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I think these things tend to miss that work is not only about providing sustenance for oneself (and family) but also about what people want to do with their liv

I think these things tend to miss that work is not only about providing sustenance for oneself (and family) but also about what people want to do with their lives. Also these things assume the role of some centralized entity in this age when governments have been cutting back massively on things considered to be for the public benefit (because of their own financial short falls eg. Detroit). We seem to be thinking of doing more of the same in this paradigm when its falling apart around us… Who is going melt the PVC to build this pipe dream?

scarmig 13y ago
It's unclear what your argument is, here. Are you saying it's financially unsustainable? I agree that that's the big question, but saying "Detroit" isn't an argument. Government expenditures aren't decreasing or being cut back massively: they're consistently rising, year on year. This isn't merely some artefact of Democratic administrations (which are hardly anomalies and can't be ignored anyway), because even the Ryan budget included year on year increases, albeit at a slower rate (that didn't keep pace with medical inflation, for better or for worse). After medical costs, I would argue that people becoming unemployable is the main cause of this increase. That's why we see spiraling post-secondary education expenditures, massive SSDI increases, neverending unemployment benefits. Even SS itself reflects this a bit. If you buy the automation thesis or a variant--the zero marginal productivity worker--this tendency will not only continue but accelerate in the coming years and decades. How do we deal with it? The contours of the issue is that automation simultaneously makes the world richer but also, because of increased skill requirements and increased human and informational capital management costs, makes some people too expensive to hire at any (positive) wage. What do we do with them? Horses we just turned to glue, but thankfully no one is suggesting that. But ignoring them effectively does the same. So the question is how do we most efficiently provide them with the necessities of life? If you buy into mainstream economic theory, cash payments are superior to in-kind ones. And also according to mainstream economic theory, giving benefits that phase out creates sharp disincentive effects to marginal labor, creating a welfare trap. A basic income is the simplest answer to this. People not only have the same incentives to work as they do today, but indeed more if they're poor, as additional labor will not cost them benefits. It also undermines employer monopsony power in the marketplace. Those two things substantially increase the efficiency of the market. That doesn't even touch on the possibility of an "entrepreneurial explosion" that some argue a basic income will allow for, which I'm cautiously optimistic about. So, costs: the question as always. I did a rough calculation awhile back, and if I recall correctly swapping out Medicare, Medicaid, and SS for a basic income gets us to around $6k/adult citizen in the USA. That's more than halfway there. The rest? Well, there's the tricky part: some will come from increased economic efficiency and removing bureaucratic administrative costs from Medicare and Medicaid, but I'd like some other programs to be cut and, yes, taxes to be raised. My preferred version is a flat federal income tax comparable to what the well-off pay as their marginal rate now. We can debate all the particulars, but the inexorable logic of the world's economic development demands we do something. A basic income is, in my view, the something that lets the market do its magic in the most unimpeded and efficient way possible.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  >It's unclear what your argument is, here. Because I'm not making one. I'm stating what current "mainstream" economic thinking has been doing. >Government expenditures aren't decreasing or being cut back massively: they're consistently rising, year on year. This isn't merely some artefact of Democratic administrations (which are hardly anomalies and can't be ignored anyway), because even the Ryan budget included year on year increases, albeit at a slower rate (that didn't keep pace with medical inflation, for better or for worse). That is very true! But the prices of commodities and other equities is going up faster, while wages and salaries have been stagnant for decades (gas for example when I was a kid in the 90s was around a dollar, now its 4x that). We can automate all the things in the world, but if the masses can't afford them without massively leveraging themselves to the point they can't make payments (or without refinancing their houses), the economy isn't going to do any better. Printing money and giving it to people and expecting things to be stable is like trying to make two sides of an equation balance out by adding more to one side than the other, it's just inherently unstable. In markets, if consumers have more to spend on things they supposedly need, then sellers will be incentivized to raise their prices on their goods. Boom, your printing just did jack shit for stability. My IB friends talk to me about this all the time… just look at corporate balance sheets vs the DOW (can you say POMO?)… Until the value of things robots will be manufacturing is closer to the range where people can actually afford to buy them (and meet their needs comfortably), you will only see things getting worse. Until then, my crystal ball is for CDS backed by securities student loans/housing/faltering governments and municipalities, Defense Distributed/3-d printing/urban-ag, and cheap valuable land, and writing code to integrate these things…
- chii 13y ago
  > So the question is how do we most efficiently provide them with the necessities of life? the problem is this question begs the question - why do we need to provide for those who is unable to provide for themselves? The moral argument is that you must help your fellow human being, but i don't think you can use morals, when logic dictates that it may not be possible to do so.
  - scarmig 13y ago

scarmig 13y ago

It's unclear what your argument is, here. Are you saying it's financially unsustainable? I agree that that's the big question, but saying "Detroit" isn't an argument. Government expenditures aren't decreasing or being cut back massively: they're consistently rising, year on year. This isn't merely some artefact of Democratic administrations (which are hardly anomalies and can't be ignored anyway), because even the Ryan budget included year on year increases, albeit at a slower rate (that didn't keep pace with medical inflation, for better or for worse). After medical costs, I would argue that people becoming unemployable is the main cause of this increase. That's why we see spiraling post-secondary education expenditures, massive SSDI increases, neverending unemployment benefits. Even SS itself reflects this a bit. If you buy the automation thesis or a variant--the zero marginal productivity worker--this tendency will not only continue but accelerate in the coming years and decades. How do we deal with it? The contours of the issue is that automation simultaneously makes the world richer but also, because of increased skill requirements and increased human and informational capital management costs, makes some people too expensive to hire at any (positive) wage. What do we do with them? Horses we just turned to glue, but thankfully no one is suggesting that. But ignoring them effectively does the same. So the question is how do we most efficiently provide them with the necessities of life? If you buy into mainstream economic theory, cash payments are superior to in-kind ones. And also according to mainstream economic theory, giving benefits that phase out creates sharp disincentive effects to marginal labor, creating a welfare trap. A basic income is the simplest answer to this. People not only have the same incentives to work as they do today, but indeed more if they're poor, as additional labor will not cost them benefits. It also undermines employer monopsony power in the marketplace. Those two things substantially increase the efficiency of the market. That doesn't even touch on the possibility of an "entrepreneurial explosion" that some argue a basic income will allow for, which I'm cautiously optimistic about. So, costs: the question as always. I did a rough calculation awhile back, and if I recall correctly swapping out Medicare, Medicaid, and SS for a basic income gets us to around $6k/adult citizen in the USA. That's more than halfway there. The rest? Well, there's the tricky part: some will come from increased economic efficiency and removing bureaucratic administrative costs from Medicare and Medicaid, but I'd like some other programs to be cut and, yes, taxes to be raised. My preferred version is a flat federal income tax comparable to what the well-off pay as their marginal rate now. We can debate all the particulars, but the inexorable logic of the world's economic development demands we do something. A basic income is, in my view, the something that lets the market do its magic in the most unimpeded and efficient way possible.

cinquemb 13y ago
>It's unclear what your argument is, here. Because I'm not making one. I'm stating what current "mainstream" economic thinking has been doing. >Government expenditures aren't decreasing or being cut back massively: they're consistently rising, year on year. This isn't merely some artefact of Democratic administrations (which are hardly anomalies and can't be ignored anyway), because even the Ryan budget included year on year increases, albeit at a slower rate (that didn't keep pace with medical inflation, for better or for worse). That is very true! But the prices of commodities and other equities is going up faster, while wages and salaries have been stagnant for decades (gas for example when I was a kid in the 90s was around a dollar, now its 4x that). We can automate all the things in the world, but if the masses can't afford them without massively leveraging themselves to the point they can't make payments (or without refinancing their houses), the economy isn't going to do any better. Printing money and giving it to people and expecting things to be stable is like trying to make two sides of an equation balance out by adding more to one side than the other, it's just inherently unstable. In markets, if consumers have more to spend on things they supposedly need, then sellers will be incentivized to raise their prices on their goods. Boom, your printing just did jack shit for stability. My IB friends talk to me about this all the time… just look at corporate balance sheets vs the DOW (can you say POMO?)… Until the value of things robots will be manufacturing is closer to the range where people can actually afford to buy them (and meet their needs comfortably), you will only see things getting worse. Until then, my crystal ball is for CDS backed by securities student loans/housing/faltering governments and municipalities, Defense Distributed/3-d printing/urban-ag, and cheap valuable land, and writing code to integrate these things…
chii 13y ago
> So the question is how do we most efficiently provide them with the necessities of life? the problem is this question begs the question - why do we need to provide for those who is unable to provide for themselves? The moral argument is that you must help your fellow human being, but i don't think you can use morals, when logic dictates that it may not be possible to do so.
- scarmig 13y ago