Universal basic incomes

[Rahulk]

http://www.economist.com/news/briefi...widely-sighing
Toughts?

[Devilyaki]

Not yet, once robots take over almost everything then I see this working, till then I see greed as a major reason why this wouldn't work.

[Theodarzna]

http://www.economist.com/news/briefi...widely-sighing
Toughts?

Do it too soon and it could cause problems, delay too long and our societies will buckle under the strain of unemployment. Basic Income seems like one of those things you should do sooner rather than later.

[Shelly]

Article is from last year, fyi. The Swedes did vote down UBI but it was seen as an important step from one of the few direct democracy countries in the world.

As we continue to move forth I don't see stability holding without UBI for most of the world. It truly puts everyone on an even footing which would make for a true meritocracy, allows the removal of most welfare programs, encourages capitalism since the money goes to those that would spend it, increases the rate of home ownership, would save rural communities since people would be more apt to stay even if jobs started running out, allows for people to make mistakes and lessens the blow of automation on the workforce.

So yeah, I'm in favor of it, especially if it keeps governments from attempting to seize the mechanisms of production to stop the abuses of said mechanisms on a populace.

[Dextroden]

Come back to me when people figure out how to fund this long term, account for people making more kids with no financial concerns, account for how different prices in counties, cities and states affects benefits and what exactly qualifies as neccesities.

[Mormolyce]

account for people making more kids with no financial concerns

When you exclude immigrants I believe all European (and I think actually all Western) nations are below replacement rates. So probably not going to be a big problem.

[Rahulk]

Article is from last year, fyi. The Swedes did vote down UBI but it was seen as an important step from one of the few direct democracy countries in the world.

As we continue to move forth I don't see stability holding without UBI for most of the world. It truly puts everyone on an even footing which would make for a true meritocracy, allows the removal of most welfare programs, encourages capitalism since the money goes to those that would spend it, increases the rate of home ownership, would save rural communities since people would be more apt to stay even if jobs started running out, allows for people to make mistakes and lessens the blow of automation on the workforce.

So yeah, I'm in favor of it, especially if it keeps governments from attempting to seize the mechanisms of production to stop the abuses of said mechanisms on a populace.

I'm aware of the date of publication. Was trying to get some opinions about the concept here since i had some awful opinions about these with some economist forum i use to read. Thanks for the input.

[Rucati]

I mean sooner or later this is the only option. At some point every cashier job is going to be automated, self driving cars will get rid of taxis and truckers, the remaining factory jobs will be automated before long, I mean there are going to be hundreds of millions of people losing their jobs. Society will collapse if they don't get some amount of basic income.

[Dextroden]

When you exclude immigrants I believe all European (and I think actually all Western) nations are below replacement rates. So probably not going to be a big problem.

A nice chunk of that low replacement rate comes from people lacking the resources to care for a family. You remove the fear of being able to feed and shelter kids and people will make families again. It doesn't fix the whole rate, but it definitely works to changing it.

Also. Still an absurdly high amount of people on the planet, regardless of replacement.

[Shelly]

Come back to me when people figure out how to fund this long term, account for people making more kids with no financial concerns, account for how different prices in counties, cities and states affects benefits and what exactly qualifies as neccesities.

Corporate taxes mostly which would take the place of the minimum wage.

Also, at least in the US, removing the caps on SS and medicare so everyone continues to pay into them instead of stopping at those who make $102k a year. Social Security of course being folded into the UBI.

Also it would do away with SS as we know it, we could stop any federal rental assistance programs and remove most of what you might consider the nanny state in favor of direct cash payments to people which would allow them to pursue their lives in a more secure fashion.

Would we get a lot of freeloaders?

Yup. Mostly folks in their 20's that remain childless.

Once you have a kid though there are extra expenses that would not be covered by a minimum wage UBI, we could do away with most tax breaks for children in the tax code and the parents would be encouraged to find work to supplement their income.

No system is perfect but I think UBI has a lot more going for it than most other welfare or assistance programs and in the areas where it has been pioneered it's not bred laziness but instead freed up hours for betterment. It lowered divorce rates, got people into higher education and kept kids from being latchkey which improved their school performance.

[Deleted]

Worst idea ever. 80% of population will sit at home and do nothing. I know i would. Why do you want to pay me to sit at home, fap and play games all day? It will destroy humanity. Literally. You should read some Asimov to know what im talking about...

[Mormolyce]

A nice chunk of that low replacement rate comes from people lacking the resources to care for a family. You remove the fear of being able to feed and shelter kids and people will make families again. It doesn't fix the whole rate, but it definitely works to changing it.

Also. Still an absurdly high amount of people on the planet, regardless of replacement.

Unless you have some evidence to that effect, I'm going to have to say no: in fact number of children is inversely related to wealth. That's why developing nations are below replacement rates overall.

[Kelathos]

Worst idea ever. 80% of population will sit at home and do nothing. I know i would. Why do you want to pay me to sit at home, fap and play games all day? It will destroy humanity. Literally. You should read some Asimov to know what im talking about...

You're still going to want things. UBI will likely only provide a bare minimum.

[Shelly]

I mean sooner or later this is the only option. At some point every cashier job is going to be automated, self driving cars will get rid of taxis and truckers, the remaining factory jobs will be automated before long, I mean there are going to be hundreds of millions of people losing their jobs. Society will collapse if they don't get some amount of basic income.

The big thing you're missing here is the extremely skilled jobs we are going to see going away.

Specifically doctors.

It'll start with surgical doctors being replaced by AI robots that are hundreds if not thousands of times more accurate, can perform a surgery with minimal invasion and not forget anything inside the patient.

After that it's just a short step towards general care which will be ushered in as well through the double whammy of big data and more use of the human genome.

If you're wearing a fitbit or mapping runs or have a treadmill with wifi and a profile saved. It's all going to big data, it's all being analyzed and figured out for optimization. It sounds strange but we are pushing towards an even faster technologically driven evolution. Every single person that contributes another data point drives us that much closer and as scanning improves we'll basically step on a scale that will weigh us, scan us, give us body composition, analyze our health score in comparison to global average and have access to our genetic history to start pre-medicating against diseases and conditions we are ancestrally susceptible to.

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Worst idea ever. 80% of population will sit at home and do nothing. I know i would. Why do you want to pay me to sit at home, fap and play games all day? It will destroy humanity. Literally. You should read some Asimov to know what im talking about...

If your entire ambition for life is to make minimum wage and stay at home by yourself, well, have fun with that.

Enjoy only being able to afford a home in the sticks or being stuck in a really shitty apartment. Have a great life alone unable to support a partner or children. Remember to smile at the early onset stroke or heart attack from not moving and having blood clots develop in your legs. Take pleasure in knowing you had an entirely equal chance as everyone else in your country to better yourself and you squandered it by being lazy while others went out and saw the country if not the world and got educations and jobs they were passionate about.

[I Push Buttons]

http://www.economist.com/news/briefi...widely-sighing
Toughts?

That the guy just complains and doesn't offer any alternatives.

He says UBI will be too expensive and require much higher taxes... Ok, and? The super rich are already super rich and only going to richer. If the rich and the industries they operate aren't willing to pay for a UBI for all the workers their automation makes irrelevant, how exactly do they expect their industries to function? They can't sell to no one. Are they just going to pull and Atlas Shrugged and disappear from society? Ok well when they are gone others will rise in their place... And it will be the same deal.

He says work is an integral part of daily life for everyone and the masses not working will be socially corrosive... Ok, what does that have to do with UBI? The very concept of a UBI is based on work not being available due to automation... No one other than hardcore communists advocate a UBI 'just because'... I don't disagree that everyone just sitting around doing nothing could be bad, but they wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing because of a UBI, the UBI would simply provide them sustenance given they have no work to do.

The only alternative anyone has put forward for a future of automation besides a UBI are idiot bootstrappers who just say "My job isn't going anywhere! Everyone else can fuck off and die, I got mine!"

[Macaquerie]

Worst idea ever. 80% of population will sit at home and do nothing. I know i would. Why do you want to pay me to sit at home, fap and play games all day? It will destroy humanity. Literally. You should read some Asimov to know what im talking about...

Because at some point technology will reach a level where 80% of the population cannot be productively employed in ANY capacity. Rather than going through all the fuss of making pointless work for you to do to just so you can feel like you're being useful, it might be cheaper and easier to simply pay you not to work.

[Endus]

The root economic argument for a basic income system, for what it's worth, is that a consumer-based economy can only function with a strong consumer base. If the consumers can't afford to consume, the whole thing collapses. They're the single most important factor, more important than producers. This is core capitalist theory, even, not even anything socialist; the consumers are the driver of consumer market economies.

People have value in those markets as consumers, not just as employees. If private employment isn't doing an adequate job of providing decent-paying work for enough consumers, then the government needs to shore it up with something like UBI, or the system's going to collapse.

Come back to me when people figure out how to fund this long term, account for people making more kids with no financial concerns, account for how different prices in counties, cities and states affects benefits and what exactly qualifies as neccesities.

It funds itself in the short term. No reason that wouldn't continue to happen. It's not like we haven't tested basic income programs; the Mincome test in Canada is probably the best-known.

It accounts for people "making more kids", because the single largest predictor of people having more kids is child mortality rates. If people can afford decent health care or it's provided, birth rates go down. Sure, you'll get the odd person with 8 kids, but there's a bunch of childless couples that balance that out.

It accounts for different prices in different places pretty easily by just tying it to measures like the cost-of-living index, or the Low Income Cut-Off, in Canada.

And you don't have to determine "exactly what qualifies as necessities". That's not how these measures are worked out, in the first place.

Worst idea ever. 80% of population will sit at home and do nothing. I know i would. Why do you want to pay me to sit at home, fap and play games all day? It will destroy humanity. Literally. You should read some Asimov to know what im talking about...

Again, we've run test programs, and the ONLY groups that worked less, on average, were students and young mothers.

Because both had better things to be focusing on than working for a paycheck. That's a good thing.

A basic income isn't a luxurious living. And any earnings are more money in your pocket. You've got just as much incentive to work, in a UBI system, as you do today, unless you're perfectly happy doing the bare minimum in a minimum-wage job. And really, if that's the case, there just aren't that many people like you.

[May90]

Ethically, I am not a big fan of being dependent on the government to this extent. I'd rather jobs to be paid as much higher as the universal basic income would be, and the government to stay out of people's personal economies. It is also economically harmful on many levels: for example, it skews the pricing completely, as the basic income now becomes a new "null point" and all the prices are going to be adjusted based on the assumption of the person having extra income...

I think there are much better ways to improve social security. The government should focus on funding projects improving interaction between the potential employers and the potential employees. Helping people find jobs is economically more sustainable than compensating for their joblessness.

[Deleted]

You're still going to want things. UBI will likely only provide a bare minimum.

There are tons of people already living happily only on welfare. Meanwhile in a fully robotised world the prices will cost a fraction.

Because at some point technology will reach a level where 80% of the population cannot be productively employed in ANY capacity. Rather than going through all the fuss of making pointless work for you to do to just so you can feel like you're being useful, it might be cheaper and easier to simply pay you not to work.

Doesn't change the fact that in long therm the human race will die out. Again, i can only refer to Asimov and his Robot and Earth books. I have no doubts his predictions will come true. I don't want to reincarnate in a future where "seeing" is forbidden

[I Push Buttons]

Ethically, I am not a big fan of being dependent on the government to this extent. I'd rather jobs to be paid as much higher as the universal basic income would be, and the government to stay out of people's personal economies. It is also economically harmful on many levels: for example, it skews the pricing completely, as the basic income now becomes a new "null point" and all the prices are going to be adjusted based on the assumption of the person having extra income...

I think there are much better ways to improve social security. The government should focus on funding projects improving interaction between the potential employers and the potential employees. Helping people find jobs is economically more sustainable than compensating for their joblessness.

And which jobs would those be exactly in this future age of automation?