Comment by phaemon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phaemon | Hacker News Reader

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> Or you could call it something like "Free Money Forever", because that's what its proponents seem to think they'd be getting

No I don't. Frankly, I suspect I understand tax and spending a fair bit better than you do, probably because we've spent the past 2 years talking about it in Scotland due to the independence referendum (and the following talks on full fiscal autonomy).

> How many people have any clue as to where tax revenues come from?

Just about every grown adult on the planet? Who do you think pays taxes?

> How many understand that other people have to earn that money first?

Well, that's just plain wrong. You're conflating money and wealth. They're different things. Money is just created to reflect wealth: it's literally just invented by your government (or, in the case of Bitcoin, just by proven work). And wealth doesn't have to be earned; it just has to be created.

> How many understand that if the people who earn money are burdened with much higher taxes to pay for someone else's BI, a lot of them them will just stop working because fuck that?

Sure, I'm going to stop contracting at $3000 a week because, hey!, I could just live on $30 a week instead.

> Please just think about it for a while.

Yes, please do. There are actually intelligent objections to BI.

Here are some proper concerns: What about illegal immigrants in the country? What about the federal government having all your details if you want to claim BI? Would it be better to be state run than federal (or in the EU, by countries, or would it be better run as an EU project?). Would it create problems with inflation? Would it cause problems with the banking system?

list.append("Would it cause problems with housing rents?")

I'd thought about that, but there could be two effects. There are people working for low wages, who live in high cost areas, because that's where the jobs are. If we're talking about a liveable BI, then they would have the option of moving to a cheaper area to live. Once there were many more people living there, at least some of them would start their own businesses, and there would be more economic activity in that area.

Now, this would raise rents in that area slightly, but would have a downward pressure on rents in the more expensive area. In short, it might have the effect of equalising rents.

It's difficult to be sure, of course, which is why I think it would be a good idea to start BI low enough that we can keep an eye on what's actually happening (say $30 a week), as there could well be multiple effects all at once if you started at, say, $150 a week.

> Well, that's just plain wrong. You're conflating money and wealth. They're different things. Money is just created to reflect wealth: it's literally just invented by your government (or, in the case of Bitcoin, just by proven work). And wealth doesn't have to be earned; it just has to be created.

My point was that people have to do something to acquire the money they have, and no one is going to give it to them "for free". All the money people have represents some sort of valuable activity, time used and effort spent.

So basically, money isn't free. It costs time and effort, and that's a central reason for why there's a limit to how much of it you can take from people.

(Let's not bicker about the financial industry at this point though - they're not actually providing value anyway)

But it makes no sense to say that "money is just created to reflect wealth". I get that wealth is all of the stuff we have available to us, in whatever pursuits it may be useful, and so on. But money is just a means of exchange. It's fundamentally a commodity that has become widely accepted in exchange for goods and services.

Now that's not how our fiat currencies work in today's world, but that's just because governments have abandoned sound money altogether. What I'm talking about - and what you should be too - is sound money. Something that just emerged as money through people engaging in voluntary trades.

Anyway, you're not in a position to complain about my understanding about economics (or taxes or whatever).

> Sure, I'm going to stop contracting at $3000 a week because, hey!, I could just live on $30 a week instead.

Is that supposed to be an argument against something I said? You'll have to explain how.

Ok, so you're talking about a hypothetical non-fiat currency, rather than the one that's actually used. If you'd made that clear at the start, there wouldn't have been so much misunderstanding.

I should note that money didn't "just emerge". The reason money from the Roman Empire, for example, became so popular, even outside the empire, was because it was government backed. Outside the empire, people traded goods and would just use bits of gold or silver to trade, which suffered from massive fraud (mixing with base metals).

> Is that supposed to be an argument against something I said? You'll have to explain how.

Yes, it's an argument against the bit I quoted. That people would stop working because they saw others living on BI. I'm not going to stop working because I can do a lot better than BI, even working part time. Especially if it's started low, at $30 a week.

> I should note that money didn't "just emerge".

Gold and silver sure as hell did, and that's what I was referring to, which I'm pretty sure you saw anyway, especially considering you brought up gold too.

Actually, the concept of "debasing currency" comes from the government of the time diluting the gold content of the gold coins in use back then.

> That people would stop working because they saw others living on BI.

Alright, so your argument against the idea that people would stop working because they saw others living on BI, is to snarkily suggest that you personally wouldn't?

Surely you understand that other people very much would, even if you personally wouldn't? You'll have to try harder.

> Gold and silver sure as hell did, and that's what I was referring to

No, they didn't. I was referring to gold and silver being used as tradeable goods, not as currency. There's a difference.

Bertrand Russell wrote an essay on getting rid of the gold standard called "The Modern Midas". You'll find it in the collection "In Praise of Idleness". You might find it interesting. In fact, you might find the whole collection interesting, though I doubt you'd agree with any of them.

> Surely you understand that other people very much would, even if you personally wouldn't?

Oh, please. How many people would give up a job to live on $30 a week? You can live on welfare better than that. Would you give up your job for that? Do you know anyone who would?

> No, they didn't. I was referring to gold and silver being used as tradeable goods, not as currency. There's a difference.

Oh come on. You know they did emerge, as mediums of exchange, which is what money/currency fundamentally is. You're making a meaningless distinction to cover your ass.

> Oh, please. How many people would give up a job to live on $30 a week?

We're talking about a Basic Income, where the idea is to get enough money to live on, right? That most definitely would cause many people to just stop working because they wouldn't need to anymore, even if the BI happened to be too low for you to stop collecting your phat paychecks. You get that, yes?

> We're talking about a Basic Income, where the idea is to get enough money to live on, right?

No, I specifically mentioned starting it low and even gave an example amount of $30 per week. Several times. My first post was saying "call it a Citizen's Dividend instead". With the exact reason that it would be good to monitor the effect.

If you're going to refuse to actually think and read then you're not worth my time. Go away and learn something.

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