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Comment by chebum | Hacker News Reader

Basic income and increased progressive taxes are a good idea to solve mass unemployment. However, as proofed by recent London riots, they increase crime rates. People just have too much spare time they cannot fulfill with meaningful activities. We always want more money than we have today. The only way to increase income when there are no jobs is to take them from somebody around. Forcefully or silently.

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Do Londoners have basic income? It seems like unemployment, police brutality and perceived social exclusion were major factors rather than "spare time." All those factors are why we should be concerned with the creation of an adequate safety net because exclusion and unemployment fostered by extreme income inequality create the conditions for violence, although we should be concerned about alleviating suffering regardless of the of potential for it to affect rich folk.

Londoners, and people in the UK as a whole, explicitly do not have a basic income as the term is commonly understood.

The post you're replying to is nonsense. There isn't a "basic income", there's a set of patchily overlapping benefits which provide housing and money to live off.

The London riots were not to do with "boredom", but poor race relations between the Metropolitan Police and the black community. The trigger event was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mark_Duggan ; rather similar to the 1992 LA riots, although not on the same scale. Once the race riot had got going and the police lost percieved control of the streets, opportunistic looting started.

> However, as proofed by recent London riots, they increase crime rates.

That's a strong causal claim you're making there, where's your evidence?

Subsidize mobiles, laptops and tablets.

Oh and maybe food and shelter.

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