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Finally, someone recognizes there's a vast range between truly basic income/expenses, vs maintaining a standard of living exceeding the norm of most people on the planet. The US "poverty line" is at the ~80th percentile of world income, and one way or another one below it can get enough aggregate welfare payments to step well above that line. Contrast that with really basic costs of food ($1/meal traditional diet, or $12/day Soylent ready-to-drink), housing (one 100 sq ft simple "tiny house" per person, $1-10/day), data service ($1/day), plus other comparably humble-yet-sufficient services add up to something like $5000/yr (and much less in bulk or with other careful reductions). But that is, of course, outrageous to most BI advocates - viewing "basic" as a complete-and-served product, not a collection of staples requiring the recipient put some real effort into.

Perhaps the beauty of the notion of BI (and thus its growing popularity) is that you can attach whatever level you perceive as basic living expenses.

To one man BI is to prevent starvation, to another it's not BI if it doesn't cover at least two car payments.

Define car payment; actually please don't, I can't see any point other than inflammation.

A 'basic' income should ideally fulfill the basic structural needs of someone living in an area.

* Adequate Shelter

* Food (possibly basic, but it should be healthy. Food does tend to work better in bulk though, so not-for-profit health kitchens are something I'd recommend)

* Health (including cleaning supplies/etc)

* Enough whatever (transit, clothing, education, etc) to get a better job.

* //basic// entertainment

In these last two points I see work uniforms, transit, probably paper/notes, and likely --basic-- computers (think Raspberry Pi 3) with Internet access (generic TV/work).

Edited: Added even more newlines

Actually if it doesn't do this it would likely just end up acting as a subsidy to low wage employers.

Only if it's enough to give people the freedom to walk away from their jobs is it actually meaningful, and realistically it's not going to be introduced at a level where it would.

And that leads to the other core issue few address: "supply and demand" still rules, and the economy would merely shift prices to drive beneficiaries right back where they were before. If you don't have to actually do anything to buy a gallon of gas or a loaf of bread, prices will rise until you once again have to work about 20 minutes of menial labor to earn whatever "extra" you need to buy it.

Most people benefitting from BI wouldn't be using it to go start a business or produce fine art, they're going to sit around watching TV or procreating or finding some new imputed need to demand even more BI to cover. Harsh, yes, but fits my dismayed discoveries whenever I go out serving the poor (doesn't stop me, but does increase bitterness).

Do you also believe that welfare recipients would not miss welfare payments if they were suspended today, or does "supply and demand" not function presently to neutralize the effect of transfer payments in society?

The second bit about people squandering resources has been nicely answered by Friedman in his discussion of negative income tax: it is better to have individual market participants make occasional mistakes than to suffer the greater inefficiencies of central planning [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM].

Of course such a tax is progressive, which hurts rich people much more than a flat payout.

Other points made by Friedman are hilarious, especially the part about people not wanting to go to work when on basic income. It's basic. I don't know a person who wants to live in a near poverty situation.

It's not that they want to be poor, it's that you're making it viable for them to lounge instead of work. A great many would rather sleep in and watch TV all day, instead of get up early and work hard for not a significant improvement in living. Every time I go to help the poor at their homes, I'm amazed at how many choose their conditions by opting for behaviors causing their poverty.

>And that leads to the other core issue few address: "supply and demand" still rules, and the economy would merely shift prices to drive beneficiaries right back where they were before. If you don't have to actually do anything to buy a gallon of gas or a loaf of bread, prices will rise until you once again have to work about 20 minutes of menial labor to earn whatever "extra" you need to buy it.

That's not how supply and demand works. The supply elasticity of a price of bread in particular is very high because it's trivially easy to ramp up production. It's the same for most industrial goods - industrial slack (google it) means that increases in demand do not correspond to increases in price.

The price of goods and services which have a constrained supply (low elasticity goods) would go up in price to match the new level of spending. The only one I can think of that would qualify these days is land, but it would be trivially easy to throttle spending on that at the same time by raising taxes on it.

Yes, if one wants to play this thought experiment with numbers that don't assume magic money trees, you're probably talking something in the $5-8K/yr/adult range (plus presumably still making Medicaid available for some). You'd still see a middle class income transfer, but go with it.

The thing is that a lot of BI advocates I read seem to be envisioning this as something that lets them do their startup or create great art thing without worrying about having to have a job. I suppose that's possible on that level of income with maybe a bit of work on the side. But it's probably a lot closer to eeking out a very spartan existence in a crappy, very low cost of living area with a lot of excess housing no one wants.

Paine advocates for roughly 10% of the GDP to be redistributed which indeed works out to $5600 in the US using 2014 numbers. This, however would easily lift a single-earner part-time minimum wage head-of-household of 3 from below the poverty line to above the poverty line ($5600 * 3 = $16800, which is just $3360 below the poverty line of $20160)

While true, many advocates of this sort of plan are arguing for it so that workers don't have to work crappy minimum wage jobs but can go off and do something more creative. Or they can rely on basic income if their jobs are automated away.

> While true, many advocates of this sort of plan are arguing for it so that workers don't have to work crappy minimum wage jobs but can go off and do something more creative. Or they can rely on basic income if their jobs are automated away.

I think its not unreasonable to see UBI as something that could enable that, with sufficient growth in productivity driven by automation.

I think that its naïve to think that you can set UBI at a level now that achieves that, though. 10% of GDP can provide a lot different living standard as GDP/capita increases.

I don't see a politically feasible basic income plan of that scale happening anytime soon. But allowing a single mother to cut hours down to 20-30 hours a week from 50 would be a huge win for quality-of-life.

Really, most people who read HN would notice the difference of an extra 5 grand in their pocket each year, and they are on average much wealthier than the people I'm thinking of.

The average person who reads HN would almost certainly have >$5K removed from their other pocket to pay for the $5K they would be given. There's no magic source to suddenly give everyone $5K more money--unless you pretend there is and have inflation eat up the whole amount.

My point wasn't that the people on HN would be $5k richer; it was rather that if they would notice $5k, how much more would someone notice who is right around the poverty line.

> The US "poverty line" is at the ~80th percentile of world income

This figure doesn't matter much, unless a person in the US can decide to buy a loaf of bread from Kyrgystan for 25.86 Som, does it? You'd have to adjust to make a meaningful comparison with the rest of the world.

> Contrast that with really basic costs of food ($1/meal traditional diet, or $12/day Soylent ready-to-drink), housing (one 100 sq ft simple "tiny house" per person, $1-10/day), data service ($1/day), plus other comparably humble-yet-sufficient services add up to something like $5000/yr

$5,000? Come on now. This guy[1] apparently lives on $7,000, but it is quite an extreme lifestyle. And he has an RV, the cost of which he doesn't count in his expenses. And he has a garden in which he grows his own food, which we don't all have a place to put. etc. Combine that with the fact that this lifestyle won't be feasible for everyone -- some of us need more medical insurance than he pays for, for example -- and when the lifestyle fails for people they end up in the ER or prison or otherwise taxing everyone else.

I agree with your general premise, but let's not exaggerate, $5k/yr is not realistic.

[1]: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-yea...

> This figure doesn't matter much, unless a person in the US can decide to buy a loaf of bread from Kyrgystan for 25.86 Som, does it? You'd have to adjust to make a meaningful comparison with the rest of the world.

If you adjust for purchasing power parity, US poverty lines are all still above the median world income. Around half the world lives on less than $10000 in notional US purchasing power per annum.

> The US "poverty line" is at the ~80th percentile of world income

Is that after adjusting for cost of living?

As a Libertarian who believes in the Singularity and that the workplace will be displaced by AI I think basic income and the Geolibertarian, Agrarian Justice, Georgism style basic income is the only one that will work and that doesn't violate the principle of liberty and respect for personal property.

With Internet based education, society has the potential to make education virtually free since the cost of distribution is essentially zero. It's only when people need access to special equipment or more hands on lab style education where facilities and mentors will be needed.

There is still the problem of gentrification though as basic income will be the same everywhere but certain cities will be much more expensive than others. This will lead to skilled labor concentrating in geographic locations.

I think you're wrong about education. The difference between a decent and an amazing teacher can be phenominal, regardless of the syllabus. Plus, the best education is apprenticeship/on-the-job training, which makes humans even more necessary.

The more we use technology, the greater the role people become. You can see any video on the Internet, but most of them are trash and a waste of time, so you look to the producers and curators you prefer.

"Machines will make everything we want," people in your category tend to say. Yes, but who designs the clothing, and who markets it into your soul to make you feel incomplete without it? Who comes up with the recipes for your gourmet lunchtime subs? Whom do you trust to suggest one vacation locale over an other?

Also, cynically put, this kind of societal transformation will require the dominant financial and political classes to willingly bestow the world with their riches, while giving away their power. When in history has that ever happened?

Well, the important threshold he isn't really commenting on -- but which is much more pertinent, is the further removal of blue collar labor.

You are totally right that for the most part, service oriented industries (design, marketing, etc) will remain long after those more labor and autonomous jobs have been transitioned into AI.

I disagree about the "blue collar labor" aspect as well. Aren't many lumberjacks in my neck of the woods these days, but woodworkers aplenty.

Let's take another example. Perhaps McDonald's goes 100% automated, and a sub shop next door adopts automations for things like cleaning, but still cooks the food by hand. Sure, it doesn't take too much to make a sandwich, but it's the personal aspect that makes it more appealing. And maybe you go there because you like chatting with the people who work there. Couldn't get the same from a machine.

I think before we get ahead of ourselves on AI we should re-read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and remember that the organic will always value the organic more than the inorganic.

Depends... Some entry level jobs kind of breed contemptuous workers. So unless they have great training, such as Starbucks or any Japanese store in Japan, you may want to actually avoid interacting with people.

And then you have the places where the servers think they're too good. That what they do is craftsmanship and artisan.

But the places where the servers think they're too good are often successful businesses whose target market genuinely believes that what they're getting is artisanal produce served by master craftsmen.

And at the lower end of the market, vending machine technology (including heated optimised-for-fast-food vending machine technology) has existed for many decades now, as has the production line technology to prepare most types of fast food. The McJobs are still there because fast food giants that invest heavily in researching process optimisation have continued to figure that relying mostly on minimum wage employees and using very little in the way of even basic robotics will actually generate more profit.

Bingo on both fronts. Low-wage, low-quality establishments get away with not automating because they are subsidized by low minimum wages and food stamps.

Quality establishments are seen as artisan because all it takes is a personal touch in a sea of robotics to feel that you're getting more than you are. I'm sure a pure price analysis of ingredients would show little differentiation (except, in MCDs case, that terrible "meat")

>With Internet based education, society has the potential to make education virtually free since the cost of distribution is essentially zero. It's only when people need access to special equipment or more hands on lab style education where facilities and mentors will be needed.

The "education system" isn't an education system, it is a selection system and its function is almost purely social, filtering most people out of attractive social locations. Additionally, even if the number of engineers doubled overnight, there would not be a proportional increase in firms or jobs because that is not what drives the economy - new initiatives do, and that doesn't come from education (see Schumpeter on the role of the entrepreneur.)

Further, as you admit, belief in AI is just that: belief. It is ideology and like religion has nothing to do with science, or reality.

Not everyone is self motivated or disciplined enough to learn entirely online. Different people also find different learning styles with better for them.

This amount of money is not realistic even when you put it into an inflation calculator. For example, Walden built his cabin for $28 in the 1850's, which is about $900 today and clearly not enough to build a cabin with today's dollars even scrapping like he did.

This person claims to have a viable plan to build a replica of Thoreau's Walden cabin for under $1k. http://www.instructables.com/id/Thoreau-Off-Grid-Cabin-Desig...

Sure, inflation and purchasing power parity calculations don't always work between very different societies, but if you replace that indicative £1000 sum with "sufficient to ensure you can rent enough land to put a teepee on and buy some of the basic foodstuffs you can't hunt/forage any more" which is what Paine argued civilization had cost the average person, it doesn't start to look like an adequate welfare replacement.

Cool, that person's math an mine are the same! :)

He does say, "That price does not include windows, door, insulation or interior furnishings. In place of a brick fireplace I have recommended a recycled steel barrel stove and stove kit from Vogelzang that would be more efficient."

Those things he is excluding will easily double the price. A wood stove costs thousands, maybe hundreds used. 8 sqft of insulation is $50. Windows are $200 each. A door the same or more. And also, 10'x15' isn't really viable for a home, even for one person, much less a family that wants a shower in the bathroom.

We also have building codes now that require a functional kitchen and bathroom which add significantly to the price of a livable structure the government won't tear down.

I think bare minimum costs to build a livable structure today, would be in the $50,000 range and the mortgage on that would be $300 per month, which would fit within my proposed living stipend of $2,000 per month per family of 4.

Uhm... The point being is a Thoreau cabin =/= modern cabin which passes code.

Wood burning stoves used in homes in developing countries are the number one cause of disease and death. To suggest that countries downgrade from electricity to this is absurd, would cost lives, and billions in increased medical expenses.

Modern wood stoves are sealed to the inside and have vents to pull air in from outside the house via vacuum created by the heat pushing the air out through a vent to the outside as well.

You'll easily pay $800 for one of these stoves, used -- in the summer. Which is why I was saying that you can just use an inflation calculator to figure out how much things cost today relative to yesterday. We have better technology, more building codes to follow, and more things to buy.

Life does cost more today than it did back then, more than inflation can account for.

Philosophically, its kind of hard to justify a harm based charge (which is what Paine suggest) if you accept otherwise the principles of a free-exchange, market-based economy. It would be just as justifiable to demand a benefit based charge based on what the beneficiaries receive beyond what they would receive in the state of nature, and obviously a fair charge would be somewhere in between those values, such that both those who lose (directly) to privatization of property and those who (directly) gain from it are net winners.

This is a very important reminder.

All philosophizing about UBI is superfluous because it is impossible to set the level of this "income". Nobody would be satisfied with $2K per person and year; $20K would be too much for any state budget yet too little to live on.

> All philosophizing about UBI is superfluous because it is impossible to set the level of this "income".

I disagree that that the difficulty in reaching consensus on the ideal standard of living UBI should provide makes philosophizing about UBI superfluous (in fact, I think that observation is a key part of the philosophizing about UBI, and among the reasons that it should not target a particular living standard; rather, it should be tied to a particular revenue source or set of revenue sources (whether that's a resource extraction charge, a tax on capital income, a land value tax, or some combination thereof), and then simply redistributes the value of that revenue stream among the citizenry on an equal basis. It should be the kind of revenue stream such that the expectation is that with continued technological and economic development, the value (and thus the standard of living it supports) will usually increase over time.

Money is fungible however. The government is still in the position where (theoretically) you're somewhat balancing money in and money out. So tie UBI to some specific revenue source or set of sources, and you still need to: 1.) Determine those sources and 2.) The tax rate on those sources. That's still all money that would have gone to different individuals or different uses. It's also subject to future political pressure to change the percentage. So it's not a case of picking source(s) and rate(s) to support an arbitrary payment outcome.

Sometimes it is close to the ideal. The Alaskan Permanent Fund probably comes closest in the US. But that's probably not enough for a UBI and it's unclear what the equivalent at the US level would be. In addition, it's likely that anything directly associated with resource extraction would decrease over time.

I generally agree. I mean you possibly could do it. One could live on a pretty small sum in a non-luxury area of the country. (Forget about the Bay area. Think Detroit.) But it's going to be a pretty minimalist existence and you're probably not going to find a lot of supplemental jobs in such an area.