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Andrew Yang: > I am a huge fan of a negative income tax, but I prefer a UBI for multiple reasons. It lowers the administrative burden because you don’t need to

Andrew Yang: > I am a huge fan of a negative income tax, but I prefer a UBI for multiple reasons. It lowers the administrative burden because you don’t need to figure out how much I made last year. It removes any strange shenanigans in terms of trying to report a low income. It alleviates a payments timing issue — you’re not likely to get your negative income tax when you might need it. And politically, I think it’s more appealing to be able to say to everyone: You have intrinsic value. This is how much you get for being an American, [a] human being.

Turing_Machine 6y ago
I see no reason why a direct quote from Andrew Yang (probably the best-known proponent of UBI at the present time) should be flagged to death in this conversation. Vouched -- which doesn't indicate that I necessarily agree with him. I just hate people who are making a valid contribution to the conversation being mobbed down.
- dang 6y ago
  It wasn't flagged to death and nobody mobbed anybody. The account that posted it was banned. Posts by banned accounts are killed by default. You're right that the parent was a good contribution and deserved to be unkilled. That's what vouching is for, and you made an excellent use of it. Banning on HN isn't punitive, it's preventative. When a banned account has changed its ways and has reliably been sticking to HN's rules for a while now, we're happy to unban it. If people see cases like that, they should email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. That's a fine way to watch out for a fellow user. When a banned account hasn't been reliably sticking to HN's rules for long enough, or hasn't posted enough to decide that yet, it stays banned for obvious reasons. In that case their good posts can still be unkilled, just on a comment-by-comment basis. That's why we created vouching and it works well.
slg 6y ago
>And politically, I think it’s more appealing to be able to say to everyone: You have intrinsic value. The universality of UBI is key to its political viability. Just look at the number of people who are against forgiving college debt because they have already paid off college or are past the stage in their life in which they are personally concerned about college debt. Most people still view "fairness" as everyone being treated equally. So just give everyone an equal amount of money.
- syshum 6y ago
  Fairness is treating everyone equally, the fact you put that in quotes is concerning... Further it is not just people that have paid off college debt or are past the stage where are concerned about college debt.. Many people worked their ass off to become good at a trade or other profession with out incurring college debt, why should we then have to pay increased taxes to pay of those that bought into the college lie? No one is offering me Mortgage Debt forgiveness? Housing is more of a necessity of life than a collage degree...
  - scsilver 6y ago
    Fairness often leads to zero sum outcomes, sometimes positive sum outcomes for all parties can be had from "unfair" allocation.
    - syshum 6y ago
      When it comes to government, equal treatment for all individuals in society is the only ethical method Everything else is just corruption
  - slg 6y ago
    Let’s say you are at a family reunion and want to play a game of baseball with everyone. Is it “fair” to have the same rules for the 6 year old child and the 25 year old who used to play on his high school baseball team? More likely you would tweak the rules a little or pitch a little slower to the kid so everyone has fun and can fully participate. Sometimes fairness means leveling the playing field so everyone can compete equally.
    - syshum 6y ago
      Well your straw-man is completely weak and not relevant the conversation about government tax policy We are not talking about a "family" but talking about government, that is something very different and it is very dangerous to view government as a "family" in the same way it dangerous to view a corporations or your employer as "family"

Turing_Machine 6y ago

I see no reason why a direct quote from Andrew Yang (probably the best-known proponent of UBI at the present time) should be flagged to death in this conversation. Vouched -- which doesn't indicate that I necessarily agree with him. I just hate people who are making a valid contribution to the conversation being mobbed down.

dang 6y ago
It wasn't flagged to death and nobody mobbed anybody. The account that posted it was banned. Posts by banned accounts are killed by default. You're right that the parent was a good contribution and deserved to be unkilled. That's what vouching is for, and you made an excellent use of it. Banning on HN isn't punitive, it's preventative. When a banned account has changed its ways and has reliably been sticking to HN's rules for a while now, we're happy to unban it. If people see cases like that, they should email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. That's a fine way to watch out for a fellow user. When a banned account hasn't been reliably sticking to HN's rules for long enough, or hasn't posted enough to decide that yet, it stays banned for obvious reasons. In that case their good posts can still be unkilled, just on a comment-by-comment basis. That's why we created vouching and it works well.

slg 6y ago

>And politically, I think it’s more appealing to be able to say to everyone: You have intrinsic value. The universality of UBI is key to its political viability. Just look at the number of people who are against forgiving college debt because they have already paid off college or are past the stage in their life in which they are personally concerned about college debt. Most people still view "fairness" as everyone being treated equally. So just give everyone an equal amount of money.

syshum 6y ago
Fairness is treating everyone equally, the fact you put that in quotes is concerning... Further it is not just people that have paid off college debt or are past the stage where are concerned about college debt.. Many people worked their ass off to become good at a trade or other profession with out incurring college debt, why should we then have to pay increased taxes to pay of those that bought into the college lie? No one is offering me Mortgage Debt forgiveness? Housing is more of a necessity of life than a collage degree...
- scsilver 6y ago
  Fairness often leads to zero sum outcomes, sometimes positive sum outcomes for all parties can be had from "unfair" allocation.
  - syshum 6y ago
    When it comes to government, equal treatment for all individuals in society is the only ethical method Everything else is just corruption
- slg 6y ago
  Let’s say you are at a family reunion and want to play a game of baseball with everyone. Is it “fair” to have the same rules for the 6 year old child and the 25 year old who used to play on his high school baseball team? More likely you would tweak the rules a little or pitch a little slower to the kid so everyone has fun and can fully participate. Sometimes fairness means leveling the playing field so everyone can compete equally.
  - syshum 6y ago
    Well your straw-man is completely weak and not relevant the conversation about government tax policy We are not talking about a "family" but talking about government, that is something very different and it is very dangerous to view government as a "family" in the same way it dangerous to view a corporations or your employer as "family"