Universal Basic Income Study Findings Released

RX Reven' said:

I see UBI as the next "advancement" that is inevitable yet finds much effort directed towards prevention rather than thoughtful implementation....

That of course is the big question here.  If it is inevitable, how will it work?

I think one big caveate here is:  UBI can be practical. / useful, but it has to be in a system where there is no work available (?).    And clearly, there needs to be significant advances in automation etc to cover the obviously loss of labor.  The money still has to come from somewhere though....

aircooled said:

alfadriver said:

...If UBI is less expensive than welfare and is less expensive than doing nothing...

Just to clarify.  This is not what they were testing, and not what most seem to intend.  All those programs would still exist, you simply just give them money (like regular income).  As noted, seem like a far better thing to test though.

In writing that... yes, that is pretty much the definition of inflation (more money chasing the same products).  Using the replacement for benefits idea though does not, but also has less potential mechanism for improvement of the situation of the participant.

Even if there is still some kind of welfare system, this system will remove people from that and move them to UBI, right?   Which saves money overall.  Win.  

Nothing is going to ever be perfect, we all know that.  And the constant search for perfection always cost more money than really doing the best we can.

And again, lower cost = less net money going back into the economy.  If it's borrowed money, than it's printing less money- which is good for inflation overall.  If it's taxed money, it's less money that's being taxed-which makes tax payers happier.

Just looking at the cold, hard, numbers, less is less.  Does it matter if someone ends up playing more video games or getting a cell phone if it costs all of us less money? 

One thing that we have to remember- we live in a consumer economy.  Meaning people have to consume stuff to keep factories open and people being paid for it.  Having more consumer consume stuff isn't a bad thing, even if they don't add much to the supply line.  

Mr_Asa said:

 

....The people that had access to UBI, that were closer to humanity's historical roots and work practices. Were they happier?  Did they have less health problems? Less stress? Less depression?

Thats more the study I'd like to see than what people do with extra money.

Some of that is in the study and mentioned in the linked articles (e.g recipients tended to spends some of the money helping out others).  I believe it said they might have been a bit happier and seemed to spend more on health, but did not have any significant changes in health outcomes (that of course might be a scope issue)

As noted, that seems to be one of the basic results.  The tendency was to work less and have more leisure time.  So, basically, no improvement in economic situation, but likely a bit happier.  So, if that was the goal, to make them happier (e.g. less "storming the castle"), it might be a way to do that (not sure about durability of that happiness though, it could just become the new normal)

aircooled said:

bludroptop said:

....you can't have socio-economic status if you treat everyone equally.

I think you may be mis-speaking here.  Equality of treatment can very much have different results.  It's when you demand equality of results where things can get... silly.

Status:   a position or rank in relation to others.

The whole concept of status is comparing one's self - better or worse off - than others.  My comment relates to the psychological need (by some) to define self-esteem in a way that necessitates a lower class.

Finland tried this a number of years ago, as have some other countries. Some relevant articles:

World Economic Forum

University of Helsinki

BBC

Finally, a synopsis of all the trials worldwide thus far:

Vox

I was once told a long time ago "never give a man a big raise- he'll stop working".  I thought that was a load of crap. 
 

I had a few people working for me who really deserved raises. I gave them good raises, and they stopped coming to work on Fridays. 
 

Turns out they didn't need more money. As long as they had enough money for the rent, a few six packs, and tickets for the game on Saturday they were happy.  If they could earn that in 32 hours instead of 40 hours, they were good with that. 
 

YMMV. 

In reply to aircooled :

Unless you are slitting alone, staring at something, leisure time = money being spent.  Which is a benefit to the economy.  Again, this is a consumer based economy we live in- just measuring production per person is just half the story.

Beer drinking brings money to brewers, pot smoking brings money to the growers, on line gaming brings money to suppliers of the game and the internet.  Even getting take out pizza at $5 a pie brings money to the Iliches (Little Cesars).  More leisure time means more capability of spending money.

And, realistically, almost all of us have the goal of having enough money to not have to work anymore, right?  I'm now not an adder to the supply side of the economy, but I am spending money.  I know we want everyone to produce so much that they can do that on their own, but sometimes people can't.  

Heck, we all "consume" the defense we all spend money on- even if we don't pay taxes.  Why not spread that out to the dairy industry a little?

SV reX said:

I was once told a long time ago "never give a man a big raise- he'll stop working".  I thought that was a load of crap. 

At the same time, there are plenty of people who are very, very rich, and still work massively hard.  Harder the more they make, for some.  Can't extrapolate your example to the population.

In reply to alfadriver :

I can't even extrapolate my example to the next door neighbor. Wouldn't try to. 
 

Im just saying unintended consequences happen. I think this would end badly. 

aircooled said:

 with the eventually advent of massive automation and AI, some sort of UBI (think Star Trek like society) will likely need to happen at some point.

I actually disagree with this, at least if "at some point" means "in the next 20-40 years" (and seeing beyond that is very difficult).

"AI" as the term is used today is not really any different in principle than the steam engine, the assembly line, railroads, trucks, mainframes, or the other IT infrastucture that exists today.  It is a tool that can be used to increase the productivity of people using it -- it does NOT deliver productivity on its own.  The real world is not like Star Trek and "AI" is not like Data (the character).

Increased productivity means fewer people can do more stuff, but we are not anywhere close to the "post scarcity society" that some people like to talk about.

In reply to alfadriver :

And our economy is already in a place where leisure time is a major constraint. There's the famous example of Netflix's #1 competitor being Fortnite, because people only have so much free time to spend.

At my last job I felt like I was more constrained by time than money, I didn't have the time off to enjoy my money in a reasonable way. If I had more time I would've spent more money, and I would've preferred more vacation days or a 4-day workweek to a raise.

alfadriver said:

And, realistically, almost all of us have the goal of having enough money to not have to work anymore, right?  I'm now not an adder to the supply side of the economy, but I am spending money.  I know we want everyone to produce so much that they can do that on their own, but sometimes people can't.  

Heck, we all "consume" the defense we all spend money on- even if we don't pay taxes.  Why not spread that out to the dairy industry a little?

I would say that I would rather have the money to work on what i want to, not someone else's project.  I get what you are saying though 

SV reX said:

In reply to alfadriver :

I can't even extrapolate my example to the next door neighbor. Wouldn't try to. 
 

Im just saying unintended consequences happen. I think this would end badly. 

Trying to figure out how bad the unintended consequences would be.  Some people would stop working, but keep consuming.  Is that so bad?  Some people would keep working and consume a little more.  Most others would not really be impacted.

The only "bad" think would be the continuation of the debate whether people "deserve" to not work.  Which, any more, sounds to me that people still want cheap labor and are mad that people can avoid working at a price that is too for others to pay for their labor.  And that "deserve" debate then is very political.  That part is bad, for sure- we don't need more arguing.  But at the same time, what's so harmful of keeping money flowing in the consumer side of the economy?

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

"AI" as the term is used today is not really any different in principle than the steam engine, the assembly line, railroads, trucks, mainframes, or the other IT infrastucture that exists today.  It is a tool that can be used to increase the productivity of people using it -- it does NOT deliver productivity on its own.  The real world is not like Star Trek and "AI" is not like Data (the character).

I would say today's AI is bordering onto delivering productivity on its own. It can produce photos, text, and music even if it's not great. That's put a lot of marketing people and videogame texture artists out of work already. Even the apparent reasoning ability of suped-up autocomplete is good enough to replace basic phone support workers, like at Duukan where they laid off 90% of their support staff and replaced them with a chatbot.

I think another AI winter is about to start but I wouldn't be surprised to see an AI as smart as Data in 20-40 years, although using a significantly different approach. We've already increased productivity enough that if inequality were kept down to '70s levels, we could all have 4-day weekends right now. That's 40% closer to a post-scarcity society in 50 years, in the first world at least.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Based on a quick view of the Vox summary.  It kind of seems like UBI is generally beneficial to the very low income (e.g. can't cover basic needs), but becomes a bit more questionable (as far as what return you are getting) when you go up the standard of living.  That of course might be the basis for another study.  Kind of seems to make the "universal" part less important and maybe not that different from most welfare type systems.

alfadriver said:

 

...But at the same time, what's so harmful of keeping money flowing in the consumer side of the economy?

I think if you extrapolate this a bit (or maybe exactly what you are saying), it would make sense to simply pour money into the economy by giving it to people.  This of course is not an unreasonable argument, it has certainly been done (stimulus etc) and does seem to work.  The big question of course is:  Where is the money coming from?   There of course is still the issue of inflation (if we gave everyone $1000 to buy Miatas,  Miatas would almost instantly become $1000 more expensive, see cost of college, as mentioned) which might bring you right back to where you started.

In an actual economy, the money you spend comes from production of some sort (work etc) on the consumers part, thus adding to the supply of... things... which should balance out the supply side problem. E.g you make money building Miatas to buy Miatas, so you have $1000 more, but there are also more Miatas to buy.

Now... if you replace that worker building the Miatas with Robby the Miata building robot, that fixes things a bit, but of course the robot doesn't have a zero operating cost...

Streetwiseguy said:

It is a great idea, which will have a never ending supply of unintended consequences. 

I don't think it will work.

My thoughts exactly. There was a pilot project under our previous L government, but was cancelled immediately when the new C guy came in.

Off topic, sort of, but fellow Canadians, do you have any idea how much money the government is currently handing out to people with low incomes? I didn't, but since my son, who chooses to work 30hrs a week moved back, I'm astounded at the sheer number of government cheques he gets. And when the girls at work talk about the money they get for having children, it's absurd.

aircooled said:

RX Reven' said:

I see UBI as the next "advancement" that is inevitable yet finds much effort directed towards prevention rather than thoughtful implementation....

That of course is the big question here.  If it is inevitable, how will it work?

I think one big caveate here is:  UBI can be practical. / useful, but it has to be in a system where there is no work available (?).    And clearly, there needs to be significant advances in automation etc to cover the obviously loss of labor.  The money still has to come from somewhere though....

Well over a decade ago Bill Gates offered a solution...make the robots pay income tax.

I think many of the common objections to UBI are artifacts of constrained imagination.

We just need goods and services and whether a human or a robot produces them really doesn't matter...I can do my job or a robot can do it for me and pay me to stay home.

Let's say the robot is twice as efficient as I am...half of the income generated by the robot goes to me and the other half goes to robots designing and building better robots.

Over time labor participation would gradually decrease as fewer jobs would require a human and at least theoretically it could be a very smooth and pleasant transition.

ShawnG said:

I was never in favour of UBI but....

I listened to a podcast some time ago and the person talking about UBI showed that, if you get rid of welfare, food stamps and all the other "free money" programs and associated administration,  UBI becomes cheaper to implement than all the other stuff put together.

We spend something like $10 for every $1 of aid given, because of moral reasons or something.

What gets me are the systems that give assistance in the form of cash cards that cannot be reloaded.  The way it's set up, the intended recipient doesn't actually get to use all of what is "given" to them but the company issuing the cards for the state makes out like a bandit.

Rather than think about how to have a more fair system of handing out free money we would be better off creating a society where it is not needed to begin with. If you earn enough money in fewer hours so you can have more free time to spend your excess income, and you spend it on stuff from Amazon or Walmart you are mostly benefiting the working poor in china. I was driving by a very large homeless camp in Sacramento yesterday and wondering how many of those people, even with presumably limited life and work skills, might not be in the camp if there were positions available doing some of the low skill tasks we depend on China for now. In other words bring manufacturing home again. 

alfadriver said:

SV reX said:

In reply to alfadriver :

I can't even extrapolate my example to the next door neighbor. Wouldn't try to. 
 

Im just saying unintended consequences happen. I think this would end badly. 

Trying to figure out how bad the unintended consequences would be.  Some people would stop working, but keep consuming.  Is that so bad?  Some people would keep working and consume a little more.  Most others would not really be impacted.

The only "bad" think would be the continuation of the debate whether people "deserve" to not work.  Which, any more, sounds to me that people still want cheap labor and are mad that people can avoid working at a price that is too for others to pay for their labor.  And that "deserve" debate then is very political.  That part is bad, for sure- we don't need more arguing.  But at the same time, what's so harmful of keeping money flowing in the consumer side of the economy?

Ok, I'll bite. 
 

How about if I agree that the "bad" might not be so bad...

Can we also agree that the "good" might not be so good?

I see zero advantages. Add money to the economy without any productivity causes instant inflation, which then needs more money.  Sooner or later the owners of the productivity (robots, etc) who are creating the wealth are no longer interested in paying non-productive workers for not working.  That won't lead to people being happy.

aircooled said:

RX Reven' said:

I see UBI as the next "advancement" that is inevitable yet finds much effort directed towards prevention rather than thoughtful implementation....

That of course is the big question here.  If it is inevitable, how will it work?

I think one big caveate here is:  UBI can be practical. / useful, but it has to be in a system where there is no work available (?).    And clearly, there needs to be significant advances in automation etc to cover the obviously loss of labor.  The money still has to come from somewhere though....

Well, where does the money come from now? 

The federal reserve, a non government entity, has been in charge of that for about a century now. They pull money out of thin air, lend it to the government at interest, and then it is distributed out, before being recollected again because you can't let the citizens have to much. 

The big problem with that that everyone always wants to gloss over or ignore, is how is it ever supposed to be repaid? It can't be. When everything has to be borrowed to begin with, it is impossible to pay back more than is borrowed.

So what does it matter where the citizen gets their money from then, whether it's working away 40+hours a week for the shareholders or just sitting at home doing whatever their heart desires?

Yes, it's been ingrained in us from the beginning to work work work, spend the first quarter of your life "learning" and building up your own little debt egg, then the next half toiling away to make a company rich, and hope you live long enough, healthily enough, without being screwed by your corporate owners, to maybe enjoy the last quarter of your life with the retirement funds that hopefully weren't stolen or pissed away. 

That's no way to live. That's certainly no way to thrive as an individual or even as a species. It's an amazing way to control large amounts of people though. If too many people have to much free time, they might realize A how badly they're being berkeleyed by those in control, and 2, how they exponentially outnumber those in control, and that would be very very bad for those in control. 

RX Reven' said:

 

....We just need goods and services and whether a human or a robot produces them really doesn't matter...I can do my job or a robot can do it for me and pay me to stay home.

Let's say the robot is twice as efficient as I am...half of the income generated by the robot goes to me and the other half goes to robots designing and building better robots.

Over time labor participation would gradually decrease as fewer jobs would require a human and at least theoretically it could be a very smooth and pleasant transition.

Interesting.  So, in that timeline, if you where young and potentially entering the workforce, you might either try for one of the more limited available jobs (much of which might be robot / AI maintenance related), payed of course, or go on UBI.

To use a somewhat harsh analogy, you could say this is similar to a society that adapts a lot of slavery (which, really, it is).  Labor become very cheap, so the average citizen needs to do far less work to produce the output to keep the economy churning, to the extent that many simply are not even able to participate.  Eventually most all will not need to (AI overlords...).

As mentioned, the AI / automation essentially becomes a "force multiplier" for workers (in whatever form).  Kind of like a powered exoskeleton.  You can do a lot, with less effort.  Eventually zero.

This sound like a plausible future in a way.  It does bring up the "what if I don't live in a high tech society?" question.  I imagine the tech will eventually make it way downstream as it become more affordable (or second hand).

I mean, as with many things, you really just need to look at some SciFi for potential examples.

Do I get to name the robot working for me?