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Coronavirus Is Making Universal Basic Income Look Better

155 points by avoidboringppl 6y ago

buboard 6y ago
UBI is making Bitcoin Look Better This is not UBI though. UBI is forever, this is exceptional, and people are aware that they 'll lose their jobs if they quit. The premise behind this article is false, hard to believe it came from exceptionally intelligent people. Tell hospital workers that they 're guaranteed UBI for 5 years if they quit and watch what happens.
TomMarius 6y ago
The economy is crashing, the inflation is rising and that makes UBI look better? How?
- cko 6y ago
  Where can we check inflation rates? I thought it was something that was calculated in retrospect.
  - ct520 6y ago
    Yeah - someone said the same comment. Me not knowing anything researched it and what I seen trending indicated the opposite. How is this reliably checked ?
  - TomMarius 6y ago
    European central banks have announced they target higher inflation rate, for example
- jxramos 6y ago
  People who make universally bad ideas will continue to do so.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  People who are terrified don't think straight? Edit: It is a completely serious answer and the only explanation that makes sense to me for the spate of pro-UBI articles I've noticed but mostly not read because UBI doesn't make sense and a global pandemic doesn't change that.
- johnwangdoe 6y ago
  bottom up economy, rather than trickle down. The fed doubled their balance sheet from 3T to 6T in 3 month. Andrew Yang's UBI was estimated at 1.3T yearly.
- burroisolator 6y ago
  Inflation in the US is lowering because of reduced demand: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL
  - econcon 6y ago
    Isn't it like dead cat bounce, where once demand goes down producers stop producing then supply is reduced even below demand levels, creating hyper inflation? Usually when production decreases, cost of production increases - operation becomes less profitable and investor might pull their money and take it elsewhere. In some industries, margin might be so thin that once they lose economies of scale which comes with higher production, they simply may go bust or choose to stop, citing higher cost of inputs. This is what pushes the supply below demand level. Also demand is usually established at some specific price, if cost of production increases, producer might have to increase the price and this might also put downward pressure on demand.
    - TomMarius 6y ago
      My thoughts exactly.
    - burroisolator 6y ago
      If supply drops far below demand, prices rise and producers come back into the market. The process will not be smooth and the feedback mechanism is lagged but hyperinflation should not happen unless some severe structural issues interrupt the process. Note that a decrease in real GDP is not the same as inflation.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > the inflation is rising Inflation has been low for years and has historically gone done during recessions. The inflation hawk concerns so far have been utterly unfounded. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-i...
  - the-dude 6y ago
    In consumer goods maybe. The real inflation is in stocks and real estate. For a decade at least.
marcell 6y ago
I think Elon Musk summed up the counter argument to this pretty well on Joe Rogan's podcast: "If you don't make stuff, there's no stuff. Obviously."
- WilliamEdward 6y ago
  This is so vacuous. Does it imply that UBI money is coming from thin air? That's obviously false. Also the article says a type of UBI is being used to stimulate job creation and work for industries that are rapidly losing in these areas. This is literally on par with what Elon said, how could it be a counter argument? This is the rare Elon quote where I don't even have to attack his behaviour to discredit. It's just not applicable in this context as a counterpoint.
- TheDong 6y ago
  I would think we, as hackers, on hacker news, would have some unique insight into this. The software world is built on the back of stuff that was made, not for money, but out of a labor of love, or to impress others, or to scratch our own itch. Our servers run linux, but linux was mostly just linus hacking around. The free software community is about helping each other and building cool things. Most programming languages were birthed not for money, but because the person building them cared about it a lot and wanted to solve a problem for themselves. UBI would let people who wanted to make stuff actually make stuff, not have to flip burgers 9-5 just to go home and feel too drained to code or write or do whatever it is they really want to do. There are countless examples throughout history of people building great things and advancing science, not for money, but for recognition or passion.
  - youdonthavekids 6y ago
    A small number of people in history have done something useful with their free time so you think we should pay everyone in the hope that more people take up coding and writing? Why does UBI make me want to write novels or create linux? I don't want to live on minimum wage, I want to work and earn lots of money so my family can have nice things. I won't get that on your UBI poverty level wages.
  - 6y ago
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
In Talking Politics this week, Helen Thompson pointed out that UBI is a solution for every crisis - it does not diminish the potential upside for UBI (or Land Tax reform also mentioned in the podcast) but UBI and Land Tax are such disruptive changes to our social contract that it can be brought up in context of every crisis - I guess like Covid it affects everything. The point being if you think UBI will be positive, it will be positive across its whole range of impacts, and that range of impacts is soo huge it can be brought up in almost any context. Edit: UBI and Land Tax are big enough we should consider them on their own merits, not look for "opportunities" to bring them into the conversation.
- nabla9 6y ago
  I'm strong supporter of UBI in my home country (Finland) and I think it would work in in Nordics and likely in EU too. I don't think it would work in the US because it's sold in completely different premise. US has the least developed welfare system and the plan seems to be just replace it with small sum of money. In Nordics UBI would be in addition to free healthcare, education etc. and funding it would not be a problem. Unemployed already get benefits. Even small housing allowance would probably remain to discourage segregation due to income differences. It's the combination of welfare that low income workers get that creates high effective marginal tax rate that UBI neatly solves. It would create incentives for working and reduce bureaucracy.
  - GordonS 6y ago
    > In Nordics UBI would be in addition to free healthcare, education etc. and funding it would not be a problem I was interested to see some numbers on this, so I did some quick and dirty googling. It looks like Finland has about 4.5 million people, and currently spends around 4,491,000,000 EUR/year on around 370,000 people - around 13,500 EUR/person. I'd guess that would be a reasonable amount for a UBI program. Scaling that up to 4.5M people means a huge number, 60,750,000,000 EUR/year - which I believe is larger than the entire yearly budget for Finland. Sounds like funding UBI would actually be a pretty big problem.
bavell 6y ago
What a garbage article. Poorly thought out and researched.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  That's what you should expect from Bloomberg.
daenz 6y ago
Alternative title: People not allowed to work need money more than ever.
- toastal 6y ago
  This is such a cold take. There's a on-going international health crisis so don't understate it. You can't have workers either if everyone is sick... Or dead. People need to both stay home AND put food on the table and this is precisely where UBI, even temporarily, helps.
  - sparkie 6y ago
    There's an argument that can be had that lockdown measures will be much more deadly than COVID in the long run. Increased suicides due to disemployment, poverty, more cancers and other illnesses gone untreated because of health service mis-prioritization. There's a compound effect where businesses going bust can have a domino effect on others. Hospitals could go bankrupt. Everyone is going to be paying more for basic goods due to inevitable price inflation. If it saves one life, it's worth ending the lockdown, right? Why is there nobody running computer models estimating how many people are going to die as a result of the lockdown? Because it contradicts the narrative. COVID is unknown and the government is as clueless as you are. They're in hysteria and are not thinking rationally. What people need is the freedom to make their own choices. If people are scared of the virus and think staying couped up in a confined home is going to keep them from getting sick - I have nothing wrong with them doing that. Please stop forcing everyone else to live that way.
    - toastal 6y ago
      Good idea. Government healthcare should cover mental health patients as well during this crisis. Structurally, at least in the US, too much of one's identity is tied to career and this is the same existential issue society will be facing in the coming age of automation. Now if you think your 'right' to put your own body at risk, you've failed to understand how contagious the virus is and how much you put others at risk by thinking you matter more. This will only prolong the quarantine, and this is why everyone is super concerned about the second wave and pandemic history repeating itself because some people are so arrogant and don't see their privilege compared to the at risk.
BelleOfTheBall 6y ago
> Another positive sign for UBI is that most Americans seem keen to return to their workplaces. One fear has been that UBI would lead to a couch-potato culture, with people choosing to stay at home even when they’re finally able to leave. This is an old take that has very rarely (if at all) seen tangible evidence. The Guardian reported on this [0] and so did QZ [1] Even if UBI pushes a small percentage of people to quit their jobs, those people will either move into different jobs that they enjoy more, free to pursue a career they like thanks to financial security, or contribute to society in other ways: creating art, volunteering, etc. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/12/universal-basic-income-work-finland-experiment-payments https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/12/univer... [1]: https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits-working/ https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits-workin...
- luckylion 6y ago
  > This is an old take that has very rarely (if at all) seen tangible evidence. It's literally what we face in Germany. Our unemployable are getting housing, health care, TVs etc + cash and they do not move on to jobs they enjoy more, they do not volunteer more, they do not start companies etc. If you don't see evidence of that in the US, it's because you don't have anything that comes close to unlimited perpetual income with no requirements to work. If you have an economic shut down for a month or two and people expect the "free money" to run out eventually, they'll be eager to get back to work. The situation changes very much if they do not expect it to run out and adapt to the new circumstances where work is optional and considered a hobby.
  - thinkloop 6y ago
    Oddly Germany might be the single most productive country in the world?
    - pedrosorio 6y ago
      If you measure productivity by economic output / hours worked, allowing those who have no desire to work to be excluded sounds like a good way to maximize it.
dimitar 6y ago
UBI gives money to everyone equally, those that really need it don't get enough. For example - I can get a a $500 (or X amount in your country) check every month that I don't need as I can work just fine from home, but someone who might be laid off can barely pay for his rent, food and other necessities. There is not enough wealth to redistribute in any country (except maybe the Gulf states) so that both anyone in a job or health emergency has enough and also give the same amount to everyone else. So you have to deliver smaller sums - a patch to this system is to have everyone pay for insurance, proportionally to their income and need, but this the current welfare scheme UBI is supposed to replace. Covid-19 exactly how disproportionate and random a crisis can be, so a one-size fits all solution doesn't fit anyone.
- chrischen 6y ago
  $500 to you may be worth a lot more than $500 to Warren Buffet, in terms of man-hours.
- akiselev 6y ago
  > There is not enough wealth to redistribute in any country (except maybe the Gulf states) so that both anyone in a job or health emergency has enough and also give the same amount to everyone else. [Citation needed] The global population grew from about 1.6 billion to about 6 billion in the span of a hundred years (1900-2000). Before the pandemic, over twice as many people were considered part of the "global middle class" than there were people alive in 1900. In that time, quality of life indicators have skyrocketed for all except the most isolated tribes. Humanity has known that "wealth" isn't a zero sum game since the fall of mercantilism. Universal basic income is just the next phase of that realization.
twblalock 6y ago
The virus crisis makes UBI look worse. We are ~2.5 months into lockdowns in the United States and all people got so far has been a check for $1200. People who support UBI need to provide a compelling justification for how it can be paid for, especially given how hard it has been, politically and financially, to give a one-time $1200 payment to American households. If it's so hard to do it even one time, how can we do it forever?
- jimbob45 6y ago
  Speak for yourself. $1200 is life-changing money for some people.
- namdnay 6y ago
  I think the usual solution is to increase income tax? So basically the introduction of UBI is neutral for the average household, the extra money from UBI being equivalent to the extra money lost on taxes
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - apta 6y ago
    Income (and sales) tax is a terrible model. A "wealth tax" (e.g. see how Islam requires Zakah) is superior, and has been historically shown to work.
    - godelski 6y ago
      > has been historically shown to work. Can you source this? Because I understand the exact opposite to be true. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/26/698057356/if-a-wealth-tax-is-such-a-good-idea-why-did-europe-kill-theirs https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/26/698057356/if-a... https://www.npr.org/2019/03/01/699261950/why-a-wealth-tax-didnt-work-in-europe https://www.npr.org/2019/03/01/699261950/why-a-wealth-tax-di... https://www.businessinsider.com/4-european-countries-wealth-tax-spain-norway-switzerland-belgium-2019-11?op=1#belgium-enacted-a-limited-wealth-tax-last-year-on-securities-accounts-containing-over-500000-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/4-european-countries-wealth-... https://taxfoundation.org/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax-oecd/ https://taxfoundation.org/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax-oecd/ tldr: European countries dumped them because it is hard to calculate value of assets, especially for the ultra rich.
sand_castles 6y ago
The value of money is linked to how much tax revenue can be raised. UBI means lower taxes = value of money diminishes. Jobs guarantee is how you implement UBI. Jobs given out by the state doesn't have to awful.
calmchaos 6y ago
If you want hyperinflation, that's the route to take. The more government is injecting money to businesses, society and people, the more expensive everything is getting. At the same time this dilutes the wealth of people and companies who have actually saved money. Countries need LESS socialism and government control - not more.
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  UBI is not socialism. In fact, it is more of a libertarian policy where choices are made by individuals. Keeping people from falling off economic cliffs is likely to be more productive than letting them become homeless for the rest of their lives. That productivity offsets inflation risks. Technology and automation increases offset inflation, because they make us all more productive.
  - calmchaos 6y ago
    How do you get all that money so that you can pay people UBI? Either you have to raise taxes sky high or you start printing money like never before. Both are poor options.
- econcon 6y ago
  >The more government is injecting money to businesses, society and people, the more expensive everything is getting. It only matters to people who have lot of cash saved up. Value of their money might decrease. But vast majority of population does not have cash saved up, they do not care about money losing its value as long as they are able to get more money today and buy the stuff they need.
  - aww_dang 6y ago
    What of the people who had modest incomes, but lived within their means and saved their money? Why punish them and push their dreams of home ownership further out of reach? Why reward the those who were irresponsible?
  - calmchaos 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
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fpoling 6y ago
The article rises a good point that emergency universal income is better than paying companies to keep people at work as done in many European companies. Post COVID world will require different jobs and many companies will cease to exist so paying them now is just waste of money and delays inevitable while locking people at doomed jobs.
esfandia 6y ago
Interesting at least to me: one of the article co-authors is Garry Kasparov (I imagine THE Garry Kasparov?).
- bushin 6y ago
  He is a political activist now.
keiferski 6y ago
I've still never come across a decent answer to this question, so maybe someone can help: why is Basic Income (in the US) preferable to a Great Depression-style Works Progress Administration? The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency, employing millions of job-seekers (mostly unskilled men) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States, while developing infrastructure to support the current and future society. Above all, the WPA hired workers and craftsmen who were mainly employed in building streets. Thus, under the leadership of the WPA, more than 1 million km of streets and over 10,000 bridges were built, in addition to many airports and much housing. Much of the infrastructure in the US is crumbling and needs to be replaced or fixed in the coming decades. Wouldn't society benefit more from training and hiring people to clean streets, rebuild infrastructure, beautify urban areas, etc. than simply sending everyone a check? I know that Basic Income isn't simply to replace jobs lost to automation, but I don't see how paying people to improve aspects of civilization is not obviously better than paying people with no expectations.
- Mengkudulangsat 6y ago
  Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource allocation than their citizens. People will still work with UBI, but they are much better positioned to choose the kind of work they personally do best.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    How does this: > they are much better positioned to choose the kind of work they personally do best. ...lead to any sort of large-scale work getting done? Bridges and roads aren't open-source software and don't build themselves merely through the individual disparate actions of large numbers of people. I.e., thousands of people individually deciding that they want to improve their city's infrastructure doesn't result it in being improved; you still need an overarching leadership structure to organize it.
spyckie2 6y ago
I think the 2nd/3rd+ order effects of UBI needs to be understood better. Most arguments for or against UBI look no further than first order effects, and get most of the 1st order effects wrong because they don't take into account the cascading ripples of the more indirect unknowns. A collection of second order effect questions that people don't really have a strong cohesive argument for or against: 1) What are the impacts of UBI on cost of labor, and how will businesses react or adapt? (will UBI ultimately lower cost of labor for businesses or will it raise it? Will it cause businesses to seek out investment into AI instead to replace manpower? etc) 2) Are there any situations where UBI's cost will spiral out of control? (Do we have smart enough people modeling out long term costs of UBI in a comprehensive, risk accounting way so it doesn't become another social security) 3) What is the change in percentage of people who will couch potato with UBI? How about percent change in entrepreneurial activity with UBI? (at the very least, is it in the single digits, double digits? A fraction of 1%?) 3rd order effects: 1) What will the economy look like 20 years from now with UBI? How will the structure of society change? 2) How will UBI change how the majority of people grow up and what they end up pursuing? 3) How will UBI impact the global economic climate? (My sci-fi dystopian vision of UBI's butterfly effects, not that globalization hasn't already done this: UBI will spur one country to develop so much AI due to lack of people in the workforce, and that AI is so good that it gets exported to all countries over the world, centralizing most of the money in the world to that one country, making that one country able to afford UBI while the rest of the world is jobless and has no money to take care of their own people.) I'm just scratching the surface of the complexity of the topic.
- lidHanteyk 6y ago
  Your questions aren't hard. 1) People will exit the labor market, especially in cheaper jobs, since some folks currently only need to work in order to make up a small income disparity and will gladly quit their part-time jobs. Labor might get more expensive, but given how long minimum wage has been depressed, I wouldn't count on it. 2) No, UBI is as expensive to administer as the existing tax code. Also, the fuck are you talking about? Social Security has gotten cheaper to administer over time [0]. 3) Who cares? Literally, it doesn't matter how many people "couch potato" or otherwise decide not to work when they already weren't in the labor market. Think about it for a bit. 4) Hopefully less wage slavery, less food insecurity, less homelessness, less wealth inequality. That is, UBI is hoped to do what it is marketed as doing. 5) In e.g. Sweden, the constant availability of funds from the government has enabled people to be more fully actualized, as they choose whether they want to go into secondary education, start a small business, buy a farm, or open an art studio. All of these are also subsidized in the USA, but poorly. UBI acts as an ideal prototype system for this sort of funding, without having to commit to a particular usage of funds. 6) Uh, we've had a global economy for centuries. All that has happened is that places with UBI and similar social programs have become well-known and globally visible. But UBI in Alaska exists [1] and does not draw people to move to Alaska, so I can easily conclude that it doesn't matter that much to the global economy. More generally, I think that you are afraid of nothing. [0] https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/admin.html https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/admin.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanent_Fund_Dividend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanen...
FartyMcFarter 6y ago
Article is behind paywall. Does it explain how to pay for UBI in a sustainable way? Taking the USA as an example, UBI costs trillions per year. How will this get paid for, even taking into account that some of the money gets taxed?
z3t4 6y ago
To be eligible to basic income you need to first work for 5 years, then you will experience how its like to be stuck in the hamster wheel, if you're lucky you will also save up a buffer and enough to buy your own living quarter, and will have enough experience so that it will be easier to come back to the workforce, and be more likely to succeed if you do your own venture.
therufa 6y ago
Didn't read the article but this is the worst possible idea ever. With UBI you reduce the number of working people and shift all the responsibility to an even smaller group of individuals. Based on human nature, with UBI one would have an even larger lazy population who would end up just sitting around, doing nothing within the first 20 years of this wonderful idea. Now back to the reduced group of responsibility bearing individuals; these are the entrepreneurs, motivated workers, the ones that can't just sit around and do nothing, the ones who get bored on a hotel vacation. These are the people who would profit the most from UBI, since they are usually the ones capable of strategic thinking. They would end up with all the surplus generated from UBI because most people are just mindless consumers spending money as quickly as they get hands on it. How i see it, this would lead to massive inflation in value of products and in the end the government would have to raise UBI which soon would get into an endless loop. Also, there are so many downsides, that it's not even worth digging into the few upsides.
amelius 6y ago
Since time is our enemy at this point, perhaps a better idea is to suspend all rents and mortgages and put landlords and banks on a modest subsidy, for the duration of the lockdown. That would give a lot of financial room to a lot of people (also companies like restaurants), while I bet that the costs are overseeable.
oliverx0 6y ago
I am not sure about whether UBI would work or not. I am mostly against the idea of just giving people free money without having to work for it. But leaving my political views out of this: 1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like that and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this as a strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more? This then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for everyone else. 2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to take it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month? 3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there won't be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because a lot of businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work, someone has to be willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will be "free to explore more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If everyone gets money, then prices will increase accordingly.
- burroisolator 6y ago
  With 3) society is basically admitting that it is built on top of "slave labor". If no one wants to do the "dirty jobs" because they have UBI, then wages for those jobs will rise. Prices will indeed rise but is that such a bad thing? Few people complain that they want more child labor to be used in Bangladesh so that they can have cheaper t-shirts.
  - hysan 6y ago
    It’s not just wages too. There’s also the component of worker treatment and workplace environments. Cheap, volume products likely have less of a place in society too because people would be able to afford something better and plan long term. UBI is a great debate topic as no one knows what will really happen. What it does do is reveal how people think of humanity and society.
- lmm 6y ago
  > 1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like that and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this as a strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more? This then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for everyone else. The whole point is to avoid all the problems of means-testing, application and so on, and just give every citizen the money. > 2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to take it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month? Well, if you believe in democracy then democracy should be able to solve difficult problems. If UBI were disastrous, surely a democratic majority could be found to vote against it; to the extent that it remains popular, it can't be going that badly. > 3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there won't be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because a lot of businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work, someone has to be willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will be "free to explore more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If everyone gets money, then prices will increase accordingly. Businesses that rely on a supply of people doing really crappy jobs for very low money will go under, yes. If no-one is forced to flip burgers in order to eat, then if you want a burger you'll have to pay enough to make it worth someone's while to make it for you, or figure out a way to automate it, or do it yourself. The end result would probably be fewer atomised person-as-robot jobs and more people doing their own cooking / cleaning / repairs / childcare / etc.. Would that be so bad?
beaker52 6y ago
Is it only me who worries that UBI is a precursor to a dystopian slavery?
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Nope.
- friendlybus 6y ago
  I worry its a crutch for an upcoming period of hardship. The longer it takes to get manufacturing off the ground and self sufficiency in place for most people, the more likely any shocks to the system will need more and more UBI.
scotty79 6y ago
Worst thing about UBI is that when you introduce it, the rents will just go up by its amount and all the money will end up in pocket of landlords not the poor people you were intending to support. You'd have to shake up real estate market too for example by introducing progressive real estate tax to counter that.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  I'm not sure. It would need to be funded so I would assume that for the average person the income would be offset by taxes. There would be no extra money to inflate housing costs.
  - mFixman 6y ago
    There won't be for the average person, but there will be for the average person with below-average income.
- spyckie2 6y ago
  3 progressive reforms of the modern century that need to be passed in tandem: 1) progressive real estate tax 2) moving tax revenue from income tax to VAT 3) UBI
- BosunoB 6y ago
  Renters markets suck but it's not like markets just cease to function as soon as consumers get more income. I'm sure there would be some rent seeking, but I doubt most renters markets are so uncompetitive that they could gobble up 1k or whatever.
negamax 6y ago
I have read pretty much all the comments. Many European countries have some form of basic income. I don't think Americans commenting here realizes how unsustainable that is. You can't mix high growth that US enjoys (look at disposable income and strength of USD) with UBI. If the choice is low/no growth where population sustain itself than UBI is the way. But what happens if for e.g. a country A moves to UBI but country B remains high growth? Country B will continue to invent new things and country A will be forced to inflate and moan and sacrifice its children and grandchildren to debt. That's pretty much what will happen.
- SeaSeaRider 6y ago
  No European country has implemented any form of UBI, nor do they intend to.
  - negamax 6y ago
    Large welfare states are very basic income like. Have you checked the numbers on how many people get some form of government support in France? Many European countries' have their 30%+ budget for welfare
    - SeaSeaRider 6y ago
      Welfare state and UBI are completely different things.
      - negamax 6y ago
        The whole argument for UBI is that "the last failure didn't do socialism right".
        akvadrako 6y ago
        UBI is not socialism. Compared to jobs programs, welfare and almost anything else the government does, it is less centrally managed. That's why many of the 20th century supporters were libertarians.
pasquinelli 6y ago
In a time of plague, with a healthcare system not designed to treat everyone who needs it during the best of times, bloomberg publishes an article about the benefits of ubi.
tanilama 6y ago
But US government is adding 3+ trillion dollars debt to pay for it. If anything, the current way of implementing UBI is not sustainable.
Rogach 6y ago
I've always had this question when UBI comes up, maybe now will have a chance to have an answer. Total US budget income for 2019: $3.422 trillion. US population: 328 million. Assuming that we simply divide the entire budget amongst everyone, we get: >>> 3.422e12 / 328e6 / 12 = $870 per month Minumum wage in US is $7.25, so assuming usual 40-hour work week minimum income is about $1300 per month. So even if US just drops all other concerns - healthcare, military, infrastructure - and just distributes money among the population, then it's still less than 70% than minimum wage. If we assume that only 50% of the budget is spent on UBI (still unsustainable in my opinion) then the number will get even lower. And that's US, arguably the richest and most powerful country. For other countries this calculation is even worse. Maybe there's an error in my calculations? How is UBI even supposed to work, where the money should come from?
- manquer 6y ago
  Couple of problems with your calculation . Not everyone of the 328 million will be covered by UBI , definitely not children for example . UBI is not meant to be full replacement of a minimum wage salary , like you said we don’t yet live in a resource rich utopia were people only work when they want to, not because they need to. sensible UBI proposals posit that it is efficient to directly disburse money without all the bureaucracy in programs for the economically affected , it also means trusting the recipients to make better judgements on how to spend that money than the government. They could be wrong , while early studies have shown positive indicators, they are small and long term impact is not really well understood. Personally I don’t think it is a good idea for a country. From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. This has been solved in ME by bringing in immigrants as effectively slave labour. Either you end up with nobody doing that work or you have to import labour who don’t enjoy the same benefits creating a classist society.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    > From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. That's because those jobs are shitty to begin with. From where I'm standing, it's clear that the problem is the inherited shittyness of those jobs, not UBI. Perhaps it's worth a shot investing some work making those jobs less shitty? I mean, FAANGs felt the need to invest heavily in job satisfaction to reduce attrition and improve their public image. Why are some companies, and even government entities, complicit in perpetuating the shitty nature of the occupations they expect others to have?
SeaSeaRider 6y ago
Basic Income is Utopianism. Every generation thinks they can solve the ills of society with this “one simple trick.” Like the failed Utopias of the 20th century, it would fail when confronted with the reality of human nature.
stuaxo 6y ago
Not surprised this article says the economy needs to be more productive before using UBI, after all Bloomberg is owned by a billionaire. There isn't much point in hanging around, it should start now.
CryptoPunk 6y ago
I believe universal income, along with every other manifestation of the social democratic welfare state, is a civilizational dead end, and any society that adopts it is putting itself on the path to irrelevance and national extinction. My thought is that if you value your own life, and the lives of your descendants, you must make the drastic decision to escape any society that embarks on the path to UBI.
jokoon 6y ago
And yet I still see people arguing either: * for social darwinism or survival of the fittest, trying to say inequality is normal * that labor is necessary despite the great advances in technology. Those people would rather see people working as servants, in fast food, uber, cashiers, etc, than have those people educating themselves or lead more fulfilling lives. The level of pedanticism I read from people arguing about "basic economics", is just a problem of politics.
koonsolo 6y ago
US really seems to have a problem with black-white thinking. There are gray areas you know. You don't need to choose between no social support vs UBI. You can actually just have a proper unemployment and healthcare support system (like EU). Same goes for guns. There seems to be a thought that either everyone has the right to buy guns, or you outlaw guns. There is a middle ground where people get a license for a gun (proven with a blank criminal record, sanity confirmation from doctor and theoretical/practical examination), like EU you know. So why don't you first try something like giving people that need support, better support. That would be a good start without going all in with UBI. Maybe that would already help the many homeless people that are living on your streets.
lcall 6y ago
I tried to explain in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922 ...a number of separate reasons why a UBI at the US federal level takes away freedom to try better ideas to do good at other levels, is harmful and wrong, and that we can do much more good with persuasion, fundraising, letting states handle it (or smaller scopes), etc etc. States are like nations in some ways, and can learn from each other and find the best ways to do things, even forming alliances between them, without violating the constitutional limits on federal power. :) (If down-voting, a thoughtful comment is appreciated; thanks.)

UBI is making Bitcoin Look Better This is not UBI though. UBI is forever, this is exceptional, and people are aware that they 'll lose their jobs if they quit. The premise behind this article is false, hard to believe it came from exceptionally intelligent people. Tell hospital workers that they 're guaranteed UBI for 5 years if they quit and watch what happens.

TomMarius 6y ago

The economy is crashing, the inflation is rising and that makes UBI look better? How?

cko 6y ago
Where can we check inflation rates? I thought it was something that was calculated in retrospect.
- ct520 6y ago
  Yeah - someone said the same comment. Me not knowing anything researched it and what I seen trending indicated the opposite. How is this reliably checked ?
- TomMarius 6y ago
  European central banks have announced they target higher inflation rate, for example
jxramos 6y ago
People who make universally bad ideas will continue to do so.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
People who are terrified don't think straight? Edit: It is a completely serious answer and the only explanation that makes sense to me for the spate of pro-UBI articles I've noticed but mostly not read because UBI doesn't make sense and a global pandemic doesn't change that.
johnwangdoe 6y ago
bottom up economy, rather than trickle down. The fed doubled their balance sheet from 3T to 6T in 3 month. Andrew Yang's UBI was estimated at 1.3T yearly.
burroisolator 6y ago
Inflation in the US is lowering because of reduced demand: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL
- econcon 6y ago
  Isn't it like dead cat bounce, where once demand goes down producers stop producing then supply is reduced even below demand levels, creating hyper inflation? Usually when production decreases, cost of production increases - operation becomes less profitable and investor might pull their money and take it elsewhere. In some industries, margin might be so thin that once they lose economies of scale which comes with higher production, they simply may go bust or choose to stop, citing higher cost of inputs. This is what pushes the supply below demand level. Also demand is usually established at some specific price, if cost of production increases, producer might have to increase the price and this might also put downward pressure on demand.
  - TomMarius 6y ago
    My thoughts exactly.
  - burroisolator 6y ago
    If supply drops far below demand, prices rise and producers come back into the market. The process will not be smooth and the feedback mechanism is lagged but hyperinflation should not happen unless some severe structural issues interrupt the process. Note that a decrease in real GDP is not the same as inflation.
MattGaiser 6y ago
> the inflation is rising Inflation has been low for years and has historically gone done during recessions. The inflation hawk concerns so far have been utterly unfounded. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-i...
- the-dude 6y ago
  In consumer goods maybe. The real inflation is in stocks and real estate. For a decade at least.

marcell 6y ago

I think Elon Musk summed up the counter argument to this pretty well on Joe Rogan's podcast: "If you don't make stuff, there's no stuff. Obviously."

WilliamEdward 6y ago
This is so vacuous. Does it imply that UBI money is coming from thin air? That's obviously false. Also the article says a type of UBI is being used to stimulate job creation and work for industries that are rapidly losing in these areas. This is literally on par with what Elon said, how could it be a counter argument? This is the rare Elon quote where I don't even have to attack his behaviour to discredit. It's just not applicable in this context as a counterpoint.
TheDong 6y ago
I would think we, as hackers, on hacker news, would have some unique insight into this. The software world is built on the back of stuff that was made, not for money, but out of a labor of love, or to impress others, or to scratch our own itch. Our servers run linux, but linux was mostly just linus hacking around. The free software community is about helping each other and building cool things. Most programming languages were birthed not for money, but because the person building them cared about it a lot and wanted to solve a problem for themselves. UBI would let people who wanted to make stuff actually make stuff, not have to flip burgers 9-5 just to go home and feel too drained to code or write or do whatever it is they really want to do. There are countless examples throughout history of people building great things and advancing science, not for money, but for recognition or passion.
- youdonthavekids 6y ago
  A small number of people in history have done something useful with their free time so you think we should pay everyone in the hope that more people take up coding and writing? Why does UBI make me want to write novels or create linux? I don't want to live on minimum wage, I want to work and earn lots of money so my family can have nice things. I won't get that on your UBI poverty level wages.
- 6y ago

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

In Talking Politics this week, Helen Thompson pointed out that UBI is a solution for every crisis - it does not diminish the potential upside for UBI (or Land Tax reform also mentioned in the podcast) but UBI and Land Tax are such disruptive changes to our social contract that it can be brought up in context of every crisis - I guess like Covid it affects everything. The point being if you think UBI will be positive, it will be positive across its whole range of impacts, and that range of impacts is soo huge it can be brought up in almost any context. Edit: UBI and Land Tax are big enough we should consider them on their own merits, not look for "opportunities" to bring them into the conversation.

nabla9 6y ago
I'm strong supporter of UBI in my home country (Finland) and I think it would work in in Nordics and likely in EU too. I don't think it would work in the US because it's sold in completely different premise. US has the least developed welfare system and the plan seems to be just replace it with small sum of money. In Nordics UBI would be in addition to free healthcare, education etc. and funding it would not be a problem. Unemployed already get benefits. Even small housing allowance would probably remain to discourage segregation due to income differences. It's the combination of welfare that low income workers get that creates high effective marginal tax rate that UBI neatly solves. It would create incentives for working and reduce bureaucracy.
- GordonS 6y ago
  > In Nordics UBI would be in addition to free healthcare, education etc. and funding it would not be a problem I was interested to see some numbers on this, so I did some quick and dirty googling. It looks like Finland has about 4.5 million people, and currently spends around 4,491,000,000 EUR/year on around 370,000 people - around 13,500 EUR/person. I'd guess that would be a reasonable amount for a UBI program. Scaling that up to 4.5M people means a huge number, 60,750,000,000 EUR/year - which I believe is larger than the entire yearly budget for Finland. Sounds like funding UBI would actually be a pretty big problem.

bavell 6y ago

What a garbage article. Poorly thought out and researched.

akvadrako 6y ago
That's what you should expect from Bloomberg.

daenz 6y ago

Alternative title: People not allowed to work need money more than ever.

toastal 6y ago
This is such a cold take. There's a on-going international health crisis so don't understate it. You can't have workers either if everyone is sick... Or dead. People need to both stay home AND put food on the table and this is precisely where UBI, even temporarily, helps.
- sparkie 6y ago
  There's an argument that can be had that lockdown measures will be much more deadly than COVID in the long run. Increased suicides due to disemployment, poverty, more cancers and other illnesses gone untreated because of health service mis-prioritization. There's a compound effect where businesses going bust can have a domino effect on others. Hospitals could go bankrupt. Everyone is going to be paying more for basic goods due to inevitable price inflation. If it saves one life, it's worth ending the lockdown, right? Why is there nobody running computer models estimating how many people are going to die as a result of the lockdown? Because it contradicts the narrative. COVID is unknown and the government is as clueless as you are. They're in hysteria and are not thinking rationally. What people need is the freedom to make their own choices. If people are scared of the virus and think staying couped up in a confined home is going to keep them from getting sick - I have nothing wrong with them doing that. Please stop forcing everyone else to live that way.
  - toastal 6y ago
    Good idea. Government healthcare should cover mental health patients as well during this crisis. Structurally, at least in the US, too much of one's identity is tied to career and this is the same existential issue society will be facing in the coming age of automation. Now if you think your 'right' to put your own body at risk, you've failed to understand how contagious the virus is and how much you put others at risk by thinking you matter more. This will only prolong the quarantine, and this is why everyone is super concerned about the second wave and pandemic history repeating itself because some people are so arrogant and don't see their privilege compared to the at risk.

BelleOfTheBall 6y ago

> Another positive sign for UBI is that most Americans seem keen to return to their workplaces. One fear has been that UBI would lead to a couch-potato culture, with people choosing to stay at home even when they’re finally able to leave. This is an old take that has very rarely (if at all) seen tangible evidence. The Guardian reported on this [0] and so did QZ [1] Even if UBI pushes a small percentage of people to quit their jobs, those people will either move into different jobs that they enjoy more, free to pursue a career they like thanks to financial security, or contribute to society in other ways: creating art, volunteering, etc. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/12/universal-basic-income-work-finland-experiment-payments https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/12/univer... [1]: https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits-working/ https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits-workin...

luckylion 6y ago
> This is an old take that has very rarely (if at all) seen tangible evidence. It's literally what we face in Germany. Our unemployable are getting housing, health care, TVs etc + cash and they do not move on to jobs they enjoy more, they do not volunteer more, they do not start companies etc. If you don't see evidence of that in the US, it's because you don't have anything that comes close to unlimited perpetual income with no requirements to work. If you have an economic shut down for a month or two and people expect the "free money" to run out eventually, they'll be eager to get back to work. The situation changes very much if they do not expect it to run out and adapt to the new circumstances where work is optional and considered a hobby.
- thinkloop 6y ago
  Oddly Germany might be the single most productive country in the world?
  - pedrosorio 6y ago
    If you measure productivity by economic output / hours worked, allowing those who have no desire to work to be excluded sounds like a good way to maximize it.

dimitar 6y ago

UBI gives money to everyone equally, those that really need it don't get enough. For example - I can get a a $500 (or X amount in your country) check every month that I don't need as I can work just fine from home, but someone who might be laid off can barely pay for his rent, food and other necessities. There is not enough wealth to redistribute in any country (except maybe the Gulf states) so that both anyone in a job or health emergency has enough and also give the same amount to everyone else. So you have to deliver smaller sums - a patch to this system is to have everyone pay for insurance, proportionally to their income and need, but this the current welfare scheme UBI is supposed to replace. Covid-19 exactly how disproportionate and random a crisis can be, so a one-size fits all solution doesn't fit anyone.

chrischen 6y ago
$500 to you may be worth a lot more than $500 to Warren Buffet, in terms of man-hours.
akiselev 6y ago
> There is not enough wealth to redistribute in any country (except maybe the Gulf states) so that both anyone in a job or health emergency has enough and also give the same amount to everyone else. [Citation needed] The global population grew from about 1.6 billion to about 6 billion in the span of a hundred years (1900-2000). Before the pandemic, over twice as many people were considered part of the "global middle class" than there were people alive in 1900. In that time, quality of life indicators have skyrocketed for all except the most isolated tribes. Humanity has known that "wealth" isn't a zero sum game since the fall of mercantilism. Universal basic income is just the next phase of that realization.

twblalock 6y ago

The virus crisis makes UBI look worse. We are ~2.5 months into lockdowns in the United States and all people got so far has been a check for $1200. People who support UBI need to provide a compelling justification for how it can be paid for, especially given how hard it has been, politically and financially, to give a one-time $1200 payment to American households. If it's so hard to do it even one time, how can we do it forever?

jimbob45 6y ago
Speak for yourself. $1200 is life-changing money for some people.
namdnay 6y ago
I think the usual solution is to increase income tax? So basically the introduction of UBI is neutral for the average household, the extra money from UBI being equivalent to the extra money lost on taxes
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- apta 6y ago
  Income (and sales) tax is a terrible model. A "wealth tax" (e.g. see how Islam requires Zakah) is superior, and has been historically shown to work.
  - godelski 6y ago
    > has been historically shown to work. Can you source this? Because I understand the exact opposite to be true. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/26/698057356/if-a-wealth-tax-is-such-a-good-idea-why-did-europe-kill-theirs https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/26/698057356/if-a... https://www.npr.org/2019/03/01/699261950/why-a-wealth-tax-didnt-work-in-europe https://www.npr.org/2019/03/01/699261950/why-a-wealth-tax-di... https://www.businessinsider.com/4-european-countries-wealth-tax-spain-norway-switzerland-belgium-2019-11?op=1#belgium-enacted-a-limited-wealth-tax-last-year-on-securities-accounts-containing-over-500000-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/4-european-countries-wealth-... https://taxfoundation.org/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax-oecd/ https://taxfoundation.org/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax-oecd/ tldr: European countries dumped them because it is hard to calculate value of assets, especially for the ultra rich.

sand_castles 6y ago

The value of money is linked to how much tax revenue can be raised. UBI means lower taxes = value of money diminishes. Jobs guarantee is how you implement UBI. Jobs given out by the state doesn't have to awful.

calmchaos 6y ago

If you want hyperinflation, that's the route to take. The more government is injecting money to businesses, society and people, the more expensive everything is getting. At the same time this dilutes the wealth of people and companies who have actually saved money. Countries need LESS socialism and government control - not more.

SubiculumCode 6y ago
UBI is not socialism. In fact, it is more of a libertarian policy where choices are made by individuals. Keeping people from falling off economic cliffs is likely to be more productive than letting them become homeless for the rest of their lives. That productivity offsets inflation risks. Technology and automation increases offset inflation, because they make us all more productive.
- calmchaos 6y ago
  How do you get all that money so that you can pay people UBI? Either you have to raise taxes sky high or you start printing money like never before. Both are poor options.
econcon 6y ago
>The more government is injecting money to businesses, society and people, the more expensive everything is getting. It only matters to people who have lot of cash saved up. Value of their money might decrease. But vast majority of population does not have cash saved up, they do not care about money losing its value as long as they are able to get more money today and buy the stuff they need.
- aww_dang 6y ago
  What of the people who had modest incomes, but lived within their means and saved their money? Why punish them and push their dreams of home ownership further out of reach? Why reward the those who were irresponsible?
- calmchaos 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

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fpoling 6y ago

The article rises a good point that emergency universal income is better than paying companies to keep people at work as done in many European companies. Post COVID world will require different jobs and many companies will cease to exist so paying them now is just waste of money and delays inevitable while locking people at doomed jobs.

esfandia 6y ago

Interesting at least to me: one of the article co-authors is Garry Kasparov (I imagine THE Garry Kasparov?).

bushin 6y ago
He is a political activist now.

keiferski 6y ago

I've still never come across a decent answer to this question, so maybe someone can help: why is Basic Income (in the US) preferable to a Great Depression-style Works Progress Administration? The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency, employing millions of job-seekers (mostly unskilled men) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States, while developing infrastructure to support the current and future society. Above all, the WPA hired workers and craftsmen who were mainly employed in building streets. Thus, under the leadership of the WPA, more than 1 million km of streets and over 10,000 bridges were built, in addition to many airports and much housing. Much of the infrastructure in the US is crumbling and needs to be replaced or fixed in the coming decades. Wouldn't society benefit more from training and hiring people to clean streets, rebuild infrastructure, beautify urban areas, etc. than simply sending everyone a check? I know that Basic Income isn't simply to replace jobs lost to automation, but I don't see how paying people to improve aspects of civilization is not obviously better than paying people with no expectations.

Mengkudulangsat 6y ago
Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource allocation than their citizens. People will still work with UBI, but they are much better positioned to choose the kind of work they personally do best.
- keiferski 6y ago
  How does this: > they are much better positioned to choose the kind of work they personally do best. ...lead to any sort of large-scale work getting done? Bridges and roads aren't open-source software and don't build themselves merely through the individual disparate actions of large numbers of people. I.e., thousands of people individually deciding that they want to improve their city's infrastructure doesn't result it in being improved; you still need an overarching leadership structure to organize it.

spyckie2 6y ago

I think the 2nd/3rd+ order effects of UBI needs to be understood better. Most arguments for or against UBI look no further than first order effects, and get most of the 1st order effects wrong because they don't take into account the cascading ripples of the more indirect unknowns. A collection of second order effect questions that people don't really have a strong cohesive argument for or against: 1) What are the impacts of UBI on cost of labor, and how will businesses react or adapt? (will UBI ultimately lower cost of labor for businesses or will it raise it? Will it cause businesses to seek out investment into AI instead to replace manpower? etc) 2) Are there any situations where UBI's cost will spiral out of control? (Do we have smart enough people modeling out long term costs of UBI in a comprehensive, risk accounting way so it doesn't become another social security) 3) What is the change in percentage of people who will couch potato with UBI? How about percent change in entrepreneurial activity with UBI? (at the very least, is it in the single digits, double digits? A fraction of 1%?) 3rd order effects: 1) What will the economy look like 20 years from now with UBI? How will the structure of society change? 2) How will UBI change how the majority of people grow up and what they end up pursuing? 3) How will UBI impact the global economic climate? (My sci-fi dystopian vision of UBI's butterfly effects, not that globalization hasn't already done this: UBI will spur one country to develop so much AI due to lack of people in the workforce, and that AI is so good that it gets exported to all countries over the world, centralizing most of the money in the world to that one country, making that one country able to afford UBI while the rest of the world is jobless and has no money to take care of their own people.) I'm just scratching the surface of the complexity of the topic.

lidHanteyk 6y ago
Your questions aren't hard. 1) People will exit the labor market, especially in cheaper jobs, since some folks currently only need to work in order to make up a small income disparity and will gladly quit their part-time jobs. Labor might get more expensive, but given how long minimum wage has been depressed, I wouldn't count on it. 2) No, UBI is as expensive to administer as the existing tax code. Also, the fuck are you talking about? Social Security has gotten cheaper to administer over time [0]. 3) Who cares? Literally, it doesn't matter how many people "couch potato" or otherwise decide not to work when they already weren't in the labor market. Think about it for a bit. 4) Hopefully less wage slavery, less food insecurity, less homelessness, less wealth inequality. That is, UBI is hoped to do what it is marketed as doing. 5) In e.g. Sweden, the constant availability of funds from the government has enabled people to be more fully actualized, as they choose whether they want to go into secondary education, start a small business, buy a farm, or open an art studio. All of these are also subsidized in the USA, but poorly. UBI acts as an ideal prototype system for this sort of funding, without having to commit to a particular usage of funds. 6) Uh, we've had a global economy for centuries. All that has happened is that places with UBI and similar social programs have become well-known and globally visible. But UBI in Alaska exists [1] and does not draw people to move to Alaska, so I can easily conclude that it doesn't matter that much to the global economy. More generally, I think that you are afraid of nothing. [0] https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/admin.html https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/admin.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanent_Fund_Dividend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanen...

FartyMcFarter 6y ago

Article is behind paywall. Does it explain how to pay for UBI in a sustainable way? Taking the USA as an example, UBI costs trillions per year. How will this get paid for, even taking into account that some of the money gets taxed?

z3t4 6y ago

To be eligible to basic income you need to first work for 5 years, then you will experience how its like to be stuck in the hamster wheel, if you're lucky you will also save up a buffer and enough to buy your own living quarter, and will have enough experience so that it will be easier to come back to the workforce, and be more likely to succeed if you do your own venture.

therufa 6y ago

Didn't read the article but this is the worst possible idea ever. With UBI you reduce the number of working people and shift all the responsibility to an even smaller group of individuals. Based on human nature, with UBI one would have an even larger lazy population who would end up just sitting around, doing nothing within the first 20 years of this wonderful idea. Now back to the reduced group of responsibility bearing individuals; these are the entrepreneurs, motivated workers, the ones that can't just sit around and do nothing, the ones who get bored on a hotel vacation. These are the people who would profit the most from UBI, since they are usually the ones capable of strategic thinking. They would end up with all the surplus generated from UBI because most people are just mindless consumers spending money as quickly as they get hands on it. How i see it, this would lead to massive inflation in value of products and in the end the government would have to raise UBI which soon would get into an endless loop. Also, there are so many downsides, that it's not even worth digging into the few upsides.

amelius 6y ago

Since time is our enemy at this point, perhaps a better idea is to suspend all rents and mortgages and put landlords and banks on a modest subsidy, for the duration of the lockdown. That would give a lot of financial room to a lot of people (also companies like restaurants), while I bet that the costs are overseeable.

oliverx0 6y ago

I am not sure about whether UBI would work or not. I am mostly against the idea of just giving people free money without having to work for it. But leaving my political views out of this: 1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like that and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this as a strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more? This then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for everyone else. 2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to take it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month? 3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there won't be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because a lot of businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work, someone has to be willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will be "free to explore more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If everyone gets money, then prices will increase accordingly.

burroisolator 6y ago
With 3) society is basically admitting that it is built on top of "slave labor". If no one wants to do the "dirty jobs" because they have UBI, then wages for those jobs will rise. Prices will indeed rise but is that such a bad thing? Few people complain that they want more child labor to be used in Bangladesh so that they can have cheaper t-shirts.
- hysan 6y ago
  It’s not just wages too. There’s also the component of worker treatment and workplace environments. Cheap, volume products likely have less of a place in society too because people would be able to afford something better and plan long term. UBI is a great debate topic as no one knows what will really happen. What it does do is reveal how people think of humanity and society.
lmm 6y ago
> 1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like that and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this as a strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more? This then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for everyone else. The whole point is to avoid all the problems of means-testing, application and so on, and just give every citizen the money. > 2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to take it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month? Well, if you believe in democracy then democracy should be able to solve difficult problems. If UBI were disastrous, surely a democratic majority could be found to vote against it; to the extent that it remains popular, it can't be going that badly. > 3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there won't be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because a lot of businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work, someone has to be willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will be "free to explore more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If everyone gets money, then prices will increase accordingly. Businesses that rely on a supply of people doing really crappy jobs for very low money will go under, yes. If no-one is forced to flip burgers in order to eat, then if you want a burger you'll have to pay enough to make it worth someone's while to make it for you, or figure out a way to automate it, or do it yourself. The end result would probably be fewer atomised person-as-robot jobs and more people doing their own cooking / cleaning / repairs / childcare / etc.. Would that be so bad?

beaker52 6y ago

Is it only me who worries that UBI is a precursor to a dystopian slavery?

DoreenMichele 6y ago
Nope.
friendlybus 6y ago
I worry its a crutch for an upcoming period of hardship. The longer it takes to get manufacturing off the ground and self sufficiency in place for most people, the more likely any shocks to the system will need more and more UBI.

scotty79 6y ago

Worst thing about UBI is that when you introduce it, the rents will just go up by its amount and all the money will end up in pocket of landlords not the poor people you were intending to support. You'd have to shake up real estate market too for example by introducing progressive real estate tax to counter that.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I'm not sure. It would need to be funded so I would assume that for the average person the income would be offset by taxes. There would be no extra money to inflate housing costs.
- mFixman 6y ago
  There won't be for the average person, but there will be for the average person with below-average income.
spyckie2 6y ago
3 progressive reforms of the modern century that need to be passed in tandem: 1) progressive real estate tax 2) moving tax revenue from income tax to VAT 3) UBI
BosunoB 6y ago
Renters markets suck but it's not like markets just cease to function as soon as consumers get more income. I'm sure there would be some rent seeking, but I doubt most renters markets are so uncompetitive that they could gobble up 1k or whatever.

negamax 6y ago

I have read pretty much all the comments. Many European countries have some form of basic income. I don't think Americans commenting here realizes how unsustainable that is. You can't mix high growth that US enjoys (look at disposable income and strength of USD) with UBI. If the choice is low/no growth where population sustain itself than UBI is the way. But what happens if for e.g. a country A moves to UBI but country B remains high growth? Country B will continue to invent new things and country A will be forced to inflate and moan and sacrifice its children and grandchildren to debt. That's pretty much what will happen.

SeaSeaRider 6y ago
No European country has implemented any form of UBI, nor do they intend to.
- negamax 6y ago
  Large welfare states are very basic income like. Have you checked the numbers on how many people get some form of government support in France? Many European countries' have their 30%+ budget for welfare
  - SeaSeaRider 6y ago
    Welfare state and UBI are completely different things.
    - negamax 6y ago
      The whole argument for UBI is that "the last failure didn't do socialism right".
      - akvadrako 6y ago
        UBI is not socialism. Compared to jobs programs, welfare and almost anything else the government does, it is less centrally managed. That's why many of the 20th century supporters were libertarians.

pasquinelli 6y ago

In a time of plague, with a healthcare system not designed to treat everyone who needs it during the best of times, bloomberg publishes an article about the benefits of ubi.

tanilama 6y ago

But US government is adding 3+ trillion dollars debt to pay for it. If anything, the current way of implementing UBI is not sustainable.

Rogach 6y ago

I've always had this question when UBI comes up, maybe now will have a chance to have an answer. Total US budget income for 2019: $3.422 trillion. US population: 328 million. Assuming that we simply divide the entire budget amongst everyone, we get: >>> 3.422e12 / 328e6 / 12 = $870 per month Minumum wage in US is $7.25, so assuming usual 40-hour work week minimum income is about $1300 per month. So even if US just drops all other concerns - healthcare, military, infrastructure - and just distributes money among the population, then it's still less than 70% than minimum wage. If we assume that only 50% of the budget is spent on UBI (still unsustainable in my opinion) then the number will get even lower. And that's US, arguably the richest and most powerful country. For other countries this calculation is even worse. Maybe there's an error in my calculations? How is UBI even supposed to work, where the money should come from?

manquer 6y ago
Couple of problems with your calculation . Not everyone of the 328 million will be covered by UBI , definitely not children for example . UBI is not meant to be full replacement of a minimum wage salary , like you said we don’t yet live in a resource rich utopia were people only work when they want to, not because they need to. sensible UBI proposals posit that it is efficient to directly disburse money without all the bureaucracy in programs for the economically affected , it also means trusting the recipients to make better judgements on how to spend that money than the government. They could be wrong , while early studies have shown positive indicators, they are small and long term impact is not really well understood. Personally I don’t think it is a good idea for a country. From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. This has been solved in ME by bringing in immigrants as effectively slave labour. Either you end up with nobody doing that work or you have to import labour who don’t enjoy the same benefits creating a classist society.
- rumanator 6y ago
  > From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. That's because those jobs are shitty to begin with. From where I'm standing, it's clear that the problem is the inherited shittyness of those jobs, not UBI. Perhaps it's worth a shot investing some work making those jobs less shitty? I mean, FAANGs felt the need to invest heavily in job satisfaction to reduce attrition and improve their public image. Why are some companies, and even government entities, complicit in perpetuating the shitty nature of the occupations they expect others to have?

SeaSeaRider 6y ago

Basic Income is Utopianism. Every generation thinks they can solve the ills of society with this “one simple trick.” Like the failed Utopias of the 20th century, it would fail when confronted with the reality of human nature.

stuaxo 6y ago

Not surprised this article says the economy needs to be more productive before using UBI, after all Bloomberg is owned by a billionaire. There isn't much point in hanging around, it should start now.

CryptoPunk 6y ago

I believe universal income, along with every other manifestation of the social democratic welfare state, is a civilizational dead end, and any society that adopts it is putting itself on the path to irrelevance and national extinction. My thought is that if you value your own life, and the lives of your descendants, you must make the drastic decision to escape any society that embarks on the path to UBI.

jokoon 6y ago

And yet I still see people arguing either: * for social darwinism or survival of the fittest, trying to say inequality is normal * that labor is necessary despite the great advances in technology. Those people would rather see people working as servants, in fast food, uber, cashiers, etc, than have those people educating themselves or lead more fulfilling lives. The level of pedanticism I read from people arguing about "basic economics", is just a problem of politics.

koonsolo 6y ago

US really seems to have a problem with black-white thinking. There are gray areas you know. You don't need to choose between no social support vs UBI. You can actually just have a proper unemployment and healthcare support system (like EU). Same goes for guns. There seems to be a thought that either everyone has the right to buy guns, or you outlaw guns. There is a middle ground where people get a license for a gun (proven with a blank criminal record, sanity confirmation from doctor and theoretical/practical examination), like EU you know. So why don't you first try something like giving people that need support, better support. That would be a good start without going all in with UBI. Maybe that would already help the many homeless people that are living on your streets.

lcall 6y ago

I tried to explain in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922 ...a number of separate reasons why a UBI at the US federal level takes away freedom to try better ideas to do good at other levels, is harmful and wrong, and that we can do much more good with persuasion, fundraising, letting states handle it (or smaller scopes), etc etc. States are like nations in some ways, and can learn from each other and find the best ways to do things, even forming alliances between them, without violating the constitutional limits on federal power. :) (If down-voting, a thoughtful comment is appreciated; thanks.)