5 ms·

No, that's an argument for a proper social safety net, as implemented in many European countries. Most fulltime jobs pay better than a UBI ever could, so if you

by adwn 5y ago

No, that's an argument for a proper social safety net, as implemented in many European countries. Most fulltime jobs pay better than a UBI ever could, so if you have a job, a) either your standard of living is so high that a change to UBI-only would be very disruptive and you'd still be worried about losing your job, b) or your standard of living is so low that you'd quickly accumulate enough of a financial buffer that you wouldn't have to worry about losing your job. Therefore, a UBI wouldn't be better than a social safety net in this regard. In both cases you wouldn't have to worry about starving, but you'd still have to worry about losing your income.

newaccount74 5y ago
The "social security net" we have in Europe isn't perfect, though. At least here in Austria they make you jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops to get assistance. There's not a single type of assistance you get, there's like 10 different things you can apply for, they all have different preconditions and navigating them is almost a full time job. And before people take a job, they have to think about which aid they are going to lose, etc. At the sametime they have to deal with the stigma of depending on social security. With UBI you wouldn't need any bureaucracy, you would always get more money if you worked even a shitty job, and noone would be jealous that you are freeloading because everyone gets UBI.
- adwn 5y ago
  > The "social security net" we have in Europe isn't perfect, though. You're comparing the imperfect reality of an actual situation (unemployment benefits) against the utopian fantasy of an imagined best case scenario (UBI) – of course the imagined scenario will come out on top. The real result of a UBI will almost certainly look less rosy than the picture you paint, just like every other plan once it gets implemented. For example, this: > noone would be jealous that you are freeloading because everyone gets UBI would likely be wrong, because people would instead be jealous because you're "freeloading" by not working and therefore not paying taxes. Other ways a UBI could conceivably be bad or even worse than the current status quo: * Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line. * Any realistic UBI is too low for people with special needs (like disabilities), so you'll again need a bureaucracy to deal with those cases. * If the UBI is independent of local cost-of-living, it'll most likely be too low to survive on it in high COL areas, like most large cities. If it's dependent on COL, the exact implementation won't please everyone.
  - cplusplusfellow 5y ago
    > Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line. By far this is the easiest to predict, but least likely to be addressed (by the proponents) concern I have with UBI. A social safety net shouldn’t be a hammock, as it is said. I’m concerned with AI and what happens when it’s pointless to hire people because a $100k robot can do the same work as 3 of them and do so 20 hours a day. By then UBI may be our answer. But it doesn’t seem so now.
    - pracer 5y ago
      Totally agree with this. Otherwise, I don't see UBI solving anything, but creating new problems.
  - jklinger410 5y ago
    None of what you posted is serious criticism of UBI. > Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line. Governments will respond to economic factors that diminish purchasing power in order to maintain the effectiveness of UBI, as a part of UBI. > Any realistic UBI is too low for people with special needs Diminished support for disabled or sick people is not a part of UBI. UBI should become a part (within or on top of) of their support. Bureaucracy will still be diminished for non-disabled people. > If the UBI is independent of local cost-of-living, it'll most likely be too low to survive on it in high COL areas So people in those areas will have to have jobs. UBI still allows them to go quit their job and move out to the country if they want to subsist on it. UBI would go nicely paired with rent controls and maintaining individual purchase power, but it doesn't even need those things to be a net positive. UBI should have been implemented 20-40 years ago, it will surely be necessary going forward, it's time to get on board.
    - pracer 5y ago
      Of course! government intervention in prices and supply and demand! How nobody thought about it before? Well, they did. And it failed spectacularly, as central planning of prices doesn't work due to the impossibility of getting all the information needed in time and the results of the analysis on time too in order to correct the market. And as a proponent of UBI, YOU should explain how it would work, not the others. What financial tools or mechanisms would use a government to control the inflation or the rise in prices? I mean, even in the late Soviet Union had to look at capitalists countries to have an idea of the prices for basic products, because they coul not put a price that would make it work.
- todorus 5y ago
  You sound like the motivation behind social security and UBI are different. It's nice to present a clean (modeled) plan, but it's something different when it hits reality. Social security now, is what UBI will look like a few decades down the road. Somebody will find a way to exploit UBI and that hole gets patched, then there's another patch and another. Not to speak of how different political ideologies will apply their own modifications to previously established laws
  - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
    Confused. If the income is universal (the 'U' in UBI) then what possible hack is there? That's the entire point really. Its why you can get rid of the bureaucracy, since there are no rules to exploit.
    - pracer 5y ago
      I'm confused too. How is that engineers here talking about UBI as a solution to this pressure to keep your job don't talk or consider how to pay that? Besides, when everyone has a base level of income, inflation came in play (as a consequence of supply and demand of goods) and then we go back to the same problem: getting a good life or just the basics to life becomes expensive even with UBI. Also, I would recommend to read "Debunking Utopia" about the social system Nordic countries implemented in the past, some kind of model for solving the problem of living decently for people without possibilities and/or problems to make a living. The countries are slowly but steady reducing that system because it solves nothing and creates extra problems. With UBI, which is a bigger plan than the system Nordic countries had, you would end up with the same if not worse problems than they faced: people decide not to work for low wages or in jobs that are needed but unappealing (and I don't blame them, for sure), but because someone has to do the jobs, wages increase a lot, which in turn, increases the costs and price of those services. And, voila, we are at the beginning of the problem, were people are stressed or unhappy because they have to keep jobs they don't enjoy or like. The difference is that the UBI would be the new penny, because you could not buy anything. Maybe with AI and automation we would get there, as robots would not complain or care.
    - adwn 5y ago
tomc1985 5y ago
I think you are discounting the fact that in the second scenario you don't have to work. I don't know about y'all but that is my fantasy.
- adwn 5y ago
  > I think you are discounting the fact that in the second scenario you don't have to work *for a while. Only very few people are able to save enough to never have to work again, even with a low standard of living.
  - pracer 5y ago
    If the plan is to live off the savings, probably not. The idea is to make some investments, either stocks or real estate (for renting, for example), and have the money work for you. It is not easy in any case, that's for sure. Besides, I sometimes think if I could get there, I would work time to time in interesting projects.

by adwn 5y ago

newaccount74 5y ago

The "social security net" we have in Europe isn't perfect, though. At least here in Austria they make you jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops to get assistance. There's not a single type of assistance you get, there's like 10 different things you can apply for, they all have different preconditions and navigating them is almost a full time job. And before people take a job, they have to think about which aid they are going to lose, etc. At the sametime they have to deal with the stigma of depending on social security. With UBI you wouldn't need any bureaucracy, you would always get more money if you worked even a shitty job, and noone would be jealous that you are freeloading because everyone gets UBI.

adwn 5y ago
> The "social security net" we have in Europe isn't perfect, though. You're comparing the imperfect reality of an actual situation (unemployment benefits) against the utopian fantasy of an imagined best case scenario (UBI) – of course the imagined scenario will come out on top. The real result of a UBI will almost certainly look less rosy than the picture you paint, just like every other plan once it gets implemented. For example, this: > noone would be jealous that you are freeloading because everyone gets UBI would likely be wrong, because people would instead be jealous because you're "freeloading" by not working and therefore not paying taxes. Other ways a UBI could conceivably be bad or even worse than the current status quo: * Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line. * Any realistic UBI is too low for people with special needs (like disabilities), so you'll again need a bureaucracy to deal with those cases. * If the UBI is independent of local cost-of-living, it'll most likely be too low to survive on it in high COL areas, like most large cities. If it's dependent on COL, the exact implementation won't please everyone.
- cplusplusfellow 5y ago
  > Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line. By far this is the easiest to predict, but least likely to be addressed (by the proponents) concern I have with UBI. A social safety net shouldn’t be a hammock, as it is said. I’m concerned with AI and what happens when it’s pointless to hire people because a $100k robot can do the same work as 3 of them and do so 20 hours a day. By then UBI may be our answer. But it doesn’t seem so now.
  - pracer 5y ago
    Totally agree with this. Otherwise, I don't see UBI solving anything, but creating new problems.
- jklinger410 5y ago
  None of what you posted is serious criticism of UBI. > Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line. Governments will respond to economic factors that diminish purchasing power in order to maintain the effectiveness of UBI, as a part of UBI. > Any realistic UBI is too low for people with special needs Diminished support for disabled or sick people is not a part of UBI. UBI should become a part (within or on top of) of their support. Bureaucracy will still be diminished for non-disabled people. > If the UBI is independent of local cost-of-living, it'll most likely be too low to survive on it in high COL areas So people in those areas will have to have jobs. UBI still allows them to go quit their job and move out to the country if they want to subsist on it. UBI would go nicely paired with rent controls and maintaining individual purchase power, but it doesn't even need those things to be a net positive. UBI should have been implemented 20-40 years ago, it will surely be necessary going forward, it's time to get on board.
  - pracer 5y ago
    Of course! government intervention in prices and supply and demand! How nobody thought about it before? Well, they did. And it failed spectacularly, as central planning of prices doesn't work due to the impossibility of getting all the information needed in time and the results of the analysis on time too in order to correct the market. And as a proponent of UBI, YOU should explain how it would work, not the others. What financial tools or mechanisms would use a government to control the inflation or the rise in prices? I mean, even in the late Soviet Union had to look at capitalists countries to have an idea of the prices for basic products, because they coul not put a price that would make it work.
todorus 5y ago
You sound like the motivation behind social security and UBI are different. It's nice to present a clean (modeled) plan, but it's something different when it hits reality. Social security now, is what UBI will look like a few decades down the road. Somebody will find a way to exploit UBI and that hole gets patched, then there's another patch and another. Not to speak of how different political ideologies will apply their own modifications to previously established laws
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  Confused. If the income is universal (the 'U' in UBI) then what possible hack is there? That's the entire point really. Its why you can get rid of the bureaucracy, since there are no rules to exploit.
  - pracer 5y ago
    I'm confused too. How is that engineers here talking about UBI as a solution to this pressure to keep your job don't talk or consider how to pay that? Besides, when everyone has a base level of income, inflation came in play (as a consequence of supply and demand of goods) and then we go back to the same problem: getting a good life or just the basics to life becomes expensive even with UBI. Also, I would recommend to read "Debunking Utopia" about the social system Nordic countries implemented in the past, some kind of model for solving the problem of living decently for people without possibilities and/or problems to make a living. The countries are slowly but steady reducing that system because it solves nothing and creates extra problems. With UBI, which is a bigger plan than the system Nordic countries had, you would end up with the same if not worse problems than they faced: people decide not to work for low wages or in jobs that are needed but unappealing (and I don't blame them, for sure), but because someone has to do the jobs, wages increase a lot, which in turn, increases the costs and price of those services. And, voila, we are at the beginning of the problem, were people are stressed or unhappy because they have to keep jobs they don't enjoy or like. The difference is that the UBI would be the new penny, because you could not buy anything. Maybe with AI and automation we would get there, as robots would not complain or care.
  - adwn 5y ago

tomc1985 5y ago

I think you are discounting the fact that in the second scenario you don't have to work. I don't know about y'all but that is my fantasy.

adwn 5y ago
> I think you are discounting the fact that in the second scenario you don't have to work *for a while. Only very few people are able to save enough to never have to work again, even with a low standard of living.
- pracer 5y ago
  If the plan is to live off the savings, probably not. The idea is to make some investments, either stocks or real estate (for renting, for example), and have the money work for you. It is not easy in any case, that's for sure. Besides, I sometimes think if I could get there, I would work time to time in interesting projects.