Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Social security (as in the American retirement thing called "social security") is a form of retirement income. It is based on the idea of paying in over time and getting something back in old age. Such systems run into problems in countries with low birth rates because you hit a point where the working age youth are overly burdened with taxes to support the elderly.

I don't currently have a solution. But I am clear that just paying everyone money that you manufacture essentially out of thin air is a disincentive to actually work. It may inject short term liquidity into the system but it won't solve the real problem.

I think some kind of basic income might be useful to level out the haves and have nots and redress some things but $2000/mo is more than a full time minimum wage job pays currently. I think it would cause a lot of people to see no reason to work. If people quit jobs to live on the government dole, this could actively harm the current system rather than improving things.

The whole "disincentive to work" idea is preposterous. If you get $2000 a month for free, do you still want more money or not? It goes without saying that you do. People will always want more money. If this "disincentive" actually existed, businesses would simply fold up upon receiving tax breaks.

What it certainly would do is free people from wage prison - people who would rather not participate in the work force but are forced to for reasons like obtaining employer's healthcare. Obamacare will free many people from this trap in exactly this way - and one of the most pronounced effects these types of things have is allowing older workers to retire who were forced to stay employed, making room for the younger generation.

And people leaving jobs who don't want them but are forced to take them is a good thing. Right now we have 3 people looking for work for every 1 job opening, which drastically skews labor markets in favor of employers. It would be good for everyone if this balance shifted in favor of workers.

The people who want to work will still want to work even if you hand them cash for free. The people who don't want to work shouldn't have to in order to avoid calamity.

> The whole "disincentive to work" idea is preposterous. If you get $2000 a month for free, do you still want more money or not?

Its even more preposterous when compared to the status quo. Consider the following alternatives:

1. You get some amount regardless of whether you get additional money from work.

2. You get some amount (which may vary from reason to reason) if you don't get any income from work and manage to convince one of several bureaucracies (all paid out of tax funds on top of the cost of actually providing the benefits) that you meet some qualifications, but in almost all cases this amount is also reduced if you actually make any money from work (sometimes, proportionately, sometimes, if you make any money, you lose the whole benefit.)

Clearly, the latter provides the greater disincentive to work (and, at the same time, the greatest incentive to fraud and corruption, and the greatest public expense compared to the benefits delivered.)

It depends on what you have to trade for that extra money. If you have to give up 40 hours a week of doing what you like in exchange for 40 hours of performing tedious work for an extra $1k a month then that's probably a deal most people wouldn't take.

> it won't solve the real problem.

you keep saying this. what, in your mind, is the real problem? the article lays out a very clear real problem in its view: lack of aggregate demand. they then offer a solution to fix said problem.

if you disagree with the article, please at least point out what you think the problem is. proposing a solution would also be nice...

I suggested two underlying real problems in the U.S. here very recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7315440

I don't know what all the solutions are but I am confident that one of the problems is Peak Oil. Some of the solutions for that include passive solar design, living closer to work, shopping closer to home, improving pedestrian-friendliness of built environments and improving public transit.

The health issue: I don't like Obama Care. Making people pay for insurance just shifts who pays. It doesn't make people healthier. Some of the solutions for making people healthier include: Pedestrian friendly built environments which promote more walking, better education, less pollution.

I don't have all the answers. I am applying the answers that I know work to my own life. I gave up my car several years ago. Most of the time, I walk everywhere. I moved a location with good public transit and I use public transit when I don't walk. I am getting myself healthier. I know these are things that work because I am applying them to my own life, though I was just told that my personal example is irrelevant and doesn't generalize. That sort of dismissiveness is something I am commonly met with. If people don't want to believe me, they don't have to. I will continue to do what works for myself because I know it works, regardless of how many nay-sayers I run into. It is getting results.

I don't think anyone here has been proposing $2000/mo - the article said $2000 as needed (by my reading, "needed" in the judgement of the Fed for macroeconomic reasons). For the record, I agree that $2000/mo is highly unlikely to be sustainable in the current (or near future) situation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com