The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
Locked
jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by jacob »

prognastat wrote:
Thu May 24, 2018 5:07 pm
However what I mostly mean post-scarcity is if we manage to get to the point where by combining abundant cheap energy production and automation of both physical and cognitive labour we would be to a point where very few humans are useful to society in any measurable way when related to things such as GDP.
We've (the western world) has already been in this situation since about the 1920s. It's just that we somehow decided to use the abundant cheap energy and mass production to churn out disposable widgets with built in planned obsolescence. When that became too efficient we massively expanded the service industry so that people could begin hiring each other instead of doing things themselves.

Scarcities can be artificially/culturally constructed. This is not an issue that will be solved eventually by technology.

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by BRUTE »

brute mostly agrees with prognastat, except the minimum wage part (which he opposes completely).

big question: what's the best prevention of humans falling through cracks?

brute sees this as a scale with the two extremes of "government guarantees" (e.g. minimum wages, UBI) and "extreme economic flexibility" (e.g. no licensing, minimal re-tooling and re-schooling necessary to switch from dying industry into new industry, turbo-charged economic gap filling institutions to help humans invest in the right skillsets and move to the right places to be productive again). brute is strongly on the latter side here, as he doesn't believe government intervention to be a good solution to many problems.

brute also agrees with Dear Leader jacob. this seems a cultural issue. productivity wise, most of the West could be working 10h or 5h per week, like Keynes predicted. brute thinks it's the culture of consumerism and out-Jonesing the neighbors that prevented this. humans don't seem to have much in their lives except showing off to others and running on their little wheels.

unfortunately, culture seems hard.

prognastat
Posts: 991
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 8:30 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by prognastat »

jacob wrote:
Thu May 24, 2018 5:32 pm
We've (the western world) has already been in this situation since about the 1920s. It's just that we somehow decided to use the abundant cheap energy and mass production to churn out disposable widgets with built in planned obsolescence. When that became too efficient we massively expanded the service industry so that people could begin hiring each other instead of doing things themselves.

Scarcities can be artificially/culturally constructed. This is not an issue that will be solved eventually by technology.
Will we still be able to artificially/culturally construct these when both physical and cognitive labour has been automated to the degree where most people simply aren't employable though?

If we get to the point where as soon as we develop some new product service and we can teach robots/algorithms to perform the task faster than we can teach humans to then the only thing effectively creating scarcity would be either energy production or resources.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by jacob »

Stockton, CA famous for being the first major US city ever to file for bankruptcy, wants to try the UBI experiment.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cali ... SKCN1J015D

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by Riggerjack »

From Jacob's link:
“I think it will begin to shift the narrative about Stockton,” she said. “Instead of being the miserable city, we’ll be the city that people are waiting to come to for all of the right reasons.”
I feel like I have already been waiting to go to Stockton, for all the right reasons. Like, Stockton. That is the right reason. If I visited, I'd be in Stockton, so I am waiting until it's been removed. Adding UBI should speed that along.

According to the article, the mayor got the money from a Facebook co-founder. So referencing the comments about culture above, and how hard it is to change, it seems even cofounders are trying to buy friends on Facebook. And buy them cheap, as they plan to pay 0.86 Jacob/yr as UBI.

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by BRUTE »

but... where does.. the money.. come.. from. the math. it is a thing.

in his old days, brute is becoming a Thatcherite.

and yea Stockton is.. dire.

Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by Campitor »

Augustus wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 9:34 pm
Why not optimize that the same way a business optimizes using capital to implement better solutions creating new efficiencies.
This is the weakness of government. It has no incentive to create efficiencies because any shortcoming can be plugged by raising taxes, borrowing indefinitely, or pushing off unpopular but correct decisions to future office holders/taxpayers; businesses don't have these safety nets which incentivizes them to be efficient with their resources. And even this is no guarantee since a business may be working as hard as possible but on a losing strategy. Failures inform the market that X decision was a bad one and should be avoided - society is better off because resources are now freed from a suboptimal enterprise and can be allocated to other uses.

There are many things that a central government may be good at (roads, bridges, national defense, etc.) but using capital efficiently isn't one of them. There may be the rare bureaucrat or department that manages their resources well but on the whole government is wasteful - too many incentives to overbill, overreach, and overpay.

slsdly
Posts: 380
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:04 am

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by slsdly »

Am I correct in understanding that many here believe corporations are *inherently* more efficient? I can't speak for all sectors, but my time in the technology sector has convinced me that while it is certainly possible for a corporation to be much more efficient than government, it isn't a fundamental consequence of having a profit motive. For example, I appreciate new and upcoming companies being efficient as they need that advantage to take on the larger, slower, but established incumbents. But from what I have experienced, the longer the company is around, and the larger it grows, the greater its tendency towards bureaucracy, gatekeeping and waste. I guess the major advantage is that the corporations can slowly be displaced by new entrants, effectively hitting the reset button without causing a crisis. While for government, we can only safely replace the executive/board of directors equivalent during elections, and they rarely shake up the status quo. The Innovator's Dilemma suggests even if the executive is motivated to do a paradigm shift, it is very hard to pull off, and I imagine doubly so for government.

ZAFCorrection
Posts: 357
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2017 3:49 pm

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by ZAFCorrection »

I imagine if the "run it like a business" meme were actually implemented, most countries would have a political history resembling that of Thailand. Except most don't even have the institution of a monarch (also not run like a business) to fall back on when the government is shut down.

The key point is you let your government waste 10 million dollars buying hammers with three claws because you need it to still exist and kinda be functional today, tomorrow, and 40 years from now. Look at the nearest strip mall to see how common that longevity is in "the real world."

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by BRUTE »

government has become too big to fail

User avatar
Mister Imperceptible
Posts: 1669
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:18 pm

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

The political flows from the cultural.

325 million people and an increasingly heterogeneous population. What is the common culture in the US? Is this the Land of Opportunity? Or the Land of Milk and Honey? Can I keep what I earn or does someone suffering need it more? Seeing as we can’t even agree on that, how can the government be anything other than cumbersome, awkward, and inefficient? Too many special interests.

Are we enterprising bootstrappers or are we going the way of Europe? I see a lot regarding the happiness in the Scandinavian countries but there is a reason the smart people come here to the US.

It seems the meaningful macro changes only happen when the macro situation is so painful or dire that staying the same is not an option. The power of inertia. Government maybe not too big to fail, but big enough that it remains unchanged until it fails SPECTACULARLY.

I bring up again personal motivations, decisions, and game theory.

There are some lovely women who desired to have children with me, and if I was assured that these children would be provided for by the government, I would not have denied these women, whose hearts I instead had to break.

UBI introduces a tragedy of the commons, because the responsible ones amongst us who preserve and build wealth do not want to pay for the people who recklessly reproduce, often times without being able to even provide for themselves, nevermind a child. It would become a breeding competition. If you care about preservation of resources and of the Earth as habitable, this is no bueno. Especially if we are already past an optimal carrying capacity.

I remember a passage from Darwin where he compares (IIRC) the Anglos and Saxons. One group defers gratification, accumulates, and has children late. The other procreates rapidly and does not accumulate. Give them each an equal start. In a few generations, one group will outpopulate the other by a 5:1 ratio, but the smaller group will have five-sixths of the resources. I don’t remember which was which, and Darwin was trying to demonstrate the superiority of one group over the other. I don’t care about that, because I’m not interested in notions of ethnic superiority. (But eventually even the ethnic flows from the cultural as those groups ethnically different but culturally similar will intermarry.) But the idea that wealth is multigenerational and is often a result of deferred gratification still rings true.

If you remove the incentive to work and save by telling me I can’t save or pass my wealth to offspring (the closest thing to immortality that exists) then what is to stop me from adopting a Scorched Earth lifestyle, where I am wasteful of resources, copulate recklessly and with abandon, and am in general a shit.

If I know that my efforts will not only be rewarded, but that I can transfer my wealth to a genetic copy after death, I can instead be a model citizen because I want my genetic copy to live in a prosperous society. I believe @Campitor calls this Englightened Self-Interest.

So is an aristocracy all that bad? As in Plato’s Republic, there will be room for those with gold souls born to iron parents to prove themselves in hellfire and emerge triumphantly. Similarly, those with iron souls born to gold parents will be decadent and squander their wealth. Maybe there is no problem.

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by BRUTE »

Productivity and Pay: Is the Link Broken?
This tends to militate against pure technology-based theories of the productivity-compensation divergence. Together these results suggest that faster future productivity growth is likely to boost median and average compensation growth close to one-for-one.
seems to indicate that technological improvement is not what causes divergence between productivity and wage increases, but that other factors cause this divergence.

seems to apply to UBI. if technological progress is not what decouples working humans from economic progress, then UBI might not be the solution for that problem.

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by BRUTE »

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a ... jim-manzi/
But what about the argument that there is an important benefit — namely, the elimination of the welfare bureaucracy and the dog’s breakfast of “food stamps, public housing, Medicaid, cash welfare, and a myriad of community development programs”

[..]

it is the difference between an academic idea that has not yet been subjected to lobbying and legislation, on one hand, and real laws that are the product of a democratic process, on the other.

User avatar
Bankai
Posts: 986
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:28 am

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by Bankai »

Has anyone had a look at this course?

https://www.coursera.org/learn/explorin ... sic-income

Dream of Freedom
Posts: 753
Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: Nebraska, US

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by Dream of Freedom »

"Calling it expensive and unsustainable, Ontario's new government is scrapping the province's basic income pilot, which began in April 2017 and was set to last three years. The decision brings an end to North America's first government-backed trial of the idea in decades following a move by Finland to terminate Europe's first government-backed basic income experiment"

https://seekingalpha.com/article/419293 ... le-tariffs

prognastat
Posts: 991
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 8:30 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by prognastat »

@Dream of Freedom

I must question how a trial with a fixed timeline and fixed payments turns out to be too expensive and unsustainable. Didn't they look at how much they would be paying out per month and how much that would be over a 3 year period?

Dream of Freedom
Posts: 753
Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: Nebraska, US

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by Dream of Freedom »

@prognastat
I don't know what they considered. I am not a decision maker for the Ontario government.

User avatar
Bankai
Posts: 986
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:28 am

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by Bankai »

Finland basic income trial left people 'happier but jobless'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47169549

Kriegsspiel
Posts: 952
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:05 pm

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by Kriegsspiel »

"While employment levels did not improve, participants said they felt happier and less stressed."

Groundbreaking revelations. Money well spent.

Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage

Post by Campitor »

In Muraja's own words...

My living costs today stand at nearly €2,000 a month – it’s a sum I would never be able to pay with just the basic income. And that was not the idea. Rather, basic income acts as the perfect incentive – it gives you security to chase other opportunities. It pushes you to seek fulfilling work – and isn’t that what unemployment benefits should do?

I used bold font to emphasize the critical part of his UBI experience. UBI needs to have underlying incentives for employment otherwise you'll encourage sloth. And how will UBI affect the shadow economy and crime? Those working in the shadow economy will have some wind beneath their wings to boost their unreported gains. https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/17536165 ... -off-radar

I imagine the low level drug dealers will skip the minimum wage job and just straight up sell drugs 24/7 since they no longer need to boost their drug income (https://www.nber.org/papers/w6592.pdf: Consequently, most low-ranking gang members hold low paying legitimate sector jobs in addition to selling drugs for the gang.). And their drug overlords will demand a percentage of their UBI to help offset cost of drug confiscation or price wars. And pimps and other sex traffickers will be encouraged to recruit/force more women into the sex trade to boost their skim. Well done UBI! :roll:

Rolling out UBI without considering all the ramifications is irresponsible. I'd rather see an audited voucher program for housing, food, and health benefits before a UBI program.

Locked