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Comment by JustSomeNobody | Hacker News Reader

A concern I have with basic income. People will treat it as a lottery.

Basic income shouldn't leave you with much, if any, discretionary income. I don't see the relation.

BI is almost exactly the opposite of a lottery. It isn't a sudden mass windfall, but instead, a steady trickle which, if spent appropriately, enables a secure existance.

There's the question of whether or not it will be spent appropriately, which raises the prospect of whether or not there are a class of people whose economic decisions ought be made for them. Or rather, what additional classes of people exist meeting that criterion, as we already hold that children, the senile, and various handicapped individuals cannot see after their own affairs.

I think you're on to something here, maybe accidentally in your comment. A "steady trickle" is a great idea. Rather than giving people say, $1500 on the 1st of the month, if it could be spread out to $30 per day after some initial lump sum, then it would require saving in order to buy anything significant. Someone inclined to blow all $1500 on the first day just couldn't.

I guess another solution would be to earmark some amount of the funds for rent or provide vouchers for housing or other services.

Payday loan-style businesses would let people monetize their BI. And that wouldn't work well with rent, which is usually paid in lump sums.

Not accidental ;-)

There's also the matter of windfall wealth to corporations or countries. Dutch diseaase, resource curse, etc.

My brother would work a job for two weeks, get a check, then quit. He'd spend the money on stupid, useless stuff. Then, he'd sleep on someone's couch until they had enough of him eating their food and kick him out. He'd "bum" 2 dollars for a gallon of gas to get to the next couch.

I'm not making this up. This was his existence for most of his life. He would see his weekly/monthly/whatever BI check as a lottery.

There are many people like him. They would not, in any way, spend the money appropriately. I firmly believe that anyone pushing for BI has never met anyone like my brother.

As a straw man, that seems reasonable. If he got a BI, what would happen? He'd be bothering friends less, so a net societal benefit?

I don't think you read my post. He'd spend it on useless crap and still need a couch to sleep on.

It's possible that with BI, couch providers could demand money for the couch and your brother couldn't claim he didn't have it.

I read it; I'm not so cynical. When kids get erratic money, they spend it instantly. When they get regular money, they can learn to save/invest/spend on regular expenses.

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