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Comment by prewett | Hacker News Reader

Feelings are uncorrelated with accuracy. Last year, the US revenue was $4.7 billion [1]. The US population is estimated to be 342 million [2]. If we had no government, we could UBI everyone $13,742/year. This is the maximum we could UBI, and it is not enough to live on. But if you want roads, enforcement of food and drug safety, some sort of law enforcement system, national parks, at least enough military to prevent Canada or Mexico from waltzing in and annexing us, support for research grants, etc. then it's going to be substantially less than that.

[1] https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/gover...

[2] https://www.census.gov/popclock/

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Nitpick: Your math is correct, but you have the US revenue in billions rather than trillions.

I never even thought to think of it that way. I know that for a lot of readers that $13742 doesn't seem like much. And, cutting it down to (say) 25% of that — $3250 seems like a pittance. But, I'd wager a lot of people reading here haven't been really desperately poor. I lived on <$8000 for a few years, and <$20000 for twice that. $3000 a year would have been LIFE CHANGING. That'd be things like preventative maintenance for my car; regular food in my house; guaranteed electricity; no fear of eviction; the ability to go to the urgent care clinic when I sick (vaccines for the flu!). Y'know ... BASICS. There's a lot of predatory stuff out there when you're scraping by. An extra 250$/month would've been pretty amazing.

Don't forget all the private sector jobs associated with means testing.

Read "Bullshit Jobs".

Also, taxes on the top are way, way too low. As evidenced by the facts that inequality is at a high point and the super rich are able to thoroughly control the government.

Edit: The person I replied to made a pithy comment about 'feelings being uncorrelated with accuracy', then made an incomplete superficial analysis.

Now, I'm getting downvoted with no logical rebuttal.

Seems like a knee-jerk emotional reaction to me daring to say taxes aren't high enough, even though inequality is high, and the balance of power does favor the super rich over the government and the masses.

Either that, or an inability to imagine the second order effects on the economy if people who are currently working BS jobs had enough of a safety net to persue their passion projects.

Even though their wages are private sector, the jobs are private sector waste to support governmental waste. Imagine if instead of getting people to work 40 hours a week to help a company determine if they're in compliance with a governmental means-tested program, people were just given money to live.

Some would spend their time taking care of their grandkids. Many would start businesses. Open source projects would have plenty of labor. Towns battling invasive species would have plenty of labor.

> the facts that inequality is at a high point and the super rich are able to thoroughly control the government.

Perot failed at buying his way into the Presidency. So did Bloomberg. Hillary outspent Trump 2:1 and lost the election. Harris outspent Trump 3:1 and lost the election. The idea that rich people thoroughly control the government doesn't add up. (Though people definitely get rich by getting into power. The Clintons entered the White House as paupers and emerged around $100m.)

And now we see corporations all falling over themselves to capitulate to the current admin. Money isn’t power; power is power.

They also fell all over themselves to capitulate to the Obama/Biden administrations.

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind? Because that’s how these companies must feel regarding their principles.

Corporations must conform to the winds of the government. Not the other way around.

Extremely naive take. Regulatory capture is very real.

People spending more on failed presidential bids in no way undermines my argument.

The Clintons writing books and giving lectures is also irrelevant.

Why do both parties cater heavily to the poor people vote? Why does Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security dominate government expenditures? Those programs don't benefit rich people.

Large corporations donate heavily to both parties and absolutely get their money's worth.

They don't cater heavily to poor people for votes. They use lies and misinformation to get poor to vote against their interests.

If the poor were actually being catered to like you seem to think they are, they'd actually have their basic needs met.

Why are we stuck with Medicaid and Medicare instead of having universal healthcare? It's not cost. We're currently paying more than other rich countries (which answers your 'domonating government expenditures' comment). Because the status quo helps the rich.

That still doesn't explain why M, M and SS are the dominant expenditures of the government and are directed at poor people, but the rich don't benefit from them.

It touched on an explanation even though it didn't completely spell it out. You really think our broken healcare system is worse for rich people and corporations than single payer would be?

> You really think our broken healcare system is worse for rich people and corporations than single payer would be?

Single payer means perverse incentives endemic to socialism.

You got that backwards. The incentives are less perverse than what our system has. Why don't you consider letting companies leech off of us as a problem, but you roll out a boogie man word when someone proposes a situation where our money gets spent back on us?

Our current system is far from free market.

Not sure why you think I don't know that or why you think it supports your position more than mine.

Idiots control our government now. They just happen to also be rich, which is worse than being controlled by smart rich people.

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