9 ms·

He just suggested a basic income for everybody. I just wanted to point this out in case people missed it when skimming.

by klunger 12y ago

johnward 12y ago
" Personally, I think that current levels of entitlement spending are ok (thought maybe the spending should be distributed differently), and we should probably do more. But I think we need to plan for it. In addition to thinking about new sorts of jobs to replace lost jobs that aren’t coming back, we should probably think about things like a basic income."
moblahbl4hblah 12y ago
A basic income is a great idea...it would also be a good idea to completely remove the profit motive from health care. A social safety net that includes a living wage, guaranteed higher education, and retirement is completely possible if you don't spend so much on defense and intelligence.
- sp332 12y ago
  You can't remove the profit motive from health care.
  - bluthru 12y ago
    What do you mean? It's quite common.
    - sp332 12y ago
      Some technology will be too expensive to provide, or some procedure will require skills that are too rare. They will command high prices. And you can't find enough doctors, hospital administrators, drug researchers etc for a whole country without finding some greedy/rational ones who will do better work for more pay.
  - zentiggr 12y ago
    Please expand on that - I personally think for-profit health care is one of the most ill-conceived ways of doing business I have ever heard of. Saving people's lives but only in ways that are investor-friendly?
    - sp332 12y ago
      You can reduce it, and you can try to amplify other motivations. But if you're developing a new drug, why wouldn't you market it to people who can pay you more for it? You can't save every life - no one is immortal. And in the decision of what care to give to which people, money will always be one factor. This is probably amplified in non-life-threatening situations since personal trainers and nutritional consultants will probably not be covered by collective health plans.
    - tdaltonc 12y ago
      healthcare innovation requires enormous investment. How should society pick healthcare problems to focus on, and how will we know a solution when we see it? The distributed price signal is an elegant mechanism for solving this problem and has worked to guide innovation in many other areas of human endeavour.
      - sp332 12y ago
        We can do better, though. For example, if poor people are hit harder by something, there might be less "price signal" than if a few rich people are sick.
- johnward 12y ago
  I'm no economist but at some point aren't we going to become so productive that there won't be enough need for workers. Are we maybe at that point now? If every single person wanted to work there would not be enough jobs to support that. So what happens in the future? Some people have jobs and are rich while the rest are in poverty and can't eat? I don't think society could function with that many people not having an income. If it came down to it and I had to kill you for my family to survive then I'd hate to tell you which one I would choose.
  - ef4 12y ago
    This same argument has been repeated for literally centuries now, and it always turns out wrong in the long run. Imagine if we could run the entire world economy with only 5% of the workers. Pandemonium? No, it has already happened before. Agriculture was the whole economy, the rest was rounding error. Virtually all workers worked in agriculture. Now we produce all that and much more with something less than 5% of the workforce. Having no more work to do necessarily means that everybody already has everything they want. It's not a meaningful risk. Most of already do work so esoteric that our ancestors wouldn't possibly believe you could base a real economy around it. Yet here we are. Our descendants will do things that similarly boggle us.
    - johnward 12y ago
      Are you saying that we will continue to invent things to do in exchange for money? I feel like there has to be a point that you can't do that. I guess it would have been insane to think that people would be sitting in offices making comments on news forums most of the day.
    - scarmig 12y ago
      It turns out to be right, often enough. In the 19th century, for instance, there was a class of physical laborers whose numbers in the USA reached the tens of millions. But as technology--particular the combustion engine and fossil fuel refining--took off, they became surplus unusable labor that literally was more valuable being turned into glue, or letting them starve to death. Yeah, horses. "But it's different this time! Horses aren't people!" you say. Sure, things are always different. But you're burying the actual argument into the assumptions you're making: that people are infinitely moldable and infinitely trainable, and every person is capable of creating value in modern economies. It's not some logical contradiction for "people want more stuff" and for "the most useless, marginal workers can't provide value by participating in the economy" to both be true. Dismissing the second idea requires a bit more than a pat answer. Even excluding government policies like a minimum wage and required healthcare benefits, lots of people are simply too expensive to employ. Anytime you hire someone, it adds administrative costs. It adds management costs. And the more marginal the worker, the more they need to be managed and administered. At some point any value they could hypothetically provide is outweighed by the cost of employing and managing them and the risk that something they do could expose you to substantial costs, and it's simply cheaper to replace that labor with capital. In a capital rich environment, and in economies where complex organizations can fail catastrophically because of a single node failure, it's simply far too risky to employ a certain class of people. We already do that with many of criminal backgrounds, the physically disabled, and people with substantially reduced mental capabilities. New technology has simply expanded that unemployable class to include lots of people who just don't have much going for them, at least in terms of providing economic value that's legible to corporations and the State.
- bmj 12y ago
  guaranteed higher education How about "guaranteed job training?" That way, if you wish to pursue a career that does not require a post-secondary degree, you can prepare yourself for that career just as well as the white collar worked who spends four years studying post-modern poetry. N.B.: I have degrees in philosophy and writing, so I'm criticizing the study of the liberal arts.
- crazy1van 12y ago
  > it would also be a good idea to completely remove the profit motive from health care. If I had a fatal disease with no known cure, I want a system that makes whoever finds the cure filthy rich. That's my best chance at survival. If anything, I want a system with even more profit motive.
  - moblahbl4hblah 12y ago
    If the world were as simple as the statement you made then sure...it isn't.
  - tzs 12y ago
    Why would anyone care about curing your fatal disease if they are profit driven? They should be able to make more money working on widespread non-fatal problems, like erectile disfunction or baldness.
- zo1 12y ago
  Ah yes, the old "it'll work, we just need more money, promise!". We've been hearing that one since the beginning of the democratic form of governance. Guess you haven't looked at the recent graphs of US budget spending, otherwise you would have figured out that "more money" doesn't necessarily solve the problem. Hint: Most, if not all, the additional money gets eaten up by newly created bureaucracy.
oniTony 12y ago
The actual quote was > In addition to thinking about new sorts of jobs to replace lost jobs that aren’t coming back, we should probably think about things like a basic income. So not necessary "basic income", and certainly for everyone. The reality is that many of the emerging economies are better (as in "cheaper") able to fulfill low-skill/high-labor positions, and not everyone will be able to transition into higher skill jobs.
- VLM 12y ago
  Another thing to think about is eventually the higher skill jobs are leaving. There's nothing inherently American about, say, programming, and there's a heck of lot more of "them" than "us". The only real hope for natives is high skill service jobs perhaps ER doctor.
sama 12y ago
oops, i accidentally published an earlier draft. i added a bit more of my thinking here--my sense is that it would probably lead to less waste than current systems. i'm also not sure it's the right approach, but i haven't heard any better ideas yet.
- chillingeffect 12y ago
  > any better ideas yet Progressive tax on incomes >$1,000,000. This won't slow anyone down except the ultra-wealthy. As of 2009, it's 236,883 people. That's less than 1 in a thousand. With more income in a single year than most people in the U.S. earn in a lifetime, they'll certainly still be much more than quite comfortable.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    Unfortunately, the article isn't very clear about what the problem statement is for which basic income is the proposed solution. But assuming it is something like "people are having trouble participating in the economy, which is a drag on our society's standard of living", I don't see how "increased federal income" is a solution. What do you propose the government do with its newfound wealth to solve these problems? "Tax the rich" might be a decent tactic, but it certainly isn't a good strategy.
  - at-fates-hands 12y ago
    >>> Progressive tax on incomes >$1,000,000. This won't slow anyone down except the ultra-wealthy. What do you think happens to anybody, let alone people who are really rich when you continually increase their taxes? They stop spending, they start hiding their money, they it send it to foreign countries, they will find ways around the taxes you're trying to levy against them. It doesn't matter who you tax, they're going to try and avoid paying taxes regardless. People have this notion that since they're super wealthy, they have money to burn - which is hardly the case. Most people making over $1 million per year live a lifestyle that's congruent to the money they're making. You think those people are thinking , "Aye, it's only 10K more to the governmnet, no big deal?", right?. Hardly. They want to hold onto their money just as much as the next guy.
baddox 12y ago
What surprising or remarkable about that? Basic income has been an extremely trendy topic lately.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - MarioSpeedwagon 12y ago
    It also calls Lenin a Leninist and Marx a Marxist. When will the insanity STOP?!!1!
larrys 12y ago
I actually missed that because I essentially scanned this. I didn't know Sam had any particular expertise in economics something that confounds people with pretty deep intellectual understanding and academics. That have been observing things for many many years. It's a black art. And I tend to pass on anything that starts to mention facts and figures which can be made to achieve any point you want. I did note that it ended with this of course: "I think the path from our troubles will involve finding a way for economic growth to continue." Obviously a rising tide lifts all boats. But finding "a good lawyer" (to go all cliche here) is the problem.
at-fates-hands 12y ago
I'm wondering at point do we stop relying on the government to provide us with everything we need. What happens when we have too many unfunded liabilities and the government runs out of money and all the millions of people who suddenly depend on government from everything from medical care, income, employment, and other forms of support? All you have to do is take a good, hard look at countries like Greece and Argentina for examples to see what happens when countries go bankrupt.
- marincounty 12y ago
  When the government stops making it illegial, or charging fees for---Living. If Jesus Christ reappeared; what would his first few days look like? He couldn't fish without a license. He couldn't hunt without a license. He couldn't light a fire without a permit. He couldn't sleep unless in a sanctified Homeless Shelter. He would probally get a loitering ticket while preaching to the masses, or worse-- thrown in jail over inciting a riot? So, we live in a society where government regulates pretty much everything we do; until they back off--they need to help the people who can't "work" in their system. (God--please forgive me, I was just trying to make a point. I didn't use your name in vain.)
  - at-fates-hands 12y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree that we need to help those less fortunate, but not in a way that promotes aheavy reliance on the government. All my Liberal friends conveniently forget that Bill Clinton took millions off of welfare and brought them out of poverty. Not from relying on government, but through incentives and job training. Interesting to note that this was a bipartisan bill, introduced by a Republican, and heavily endorsed by Clinton himself. And yes, it went through two veto's before getting signed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Wor...
- wslh 12y ago
  Argentina did pretty well after it defaulted its obligations in 2001 and the commodities prices significantly increased. The issues in Argentina are more related to poor infrastructure (transport, Internet, mobile, financial) and corruption. There is a saying in Argentina that we should stop stealing for at least two years [and the country will flourish].
crassus 12y ago
Basic income is a potentially unlimited liability without any government control over fertility. If the needs of the portion of the population that are net consumers grow quicker than the surplus from net producers, an economic apocalypse happens sooner or later. In a world of dysgenic fertility, this is guaranteed[1]. [1] http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2014/06/dysgenics-is-mostly-due-to-reduced.html http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2014/06/dysgenics-is-mo...
- Tossrock 12y ago
  The entire premise of this completely unsubstantiated blog post is refuted by the well-substantiated Flynn effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
  - crassus 12y ago
    Probably a positive environmental effect masking decline in genetic potential IQ, which there is evidence for: http://www.xenosystems.net/dysgenic-reactions/ http://www.xenosystems.net/dysgenic-reactions/

He just suggested a basic income for everybody. I just wanted to point this out in case people missed it when skimming.

by klunger 12y ago

He just suggested a basic income for everybody. I just wanted to point this out in case people missed it when skimming.

" Personally, I think that current levels of entitlement spending are ok (thought maybe the spending should be distributed differently), and we should probably do more. But I think we need to plan for it. In addition to thinking about new sorts of jobs to replace lost jobs that aren’t coming back, we should probably think about things like a basic income."

moblahbl4hblah 12y ago

A basic income is a great idea...it would also be a good idea to completely remove the profit motive from health care. A social safety net that includes a living wage, guaranteed higher education, and retirement is completely possible if you don't spend so much on defense and intelligence.

sp332 12y ago
You can't remove the profit motive from health care.
- bluthru 12y ago
  What do you mean? It's quite common.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Some technology will be too expensive to provide, or some procedure will require skills that are too rare. They will command high prices. And you can't find enough doctors, hospital administrators, drug researchers etc for a whole country without finding some greedy/rational ones who will do better work for more pay.
- zentiggr 12y ago
  Please expand on that - I personally think for-profit health care is one of the most ill-conceived ways of doing business I have ever heard of. Saving people's lives but only in ways that are investor-friendly?
  - sp332 12y ago
    You can reduce it, and you can try to amplify other motivations. But if you're developing a new drug, why wouldn't you market it to people who can pay you more for it? You can't save every life - no one is immortal. And in the decision of what care to give to which people, money will always be one factor. This is probably amplified in non-life-threatening situations since personal trainers and nutritional consultants will probably not be covered by collective health plans.
  - tdaltonc 12y ago
    healthcare innovation requires enormous investment. How should society pick healthcare problems to focus on, and how will we know a solution when we see it? The distributed price signal is an elegant mechanism for solving this problem and has worked to guide innovation in many other areas of human endeavour.
    - sp332 12y ago
      We can do better, though. For example, if poor people are hit harder by something, there might be less "price signal" than if a few rich people are sick.
johnward 12y ago
I'm no economist but at some point aren't we going to become so productive that there won't be enough need for workers. Are we maybe at that point now? If every single person wanted to work there would not be enough jobs to support that. So what happens in the future? Some people have jobs and are rich while the rest are in poverty and can't eat? I don't think society could function with that many people not having an income. If it came down to it and I had to kill you for my family to survive then I'd hate to tell you which one I would choose.
- ef4 12y ago
  This same argument has been repeated for literally centuries now, and it always turns out wrong in the long run. Imagine if we could run the entire world economy with only 5% of the workers. Pandemonium? No, it has already happened before. Agriculture was the whole economy, the rest was rounding error. Virtually all workers worked in agriculture. Now we produce all that and much more with something less than 5% of the workforce. Having no more work to do necessarily means that everybody already has everything they want. It's not a meaningful risk. Most of already do work so esoteric that our ancestors wouldn't possibly believe you could base a real economy around it. Yet here we are. Our descendants will do things that similarly boggle us.
  - johnward 12y ago
    Are you saying that we will continue to invent things to do in exchange for money? I feel like there has to be a point that you can't do that. I guess it would have been insane to think that people would be sitting in offices making comments on news forums most of the day.
  - scarmig 12y ago
    It turns out to be right, often enough. In the 19th century, for instance, there was a class of physical laborers whose numbers in the USA reached the tens of millions. But as technology--particular the combustion engine and fossil fuel refining--took off, they became surplus unusable labor that literally was more valuable being turned into glue, or letting them starve to death. Yeah, horses. "But it's different this time! Horses aren't people!" you say. Sure, things are always different. But you're burying the actual argument into the assumptions you're making: that people are infinitely moldable and infinitely trainable, and every person is capable of creating value in modern economies. It's not some logical contradiction for "people want more stuff" and for "the most useless, marginal workers can't provide value by participating in the economy" to both be true. Dismissing the second idea requires a bit more than a pat answer. Even excluding government policies like a minimum wage and required healthcare benefits, lots of people are simply too expensive to employ. Anytime you hire someone, it adds administrative costs. It adds management costs. And the more marginal the worker, the more they need to be managed and administered. At some point any value they could hypothetically provide is outweighed by the cost of employing and managing them and the risk that something they do could expose you to substantial costs, and it's simply cheaper to replace that labor with capital. In a capital rich environment, and in economies where complex organizations can fail catastrophically because of a single node failure, it's simply far too risky to employ a certain class of people. We already do that with many of criminal backgrounds, the physically disabled, and people with substantially reduced mental capabilities. New technology has simply expanded that unemployable class to include lots of people who just don't have much going for them, at least in terms of providing economic value that's legible to corporations and the State.
bmj 12y ago
guaranteed higher education How about "guaranteed job training?" That way, if you wish to pursue a career that does not require a post-secondary degree, you can prepare yourself for that career just as well as the white collar worked who spends four years studying post-modern poetry. N.B.: I have degrees in philosophy and writing, so I'm criticizing the study of the liberal arts.
crazy1van 12y ago
> it would also be a good idea to completely remove the profit motive from health care. If I had a fatal disease with no known cure, I want a system that makes whoever finds the cure filthy rich. That's my best chance at survival. If anything, I want a system with even more profit motive.
- moblahbl4hblah 12y ago
  If the world were as simple as the statement you made then sure...it isn't.
- tzs 12y ago
  Why would anyone care about curing your fatal disease if they are profit driven? They should be able to make more money working on widespread non-fatal problems, like erectile disfunction or baldness.
zo1 12y ago
Ah yes, the old "it'll work, we just need more money, promise!". We've been hearing that one since the beginning of the democratic form of governance. Guess you haven't looked at the recent graphs of US budget spending, otherwise you would have figured out that "more money" doesn't necessarily solve the problem. Hint: Most, if not all, the additional money gets eaten up by newly created bureaucracy.

oniTony 12y ago

The actual quote was > In addition to thinking about new sorts of jobs to replace lost jobs that aren’t coming back, we should probably think about things like a basic income. So not necessary "basic income", and certainly for everyone. The reality is that many of the emerging economies are better (as in "cheaper") able to fulfill low-skill/high-labor positions, and not everyone will be able to transition into higher skill jobs.

VLM 12y ago
Another thing to think about is eventually the higher skill jobs are leaving. There's nothing inherently American about, say, programming, and there's a heck of lot more of "them" than "us". The only real hope for natives is high skill service jobs perhaps ER doctor.

sama 12y ago

oops, i accidentally published an earlier draft. i added a bit more of my thinking here--my sense is that it would probably lead to less waste than current systems. i'm also not sure it's the right approach, but i haven't heard any better ideas yet.

chillingeffect 12y ago
> any better ideas yet Progressive tax on incomes >$1,000,000. This won't slow anyone down except the ultra-wealthy. As of 2009, it's 236,883 people. That's less than 1 in a thousand. With more income in a single year than most people in the U.S. earn in a lifetime, they'll certainly still be much more than quite comfortable.
- sanderjd 12y ago
  Unfortunately, the article isn't very clear about what the problem statement is for which basic income is the proposed solution. But assuming it is something like "people are having trouble participating in the economy, which is a drag on our society's standard of living", I don't see how "increased federal income" is a solution. What do you propose the government do with its newfound wealth to solve these problems? "Tax the rich" might be a decent tactic, but it certainly isn't a good strategy.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  >>> Progressive tax on incomes >$1,000,000. This won't slow anyone down except the ultra-wealthy. What do you think happens to anybody, let alone people who are really rich when you continually increase their taxes? They stop spending, they start hiding their money, they it send it to foreign countries, they will find ways around the taxes you're trying to levy against them. It doesn't matter who you tax, they're going to try and avoid paying taxes regardless. People have this notion that since they're super wealthy, they have money to burn - which is hardly the case. Most people making over $1 million per year live a lifestyle that's congruent to the money they're making. You think those people are thinking , "Aye, it's only 10K more to the governmnet, no big deal?", right?. Hardly. They want to hold onto their money just as much as the next guy.

baddox 12y ago

What surprising or remarkable about that? Basic income has been an extremely trendy topic lately.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- MarioSpeedwagon 12y ago
  It also calls Lenin a Leninist and Marx a Marxist. When will the insanity STOP?!!1!

larrys 12y ago

I actually missed that because I essentially scanned this. I didn't know Sam had any particular expertise in economics something that confounds people with pretty deep intellectual understanding and academics. That have been observing things for many many years. It's a black art. And I tend to pass on anything that starts to mention facts and figures which can be made to achieve any point you want. I did note that it ended with this of course: "I think the path from our troubles will involve finding a way for economic growth to continue." Obviously a rising tide lifts all boats. But finding "a good lawyer" (to go all cliche here) is the problem.

at-fates-hands 12y ago

I'm wondering at point do we stop relying on the government to provide us with everything we need. What happens when we have too many unfunded liabilities and the government runs out of money and all the millions of people who suddenly depend on government from everything from medical care, income, employment, and other forms of support? All you have to do is take a good, hard look at countries like Greece and Argentina for examples to see what happens when countries go bankrupt.

marincounty 12y ago
When the government stops making it illegial, or charging fees for---Living. If Jesus Christ reappeared; what would his first few days look like? He couldn't fish without a license. He couldn't hunt without a license. He couldn't light a fire without a permit. He couldn't sleep unless in a sanctified Homeless Shelter. He would probally get a loitering ticket while preaching to the masses, or worse-- thrown in jail over inciting a riot? So, we live in a society where government regulates pretty much everything we do; until they back off--they need to help the people who can't "work" in their system. (God--please forgive me, I was just trying to make a point. I didn't use your name in vain.)
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree that we need to help those less fortunate, but not in a way that promotes aheavy reliance on the government. All my Liberal friends conveniently forget that Bill Clinton took millions off of welfare and brought them out of poverty. Not from relying on government, but through incentives and job training. Interesting to note that this was a bipartisan bill, introduced by a Republican, and heavily endorsed by Clinton himself. And yes, it went through two veto's before getting signed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Wor...
wslh 12y ago
Argentina did pretty well after it defaulted its obligations in 2001 and the commodities prices significantly increased. The issues in Argentina are more related to poor infrastructure (transport, Internet, mobile, financial) and corruption. There is a saying in Argentina that we should stop stealing for at least two years [and the country will flourish].

crassus 12y ago

Basic income is a potentially unlimited liability without any government control over fertility. If the needs of the portion of the population that are net consumers grow quicker than the surplus from net producers, an economic apocalypse happens sooner or later. In a world of dysgenic fertility, this is guaranteed[1]. [1] http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2014/06/dysgenics-is-mostly-due-to-reduced.html http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2014/06/dysgenics-is-mo...

Tossrock 12y ago
The entire premise of this completely unsubstantiated blog post is refuted by the well-substantiated Flynn effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
- crassus 12y ago
  Probably a positive environmental effect masking decline in genetic potential IQ, which there is evidence for: http://www.xenosystems.net/dysgenic-reactions/ http://www.xenosystems.net/dysgenic-reactions/