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This assumes that you'd give BI to every citizen. One twist I haven't seen so far in any BI discussion is this: what if you only give BI to those who ask for it

This assumes that you'd give BI to every citizen. One twist I haven't seen so far in any BI discussion is this: what if you only give BI to those who ask for it (but still with no strings attached)? I wonder how many people would bother. For example, why would Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg put in the effort, however small?

enoch_r 12y ago
Say it takes 12 hours to apply for basic income each year... $1,000 an hour is still an absurdly good rate for all but the highest earners.
- cheald 12y ago
  And the people earning more than $1000/hour can pay their $30/hour assistant to do it for them.
- ahomescu1 12y ago
  Sure, but the marginal benefit is almost inexistent. When you have billions (or tens/hundreds of millions), an extra $12k is practically nothing. This makes me think of mail-in rebates for electronics, at a different scale. It's also weird to me to see an engineer making over $100k/yr to buy a hard-drive or GPU with a mail-in rebate, then put in the effort to send in the coupon to get that extra $10 back (I've done it myself, but I don't earn that much). To someone making >$6-8k/month, $10 is peanuts. That's also how I see this $12k for billionaires.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    There aren't enough billionaires for this to translate into meaningful savings, if it's mostly billionaires who don't bother.
sp332 12y ago
In general, I would expect rich people to sign up for it. Two reasons: First, they didn't get to be rich by passing up opportunities. Second, they hire people who work full-time to maximize their money, and those people will sign them up for this.
jjdro 12y ago
so the top 10 percent or so that cant be troubled to pick up 12k laying on the ground would reduce it to 2.3 trillion? How about something worthwile and make the tax rate on income over 2 million (out of the air) to 90 percent like it was post WWII and use that to help pay for it.
- ahomescu1 12y ago
  > so the top 10 percent or so that cant be troubled to pick up 12k laying on the ground would reduce it to 2.3 trillion? I don't know, that's what I was asking.

enoch_r 12y ago

Say it takes 12 hours to apply for basic income each year... $1,000 an hour is still an absurdly good rate for all but the highest earners.

cheald 12y ago
And the people earning more than $1000/hour can pay their $30/hour assistant to do it for them.
ahomescu1 12y ago
Sure, but the marginal benefit is almost inexistent. When you have billions (or tens/hundreds of millions), an extra $12k is practically nothing. This makes me think of mail-in rebates for electronics, at a different scale. It's also weird to me to see an engineer making over $100k/yr to buy a hard-drive or GPU with a mail-in rebate, then put in the effort to send in the coupon to get that extra $10 back (I've done it myself, but I don't earn that much). To someone making >$6-8k/month, $10 is peanuts. That's also how I see this $12k for billionaires.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  There aren't enough billionaires for this to translate into meaningful savings, if it's mostly billionaires who don't bother.

sp332 12y ago

In general, I would expect rich people to sign up for it. Two reasons: First, they didn't get to be rich by passing up opportunities. Second, they hire people who work full-time to maximize their money, and those people will sign them up for this.

jjdro 12y ago

so the top 10 percent or so that cant be troubled to pick up 12k laying on the ground would reduce it to 2.3 trillion? How about something worthwile and make the tax rate on income over 2 million (out of the air) to 90 percent like it was post WWII and use that to help pay for it.

ahomescu1 12y ago
> so the top 10 percent or so that cant be troubled to pick up 12k laying on the ground would reduce it to 2.3 trillion? I don't know, that's what I was asking.