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Comment by steven777400 | Hacker News Reader

Articles like this seem to be among the best ammo to support single-payer healthcare and a basic income for all adult citizens. In addition to shielding workers from harm due to business changes, this would also enable more entrepreneurship since the risk of failure would be much lower for people starting new businesses. Small businesses would also be more enticing to work for, since they wouldn't need to directly provide health insurance and the specter of the business folding wouldn't be as much of a concern.

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"a basic income for all adult citizens. [..]shielding workers from harm due to business changes"

As I read that, I agree with you... Until I realize you meant that to be provided for by others via taxes. Now, I understand the compulsion to protect everyone in the name of some social good, at the very least the "not as fortune as me-group".

But why are we removing the need/worry for individuals to do this for themselves? I say this because I know for a fact that this is achievable for individuals (even poor ones). For a quite-honestly, tiny-fraction of my salary, I get all sorts of income-protection. Due to illness, terminal disease, disability, everything. Add on top of that life-insurance for my family to pay off the loan-amount on the mortgage and have them covered till my child is reasonably on his way to college, if I should leave them early.

These aren't some pipe-dream schemes or ideas, they exist. And people can get them, without the need to beg some "noble" politician to give it to them for free in return for votes/power.

> But why are we removing the need/worry for individuals to do this for themselves?

As a german, who lives in a system of universal health coverage and unemployment payments i can tell you that that is a very naive way of looking at it. There are two very strong factors that mitigate this:

1. Most humans wish to be useful. Most humans wish to do some kind of work in their lives. This is not theoretical, this is real. We found in germany that unemployment can strongly contribute to depression. Additionally people who are not employed will often find ways to contribute otherwise. We have a strong culture of volunteer workers here in germany.

2. In order to provide a useful, yet humane, push to people, there is one single requirement for unemployment payments: People have to regularly provide copies of job applications they sent out.

There are many more details to the system than i have the leisure to describe here, but please, do yourself a favour and read up on our system before you dismiss the possibility of an implementation.

> These aren't some pipe-dream schemes or ideas, they exist.

Universal health coverage and unemployment payments are also not pipe-dream schemes or ideas, they exist.

Perhaps you should amend your post to say

"1. Most Germans wish to be useful...."

The German culture tends to value hard work for the sake of hard work higher than other cultures. Even Americans don't glorify hard work for it's own sake. It's all part of the "American dream" to end up well-off, to climb the ladder.

Not all Germans wish to be useful, there are plenty of freeloaders. Assuming you've had a job, you get a good percentage of your salary for a while, and then once that's run out, you get a house deemed adequate for your family, health insurance, and about $500 a month. This is not enough for a great life, and no one with any ambition is going to accept that standard of living. That said, some do, and mostly, Germans are willing to live with paying for that. The flip side is that this is the worst your life can ever get. Having Hartz IV as a very deep backstop gives people a real confidence and peace about their lives that doesn't exist in the U.S.

>Even Americans don't glorify hard work for it's own sake.

This is a hard thing to argue about, but I think you could not be more wrong about this. Americans identify themselves very strongly with being productive at their jobs. They take few vacations. Any suggestion that people should be paid more or get more time off is denigrated as laziness. Unlike many other countries, having a gap in your work history is seen as a huge warning sign. You saved up money and took 2 years off? Good luck getting another job. America still has a tremendous amount of the Protestant Work Ethic in it. Why do you think America has stood by while companies got rid of pensions, and go decade after decade after decade not giving raises?

I wonder, who are all these people that would prefer to live close to the existence minimum, subsidizing off welfare, and not do anything productive? Is it you? Many of your friends? Do you actually know anyone that would prefer to not be useful?

Not to mention, that I think pretty much everywhere, the amount of resources society as a whole end up wasting on the idle rich in one form or another, probably makes that wasted on "freeloaders" and "those abusing the system" a rounding error.

Color me ignorant, but I really have no idea what cheap private income protection you're referring to.

Here's some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_protection_insurance https://www.pps.co.za/pages/faq/INCAPACITY.php

A government one, even though you pay for it: http://www.sars.gov.za/TaxTypes/UIF/Pages/default.aspx

Apparently, the US has it as well, though I'm not sure how equivalent to the above it is: http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/unemployment-insurance/

Thanks for the links! I'm in the US and, as far as I know, we don't have anything like the policy discussed in your wikipedia link. Unemployment insurance is a good thing (and I'm curious why it didn't show up at all in the original article) but it doesn't help much with the health insurance issue.

Yes there is-- incomeassure.com

I helped create it.

Great! Thanks for the link. Looks like a very nice service, and I'm glad to know it exists. I was pleasantly surprised how affordable it seems to be.

Until your weasel executive terminates your job along with a thousand others, so the company looks more profitable prior to an IPO (which to my middle-class simpleton mind is indistinguishable from fraud, because the buyers of stock are not expecting to buy an empty shell of a company with compromised operative capabilities)...

Then when the severance begins to run short and you miss a payment of your insurance - just this once - if you get hit by a bus your kids will be left to fend for themselves.

I'm not saying it's unlikely... These things do happen, and we need to be aware of them. We need to be afraid of them, and prepare accordingly. But pretending like they don't exist and "can never happen to me" is like sticking your head in the sand.

>But why are we removing the need/worry for individuals to do this for themselves?

Computers and automation technology have made individual workers so productive that employers no longer need nearly as many workers as there are workers who need jobs. And we know very well what happens, right or wrong on an individual level, when there are large numbers of people who can not work but who still need to eat. And it's not pretty. Protection from that should be something every corporation willingly pays an increased tax rate for. The alternative is a destroyed economy that will take their organization down with it.

Your privilege is showing.

Specifically, you are on a high enough income that you aren't worrying about food, much less mortgage repayments, job stability, whether you can afford fuel for the car this week, or whether you need to just rinse clothes in water to save the money you would have spent on detergent for more important things like food, rent, or bus tickets.

There are also pele out there who won't miss another $100k in taxes. Their worries are along the lines of "how can I make all my money work for me without swamping any single market?"

Taxation and social welfare is just the modern version of "feed your slaves." You should be happy to provide universal health care and subsistence income in order to ensure your future workforce is healthy, educated and stress-free. We treat our racing horses better than this.

I wouldn't have a mortgage if I was worrying about food, car fuel or job stability. But, honestly, I'm not entirely sure where you're going with the comment. I'm not some filthy-rich person that could afford to "not miss 100k in taxes". We bought a small, modest home so we wouldn't have to worry too much about these sorts of issues. Where is the privilege in that?

>"Taxation and social welfare is just the modern version of 'feed your slaves.' You should be happy to provide universal health care and subsistence income in order to ensure your future workforce is healthy, educated and stress-free. We treat our racing horses better than this."

I don't view the majority of our fellow man as "our slaves", that require some sort of food/handout from us. Nor do I seek to optimize their healthy and education with the hopes of some sort of workforce productivity boost / optimization, as you seem to imply.

Edit: made quote clearer.

>I wouldn't have a mortgage if I was worrying about food, car fuel or job stability.

Really? Mortgages last 30 years, are you sure your current level of income will too?

I'm not certain that my income level will last, but buying a house is my vote that tomorrow /will/ be better than yesterday.

Mortgages are just loans, that's not the relevant part. The relevant part is what the mortgage is being used for. If it's being used as means of owning property and if you always have positive net equity in that property then you're not saddled with a mortgage for 30 years. If you're smart you keep around a bit of savings and if you find yourself in a situation where you can't pay your mortgage any more you simply sell the house (or rent it) and move somewhere cheaper.

Don't know why this was downvoted. The GP appears to believe no one ever has bad luck and everyone is as fortunate as he.

"The GP appears to believe no one ever has bad luck and everyone is as fortunate as he."

Do you honestly believe that that was the point I was trying to convey? My point was that there are ways for individuals to mitigate the risk and impact of those "bad luck" situations, without the need for government spending.

Complaining about "privilege" is limp-wristed ad hominem intended to silence viewpoints you don't like, as evidenced by your refusal to take seriously zo1's points ("You should be happy ...").

zo1's arguments are valid or invalid independent of her/his "privilege" (whatever that even means).

Saying privilege doesn't factor in when someone trots out the old "poor people would be just fine if they weren't lazy/ignorant/poor/etc" is just as much an attempt to silence a viewpoint you clearly don't agree with.

Nonsense. The view that (to paraphrase) "poverty is attributable to laziness" is ridiculous on its own merits; Your claim that an ad hominem is necessary to show how wrong it is is even more ridiculous.

Luckily, no one trotted out that argument. Even if they had trotted it out, making wimpy appeals to the claimant's "privilege" has no bearing on whether the statement "poor people would be just fine if they weren't lazy/ignorant/poor/etc" is true or not. Such claims can be exploded in the same way as any other false claim. By addressing the argument and exposing it as untrue.

What do you mean by "factor in"? Are you saying I have my viewpoint because I'm privileged? Are you saying my viewpoint on the matter would be different if I didn't have the privilege? Or are you saying that my viewpoint is invalid because I have privilege?

Or something else, entirely? Really, I'm curious... As someone whose parents had no privilege and were poor.

Everyone should pay the exact same tax rate. The confiscatory, class-envy based taxation is unfair and unjust. If I make more, I pay more. I shouldn't have to pay a higher percentage. How is that fair? What right do you have to determine if someone 'needs' their money or not? This is America.

Besides, if that woman were truly destitute, she could have gotten Medicaid. We already fund programs for the truly poor.

Let's say you make $100k per year. Why don't you pay $80k to the government. I don't think you need that extra money right? After all, your take home pay would still be above minimum wage. Better yet, you really only need a studio apartment, you don't actually need a bedroom.

Just as I have no idea about your life, how can you presume to know anything about everyone else's?

If we taxed the 'rich' at 100%, it wouldn't even pay the federal budget for one year.

We don't need fewer people paying more taxes. We need more people paying tax.

"How is that fair?"

Flat in dollars is regressive in utility.

"If we taxed the 'rich' at 100%, it wouldn't even pay the federal budget for one year."

Not that I support the policy, but depending on how you define "rich" it might. Per Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+budget+%2F+us+total+...), the US budget is approximately 30% of total US income. That's going to need more than the incomes of the clichéd 1%, but not terribly much more. If you let us borrow the same amount we're currently borrowing (extracting current revenue by taxing the top at 100%: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+tax+revenues+%2F+us+...) that shrinks down to about 10%. Ignoring, of course, the very important point that those people aren't going to keep earning the same way when they don't see any of it.

Your absurd idea of an 80% tax rate would never fly. People who won't miss another $200k a year in taxes are the ones already minimising their taxes to the point they are only paying a half million or so.

The wealth is concentrated into the hands of a few. Higher tax rates for higher incomes makes perfect sense when basing "far" on "ability to cope with the loss".

20% of a low- to middle-income salary is a far greater burden than a 40% tax on someone with an income exceeding $400k.

There is an old saying in my social circles: follow the money. If you want to make money, you arrange to take it from the people with the money. Luxury cars, luxury apartments, gastronomic restaurants, and so forth.

Why not tax these people more? They aren't actually going to miss the money, and ensuring that there are more healthy middle class folks with disposable incomes will actually help the rich get richer still.

Social welfare and a universal single-payer health care system is actually a grand firm of corporate welfare. Throw a living wage into the mix and you can reduce minimum wages to zero. How much better will the outlook be for entrepreneurs and startups in that environment? No longer will volunteer internships be exploitation, no longer will labour costs factor into viability of a business, and you will have many more consumers with spare change to serve.

Well... not everybody bases "fair" on "ability to cope with the loss" so higher tax rates for higher incomes does not make perfect sense. Wouldn't it be better to tax everyone at 20% and then let people volunteer to pay 30% if they want to help cover those that can't afford the 20%. This way everybody wins. Right now we generally have a large group of people that gets together and says, "We really need to help those poor people. And that guy over there is going to pay for it." It is super easy to vote for higher taxes for someone else. I'm curious just how many people would just volunteer to pay more than the 20%. How do those people feel now that the only person they can point to is themself.

Wondering if a flat percent make sense is sorta reasonable. But the rest of your screed is pretty idiotic.

And most civilizations have come to the conclusion that progressive taxation makes sense. The wealthy benefit much more than in a straight line proportion.

<i>Everyone should pay the exact same tax rate. The confiscatory, class-envy based taxation is unfair and unjust.</i>

Not that current taxation policy is anything but ridiculous, but flat tax isn't particularly "fair", for many values of fair. For example, the burden of paying, say, 20% of gross income is wildly different for someone making 20k/yr vs someone making 100k/yr.

But at the same time, it is "fair", for other values of fair. (like "impartial", "unbiased", "unprejudiced" and "neutral") Also, "fair" is kind of location based... a lot depends on which side of the equation you sit.

I've always wondered if basic income would remove the need for VCs; everyone in your startup is essentially fully funded then (as long as you didn't need to live in an expensive locale) and your only cost is AWS (or whatever infrastructure provider you're running on).

Or perhaps VCs would shift to more expensive fields like hardware, internet of things types of projects.

Definitely this. They'd move to capital-intensive projects (Tesla, SpaceX, etc).

Who pays for that basic income? The guy that's working 60 hours at a job he hates because he's trying to be personally responsible. If we had 'basic income' what would be the incentive to work at all? High unemployment is correlated to higher basic income availability. The EU unemployment rate is almost double that if the US. Even progressive Sweeden has an 8% rate. China, incidentally has a 4% rate.

Incentives are powerful things and the law of unintended consequences ought to ignored at our own peril.

The point of basic income is to pay for it with automation and software, not the sweat and blood of someone else.

The majority of farming can be automated. Should it not be possible to give food away for nothing then? If trucking/mobility (self driving cars) can provide such a huge benefit to society, why would we not provide it at almost no cost to people?

Robotics. Software. Renewable Energy. These three ingredients remove the need to take anything from anyone while providing for everyone.

You're still going to need to work to get your latest film or Taylor Swift album if you have moral qualms about IP rights, but we are slowly approaching the age where we have enough energy and the required framework to meet everyone's basic needs without taking from that 60 hour/week fellow.

To your point, the unemployment rate SHOULD be high. People do not live to work, they work to live. The sooner we can let everyone have more leisure time and not die from starvation or lack of medical care, the sooner we advance as a people.

In closing, think like an engineer. The incentive to work should be, "How can I fix or automate this problem so a human being never needs to work on it again?"

Unfortunately, our society isn't structured that way at the moment. Any benefit gained from automation is not directly "transferred" to some arbitrary bucket designated "Money we can now spend on enhancing peoples lives / making it so they don't work for basic needs."

>"Robotics. Software. Renewable Energy. These three ingredients remove the need to take anything from anyone while providing for everyone."

As much as I admire your noble sentiment, I feel it is a bit unrealistic. Someone has to pay for those robots to be designed, maintained. For that software to be designed and administered, monitored. And renewable energy doesn't manifest out of nowhere, it needs capital investment (most of the time) to be harnessed.

I'm struggling to conceptually understand how you think those items will manufacture productivity (general concept, as opposed to money) without it being taken from someone, whether willingly or forcefully?

The majority of farming can be automated.

The majority of farming already is automated. We've got giant robots that feed us now, they are called tractors. The newest ones have GPS guidance, and literally drive themselves (though they are still required to have a human pilot in the cab). This is a drastically different situation than 100 years ago, with primarily human and animal-powered farming.

The main cost is fuel and other chemical inputs, and the mortgage on the land itself.

"The main cost is fuel and other chemical inputs, and the mortgage on the land itself."

Don't forget the capital investment for the actual machines, and the R&D spending required to even make them available. The big reason we do have a lot of our farming automated is because it was profitable to spend upfront capital on automation instead of manual labor which became inefficient/obsolete in that regard.

The guy that's working 60 hours at a job he hates...

I've been that guy, but... fuck that guy. Obviously you're not talking about someone who is just barely paying the rent, because overtime. I also presume we're not referring to someone working three part-times; much sympathy in that case, but with EITC how much tax is he really paying? Finally, we must not be talking about the startups, because love.

More likely, this is a salaried employee at an established firm who is doing the job of one-and-a-half or two salaried employees, for the pay and benefits of one. If he started working rationally, the firm would have to hire, and unemployment would decrease.

It would probably still make sense to sell some equity for the ability to pay your employees a reasonable salary. Basic income isn't meant to be much.

This effect would be attenuated by the fact that you could pay the equity to employees directly. You are of course correct that for those employees who would rather get a high stable income instead of equity, you would likely need a third-party that was interested in equity alone. But remember that the calculus for stability vs equity would be changed for the employee pool too, so it may simply become the norm to work for equity in a startup.

It would definitely change the risk/reward equation, but I think you overestimate how much people value equity vs. living above the poverty line (which is about where basic income would need to be). Or maybe I underestimate it because I don't live in silicon valley. I think basic income would be more exciting for small businesses that aren't attractive to investors, but have similar financial constraints as early-stage startups.

I may be extrapolating the current situation out too far, but I figure that it'll just sharpen the distinction that already exists between startups and big companies. Right now you can go to a big company and make triple, or you can work for a startup because some combination of the risk/responsibility/potential equity payoff makes up for the loss in salary. I was just extending that idea out further; I already know multiple people who have saved a few 100k a couple years out of college and are much, much less motivated by money now (vs the non-monetary payoffs that startups offer). Sure, the pool of engineers who would do so may be small, but that doesn't mean EVERY startup needs to take this route. Either way, it's an interesting thought.

Perhaps instead of more entrepreneurship we would have more books that nobody would ready?

Sort of like apps that nobody would download?

Probably we would see better apps overall with people focusing on usefulness and filling gaps instead of restricting themselves to money-making ideas.

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