Andrew Yang's Universal Basic Income

#27
#27
n_huffhines said:
But then we'd be mass murderers. Cool point, bro.

PS - would it actually be cheaper and more effective?
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Ehh, we might be part of the half that gets eliminated. never know.

It would be a boom to the economy.
 
#29
#29
volinbham said:
The VAT tax on robotics is arbitrary and a disincentive for us being competitive in manufacturing.

I agree with McDad that removing levers of power will never do and building of RJD's point while I favor personal responsibility the politicians will simply layer on top our current benefits to help those who indeed did blow their money. In the end it would be another entitlement added to the pile and it in no way would be deficit neutral.

The Alaskan example is proceeds from natural resources. If country as a whole wants to adopt that model to some extent where all get some dividend from the fruits of the land (rather than the fruits of other's efforts) I'm cool with that. Would certainly change the views on energy production; particularly fossil fuels.
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What is the fundamental difference between Alaska and the US in this regard? In both cases it requires the fruits of others' efforts and resources.
 
#33
#33
orangepridenation said:
Finland played around with this idea a couple years ago, albeit on a very small scale. Didn’t increase the incentive to work much at all IIRC, but I think it’s an intriguing idea for a replacement of current programs, which are easily exploited and offer even less incentive to work.

The automation and future side of the argument is what I find most interesting.
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Finland's Basic Income Experiment Kind of Works, but Not in Employment Terms

They just rolled out some of the results. Employment didn't change appreciably, but people felt better and had less stress. The coverage indicates a mixed result but, honestly, it looks like a failure to me.
 
#34
#34
hog88 said:
Thanks for clarifying.

UBI is an idiotic pipe-dream.
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I agree it's a pipe dream, but its no more idiotic than what we have now. Actually seems like an improvement. Will never happen though because it removes some political power, DOA.
 
#35
#35
Mercy, youre still on probation for the mayo half steppin bro. Thin ice, tread lightly.


hog88 said:
It would be cheaper, more effective and realistic to just wipe out 1/2 of the worlds population.
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Thanos killed half the universe...every man, woman, and child. I didnt shed a tear. Maybe youre our Thanos.

Spoiler Alert...

*Avengers infinity war. Its on Netflix, check it out if you havent yet. I am getting burned out on superhero movies, but this one was battle head to head and special effects from the opening credits to the bitter end. Many superheroes died. Including Black panther, Gru, Thors brother Loki, etc etc...dont want to ruin it for you.
 
#36
#36
n_huffhines said:
Andrew Yang is running for POTUS mostly on the idea of universal basic income. Even though I love some things about him, like his promise to release all non-violent drug offenders, I’m not going to support him (he’s just too much of a gleeful central planner and an automation doomsdayer). But I don’t mean for this thread to be about whether or not any of us will support him, it’s about the concept of UBI, and if it can work. Here is his plan, more or less:

Every adult citizen of the United States gets $1K every month from the government.

Although the price tag is high (it would be about $3T per year; 248M x $1k x 12), $1.5T is already being spent on our current brand of socialism, in very, very ineffective ways. Current recipients of welfare would have a choice to keep their benefits or take the $1K. A value added tax (at half the European rate) imposed on businesses replacing workers with robots would generate $800B in revenue. The Roosevelt institute projects that putting $ into the hands of Americans would grow the economy by $2.4T (more than 10%) and create 4.6M new jobs. This would result in about $500-600B in new revenue. Savings from reducing public health care costs, incarceration (are you going to commit petty crimes if it might cost you $1k/month? A lot of petty criminals won’t), and homelessness are about $100-200B.

One of the things he doesn’t harp on enough is that our current system discourages people from working, because they get fewer benefits if they work. In this system, you get the $1k regardless.

I don’t know about his projections, but the point is conceptualizing it like that makes it seem possible to find the money without increasing the deficit. His whole basis for all of this is the fact that automation is changing everything and it’s going to wreck our economy. People have been warning about job replacement since the industrial revolution, and I’m not sure that how worried we should be. I’m more interested in the smarter government angle. He’s hyperfocused on trucker jobs (and retail). There are so many truckers and businesses built on serving truckers throughout small town America, and they’re all going to be up a creek when we have driverless trucks.

He had some good responses to criticisms, for example how distasteful welfare is to some Americans. He said we need to look at this as a dividend. We are all shareholders in the USA. Yeah, that sounds like PR ********, but he pointed out that nobody seems to mind the dividend Alaskans get. It’s the same exact concept.

His specific plan?...I don’t know if it’s the right plan, I doubt that it is. I don’t know if it’s the right time, either. But it seems clear to me there is a realistic world in which we could have UBI and see much better results from government spending.
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I heard his interview on Freakonomics. He's clearly a smart guy, but the longer it went the more I felt like he was going off the deep end.
 
#37
#37
Throughout history technology has taken jobs. Yet no crisis has occurred. We just shift jobs to new and previously non existent careers.
 
#38
#38
i think we will see an "organic" movement pop up when automation gets big. kind of similar to the current organic movement. instead of being raised organic, you will see its made by "organics" as the niche/expensive market.
 
#39
#39
95 Vol Alum said:
Finland's Basic Income Experiment Kind of Works, but Not in Employment Terms

They just rolled out some of the results. Employment didn't change appreciably, but people felt better and had less stress. The coverage indicates a mixed result but, honestly, it looks like a failure to me.
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True, but it’s also worth noting that the subjects in this study were already unemployed and on some kind of assistance. Might be more an indictment on laziness than the actual viability of UBI.
 
#40
#40
n_huffhines said:
What is the fundamental difference between Alaska and the US in this regard? In both cases it requires the fruits of others' efforts and resources.
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Two things:

1. In Alaska they are taking monies coming to the state from use of/sale of natural resources and distributing it to the owners of those resources. That is different than taking money from some Alaskan citizens and giving it to other Alaskan citizens as the UBI plan you posted does. It relies on tax revenues as a source rather than revenues from natural resource usage/sale.

2. I said I'd be fine if the US decided to adopt the Alaskan model for Federally owned natural resource revenue. That's different than UBI that depends on tax revenues taken from some (fruits of individual's labor) and given to others.
 
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#41
#41
marcusluvsvols said:
Mercy, youre still on probation for the mayo half steppin bro. Thin ice, tread lightly.




Thanos killed half the universe...every man, woman, and child. I didnt shed a tear. Maybe youre our Thanos.

Spoiler Alert...

*Avengers infinity war. Its on Netflix, check it out if you havent yet. I am getting burned out on superhero movies, but this one was battle head to head and special effects from the opening credits to the bitter end. Many superheroes died. Including Black panther, Gru, Thors brother Loki, etc etc...dont want to ruin it for you.
Click to expand...

They’ll all be back !
 
#42
#42
LouderVol said:
look at the plague. a good chunk of the human population wiped out without damaging the infrastructure. biggest boon, and philosophical change in Europe afterwards.
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They had an economy where only a select few had property rights, so it's not really comparable to us. The people who didn't die enjoyed higher wages (serfs finally had negotiating power), but when half the population dies, you lose out on a ton of minds who would have expidited progress.

Screenshot_20190215-215620_Chrome.jpg
 
#43
#43
n_huffhines said:
They had an economy where only a select few had property rights, so it's not really comparable to us. The people who didn't die enjoyed higher wages (serfs finally had negotiating power), but when half the population dies, you lose out on a ton of minds who would have expidited progress.

View attachment 194517
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It wasnt just wages, it was production. It skyrocketed for several reasons. 1 with less population they were able to focus on the more effective uses, instead of trying to support too much they could pick and choor. 2. You started seeing innovation at a greater scale because of need and because of the loss of other limiting factors. The nobles were the regulations of the day, and with many of them dead people were able to try new things.

Same thing would apply here. Automation would see a huge jump because of demand. And instead of spending more resources on borderline projects we would be able to focus on the more viable.

All more people do is get in the way.
 
#44
#44
LouderVol said:
It wasnt just wages, it was production. It skyrocketed for several reasons. 1 with less population they were able to focus on the more effective uses, instead of trying to support too much they could pick and choor. 2. You started seeing innovation at a greater scale because of need and because of the loss of other limiting factors. The nobles were the regulations of the day, and with many of them dead people were able to try new things.

Same thing would apply here. Automation would see a huge jump because of demand. And instead of spending more resources on borderline projects we would be able to focus on the more viable.

All more people do is get in the way.
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Link to production data sky rocketing in the 14th/15th century? Anything you find is based on rough estimates, and there is no drastic increase that I can see until the industrial revolution.

We'll focus on the more viable regardless because we are (mostly) free to do so and that's where the profit is.
 
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#45
#45
n_huffhines said:
They had an economy where only a select few had property rights, so it's not really comparable to us. The people who didn't die enjoyed higher wages (serfs finally had negotiating power), but when half the population dies, you lose out on a ton of minds who would have expidited progress.

View attachment 194517
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Huff I’d submit your simple diagram assumes a distribution of intelligence and socetial/environmental impact by each individual which has never been demonstrated.

I’d guess we can wipe out that island of cannibals in the South Pacific and the world wouldn’t see the difference in net innovation. Yes that’s an extreme example. No I don’t want them wiped out I wish we’d just leave them alone.
 
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#46
#46
NorthDallas40 said:
Huff I’d submit your simple diagram assumes a distribution of intelligence and socetial/environmental impact by each individual which has never been demonstrated.

I’d guess we can wipe out that island of cannibals in the South Pacific and the would wouldn’t see the difference in net innovation. Yes that’s an extreme example. No I don’t want them wiped out I wish we’d just leave them alone.
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We're talking about 20m Europeans and prusamably 180m Americans, not an island of cannibals. Things will average out, so the assumption is fine.
 
#47
#47
n_huffhines said:
We're talking about 20m Europeans and prusamably 180m Americans, not an island of cannibals. Things will average out, so the assumption is fine.
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So no. Unfortunately the Europeans and North American birth rates I believe are leveling out or falling? Without those countries I believe the population increase is largely longevity driven? Without getting into a full blown forum war on this topic that diagram was overtly simplistic and not representative of the population explosion in the world as correlated to innovation. More people /= more net innovation in general.
 
#48
#48
NorthDallas40 said:
So no. Unfortunately the Europeans and North American birth rates I believe are leveling out or falling? Without those countries I believe the population increase is largely longevity driven? Without getting into a full blown forum war on this topic that diagram was overtly simplistic and not representative of the population explosion in the world as correlated to innovation. More people /= more net innovation in general.
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What do declining birth rates have to do with the self evident truth that more minds = more innovation? DBR's are irrelevant to the discussion., aside from the fact that they will result in fewer minds.

You might as well argue the sky isn't blue.
 
#49
#49
n_huffhines said:
What do declining birth rates have to do with the self evident truth that more minds = more innovation? DBR's are irrelevant to the discussion., aside from the fact that they will result in fewer minds.

You might as well argue the sky isn't blue.
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And we’re full circle back to disagreeing on the distribution of the minds capable of driving innovation. That’s it in a nutshell. But it’s a distraction to this overall discussion that you put forth in the initial OP.
 
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