4 ms·

If anyone wants to use the term "UBI" they should be forced to first watch "Freedom to choose" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3N2sNnGwa4&list=PL4742023192B699

If anyone wants to use the term "UBI" they should be forced to first watch "Freedom to choose" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3N2sNnGwa4&list=PL4742023192B69941 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3N2sNnGwa4&list=PL474202319... UBI only works when it's 1) Universal (even to rich people) and 2) When it's funded by dismantling some/all of the existing welfare state.

JorgeGT 5y ago
And lifelong. No one changes the direction of his life for a 5 year UBI test.
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  Yeah, or at least "Longish term and guaranteed" . ie, Starting today you will get this payment, or more, for at the next 5 years. We cannot guarantee beyond that date, but we'll keep you informed of changes that may come after 2026.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Some won't. But "no one"? I strongly disagree. I can stop worrying about this month, and start worrying about the month five years from now. And in that five years, I can do a lot to position myself so that month will be OK, and the months after it will also be OK.
- nickff 5y ago
  Five years should be long enough to see people make changes, for good or for bad, though we won't see all the costs/benefits in the intervening time. Five years gives them enough time to make substantial time/education/skill investments in themselves by going to college/trade school, having a child, or learning a new skill. Five years also gives people enough time to develop negative habits/lifestyles such as drug or video game addictions. What change do you think would take more than five years to see?
petermcneeley 5y ago
If anyone wants to send links out of "Freedom to choose" they should be first forced to read https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-libertarian-faq/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-liberta...
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  Will do! Thanks for the link :)
BitwiseFool 5y ago
>"dismantling some/all of the existing welfare state." I think this is going to be a nigh insurmountable hurdle. To be upfront, I do not support UBI and I am extremely skeptical of it. But plenty of my friends on 'the left' adore the idea. I don't believe the same people who champion a UBI would suddenly become cold and say to a disabled recipient, "No, you will not get extra money because of your special needs. You will get nothing else because we dismantled your welfare benefits in order to give everyone a UBI." The response, then, would to be adjust the UBI payment amount for individuals with special needs to make up for the loss of those other welfare payments they needed to live. But to do that you would still need some sort of bureaucracy in order to assess claims and increase the payout. So in the end, can you even say you've replaced welfare with a UBI?
- 90minuteAPI 5y ago
  Hence the “some/all” in the quoted text, yes?
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    Yes, and I'm not quite sure whether the GP was leaning more towards the 'some' or the 'all' side. I've encountered a lot of UBI proponents who fall into the 'all' camp, and use that as a selling point. I think the 'some' side is what would realistically happen, and even then, I think it would only end up being a tiny amount of the welfare system that ends up getting dismantled. Simply because the people fighting for UBI also fight against inequity and getting rid of programs specifically to fight inequity will be anathema to them.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  To realize the premise of what would originally have been called UBI would in fact require UBI is in fact enough money to support a disabled person. This is a significant barrier to any incremental rollout.
- thanhhaimai 5y ago
  I'm not speaking for everyone who supports UBI, but converting the existing welfare model to UBI doesn't necessarily mean removing private charity/non-profits organizations. Having UBI means those organizations can be more focused and targeted, leading to better help for individuals in need.
cryptoz 5y ago
The article doesn't mention UBI at all. I think the HN title was editorialized.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> UBI only works when Sounds like a No True Scotsman fallacy to me. There are multiple UBI designs, and this is just one of them. There is no one "true" UBI. > When it's funded by dismantling some/all of the existing welfare state. The $500 to $1000 a month in the OP would barely cover the premiums of a shitty healthcare plan on the individual market. It wouldn't even touch the actual costs of care or deductible, and those costs increase every year.
- xienze 5y ago
  > The $500 to $1000 a month in the OP Why does everyone lack foresight in regards to where UBI will eventually lead? People are just going to keep voting for the guy promising more and more UBI bucks. Yeah maybe $1000 isn’t much, but give it a few election cycles.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    My long-view prediction for UBI is that when faced with the rising cost of goods coupled with rising inflation from increasing payouts, UBI will eventually move from pure monetary payments to reduced monetary payments and vouchers for specific items, and then ultimately, rations. My reasoning is that if the UBI collection and payout system cannot keep up with the market, the next logical step for the government is to nationalize the production and issue goods accordingly. Edit: Let's say a pack of toilet paper goes from $10 to $20 due to inflation and the manufacturer raising prices because they are forced to pay workers higher wages (let's assume working in a toilet paper factory is terrible work and you could just live on UBI instead of working in a paper mill), and because the corporation also has to pay higher taxes to support UBI. The government can increase the UBI payout to make up for this - in the short term at least. But the price will continue to rise because the money has to come from somewhere and if you just print it inflation speeds up. But what if you get around this problem by issuing vouchers for toilet paper rather than issuing dollars that can be used on toilet paper? You solve the inflation problem as 1 roll = 1 roll. You can even lower each UBI payout because now you don't need to factor in the TP expense. This same thinking can be applied to other goods.
Lramseyer 5y ago
> UBI only works when it's 1) Universal (even to rich people) and 2) When it's funded by dismantling some/all of the existing welfare state. This is key. To go even further (at the risk of being a little political) The best way I heard UBI described (by economically conservative individuals in support of it) was that it was simply a readjustment of tax brackets so that lower incomes end up paying a negative tax [receiving money]. While not perfectly mathematically correct, it's an analogy. And it's important to keep that analogy in mind, because if UBI were to hypothetically be implemented in the US, it would simply be withheld accordingly by the employer as income taxes in higher paying jobs where such taxes would cancel out UBI money. I have found that my friends who are unfamiliar with UBI tend to respond better to the idea of "_negative taxes_ for lower income earners" than "Universal [welfare]/Basic Income" To be clear, I'm not trying to advocate for or against UBI, I'm simply trying to explain the idea from a different perspective.
- bassman9000 5y ago
  lower incomes end up paying a negative tax [receiving money] And depending on how it's implemented, there'll be a segment of the population whose net UBI will be zero, so you'll save most of the processing costs of handling income tax and UBI.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> UBI only works when it's 1) Universal (even to rich people) and 2) When it's funded by dismantling some/all of the existing welfare state. That's overly vague and also wrong; What is fundamentally necessary is that the benefit cliffs of existing social welfare programs are eliminated, which requires that any effective benefit reduction be made gradual and distant from the low-end of the income spectrum. The general way of doing this is: (1) Making the benefit nominally universal across a population qualified by basic community membership traits (e.g., citizenship or legal residency), (2) Replacing any means-tested benefit programs (non-means-tested social welfare programs may or may not be replaced, but are not critical to replace for the basic function of UBI, whereas means-tested programs are critical to replace.) (3) Funding most of the cost (benefit plus administrative savings of displacing means-tested social welfare programs generally will not suffice for the benefit levels to functionally replace existing programs since the target population is much larger) with high-end taxes (e.g., in a system like the US systems, equalizing capital gains with normal income taxes, adding additional high-end brackets, etc.) #1 and #3 are slightly different together than your #1, since the actual (that is, net) benefit (even discounting displaced programs) isn't actually universal, since some at the high end are net payers, and #2 is more specific than your #2 as yo which parts of the existing welfare state are essential to replace.

JorgeGT 5y ago

And lifelong. No one changes the direction of his life for a 5 year UBI test.

maerF0x0 5y ago
Yeah, or at least "Longish term and guaranteed" . ie, Starting today you will get this payment, or more, for at the next 5 years. We cannot guarantee beyond that date, but we'll keep you informed of changes that may come after 2026.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Some won't. But "no one"? I strongly disagree. I can stop worrying about this month, and start worrying about the month five years from now. And in that five years, I can do a lot to position myself so that month will be OK, and the months after it will also be OK.
nickff 5y ago
Five years should be long enough to see people make changes, for good or for bad, though we won't see all the costs/benefits in the intervening time. Five years gives them enough time to make substantial time/education/skill investments in themselves by going to college/trade school, having a child, or learning a new skill. Five years also gives people enough time to develop negative habits/lifestyles such as drug or video game addictions. What change do you think would take more than five years to see?

petermcneeley 5y ago

If anyone wants to send links out of "Freedom to choose" they should be first forced to read https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-libertarian-faq/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-liberta...

maerF0x0 5y ago
Will do! Thanks for the link :)

BitwiseFool 5y ago

>"dismantling some/all of the existing welfare state." I think this is going to be a nigh insurmountable hurdle. To be upfront, I do not support UBI and I am extremely skeptical of it. But plenty of my friends on 'the left' adore the idea. I don't believe the same people who champion a UBI would suddenly become cold and say to a disabled recipient, "No, you will not get extra money because of your special needs. You will get nothing else because we dismantled your welfare benefits in order to give everyone a UBI." The response, then, would to be adjust the UBI payment amount for individuals with special needs to make up for the loss of those other welfare payments they needed to live. But to do that you would still need some sort of bureaucracy in order to assess claims and increase the payout. So in the end, can you even say you've replaced welfare with a UBI?

90minuteAPI 5y ago
Hence the “some/all” in the quoted text, yes?
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  Yes, and I'm not quite sure whether the GP was leaning more towards the 'some' or the 'all' side. I've encountered a lot of UBI proponents who fall into the 'all' camp, and use that as a selling point. I think the 'some' side is what would realistically happen, and even then, I think it would only end up being a tiny amount of the welfare system that ends up getting dismantled. Simply because the people fighting for UBI also fight against inequity and getting rid of programs specifically to fight inequity will be anathema to them.
fennecfoxen 5y ago
To realize the premise of what would originally have been called UBI would in fact require UBI is in fact enough money to support a disabled person. This is a significant barrier to any incremental rollout.
thanhhaimai 5y ago
I'm not speaking for everyone who supports UBI, but converting the existing welfare model to UBI doesn't necessarily mean removing private charity/non-profits organizations. Having UBI means those organizations can be more focused and targeted, leading to better help for individuals in need.

cryptoz 5y ago

The article doesn't mention UBI at all. I think the HN title was editorialized.

heavyset_go 5y ago

> UBI only works when Sounds like a No True Scotsman fallacy to me. There are multiple UBI designs, and this is just one of them. There is no one "true" UBI. > When it's funded by dismantling some/all of the existing welfare state. The $500 to $1000 a month in the OP would barely cover the premiums of a shitty healthcare plan on the individual market. It wouldn't even touch the actual costs of care or deductible, and those costs increase every year.

xienze 5y ago
> The $500 to $1000 a month in the OP Why does everyone lack foresight in regards to where UBI will eventually lead? People are just going to keep voting for the guy promising more and more UBI bucks. Yeah maybe $1000 isn’t much, but give it a few election cycles.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  My long-view prediction for UBI is that when faced with the rising cost of goods coupled with rising inflation from increasing payouts, UBI will eventually move from pure monetary payments to reduced monetary payments and vouchers for specific items, and then ultimately, rations. My reasoning is that if the UBI collection and payout system cannot keep up with the market, the next logical step for the government is to nationalize the production and issue goods accordingly. Edit: Let's say a pack of toilet paper goes from $10 to $20 due to inflation and the manufacturer raising prices because they are forced to pay workers higher wages (let's assume working in a toilet paper factory is terrible work and you could just live on UBI instead of working in a paper mill), and because the corporation also has to pay higher taxes to support UBI. The government can increase the UBI payout to make up for this - in the short term at least. But the price will continue to rise because the money has to come from somewhere and if you just print it inflation speeds up. But what if you get around this problem by issuing vouchers for toilet paper rather than issuing dollars that can be used on toilet paper? You solve the inflation problem as 1 roll = 1 roll. You can even lower each UBI payout because now you don't need to factor in the TP expense. This same thinking can be applied to other goods.

Lramseyer 5y ago

> UBI only works when it's 1) Universal (even to rich people) and 2) When it's funded by dismantling some/all of the existing welfare state. This is key. To go even further (at the risk of being a little political) The best way I heard UBI described (by economically conservative individuals in support of it) was that it was simply a readjustment of tax brackets so that lower incomes end up paying a negative tax [receiving money]. While not perfectly mathematically correct, it's an analogy. And it's important to keep that analogy in mind, because if UBI were to hypothetically be implemented in the US, it would simply be withheld accordingly by the employer as income taxes in higher paying jobs where such taxes would cancel out UBI money. I have found that my friends who are unfamiliar with UBI tend to respond better to the idea of "_negative taxes_ for lower income earners" than "Universal [welfare]/Basic Income" To be clear, I'm not trying to advocate for or against UBI, I'm simply trying to explain the idea from a different perspective.

bassman9000 5y ago
lower incomes end up paying a negative tax [receiving money] And depending on how it's implemented, there'll be a segment of the population whose net UBI will be zero, so you'll save most of the processing costs of handling income tax and UBI.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> UBI only works when it's 1) Universal (even to rich people) and 2) When it's funded by dismantling some/all of the existing welfare state. That's overly vague and also wrong; What is fundamentally necessary is that the benefit cliffs of existing social welfare programs are eliminated, which requires that any effective benefit reduction be made gradual and distant from the low-end of the income spectrum. The general way of doing this is: (1) Making the benefit nominally universal across a population qualified by basic community membership traits (e.g., citizenship or legal residency), (2) Replacing any means-tested benefit programs (non-means-tested social welfare programs may or may not be replaced, but are not critical to replace for the basic function of UBI, whereas means-tested programs are critical to replace.) (3) Funding most of the cost (benefit plus administrative savings of displacing means-tested social welfare programs generally will not suffice for the benefit levels to functionally replace existing programs since the target population is much larger) with high-end taxes (e.g., in a system like the US systems, equalizing capital gains with normal income taxes, adding additional high-end brackets, etc.) #1 and #3 are slightly different together than your #1, since the actual (that is, net) benefit (even discounting displaced programs) isn't actually universal, since some at the high end are net payers, and #2 is more specific than your #2 as yo which parts of the existing welfare state are essential to replace.