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>"I won't spend any time in my life working on anything I don't think is important," he told me. "I'm just not going to. I don't need to." Letting all the othe

by Funes- 6y ago

>"I won't spend any time in my life working on anything I don't think is important," he told me. "I'm just not going to. I don't need to." Letting all the otherwise important economic intricacies and potential efficiency regarding the implementation of UBI, isn't the aim of such a measure exactly what Bezos is describing here? To free oneself (laypeople in UBI's case) from personally irrelevant tasks in order to enjoy a more fulfilling life? Perhaps this could be an indicator that what is currently a huge privilege should in the future be a commonality.

randmeerkat 6y ago
I frequently wonder how many Einstein level ideas have been lost because people have to work meaningless jobs with mediocre bosses to put food on the table instead.
- savanaly 6y ago
  Is Einstein the best example to use here? He famously derived the theory of relativity while working a "meaningless job". [0] Now, would he have derived it if he had had access to the HN and twitter skinner boxes? That's another question. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/06/opinion/l-einstein-changed-world-on-office-time-650993.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/06/opinion/l-einstein-change...
sokoloff 6y ago
Dollars are claim checks on other people’s resources, very often on their time. You can’t just give a bunch of dollars away without either incurring an offsetting amount of time/resources to back them, or to devalue them and their siblings. If you like food with your meals and your garbage hauled away, at the end of the chain, someone has to work to get that food to your table and the garbage away. (I’m generally pro-UBI, but can’t figure out how to pay even a subsistence level of UBI in a sustainable way, and certainly not enough that would allow a leisurely life for most.)
- nobodyknowsyoda 6y ago
  I mean that’s for the free market to take care of. If fewer people want to haul your garbage then the price for garbage hauling will go up. Higher demand for labor means workers have leverage to demand better working conditions, and inventors and incentivized to invent new technology: better PPE for workers, robotic garbage trucks, underground garbage tunnels, etc
- overlords 6y ago
  Basic Income is the same thing as Welfare + Taxation, but done more efficiently. Prominent economist - Greg Mankiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cL8kM0fXQc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cL8kM0fXQc Removing the needs assessment also removes the geographic location requirement, and that allows to deflate the land value inflation that is the real cause of inequality today.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    The critical difference is the amount per person and the number of people included. Welfare spending for 2020 is estimated to be around $1.9T, around $1.0T of which is means-tested, and $0.7T is Medicaid. Total federal receipts were around $3.4T. If you believe that the entire adult population should receive the equivalent of a $15/hr minimum wage job that was worked 2000 hours per year, you need to fund $30K/adult. There are around 250M adults living in the US, meaning that paying each of them $30K would require more than twice the total federal tax receipts for this program alone. If you restrict it to citizens only (rather than all lawful residents), it's still basically double. Even assuming you could cut every other federal function in half, you would still need to raise taxes by +150% (to 250% of current) just to pay for a $15/hr equivalent to adults only. Add in a smaller amount per child and you could be looking at tripling current tax levels. With the top marginal rate already higher than 33%, it's obvious that those tax increases will not hit only "the rich". Then, does $30K/adult provide for everyone to "enjoy a more fulfilling life" given the inflation that would occur to pay for the UBI? I think it does not. There is no doubt that UBI and taxation is more efficient; it's the simple multiplication that is a problem.
    - 6y ago

by Funes- 6y ago

randmeerkat 6y ago

I frequently wonder how many Einstein level ideas have been lost because people have to work meaningless jobs with mediocre bosses to put food on the table instead.

savanaly 6y ago
Is Einstein the best example to use here? He famously derived the theory of relativity while working a "meaningless job". [0] Now, would he have derived it if he had had access to the HN and twitter skinner boxes? That's another question. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/06/opinion/l-einstein-changed-world-on-office-time-650993.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/06/opinion/l-einstein-change...

sokoloff 6y ago

Dollars are claim checks on other people’s resources, very often on their time. You can’t just give a bunch of dollars away without either incurring an offsetting amount of time/resources to back them, or to devalue them and their siblings. If you like food with your meals and your garbage hauled away, at the end of the chain, someone has to work to get that food to your table and the garbage away. (I’m generally pro-UBI, but can’t figure out how to pay even a subsistence level of UBI in a sustainable way, and certainly not enough that would allow a leisurely life for most.)

nobodyknowsyoda 6y ago
I mean that’s for the free market to take care of. If fewer people want to haul your garbage then the price for garbage hauling will go up. Higher demand for labor means workers have leverage to demand better working conditions, and inventors and incentivized to invent new technology: better PPE for workers, robotic garbage trucks, underground garbage tunnels, etc
overlords 6y ago
Basic Income is the same thing as Welfare + Taxation, but done more efficiently. Prominent economist - Greg Mankiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cL8kM0fXQc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cL8kM0fXQc Removing the needs assessment also removes the geographic location requirement, and that allows to deflate the land value inflation that is the real cause of inequality today.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  The critical difference is the amount per person and the number of people included. Welfare spending for 2020 is estimated to be around $1.9T, around $1.0T of which is means-tested, and $0.7T is Medicaid. Total federal receipts were around $3.4T. If you believe that the entire adult population should receive the equivalent of a $15/hr minimum wage job that was worked 2000 hours per year, you need to fund $30K/adult. There are around 250M adults living in the US, meaning that paying each of them $30K would require more than twice the total federal tax receipts for this program alone. If you restrict it to citizens only (rather than all lawful residents), it's still basically double. Even assuming you could cut every other federal function in half, you would still need to raise taxes by +150% (to 250% of current) just to pay for a $15/hr equivalent to adults only. Add in a smaller amount per child and you could be looking at tripling current tax levels. With the top marginal rate already higher than 33%, it's obvious that those tax increases will not hit only "the rich". Then, does $30K/adult provide for everyone to "enjoy a more fulfilling life" given the inflation that would occur to pay for the UBI? I think it does not. There is no doubt that UBI and taxation is more efficient; it's the simple multiplication that is a problem.
  - 6y ago