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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Seems they would be a decent candidate to try out UBI and see if in practice it works.

They’ve got wealth and they have lots of underemployed and unemployed.

Seems like the worst candidate to see if UBI works in practice - due to the very specific political, cultural and economic climate in Saudi Arabia, UBI failing or working well won't be any indicator whatsoever about UBI's viability in another country.

It seems scarily close to the justifications sought for communism/socialism. The usual excuse is that it didn’t work because it was not implemented correctly in Russia, North Korea, China, Cuba, Venezuela... etc. etc.

> UBI failing or working well won't be any indicator

I haven't commented on UBI itself at all. I'm simply pointing out that lessons learned in Saudi Arabia hardly carry over anywhere else. Not sure which part is scary.

You are saying that if UBI fails in Saudi Arabia you can’t extrapolate the failure in any other country. And it’s exactly the same thing that people say to defend communism. They assert that communism failed because: “Russia seems like the worst candidate to see if communism works in practice - due to the very specific political, cultural and economic climate in Russia, communism failing or working well won't be any indicator whatsoever about communism's viability in another country.”

They already do have a benefits system in place that includes cash payouts to low and middle income families, plus bonuses for state employees (70% of Saudi nationals), stipends for students, tax breaks on home purchases, etc.

Is it set up as a UBI and is it proving itself, will it remain sustainable?

Honest question: Does it matter?

The current iteration is called the Citizen's Account program. But if it were called Saudi Basic Income, Saudi Social Security, or Saudi Protection Net, wouldn't the net impact be the same -- a scaled system of cash payouts for low and middle income citizens to support basic living expenses?

The name might not matter but the post you responded to asked if it was set up as a Universal Basic Income, which does matter.

One of the claims UBI-backers make is the fact that giving everyone the same amount of money will be much simpler and require much less bureaucracy than income-based welfare schemes. So, I get my $1k this month, you get your $1k, the homeless guy under the bridge gets his $1k, Bill Gates gets his $1k, etc.

A reliable income that you're entitled to might lead to very different behaviour than a contingent programme.

It matters so much.

Do you mean having the regime throw as few crumbs as necessary to the population just to avoid a dictatorship overthrow?

Perhaps what people need is not money but the political power to decide what they want to do with their common wealth (which could be UBI, of course).

Maybe but I can see how it could actually end up in “give it all to us right now” which obviously would short circuit the whole idea.

I'm as lefty-socialist as they come, but we have to be careful because UBI schemes can also look like the UAE -- which has created an upper class of "citizens" who receive a generous stipend and an undocumented underclass of people with no rights.

Stateless refugees are a big problem today, and climate change is going to create a lot more of them. Jewish people were the group left stateless in the nationalist period after WWI, and we all know what happened there. If no country is willing to protect the rights of people whose nations deem them "problematic", UBI won't matter because there is still going to be an underclass that doesn't officially have rights and can be persecuted. You can then just cram all your political opponents into that box and watch fascism happen.

UBI is nonsense socialism campaigning for the votes of the uninformed

"We'll just give everyone money. Nobody will demand more and the promise of more money won't become the key election issue as governments directly try to buy off their citizens for votes. Nothing can go wrong."

Huh why would you do that!

"AI!"

It's like a comedy but it's not actually funny, just full of clowns.

While the tone of your post is a little rough, I am curious to see if any of the readers here agree that UBI isn't a great idea for our current society

I for one don't understand how it won't cause mass inflation. Every reason I read for why it won't is usually along the lines of "we did an experiment with 100 people, it turned out great!"

100 people != the population of a country

>I for one don't understand how it won't cause mass inflation.

America already gives away vast sums of money to various people and programs, over $2 trillion annually. UBI is just a way of saying, "here's your share, spend it how you wish".

And then people will vote in parties whose position is ever increasing of the dole and it's a swift race for he socialist bottom.

A pipe dream that doesn't actually reflect human behaviour just the inclinations of some to demand others' things while calling them greedy.

From what I understand it, UBI (as proposed by Andrew Yang) will give a lot who are not receiving any money whatsoever (from any government programs) income they didn't necessarily need.

aka, he is proposing to give both impoverished people and billionaires UBI

I've always thought about it this way.

A car factory in 1950 employed so many people to make X cars. The factory of today employs far less people to make the same amount of stuff. Up until now we've all bought every increasing quantities of stuff so we've been able to absorb that extra productivity.

What happens then if our capacity to consume extra stuff is met? Or what happens when some proportion of the populace is now unemployed due to automation. They're kind of 2 sides to the same coin. Once consumption capacity is met, productivity increases just lead to increasing unemployment.

Of course you could leave them to rot. Or you could distribute the benefits of increased productivity to everyone.

Are we there yet? No, but we're using more resources than we should so we should probably hope that we reach that limit sooner rather than later.

So to answer your question, there wouldn't be extra inflation, because there wouldn't be extra consumption.

> So to answer your question, there wouldn't be extra inflation, because there wouldn't be extra consumption.

Andrew Yang's campaign states he believes that the UBI he is proposing will boost the economy because people will spend it. That's definition of consumption, right? Increased spending?

If you are redistributing money not creating it how by definition will it create inflation. The same money is chasing the same goods and services.

UBI isn't a redistribution scheme, it's meant to be that everyone gets money, regardless of need. Obviously if a government takes away $1000 and "gives" you $100 back, that's no different from your perspective to no UBI and slightly lower taxes.

UBI as suggested can't possibly ever work without being massively inflationary. It is indeed economic nonsense.

The secret is that its by design. The purpose is to create socialism, step by step. You have to start with a universal welfare system that then creates economic crisis, which justifies anything government economic policy in the name of protecting the welfare of the people.

There are 3 kinds of people who espouse UBI. The dishonest political swindlers, the misled, and those who would vote for anyone who promises them money.

Wait until you find out how many support UBI and no immigration control.

I agree with you and, at the same time, I don't know what we'll do when everything gets automated.

The same thing the telephone operators and horse farriers did.

Die unemployed while the next generation enters the workforce with training for the new class of jobs?

Take care of people.

Manufacturing is just like farming, except delayed. How many people are needed to plant and harvest a huge field?

There will never be a time when everything is automated.

The design tension is this: current welfare recipients get a range of help from the government, each administered separately. In addition, because it cuts out for every dollar earned it creates a very high marginal tax rate, creating a local maximum. However, middle class welfare is a very real thing, and the problem with UBI is it allows the government to entrench itself with even more aspects of a persons life.

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