While I realize HN loves basic income, it honestly is not a good idea. I would love to hear people's arguments for it.
Make no mistake, no one wants unemployment, poverty, starvation, poor health, etc. Like any government program, basic income will alleviate some of these issues. And in that sense, it sounds great. However, like any government program, it will create other problems.
People seem to treat basic income like a panacea, as if somehow just giving people money (as a tax to the rest of society) will somehow solve all of their problems.
People are not good at spending money. Why don't we give people money instead of food stamps? Is it because it was politically untenable? No, it was done because giving people food stamps (actually, now debit cards redeemable at grocery stores) is significantly more effective than just giving cash at solving hunger issues.
Basic income, granted, looks great on paper. However, it only provides those benefits if people are rational and relatively interchangeable, which they are not.
I didn't even get to the negative incentives it creates, which is a whole other can of worms. For example, subsidizing income on the lowest level generally leads directly to price inflation, which is highly regressive. It's not clear if that, by itself, will cause more problems that this helps.
> While I realize HN loves basic income, it honestly is not a good idea. I would love to hear people's arguments for it.
You could click the link -- the article here is a set of arguments for it. And there are usually more posted in every thread on the subject.
> Make no mistake, no one wants unemployment, poverty, starvation, poor health, etc.
Actually, plenty of people benefit fromt he existence of these things and the insecurity they cause in others, so I think the "no one wants" claim is false.
> People seem to treat basic income like a panacea
Never seen this. I've seen people directly address how basic income addresses particular problems experienced by government programs that exist to address some of the same problems now. I haven't seen it treated like a panacea.
> Why don't we give people money instead of food stamps? Is it because it was politically untenable? No, it was done because giving people food stamps (actually, now debit cards redeemable at grocery stores) is significantly more effective than just giving cash at solving hunger issues.
Evidence?
> I didn't even get to the negative incentives it creates, which is a whole other can of worms.
Basic income eliminates negative incentives inherent in the means-tested programs it replaces.
> For example, subsidizing income on the lowest level generally leads directly to price inflation, which is highly regressive.
Basic income is an across the board increase to income, not a targetted increase at the lowest levels. Further, the regressive impact of price inflation is only an accurate description if you assume it occurs independent of income changes; to be regressive with income changes, the percentage increase in prices would have to be greater than the percentage increase in income at the lowest levels.
Hmm, you make a lot of claims without backing them up. While I don't have the time to bring them all up, how about one: "People are not good at spending money... giving people food stamps ... is significantly more effective than just giving cash at solving hunger issues."
People actually do very well when given the power to make their own decisions about where to spend their money. There are, or course, arguments against direct aid, but it isn't nearly as simple as you make it out to be.
Make no mistake, no one wants unemployment, poverty, starvation, poor health, etc. Like any government program, basic income will alleviate some of these issues. And in that sense, it sounds great. However, like any government program, it will create other problems.
People seem to treat basic income like a panacea, as if somehow just giving people money (as a tax to the rest of society) will somehow solve all of their problems.
People are not good at spending money. Why don't we give people money instead of food stamps? Is it because it was politically untenable? No, it was done because giving people food stamps (actually, now debit cards redeemable at grocery stores) is significantly more effective than just giving cash at solving hunger issues.
Basic income, granted, looks great on paper. However, it only provides those benefits if people are rational and relatively interchangeable, which they are not.
I didn't even get to the negative incentives it creates, which is a whole other can of worms. For example, subsidizing income on the lowest level generally leads directly to price inflation, which is highly regressive. It's not clear if that, by itself, will cause more problems that this helps.