he describes the kind of contentment that most of us can't even imagine possessing without winning the lottery, and he described having that contentment with surprisingly (to him/her) modest means. I can't speak for anyone else, but this is why I upvoted it. Hell, I can think of at least two times in my life where I've been scolded about being unproductive or ambition-less for even mentioning the possibility of living such a life (without being a millionaire). Solely with respect to this person's comment, what we call such an arrangement matters a lot less than the high quality of the life he/she describes.

gustavo-fring 6y ago
He's not giving us the full story. Did he have health insurance (seems like he's in Germany, so yeah)? I made under $30k this past year and did not have health insurance. I promise you that I'd rather have that than try to live off $1k a month. If it sounds so great to you, I challenge you to live off that amount and see if it is as grand as he describes. I'm guessing he's making more than $1k. There are a lot of menial part time jobs you can get if you want to live as he describes. It's not fun.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Implementing UBI without universal healthcare certainly would be a silly approach, yes.
  - gustavo-fring 6y ago
    Is the thought process that we can or are going to get both universal healthcare passed (even the Democrats can't agree on this) and UBI passed in this political environment? It's going to take a bigger crisis than covid-19 to do that. It's also not the usual argument you hear from UBI proponents (we can reduce costs because we only need UBI). I don't say this to be a dick, but political change has to happen within political realities.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      I share your skepticism that it can get done in the US any time soon. We can't even get people to wear masks during a pandemic. The article in question is about Finland, where healthcare is already universal, largely free, and much liked by the populace.
      - gustavo-fring 6y ago
        That's totally fair. I am looking at this through a very US-centric lens, but I'd guess many HN readers are, and certainly Yang's tech supporters were. To also be fair, the user we are talking about doesn't appear to be Finnish or is the study in question true UBI. But that's all pedantic. :)

chillacy 6y ago

To get really pendantic, OP never said "UBI" anywhere in the post, they said "basic income", which is very different. UBI is the dream of many advocates of BI but a BI for instance could be given only to some and not others. Criticizing the post about a specific vision of UBI strikes me as overly combative (and putting words in OP's mouth).

yohannparis 6y ago

UBI is not meant to be without work on other incomes, it just meant to have a financial safety net without regulations and criteria (below poverty, disabled, location, children, etc.) If you get $1,000/month right now, things would go smoother, and you still have to pay tax on your new higher wage. UBI is not a "never work only consume" solution.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
blackrock 6y ago
I think UBI would be easier to achieve if the government just paid for housing. And built more apartment homes for everyone. There is plenty of land and resources for everyone in America. But the oligarchs are super greedy, and force a fake scarcity, in order to have a supply-and-demand problem. They just printed $4 Trillion USD, so it’s apparently quite easy to print money out of thin air. And then they gave it to their other rich buddies that don’t need the money. It was a pure and disgusting money grab, at the expense of everyone else.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> living off $1k a month where I live (and it's a relatively cheap area) isn't feasible Nor is an additional $3 trillion/year expenditure feasible forever. That's what's so disturbing about discussions around UBI: there seem to be people who, genuinely and unironically, believe that the reason some of us are concerned about the concept is because we don't realize how happy not having to work would make people. They appear to believe that, once they've demonstrated that yes, it will really make people happy, they'll have won the fight for UBI.

fartcannon 6y ago
There will come a time when we are capable of a post-scarcity society. Is that now? Maybe. Maybe not. How do we know if we don't try. Make it our target, and we will solve the other problems. If we never change, we will never change. Let's try to make our lives better.
danielscrubs 6y ago
I agree. For anyone else that has a hard time knowing how much taxes the US has to play with, I checked the US military budget and it's around $721.5 billion for 2020.
manicdee 6y ago
So you wouldn’t plan an extra $3B in taxation to reduce inflation? Remembering that governments with fiat currencies don’t tax for income, they tax for constraining money supply.

voisin 6y ago

It is relevant that UBI is meant to replace all other social safety net income sources, so the net cost is not $3T.