$1000/month Universal Basic Income - Andrew Yang

[Boofinator]

As far as the money to buy food comment: I am 100% onboard ensuring a living wage for those wanting to work. I am also in favor of reducing current levels of inequality.

Does that extend to guaranteeing work to those wanting to work, even if there is nothing productive for them to do? If so, it me that would seem to boil down to 6 of one, half a dozen of another. One way or another if we don't provide people with a viable option to feed themselves and their families, things get very dark, very fast, and not just for the specific people left without any options but for all of us including those who have already saved enough capital to cover our own needs.

I think there will always be productive things to do. Work is just doing those productive things for the benefit of others (providing value and exchanging that value for money). Unless value could not be added to anybody's life in any way, shape, or form by the effort of human labor (other than their own labor, of course), then there will be the incentive to create jobs.

[Boofinator]

And we're ignoring the main driver of wealth on this forum -- Owning Investments/Capital.

Owning stocks is not a meaningful contribution to society. You don't really have any input to the companies. When you die, your capital will just be passed on to either grow or be consumed by someone else.

So what is the meaningful contribution that inheritances provide society? It's just handing money off to someone who didn't contribute to society for it.

What would UBI represent? An inheritance that we as a country all pass on collectively for having built up our collective investments for centuries.

So anyone against UBI here, I hope is also for 100% estate tax.

I disagree with the bolded part. Owning stocks allocates capital to more productive uses than spending it as a consumer sukka. Granted, a lot of that capital is allocated toward getting consumer sukkas to spend more, but not all of it.

I don't want to get into inheritance at the moment so I'll save it for some future thread.

I disagree.  Using that capital to produce something useful produces value.  You giving it to someone else to allow them to create that value does entitle you to some of the benefits of that value, but you didn't create the value.  The workers who used it to create a useful item/service did.

How do these companies get the money to pay those workers, which in turn allows the workers to eat and have shelter? It is the capital. So no, we didn't directly produce anything by investing, but we made the conditions possible for things to be produced in the modern economy.

[Telecaster]

I disagree.  Using that capital to produce something useful produces value.  You giving it to someone else to allow them to create that value does entitle you to some of the benefits of that value, but you didn't create the value.  The workers who used it to create a useful item/service did.

And worth pointing out, companies raise capital from stocks from either initial or secondary offerings.  Those monies are indeed put to work inside the company.   If you invest in the stock market the way most of us do, that money doesn't go to the company, it goes to whoever sold you the stock.    We we're doing is essentially staking a claim to future company profits, not allocating capital to productive uses.    There's nothing wrong with that, btw.  But there is nothing particularly noble either.   

[ender]

As far as the money to buy food comment: I am 100% onboard ensuring a living wage for those wanting to work. I am also in favor of reducing current levels of inequality.

Does that extend to guaranteeing work to those wanting to work, even if there is nothing productive for them to do? If so, it me that would seem to boil down to 6 of one, half a dozen of another. One way or another if we don't provide people with a viable option to feed themselves and their families, things get very dark, very fast, and not just for the specific people left without any options but for all of us including those who have already saved enough capital to cover our own needs.

I think there will always be productive things to do. Work is just doing those productive things for the benefit of others (providing value and exchanging that value for money). Unless value could not be added to anybody's life in any way, shape, or form by the effort of human labor (other than their own labor, of course), then there will be the incentive to create jobs.

There will be productive things to do.

I do not believe there will be people capable of doing those things.

[FIPurpose]

And we're ignoring the main driver of wealth on this forum -- Owning Investments/Capital.

Owning stocks is not a meaningful contribution to society. You don't really have any input to the companies. When you die, your capital will just be passed on to either grow or be consumed by someone else.

So what is the meaningful contribution that inheritances provide society? It's just handing money off to someone who didn't contribute to society for it.

What would UBI represent? An inheritance that we as a country all pass on collectively for having built up our collective investments for centuries.

So anyone against UBI here, I hope is also for 100% estate tax.

I disagree with the bolded part. Owning stocks allocates capital to more productive uses than spending it as a consumer sukka. Granted, a lot of that capital is allocated toward getting consumer sukkas to spend more, but not all of it.

I don't want to get into inheritance at the moment so I'll save it for some future thread.

I disagree.  Using that capital to produce something useful produces value.  You giving it to someone else to allow them to create that value does entitle you to some of the benefits of that value, but you didn't create the value.  The workers who used it to create a useful item/service did.

How do these companies get the money to pay those workers, which in turn allows the workers to eat and have shelter? It is the capital. So no, we didn't directly produce anything by investing, but we made the conditions possible for things to be produced in the modern economy.

So now you're saying that it's a good thing to pay people before they've proven to have created value?

And what makes investing, investing is creating the conditions for a modern economy. Which requires sheltered, fed people before they can be expected to produce something of value. So you're for UBI now?

[LennStar]

The perverse incentive is that people will have less inclination to work. Perhaps a little history might shed light as to my position: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act. As I've mentioned on the forum, I am not a Republican, but I do believe people respond to incentives, and that we need to ensure the correct ones are in place.

And what is perverse in people working less?
THAT IS WHAT WE NEED!!!

Currently people working way too much - both for their mental and physical health as for the continued existance of our species (destroyed nature.)

UBI leads to people working less? That's not a bug, it's a feature!

Also, people's nature is to want to work, but our current system has perverse incentives to make that not happen. That is why many "slack off" if they get the chance - because they have "learned" that work is oftne boring and useless, instead of interesting and rewarding. And part of that comes from the pure existance of "jobs" - where you do the same thing 40 hours a week.

What motives people to work is Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. "Normal" jobs often have none of those, so you have to replace the internal rewards with external rewards - money, and threat people with a variety of scary things so that they work.

For primary school teachers there are frequently vast numbers of qualified applicants for any open position (at least in the part of the USA where I live, I think the situation is different places like California), and while I firmly believe that there are huge differences in the outcomes for students between a gifted primary school teacher and a burned out and bitter one it can be quite difficult if not impossible to MEASURE those differences. Hence, primary school teachers tend to have low and uniform pay.
It doesn't reflect a low societal benefit of their work, just the workings of supply and demand in the labor market.

Those both things are conncted!
School teacher is paid low because supply is high ? May be so. But the supply is high because it is something that gives undoubtetly a lot of value to society.
Investment banker on the other hand is a cruel job where you do nothing good (just creating more money for those who already have more), and many (of asked privately) would agree hurt society. Generally people do not want to hurt the society, and thus they don't want to do this job = low supply.

[Boofinator]

As much as you may want to believe it, primary care givers do not provide greater societal benefit than investment bankers (let's just say I'm calling bullshit). Yes, the primary caregiver may have a more immediate view of their contributions, but investment bankers serve to move money around to where it is needed most, thus allowing the economy to function smoothly. A lot of us in the FIRE community depend greatly on their contributions to keep the economy humming. And yes, the drudgery involved in banking is partly responsible for the additional income.

Oh the great circular reasoning: people who earn more must contribute more to society. How do we know? Because they earn more.

Investment banking is a highly paid profession that requires particular skillsets both inherent and learned (including both intellectually and perhaps under-appreciated social/political ones). The inherent ones are only present in a particular subset of the population (potentially supply goes down). Of those with the inherent skills, only a small subset set out to receive the right education (potentially supply goes down more), and only a subset of them are able to secure one of the internships which are a gateway to acquiring the experience necessary to be a competitive hire in that world (potential supply goes down even more). Of those who land internships, many disqualify themselves in one way or another (poor judgement; burn out from long hours; decide they hate living on one of the few cities where investment bankers congregate).

So the total population of potential qualified people for an investment banking position is quite small. Add to that that is is easy to measure differences in performance between investment bankers (which may be due to skill or luck, but the differences are quite big and easy to quantify), and you have a field of employment where salaries are going to be quite high.

For primary school teachers there are frequently vast numbers of qualified applicants for any open position (at least in the part of the USA where I live, I think the situation is different places like California), and while I firmly believe that there are huge differences in the outcomes for students between a gifted primary school teacher and a burned out and bitter one it can be quite difficult if not impossible to MEASURE those differences. Hence, primary school teachers tend to have low and uniform pay.

It doesn't reflect a low societal benefit of their work, just the workings of supply and demand in the labor market.

I agree with most of what you wrote minus the first paragraph. But it doesn't show that individual teachers add more value (in an economic sense) than investment bankers.

I'd also like to add that I don't think a teacher's influence on any one student is as huge as you make it out to be*, at least for any individual student. I had dozens of teachers, most of whom were competent (the incompetent ones usually taught PE), a lot of whom were good, and a few who were really good. I think some great teachers must exist in public education, but most of them have likely found better paying and more stimulating jobs elsewhere. Plus, if I may add, administration has been working hard over the years to measure teacher performance in a variety of ways and provide some pay-for-performance compensation accordingly.

*With the exception of Aristotle's influence on Alexander the Great, of course.

[Boofinator]

I disagree.  Using that capital to produce something useful produces value.  You giving it to someone else to allow them to create that value does entitle you to some of the benefits of that value, but you didn't create the value.  The workers who used it to create a useful item/service did.

And worth pointing out, companies raise capital from stocks from either initial or secondary offerings.  Those monies are indeed put to work inside the company.   If you invest in the stock market the way most of us do, that money doesn't go to the company, it goes to whoever sold you the stock.    We we're doing is essentially staking a claim to future company profits, not allocating capital to productive uses.    There's nothing wrong with that, btw.  But there is nothing particularly noble either.

That's irrelevant, because nobody would invest in an IPO without some expectation they will be able to sell those shares down the road. As far as being noble: a capitalist society is based on the fact that people ultimately do things that are in their self-interest. If you take that out of the equation, I don't see too many noble acts being performed in the world (not to say that they don't exist).

[ender]

I work as a software engineer.

I make a lot of money because what I do requires a very high level of intelligence, analytical skill, and abstract thinking.  A lot of jobs like this are frankly not options for most of population purely through their circumstance.


I fundamentally believe our economy is going to change in such a way where people not possessing those traits will find it increasingly difficult to find jobs, let alone sustain themselves economically. I believe this because I have seen the impact that automation causes and I have also seen the lack of replacement jobs for people in this demographic (low skilled labor).

[Boofinator]

As far as the money to buy food comment: I am 100% onboard ensuring a living wage for those wanting to work. I am also in favor of reducing current levels of inequality.

Does that extend to guaranteeing work to those wanting to work, even if there is nothing productive for them to do? If so, it me that would seem to boil down to 6 of one, half a dozen of another. One way or another if we don't provide people with a viable option to feed themselves and their families, things get very dark, very fast, and not just for the specific people left without any options but for all of us including those who have already saved enough capital to cover our own needs.

I think there will always be productive things to do. Work is just doing those productive things for the benefit of others (providing value and exchanging that value for money). Unless value could not be added to anybody's life in any way, shape, or form by the effort of human labor (other than their own labor, of course), then there will be the incentive to create jobs.

There will be productive things to do.

I do not believe there will be people capable of doing those things.

That may indeed be the case one day, but I don't see it happening any time soon. Additionally, the creativity of the human spirit will always be thinking of new work to be done that hasn't yet been solved by the use of robots. Unless we eventually invent a wish machine.

[Boofinator]

I work as a software engineer.

I make a lot of money because what I do requires a very high level of intelligence, analytical skill, and abstract thinking.  A lot of jobs like this are frankly not options for most of population purely through their circumstance.


I fundamentally believe our economy is going to change in such a way where people not possessing those traits will find it increasingly difficult to find jobs, let alone sustain themselves economically. I believe this because I have seen the impact that automation causes and I have also seen the lack of replacement jobs for people in this demographic (low skilled labor).

Right now there's an extremely low unemployment rate. Additionally, there's a lot of work to be done in a lot of areas, so unemployment could go even lower.

[ender]

That may indeed be the case one day, but I don't see it happening any time soon. Additionally, the creativity of the human spirit will always be thinking of new work to be done that hasn't yet been solved by the use of robots. Unless we eventually invent a wish machine.

What industries in the last 20 years has flourished because of a surplus of unskilled labor?

And for what it's worth, the only reason most minimum wage jobs exist is because labor is so cheap. Many/most of them can be trivially automated at this point if it was financially meaningful to do.

A hundred years ago machines displaced farm workers, who moved to factory jobs in cities. More recently automation displaced factory workers who went into services. Automation threatens many workers in services, but now there is nowhere to turn to for employment. The water is rising, and we climb the hill, but we reach the top of the hill but the water is still rising.

Almost all the children who used to grow up to be field hands also had the right intelligence/aptitude/skills to learn to be factory workers instead.
A majority of the children who used to grow up to be factory workers also had the right intelligence/aptitude/skills to learn to work in an office (or school).
Many of the children who used to grow up to work in an office (or school) also had the right intelligence/aptitude/skills to learn to program computers or become engineers.
Some of the children who used to grow up to be computer programmers and engineers also had the right intelligence/aptitude/skills to design and build robots and train neural networks and other machine learning algorithms to do work that used to be done by humans.

I don't worry about running out of work to be done so much as the new work that is still being created moving beyond the capacity of lots of us (myself very VERY much included) to contribute to.

^ this is why I fundamentally think much of the "no issue, people will continue to find jobs" perspective is naive at best.

[Telecaster]

I work as a software engineer.

I make a lot of money because what I do requires a very high level of intelligence, analytical skill, and abstract thinking.  A lot of jobs like this are frankly not options for most of population purely through their circumstance.


I fundamentally believe our economy is going to change in such a way where people not possessing those traits will find it increasingly difficult to find jobs, let alone sustain themselves economically. I believe this because I have seen the impact that automation causes and I have also seen the lack of replacement jobs for people in this demographic (low skilled labor).

Right now there's an extremely low unemployment rate. Additionally, there's a lot of work to be done in a lot of areas, so unemployment could go even lower.

The unemployment rate is low.  So is the workforce participation rate.  During the last recession many people left the workforce and never returned.   

[maizefolk]

I agree with most of what you wrote minus the first paragraph. But it doesn't show that individual teachers add more value (in an economic sense) than investment bankers.

Yup, I'm not arguing that the facts prove that you are wrong. I am point out that you are making an assertion which is not supported by evidence.

I'd also like to add that I don't think a teacher's influence on any one student is as huge as you make it out to be*, at least for any individual student. I had dozens of teachers, most of whom were competent (the incompetent ones usually taught PE), a lot of whom were good, and a few who were really good. I think some great teachers must exist in public education, but most of them have likely found better paying and more stimulating jobs elsewhere. Plus, if I may add, administration has been working hard over the years to measure teacher performance in a variety of ways and provide some pay-for-performance compensation accordingly.

I had nearly uniformly mediocre teachers with a few stand out terrible ones. I still turned out okay which I attribute to a stay a home mother, two parents who both were very invested in and devoted a lot of time to my intellectual, ethical, and human development, with a decent side helping of good genes.

The good teachers aren't as important for people like me (and presumably you?), but for kids without the same level of support and investment at home, a few good teachers in the right years can certainly make the difference between a person working a decent job and paying taxes and a person who is a net drain on society their whole life.

But since above I'm pointing out that making assertions not backed by evidence (aside from potentially some circular economic reasoning), here is some evidence to back up my own statement: replacing a terrible teacher (bottom 5%) with a great teacher (top 5%) can increase the lifetime earnings of a single classroom by about $1.4M.* A standout teacher might over a lifetime, create $40-60M in value added for their students.

The big problem is that in order to reliably identify the best teachers, you need to wait and see how their students do over decades, at which point it's a bit too late to pay them more.** Identifying and eliminating the worst teachers is somewhat easier statistically, but unfortunately this is where unions step in and make it almost impossible to remove teachers simply for being bad at their jobs.

*Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43495328?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

**The same problem occurs when breeding dairy cattle. How do you tell a bull whose daughters will be good at producing milk from a bull whose daughters will be poor at producing milk. Wait a generation and see. Of course human generations is somewhat longer than those of cattle.

[maizefolk]

What Telecaster said.

The trend is even more obvious if you look at the male-only labor force participation rate, as over the last century you have the confounding forces for women of them first winning the freedom to participate fully in work outside the home and the overall drop in the proportion of the population that is both willing and able to find paid employment.



(You can also see that dropping out of the labor force is most common for those who (through either social circumstance, economic barriers, intellectual/behavioral barriers, or just plain bad luck did not pursue advanced education or did not succeed in completing a degree).

[Boofinator]

I work as a software engineer.

I make a lot of money because what I do requires a very high level of intelligence, analytical skill, and abstract thinking.  A lot of jobs like this are frankly not options for most of population purely through their circumstance.


I fundamentally believe our economy is going to change in such a way where people not possessing those traits will find it increasingly difficult to find jobs, let alone sustain themselves economically. I believe this because I have seen the impact that automation causes and I have also seen the lack of replacement jobs for people in this demographic (low skilled labor).

Right now there's an extremely low unemployment rate. Additionally, there's a lot of work to be done in a lot of areas, so unemployment could go even lower.

The unemployment rate is low.  So is the workforce participation rate.  During the last recession many people left the workforce and never returned.   

I think that's great for them. I think that's more due to the value provided by the modern economy and perhaps a Mustachian mindset. If these people were living on welfare, my opinion would be different. (Not to say there might not be other reasons, but the people who want a job right now can get one if they're breathing and able to work.)

[ender]

What Telecaster said.

The trend is even more obvious if you look at the male-only labor force participation rate, as over the last century you have the confounding forces for women of them first winning the freedom to participate fully in work outside the home and the overall drop in the proportion of the population that is both willing and able to find paid employment.



(You can also see that dropping out of the labor force is most common for those who (through either social circumstance, economic barriers, intellectual/behavioral barriers, or just plain bad luck did not pursue advanced education or did not succeed in completing a degree).

Yep.

This is only going to continue to get worse via automation - you can already  see a pretty clear trend over the last 50 years... and if anything we should have expected a trend like this to reverse as retirement age goes up and more people stay working into their 60s, meaning fewer retirements in early 50s.

[Cool Friend]

I'm not sure I really understand what you guys mean when you talk about providing value to society.  A loved one of mine got cancer and couldn't work or provide any quantitative value, and in fact relied on social programs just to live, meaning he was a net "drain" on society.  But I loved him and he provided value to me, his wife, and his children by his relationship to us.  Does someone like that provide no value to society based on the definition you all are using?  How are you deciding who is valuable and who is not?

[FIPurpose]

I work as a software engineer.

I make a lot of money because what I do requires a very high level of intelligence, analytical skill, and abstract thinking.  A lot of jobs like this are frankly not options for most of population purely through their circumstance.


I fundamentally believe our economy is going to change in such a way where people not possessing those traits will find it increasingly difficult to find jobs, let alone sustain themselves economically. I believe this because I have seen the impact that automation causes and I have also seen the lack of replacement jobs for people in this demographic (low skilled labor).

I'm a software engineer as well. I think it's telling that software engineers are the biggest proponents of UBI like plans. While I don't think the industry will move as fast as some seem to think it will (silly flying cars etc.) We have inside knowledge as to what is truly possible in the next 10 years.

A team of 300 engineers set on an easier problem over 10 years can easily wipe out 30-300k jobs. Now imagine an engineer can do that 4 times in his life. A highly skilled software engineer can automate out 120-1200 jobs in his lifetime.

In the next decade I think we'll see the automation of:
20-40% banking jobs. (basic scripts/ crypto tech)
60-80% of trucking (Truck automation)
50% Agriculture (robot pickers)
10% military (only this low, cause I don't think the politics are there)

I think this is what we'll see in the next 10-15 years. And honestly most engineers I know agree. It's ironically the people who are destroying jobs the fastest that are often the biggest proponents.

[Boofinator]

I agree with most of what you wrote minus the first paragraph. But it doesn't show that individual teachers add more value (in an economic sense) than investment bankers.

Yup, I'm not arguing that the facts prove that you are wrong. I am point out that you are making an assertion which is not supported by evidence.

The evidence shouldn't be necessary when (in my opinion) it is self-evident. Investment bankers work to acquire billions of dollars per year for companies (IPOs: http://www.cfo.com/capital-markets/2018/12/ipo-market-enters-2019-on-shaky-ground/). Any mis-pricings could cost the companies they work for millions of dollars.  As for the teacher study, I'm not able to view the entire thing because paywall, but it seems to me that if you do a NPV analysis you might get a $50k difference from the best to worst teachers per class, which is nothing to sneeze at; on the bright side, I think these types of studies are being used to try to justify pay-for-performance type systems (which I think we can all agree on are good in theory in that they award for added value).

[Metalcat]

I agree with most of what you wrote minus the first paragraph. But it doesn't show that individual teachers add more value (in an economic sense) than investment bankers.

Yup, I'm not arguing that the facts prove that you are wrong. I am point out that you are making an assertion which is not supported by evidence.

I'd also like to add that I don't think a teacher's influence on any one student is as huge as you make it out to be*, at least for any individual student. I had dozens of teachers, most of whom were competent (the incompetent ones usually taught PE), a lot of whom were good, and a few who were really good. I think some great teachers must exist in public education, but most of them have likely found better paying and more stimulating jobs elsewhere. Plus, if I may add, administration has been working hard over the years to measure teacher performance in a variety of ways and provide some pay-for-performance compensation accordingly.

I had nearly uniformly mediocre teachers with a few stand out terrible ones. I still turned out okay which I attribute to a stay a home mother, two parents who both were very invested in and devoted a lot of time to my intellectual, ethical, and human development, with a decent side helping of good genes.

The good teachers aren't as important for people like me (and presumably you?), but for kids without the same level of support and investment at home, a few good teachers in the right years can certainly make the difference between a person working a decent job and paying taxes and a person who is a net drain on society their whole life.

But since above I'm pointing out that making assertions not backed by evidence (aside from potentially some circular economic reasoning), here is some evidence to back up my own statement: replacing a terrible teacher (bottom 5%) with a great teacher (top 5%) can increase the lifetime earnings of a single classroom by about $1.4M.* A standout teacher might over a lifetime, create $40-60M in value added for their students.

The big problem is that in order to reliably identify the best teachers, you need to wait and see how their students do over decades, at which point it's a bit too late to pay them more.** Identifying and eliminating the worst teachers is somewhat easier statistically, but unfortunately this is where unions step in and make it almost impossible to remove teachers simply for being bad at their jobs.

*Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43495328?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

**The same problem occurs when breeding dairy cattle. How do you tell a bull whose daughters will be good at producing milk from a bull whose daughters will be poor at producing milk. Wait a generation and see. Of course human generations is somewhat longer than those of cattle.

Fuuuuuuck yes.

As a little undiagnosed nearsighted and dyslexic girl, if it hadn't been for an astute teacher early on figuring out that I wasn't dumb as a post, I would probably have never excelled, and would have finished school at 16, which is common where I'm from.

So yeah, a grade 2 teacher completely changed the course of my life, and 11 years of university later, I can firmly say that many teachers since have been instrumental.

Also, the whole notion that people are as valuable as their incomes is patently nonsensical and I can't even believe we're debating it.

By that metric drug lords and the Olsen twins are practically saints, and the criminally underpaid social workers I've volunteered with who try to help sexually assaulted children are just losers that no one thinks do anything of value, otherwise they'd be paid more!

It's so ridiculous, I almost regret acknowledging it as a concept because to continue the debate makes my skin crawl. Big profit comes from scale, literally everyone in business knows that. Sadly, a lot of the most valuable tasks aren't scalable, like teaching, nursing, social work, etc.

I'm grateful every day for the people who choose to do valuable, non-scalable work over earning dollars because otherwise everyone's kids would be sick and stupid.

But hey! Those Kardashians sure are entertaining! The value!! It's amazing!
Screw those MSF doctors working for less than minimum wage, those idiots just don't understand the value of profitable work.

Fuuuuuucking hell.

[Boofinator]

I work as a software engineer.

I make a lot of money because what I do requires a very high level of intelligence, analytical skill, and abstract thinking.  A lot of jobs like this are frankly not options for most of population purely through their circumstance.


I fundamentally believe our economy is going to change in such a way where people not possessing those traits will find it increasingly difficult to find jobs, let alone sustain themselves economically. I believe this because I have seen the impact that automation causes and I have also seen the lack of replacement jobs for people in this demographic (low skilled labor).

I'm a software engineer as well. I think it's telling that software engineers are the biggest proponents of UBI like plans. While I don't think the industry will move as fast as some seem to think it will (silly flying cars etc.) We have inside knowledge as to what is truly possible in the next 10 years.

A team of 300 engineers set on an easier problem over 10 years can easily wipe out 30-300k jobs. Now imagine an engineer can do that 4 times in his life. A highly skilled software engineer can automate out 120-1200 jobs in his lifetime.

In the next decade I think we'll see the automation of:
20-40% banking jobs. (basic scripts/ crypto tech)
60-80% of trucking (Truck automation)
50% Agriculture (robot pickers)
10% military (only this low, cause I don't think the politics are there)

I think this is what we'll see in the next 10-15 years. And honestly most engineers I know agree. It's ironically the people who are destroying jobs the fastest that are often the biggest proponents.

Eliminating those jobs would be wonderful! But it doesn't mean the end of jobs. Let's use an example. A couple hundred years ago the Luddites were worried about jobs. I wouldn't blame them. But what happened in the intervening 200 years of technological advancements? Did the jobs run out? No! Entire fields of industry sprang up that didn't or barely existed in those days. The entire medical field, which is a huge chunk of the economy, came into being from the ancient bloodletters. Science, which came from some simple but profound observations. Engineering, which applied the advances in science toward the elimination of work. Industry, which applied those advances toward the production of goods. The list goes on. What makes you think that suddenly we've reached the point where a significant proportion of human labor has lost its value?

[Boofinator]

I agree with most of what you wrote minus the first paragraph. But it doesn't show that individual teachers add more value (in an economic sense) than investment bankers.

Yup, I'm not arguing that the facts prove that you are wrong. I am point out that you are making an assertion which is not supported by evidence.

I'd also like to add that I don't think a teacher's influence on any one student is as huge as you make it out to be*, at least for any individual student. I had dozens of teachers, most of whom were competent (the incompetent ones usually taught PE), a lot of whom were good, and a few who were really good. I think some great teachers must exist in public education, but most of them have likely found better paying and more stimulating jobs elsewhere. Plus, if I may add, administration has been working hard over the years to measure teacher performance in a variety of ways and provide some pay-for-performance compensation accordingly.

I had nearly uniformly mediocre teachers with a few stand out terrible ones. I still turned out okay which I attribute to a stay a home mother, two parents who both were very invested in and devoted a lot of time to my intellectual, ethical, and human development, with a decent side helping of good genes.

The good teachers aren't as important for people like me (and presumably you?), but for kids without the same level of support and investment at home, a few good teachers in the right years can certainly make the difference between a person working a decent job and paying taxes and a person who is a net drain on society their whole life.

But since above I'm pointing out that making assertions not backed by evidence (aside from potentially some circular economic reasoning), here is some evidence to back up my own statement: replacing a terrible teacher (bottom 5%) with a great teacher (top 5%) can increase the lifetime earnings of a single classroom by about $1.4M.* A standout teacher might over a lifetime, create $40-60M in value added for their students.

The big problem is that in order to reliably identify the best teachers, you need to wait and see how their students do over decades, at which point it's a bit too late to pay them more.** Identifying and eliminating the worst teachers is somewhat easier statistically, but unfortunately this is where unions step in and make it almost impossible to remove teachers simply for being bad at their jobs.

*Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43495328?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

**The same problem occurs when breeding dairy cattle. How do you tell a bull whose daughters will be good at producing milk from a bull whose daughters will be poor at producing milk. Wait a generation and see. Of course human generations is somewhat longer than those of cattle.

Fuuuuuuck yes.

As a little undiagnosed nearsighted and dyslexic girl, if it hadn't been for an astute teacher early on figuring out that I wasn't dumb as a post, I would probably have never excelled, and would have finished school at 16, which is common where I'm from.

So yeah, a grade 2 teacher completely changed the course of my life, and 11 years of university later, I can firmly say that many teachers since have been instrumental.

Also, the whole notion that people are as valuable as their incomes is patently nonsensical and I can't even believe we're debating it.

By that metric drug lords and the Olsen twins are practically saints, and the criminally underpaid social workers I've volunteered with who try to help sexually assaulted children are just losers that no one thinks do anything of value, otherwise they'd be paid more!

It's so ridiculous, I almost regret acknowledging it as a concept because to continue the debate makes my skin crawl. Big profit comes from scale, literally everyone in business knows that. Sadly, a lot of the most valuable tasks aren't scalable, like teaching, nursing, social work, etc.

I'm grateful every day for the people who choose to do valuable, non-scalable work over earning dollars because otherwise everyone's kids would be sick and stupid.

But hey! Those Kardashians sure are entertaining! The value!! It's amazing!
Screw those MSF doctors working for less than minimum wage, those idiots just don't understand the value of profitable work.

Fuuuuuucking hell.

I agree, that notion is nonsensical, but it isn't what we're debating. We're debating the economic value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)

ETA: To use an example, a newborn baby is invaluable to its parents, but its economic value is probably negative at that point in time.

[Metalcat]

I agree with most of what you wrote minus the first paragraph. But it doesn't show that individual teachers add more value (in an economic sense) than investment bankers.

Yup, I'm not arguing that the facts prove that you are wrong. I am point out that you are making an assertion which is not supported by evidence.

I'd also like to add that I don't think a teacher's influence on any one student is as huge as you make it out to be*, at least for any individual student. I had dozens of teachers, most of whom were competent (the incompetent ones usually taught PE), a lot of whom were good, and a few who were really good. I think some great teachers must exist in public education, but most of them have likely found better paying and more stimulating jobs elsewhere. Plus, if I may add, administration has been working hard over the years to measure teacher performance in a variety of ways and provide some pay-for-performance compensation accordingly.

I had nearly uniformly mediocre teachers with a few stand out terrible ones. I still turned out okay which I attribute to a stay a home mother, two parents who both were very invested in and devoted a lot of time to my intellectual, ethical, and human development, with a decent side helping of good genes.

The good teachers aren't as important for people like me (and presumably you?), but for kids without the same level of support and investment at home, a few good teachers in the right years can certainly make the difference between a person working a decent job and paying taxes and a person who is a net drain on society their whole life.

But since above I'm pointing out that making assertions not backed by evidence (aside from potentially some circular economic reasoning), here is some evidence to back up my own statement: replacing a terrible teacher (bottom 5%) with a great teacher (top 5%) can increase the lifetime earnings of a single classroom by about $1.4M.* A standout teacher might over a lifetime, create $40-60M in value added for their students.

The big problem is that in order to reliably identify the best teachers, you need to wait and see how their students do over decades, at which point it's a bit too late to pay them more.** Identifying and eliminating the worst teachers is somewhat easier statistically, but unfortunately this is where unions step in and make it almost impossible to remove teachers simply for being bad at their jobs.

*Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43495328?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

**The same problem occurs when breeding dairy cattle. How do you tell a bull whose daughters will be good at producing milk from a bull whose daughters will be poor at producing milk. Wait a generation and see. Of course human generations is somewhat longer than those of cattle.

Fuuuuuuck yes.

As a little undiagnosed nearsighted and dyslexic girl, if it hadn't been for an astute teacher early on figuring out that I wasn't dumb as a post, I would probably have never excelled, and would have finished school at 16, which is common where I'm from.

So yeah, a grade 2 teacher completely changed the course of my life, and 11 years of university later, I can firmly say that many teachers since have been instrumental.

Also, the whole notion that people are as valuable as their incomes is patently nonsensical and I can't even believe we're debating it.

By that metric drug lords and the Olsen twins are practically saints, and the criminally underpaid social workers I've volunteered with who try to help sexually assaulted children are just losers that no one thinks do anything of value, otherwise they'd be paid more!

It's so ridiculous, I almost regret acknowledging it as a concept because to continue the debate makes my skin crawl. Big profit comes from scale, literally everyone in business knows that. Sadly, a lot of the most valuable tasks aren't scalable, like teaching, nursing, social work, etc.

I'm grateful every day for the people who choose to do valuable, non-scalable work over earning dollars because otherwise everyone's kids would be sick and stupid.

But hey! Those Kardashians sure are entertaining! The value!! It's amazing!
Screw those MSF doctors working for less than minimum wage, those idiots just don't understand the value of profitable work.

Fuuuuuucking hell.

I agree, that notion is nonsensical, but it isn't what we're debating. We're debating the economic value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)

Actually, it started as talking about people contributing value to society. I believe *you* decided to define that value monetarily.

[Boofinator]

I agree with most of what you wrote minus the first paragraph. But it doesn't show that individual teachers add more value (in an economic sense) than investment bankers.

Yup, I'm not arguing that the facts prove that you are wrong. I am point out that you are making an assertion which is not supported by evidence.

I'd also like to add that I don't think a teacher's influence on any one student is as huge as you make it out to be*, at least for any individual student. I had dozens of teachers, most of whom were competent (the incompetent ones usually taught PE), a lot of whom were good, and a few who were really good. I think some great teachers must exist in public education, but most of them have likely found better paying and more stimulating jobs elsewhere. Plus, if I may add, administration has been working hard over the years to measure teacher performance in a variety of ways and provide some pay-for-performance compensation accordingly.

I had nearly uniformly mediocre teachers with a few stand out terrible ones. I still turned out okay which I attribute to a stay a home mother, two parents who both were very invested in and devoted a lot of time to my intellectual, ethical, and human development, with a decent side helping of good genes.

The good teachers aren't as important for people like me (and presumably you?), but for kids without the same level of support and investment at home, a few good teachers in the right years can certainly make the difference between a person working a decent job and paying taxes and a person who is a net drain on society their whole life.

But since above I'm pointing out that making assertions not backed by evidence (aside from potentially some circular economic reasoning), here is some evidence to back up my own statement: replacing a terrible teacher (bottom 5%) with a great teacher (top 5%) can increase the lifetime earnings of a single classroom by about $1.4M.* A standout teacher might over a lifetime, create $40-60M in value added for their students.

The big problem is that in order to reliably identify the best teachers, you need to wait and see how their students do over decades, at which point it's a bit too late to pay them more.** Identifying and eliminating the worst teachers is somewhat easier statistically, but unfortunately this is where unions step in and make it almost impossible to remove teachers simply for being bad at their jobs.

*Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43495328?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

**The same problem occurs when breeding dairy cattle. How do you tell a bull whose daughters will be good at producing milk from a bull whose daughters will be poor at producing milk. Wait a generation and see. Of course human generations is somewhat longer than those of cattle.

Fuuuuuuck yes.

As a little undiagnosed nearsighted and dyslexic girl, if it hadn't been for an astute teacher early on figuring out that I wasn't dumb as a post, I would probably have never excelled, and would have finished school at 16, which is common where I'm from.

So yeah, a grade 2 teacher completely changed the course of my life, and 11 years of university later, I can firmly say that many teachers since have been instrumental.

Also, the whole notion that people are as valuable as their incomes is patently nonsensical and I can't even believe we're debating it.

By that metric drug lords and the Olsen twins are practically saints, and the criminally underpaid social workers I've volunteered with who try to help sexually assaulted children are just losers that no one thinks do anything of value, otherwise they'd be paid more!

It's so ridiculous, I almost regret acknowledging it as a concept because to continue the debate makes my skin crawl. Big profit comes from scale, literally everyone in business knows that. Sadly, a lot of the most valuable tasks aren't scalable, like teaching, nursing, social work, etc.

I'm grateful every day for the people who choose to do valuable, non-scalable work over earning dollars because otherwise everyone's kids would be sick and stupid.

But hey! Those Kardashians sure are entertaining! The value!! It's amazing!
Screw those MSF doctors working for less than minimum wage, those idiots just don't understand the value of profitable work.

Fuuuuuucking hell.

I agree, that notion is nonsensical, but it isn't what we're debating. We're debating the economic value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)

Actually, it started as talking about people contributing value to society. I believe *you* decided to define that value monetarily.

We are talking about UBI, right? And does this involve economics? Or some other subjective "value"? Because I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first one to introduce economics into this debate.

[ender]

Eliminating those jobs would be wonderful! But it doesn't mean the end of jobs. Let's use an example. A couple hundred years ago the Luddites were worried about jobs. I wouldn't blame them. But what happened in the intervening 200 years of technological advancements? Did the jobs run out? No! Entire fields of industry sprang up that didn't or barely existed in those days. The entire medical field, which is a huge chunk of the economy, came into being from the ancient bloodletters. Science, which came from some simple but profound observations. Engineering, which applied the advances in science toward the elimination of work. Industry, which applied those advances toward the production of goods. The list goes on. What makes you think that suddenly we've reached the point where a significant proportion of human labor has lost its value?

What is your explanation for why the number of people participating in the workforce has gone down significantly over the last 50 years across all education?

[FIPurpose]

I work as a software engineer.

I make a lot of money because what I do requires a very high level of intelligence, analytical skill, and abstract thinking.  A lot of jobs like this are frankly not options for most of population purely through their circumstance.


I fundamentally believe our economy is going to change in such a way where people not possessing those traits will find it increasingly difficult to find jobs, let alone sustain themselves economically. I believe this because I have seen the impact that automation causes and I have also seen the lack of replacement jobs for people in this demographic (low skilled labor).

I'm a software engineer as well. I think it's telling that software engineers are the biggest proponents of UBI like plans. While I don't think the industry will move as fast as some seem to think it will (silly flying cars etc.) We have inside knowledge as to what is truly possible in the next 10 years.

A team of 300 engineers set on an easier problem over 10 years can easily wipe out 30-300k jobs. Now imagine an engineer can do that 4 times in his life. A highly skilled software engineer can automate out 120-1200 jobs in his lifetime.

In the next decade I think we'll see the automation of:
20-40% banking jobs. (basic scripts/ crypto tech)
60-80% of trucking (Truck automation)
50% Agriculture (robot pickers)
10% military (only this low, cause I don't think the politics are there)

I think this is what we'll see in the next 10-15 years. And honestly most engineers I know agree. It's ironically the people who are destroying jobs the fastest that are often the biggest proponents.

Eliminating those jobs would be wonderful! But it doesn't mean the end of jobs. Let's use an example. A couple hundred years ago the Luddites were worried about jobs. I wouldn't blame them. But what happened in the intervening 200 years of technological advancements? Did the jobs run out? No! Entire fields of industry sprang up that didn't or barely existed in those days. The entire medical field, which is a huge chunk of the economy, came into being from the ancient bloodletters. Science, which came from some simple but profound observations. Engineering, which applied the advances in science toward the elimination of work. Industry, which applied those advances toward the production of goods. The list goes on. What makes you think that suddenly we've reached the point where a significant proportion of human labor has lost its value?

A major difference you're ignoring though is that the rate of change is very different. What took 100 years to displace is only going to take 20 years. And even then you still see large number of people leaving the working sector.

While new jobs and industries will crop up, there is no way that new industries will come up at the same rate going forward.

We need people working in the green economy for energy production but not nearly in the numbers we're going to displace, but no there is no promise of "new industries" coming up. That's magical thinking. It's magical thinking to say that just because once upon a time new industries replaced old ones doesn't mean diddly squat here. It's the same magical thinking that climate change deniers use. That because we've been moving on hunky dory so far, that that means everything will be exactly as it was.

And you keep citing Luddites. People who were being displaced too quickly so they started destroying machines. That example works against your point, so I don't know why you keep bringing it up.

[Davnasty]

I've been reading along and I was under the impression we were talking about overall societal value. With multiple conversations overlapping it's hard to say for sure.

I will agree that there are a lot of bullshit jobs in modern society. But I don't believe there are quite as many as you seem to believe.

As much as you may want to believe it, primary care givers do not provide greater societal benefit than investment bankers (let's just say I'm calling bullshit). Yes, the primary caregiver may have a more immediate view of their contributions, but investment bankers serve to move money around to where it is needed most, thus allowing the economy to function smoothly. A lot of us in the FIRE community depend greatly on their contributions to keep the economy humming. And yes, the drudgery involved in banking is partly responsible for the additional income.

Regardless, what should we be discussing? If we're debating the merits and efficacy of UBI, shouldn't all societal value be taken into account?

[Boofinator]

Eliminating those jobs would be wonderful! But it doesn't mean the end of jobs. Let's use an example. A couple hundred years ago the Luddites were worried about jobs. I wouldn't blame them. But what happened in the intervening 200 years of technological advancements? Did the jobs run out? No! Entire fields of industry sprang up that didn't or barely existed in those days. The entire medical field, which is a huge chunk of the economy, came into being from the ancient bloodletters. Science, which came from some simple but profound observations. Engineering, which applied the advances in science toward the elimination of work. Industry, which applied those advances toward the production of goods. The list goes on. What makes you think that suddenly we've reached the point where a significant proportion of human labor has lost its value?

What is your explanation for why the number of people participating in the workforce has gone down significantly over the last 50 years across all education?

I haven't studied this at all, so I'll just throw out a couple of conjectures:

1) The decrease in workforce participation for the lower education levels might be partly due to there being less people in those levels to begin with (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2900934/) and the bigger "need" to have a high school diploma for a good-paying job. So the people who don't graduate h.s. today might be a lower caliber than those that didn't graduate in the past, resulting in the lower participation rate.

2) The lower participation at the higher levels might have part to do with higher affluence (Mustachians who FIRE fit this bill) or an increasing desire to have a stay-at-home parent (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/beyond-bls/stay-at-home-mothers-through-the-years.htm). (The latter of course is also a sign of affluence.)

Like I said, pure conjecture....

[Boofinator]

I've been reading along and I was under the impression we were talking about overall societal value. With multiple conversations overlapping it's hard to say for sure.

I will agree that there are a lot of bullshit jobs in modern society. But I don't believe there are quite as many as you seem to believe.

As much as you may want to believe it, primary care givers do not provide greater societal benefit than investment bankers (let's just say I'm calling bullshit). Yes, the primary caregiver may have a more immediate view of their contributions, but investment bankers serve to move money around to where it is needed most, thus allowing the economy to function smoothly. A lot of us in the FIRE community depend greatly on their contributions to keep the economy humming. And yes, the drudgery involved in banking is partly responsible for the additional income.

Regardless, what should we be discussing? If we're debating the merits and efficacy of UBI, shouldn't all societal value be taken into account?

There has been some bouncing back-and-forth between societal and economic benefit, some of which is my fault. Yes, when it comes to UBI we should consider both economic and societal value.

[JLee]

And we're ignoring the main driver of wealth on this forum -- Owning Investments/Capital.

Owning stocks is not a meaningful contribution to society. You don't really have any input to the companies. When you die, your capital will just be passed on to either grow or be consumed by someone else.

So what is the meaningful contribution that inheritances provide society? It's just handing money off to someone who didn't contribute to society for it.

What would UBI represent? An inheritance that we as a country all pass on collectively for having built up our collective investments for centuries.

So anyone against UBI here, I hope is also for 100% estate tax.

I disagree with the bolded part. Owning stocks allocates capital to more productive uses than spending it as a consumer sukka. Granted, a lot of that capital is allocated toward getting consumer sukkas to spend more, but not all of it.

I don't want to get into inheritance at the moment so I'll save it for some future thread.

Yet you feel providing UBI to people (with which they can buy food, etc) is a waste because they are not being productive enough?

I feel that one could translate your interpretation of "productive" as "providing economic benefit to make the rich get richer."  This is exemplified by your claim that a primary caregiver does not give a greater societal benefit than an investment banker.  Investment bankers could disappear off the face of the earth and a lot of money would vanish.  Primary caregivers could disappear off the face of the earth and a lot of people would die.

[Boofinator]

A major difference you're ignoring though is that the rate of change is very different. What took 100 years to displace is only going to take 20 years. And even then you still see large number of people leaving the working sector.

While new jobs and industries will crop up, there is no way that new industries will come up at the same rate going forward.

We need people working in the green economy for energy production but not nearly in the numbers we're going to displace, but no there is no promise of "new industries" coming up. That's magical thinking. It's magical thinking to say that just because once upon a time new industries replaced old ones doesn't mean diddly squat here. It's the same magical thinking that climate change deniers use. That because we've been moving on hunky dory so far, that that means everything will be exactly as it was.

And you keep citing Luddites. People who were being displaced too quickly so they started destroying machines. That example works against your point, so I don't know why you keep bringing it up.

I'd say it's magical thinking to say that new jobs won't be available, all evidence in the past being contrary to your assertion (with a similar rate of job destruction occurring over the last 30 years). Yes, there will be transitional pains, as there have always been.

[Boofinator]

And we're ignoring the main driver of wealth on this forum -- Owning Investments/Capital.

Owning stocks is not a meaningful contribution to society. You don't really have any input to the companies. When you die, your capital will just be passed on to either grow or be consumed by someone else.

So what is the meaningful contribution that inheritances provide society? It's just handing money off to someone who didn't contribute to society for it.

What would UBI represent? An inheritance that we as a country all pass on collectively for having built up our collective investments for centuries.

So anyone against UBI here, I hope is also for 100% estate tax.

I disagree with the bolded part. Owning stocks allocates capital to more productive uses than spending it as a consumer sukka. Granted, a lot of that capital is allocated toward getting consumer sukkas to spend more, but not all of it.

I don't want to get into inheritance at the moment so I'll save it for some future thread.

Yet you feel providing UBI to people (with which they can buy food, etc) is a waste because they are not being productive enough?

I feel that one could translate your interpretation of "productive" as "providing economic benefit to make the rich get richer."  This is exemplified by your claim that a primary caregiver does not give a greater societal benefit than an investment banker.  Investment bankers could disappear off the face of the earth and a lot of money would vanish.  Primary caregivers could disappear off the face of the earth and a lot of people would die.

The fallacy in your example is that there are a lot more primary caregivers than investment bankers. So if caregivers disappeared as an entire class, than yes, I agree, it would be a massive loss to society. But if there was a one-to-one loss, investment bankers would cause a larger economic disruption.

I feel that UBI provides perverse incentives not to work for those who don't know the value of work to begin with. It has nothing to do with the rich, because we are all fucking rich this day-and-age. It has to do with not having to earn anything in your lifetime.

[JLee]

And we're ignoring the main driver of wealth on this forum -- Owning Investments/Capital.

Owning stocks is not a meaningful contribution to society. You don't really have any input to the companies. When you die, your capital will just be passed on to either grow or be consumed by someone else.

So what is the meaningful contribution that inheritances provide society? It's just handing money off to someone who didn't contribute to society for it.

What would UBI represent? An inheritance that we as a country all pass on collectively for having built up our collective investments for centuries.

So anyone against UBI here, I hope is also for 100% estate tax.

I disagree with the bolded part. Owning stocks allocates capital to more productive uses than spending it as a consumer sukka. Granted, a lot of that capital is allocated toward getting consumer sukkas to spend more, but not all of it.

I don't want to get into inheritance at the moment so I'll save it for some future thread.

Yet you feel providing UBI to people (with which they can buy food, etc) is a waste because they are not being productive enough?

I feel that one could translate your interpretation of "productive" as "providing economic benefit to make the rich get richer."  This is exemplified by your claim that a primary caregiver does not give a greater societal benefit than an investment banker.  Investment bankers could disappear off the face of the earth and a lot of money would vanish.  Primary caregivers could disappear off the face of the earth and a lot of people would die.

The fallacy in your example is that there are a lot more primary caregivers than investment bankers. So if caregivers disappeared as an entire class, than yes, I agree, it would be a massive loss to society. But if there was a one-to-one loss, investment bankers would cause a larger economic disruption.

I feel that UBI provides perverse incentives not to work for those who don't know the value of work to begin with. It has nothing to do with the rich, because we are all fucking rich this day-and-age. It has to do with not having to earn anything in your lifetime.

Seems a 100% inheritance tax would be fitting, then.

You're agreeing with me, btw. ;)

[maizefolk]

The evidence shouldn't be necessary when (in my opinion) it is self-evident.

Okay, then you've stated your opinion. It seems you haven't convinced anyone of it. So it would seem that your opinion that it is self-evident is, itself, falsified by the experiment you just conducted in this thread.

[Bloop Bloop]

As for the comment regarding "So you are okay with people dying of hunger or cold or illness? Because that is what this amounts to." No, I specifically have said everyone deserves food, warmth and basic shelter. My reference to a "living wage" was a wage which is said to provide full participation in social, civic and recreational/leisure pursuits.

To be clear: I think current welfare, which provides the essentials but not a living wage, is good. I think universal living wage (which is often defined as 60% of the median full-time income, thus nearly $40,000 a year) is incredibly inflationary and unjustified.

Well, obviously here is the misunderstood Christian heritage (who does not work should not eat) at fault. As someone coming from the Enlightement angle that has left that 2000 year old stuff behind, is living in modern high-productivity days and is working on the basis of inherent human rights, I of course include more than just not starving in "human dignity", as our Grundgesetz puts it.

40K is a number I cannot understand. You are talking about US dollar? Thats about 35K €, or more than the German average income, for similar costs.

$40k is the AUD figure. The nominal equivalent is $27,500 USD. The PPP equivalent is about $22,500 USD.

And although I commend your generosity, for me, I have gotten sick of paying reams and reams of income tax each year and I have no desire to support other people's lifestyles to an ever higher extent.

That's about $7,000 more than the current US minimum wage.  Which is another way UBI could save money, btw.  It could probably take the place of most labor laws.  If a UBI is paying for your basic needs then you can easily leave your job if your employer treats you poorly.  I think that removing the distortion that humanity's survival instinct causes in the market as well as the other distortions that we have created in the past by attempting to address it while insisting on applying moral judgements to the solution would make the market much more efficient and lead to better outcomes for most people.

I doubt that proponents of UBI would be okay with letting firms suddenly exploit low-skilled workers via a gig economy, which is exactly what would happen if your proposal were to take place. The only thing stopping it from happening already is the labor laws in place.

It's not people's survival instincts keeping them in crap jobs. It's their lack of ability to do anything better, and the existing competition from poor overseas workers to whom work can be offshore.

[Bloop Bloop]

I don't like the suggestion of a UBI because I think it comes with perverse incentives which tend to increase the probability of such an event happening (in my opinion).

Could you please elaborate on these perverse incentives? I don't see them.

Just to make it clear in the open, people starving in the streets doesn't necessarily follow from a lack of money on their part (though that could be a contributing factor), it comes from a lack of productivity.

In the US, you use money to buy food. You can be productive to society in many ways (parenting is a good example, at least in the US) that does not lead to money. Pro bono legal work would be another example - to the extent that the law is at all productive (but going to prison is obviously the opposite of productive).

And we're ignoring the main driver of wealth on this forum -- Owning Investments/Capital.

Owning stocks is not a meaningful contribution to society. You don't really have any input to the companies. When you die, your capital will just be passed on to either grow or be consumed by someone else.

So what is the meaningful contribution that inheritances provide society? It's just handing money off to someone who didn't contribute to society for it.

What would UBI represent? An inheritance that we as a country all pass on collectively for having built up our collective investments for centuries.

So anyone against UBI here, I hope is also for 100% estate tax.

I'm 100% for an estate tax. I would much rather tax inherited wealth than earned wealth. If I had my way, any social welfare/UBI would be funded by estate taxes and we could drop income taxes a lot so as to punish earners less.

I think life is like a game - if you're good at it, you get points in the here-and-now; but I think it's silly for those points to carry over to whoever else plays after you. They should have to start over from the beginning.

[WhiteTrashCash]

I already get a universal basic income. It's small right now but growing all the time. I get it because I took a percentage of my income and purchased shares of index funds from Vanguard. Now I get a piece of the profits from every company in America. Maybe we should encourage more people to get a universal basic income.

[shenlong55]

As for the comment regarding "So you are okay with people dying of hunger or cold or illness? Because that is what this amounts to." No, I specifically have said everyone deserves food, warmth and basic shelter. My reference to a "living wage" was a wage which is said to provide full participation in social, civic and recreational/leisure pursuits.

To be clear: I think current welfare, which provides the essentials but not a living wage, is good. I think universal living wage (which is often defined as 60% of the median full-time income, thus nearly $40,000 a year) is incredibly inflationary and unjustified.

Well, obviously here is the misunderstood Christian heritage (who does not work should not eat) at fault. As someone coming from the Enlightement angle that has left that 2000 year old stuff behind, is living in modern high-productivity days and is working on the basis of inherent human rights, I of course include more than just not starving in "human dignity", as our Grundgesetz puts it.

40K is a number I cannot understand. You are talking about US dollar? Thats about 35K €, or more than the German average income, for similar costs.

$40k is the AUD figure. The nominal equivalent is $27,500 USD. The PPP equivalent is about $22,500 USD.

And although I commend your generosity, for me, I have gotten sick of paying reams and reams of income tax each year and I have no desire to support other people's lifestyles to an ever higher extent.

That's about $7,000 more than the current US minimum wage.  Which is another way UBI could save money, btw.  It could probably take the place of most labor laws.  If a UBI is paying for your basic needs then you can easily leave your job if your employer treats you poorly.  I think that removing the distortion that humanity's survival instinct causes in the market as well as the other distortions that we have created in the past by attempting to address it while insisting on applying moral judgements to the solution would make the market much more efficient and lead to better outcomes for most people.

I doubt that proponents of UBI would be okay with letting firms suddenly exploit low-skilled workers via a gig economy, which is exactly what would happen if your proposal were to take place. The only thing stopping it from happening already is the labor laws in place.

It's not people's survival instincts keeping them in crap jobs. It's their lack of ability to do anything better, and the existing competition from poor overseas workers to whom work can be offshore.

You misunderstand me.  I'm not saying that people would be okay with employers exploiting workers, I'm saying that companies wouldn't exploit workers because those workers would just leave and the business would fail.  Stop trying to force people to be good employers and just let the damn market sort it out already.

ETA: I also think that employers would be able to pay much less while not being exploitative (since the UBI covers basic living expenses) and their employee's would likely perceive the lower pay as more beneficial since people tend to value discretionary income more than income that is needed to go toward necessitates.

[Bloop Bloop]

That may indeed be the case one day, but I don't see it happening any time soon. Additionally, the creativity of the human spirit will always be thinking of new work to be done that hasn't yet been solved by the use of robots. Unless we eventually invent a wish machine.

What industries in the last 20 years has flourished because of a surplus of unskilled labor?

And for what it's worth, the only reason most minimum wage jobs exist is because labor is so cheap. Many/most of them can be trivially automated at this point if it was financially meaningful to do.

A hundred years ago machines displaced farm workers, who moved to factory jobs in cities. More recently automation displaced factory workers who went into services. Automation threatens many workers in services, but now there is nowhere to turn to for employment. The water is rising, and we climb the hill, but we reach the top of the hill but the water is still rising.

Almost all the children who used to grow up to be field hands also had the right intelligence/aptitude/skills to learn to be factory workers instead.
A majority of the children who used to grow up to be factory workers also had the right intelligence/aptitude/skills to learn to work in an office (or school).
Many of the children who used to grow up to work in an office (or school) also had the right intelligence/aptitude/skills to learn to program computers or become engineers.
Some of the children who used to grow up to be computer programmers and engineers also had the right intelligence/aptitude/skills to design and build robots and train neural networks and other machine learning algorithms to do work that used to be done by humans.

I don't worry about running out of work to be done so much as the new work that is still being created moving beyond the capacity of lots of us (myself very VERY much included) to contribute to.

^ this is why I fundamentally think much of the "no issue, people will continue to find jobs" perspective is naive at best.

I agree that it's harder for low-skilled workers to find a job that pays a decent wage. I disagree that this is something I should care about. These workers can work for minimum wage jobs or do poorly paid roles within a gig economy. There should be enough welfare to prevent them from starving or lacking shelter or causing social unrest but otherwise it's a matter for them to sort out themselves.

[ender]

I'd say it's magical thinking to say that new jobs won't be available, all evidence in the past being contrary to your assertion (with a similar rate of job destruction occurring over the last 30 years). Yes, there will be transitional pains, as there have always been.

I don't understand how you can say "all evidence is to the contrary" (paraphrased slightly) when participating by percentage in the labor force is clearly reduced now compared to 50 years ago (just look at the graphic).

[PDXTabs]

I don't understand how you can say "all evidence is to the contrary" (paraphrased slightly) when participating by percentage in the labor force is clearly reduced now compared to 50 years ago (just look at the graphic).

I would add that labor force participation by men with a high school diploma has decreased from 89% in 1970 to 69% in 2017, and their real wages have gone down. I figure when that figure gets to 50% things will get real ugly real fast.

https://www.axios.com/young-men-education-workforce-labor-blue-collar-pink-collar-8a9f03a1-9023-4f84-aadc-636c3e3c4dc0.html

[maizefolk]

I don't understand how you can say "all evidence is to the contrary" (paraphrased slightly) when participating by percentage in the labor force is clearly reduced now compared to 50 years ago (just look at the graphic).

I would add that labor force participation by men with a high school diploma has decreased from 89% in 1970 to 69% in 2017, and their real wages have gone down. I figure when that figure gets to 50% things will get real ugly real fast.

https://www.axios.com/young-men-education-workforce-labor-blue-collar-pink-collar-8a9f03a1-9023-4f84-aadc-636c3e3c4dc0.html

It is also worth noting just how big a chunk of the population we're talking about here.

41% of American men's highest educational attainment is a high school diploma or less. If you include people who attended at least one college class, but didn't end up with at least a 2 year or 4 year degree, it grows to 60% of the adult population.

(For women the numbers are slightly better. 56% some college-but-no-degree or less, 38% high school diploma or less.)

[Bloop Bloop]

I don't understand how you can say "all evidence is to the contrary" (paraphrased slightly) when participating by percentage in the labor force is clearly reduced now compared to 50 years ago (just look at the graphic).

I would add that labor force participation by men with a high school diploma has decreased from 89% in 1970 to 69% in 2017, and their real wages have gone down. I figure when that figure gets to 50% things will get real ugly real fast.

https://www.axios.com/young-men-education-workforce-labor-blue-collar-pink-collar-8a9f03a1-9023-4f84-aadc-636c3e3c4dc0.html

Is it not possible to give them some meaningful but poorly paid work to keep them happy - maybe maintaining the machines? Throw in some free sporting tickets and casino vouchers from time to time.

[middo]

I don't understand how you can say "all evidence is to the contrary" (paraphrased slightly) when participating by percentage in the labor force is clearly reduced now compared to 50 years ago (just look at the graphic).

I would add that labor force participation by men with a high school diploma has decreased from 89% in 1970 to 69% in 2017, and their real wages have gone down. I figure when that figure gets to 50% things will get real ugly real fast.

https://www.axios.com/young-men-education-workforce-labor-blue-collar-pink-collar-8a9f03a1-9023-4f84-aadc-636c3e3c4dc0.html

Is it not possible to give them some meaningful but poorly paid work to keep them happy - maybe maintaining the machines? Throw in some free sporting tickets and casino vouchers from time to time.

Aren't these the people that hand make our coffee even though we could get a more reliable one made by a machine?  We still want something done by others for us as it makes us feel special.

[Kyle Schuant]

The person I was responding to was saying that you could have a UBI without raising taxes. My point was that any semi-meaningful UBI would require a significant increase in taxes.

You need to scroll back and read my other post; the actual welfare budget divided by adult registered voters is about $12k. Not all adults, but all those entitled to vote, ie all adult citizens except those serving 2+ years in prison; I don't think anyone would propose a UBI to be given to non-citizens, international students, etc.

$12k is the current unemployment benefit. I'm open to argument it's not enough to live on, but then we definitely need to raise taxes to raise the benefit, and you just said you didn't want to raise taxes.

You could restrict people like me from getting the UBI. But then you need a system that determines who is and is not eligible for the UBI. You could use the current tax system. But there would have to be a lot of bureaucracy connected to processing tax returns and challenges to the UBI system. And of course, it wouldn't be universal any more.

I don't see why it'd take more work than the ATO already does. The UBI would simply be part of your income, whether you earn $12k working at Baker's Delight or are simply given $12k by the government should make no difference.

I think we're already living in a dystopian WALL-E world where everyone is stuck to their phone but lots of people lack housing, health care, and healthy food to eat.

There is some truth to that, more in some countries than others, though.

But I've yet to see anyone make a pragmatic argument that if you throw a large portion of the population out to starve in the streets that they'd do so quietly rather than tearing down our whole civilization if necessary to try to survive and feed their children.

Interestingly, this was essentially the argument first used to create a social welfare programme. And it came from Bismarck, an arch-conservative. He said something to the effect of: if we do not throw them a few crumbs from the table, they may seize the whole loaf. Unfortunately it is in the nature of elites to destroy themselves by forgetting fundamental truths like this.

[Bloop Bloop]

I would have no issues with a UBI at $12k per adult. That would seem like a fair amount. I've not seen a UBI proposal that is capped at that amount, but if it were, I'd be fine with it - presuming we got some efficiency benefits out of it such as reduced bureaucracy expenses.

[maizefolk]

I would have no issues with a UBI at $12k per adult. That would seem like a fair amount. I've not seen a UBI proposal that is capped at that amount, but if it were, I'd be fine with it - presuming we got some efficiency benefits out of it such as reduced bureaucracy expenses.

Isn't this whole thread the result of a presidential candidate proposing a UBI of $1,000/month ($12,000/year)?

[Kyle Schuant]

I would have no issues with a UBI at $12k per adult. That would seem like a fair amount. I've not seen a UBI proposal that is capped at that amount, but if it were, I'd be fine with it - presuming we got some efficiency benefits out of it such as reduced bureaucracy expenses.

Unfortunately, in Australia it won't happen. We like our bureaucracy here. As well, a significant and growing chunk of our current social welfare bill is going to the disabled.

A guy I know is a disability care worker, one of his clients has severe cerebral palsy and retardation; recently he got an $18,000 wheelchair (those who sit in it twisted all day need it specially fitted to them), and the NDIS budget for him - carers, physio, etc - is $380,000 annually. If he were limited to $12k - well, since he needs other people to do things for him, he'd die in his own filth of starvation. He's an extreme case but there are plenty of lesser examples which would cost far in excess of $12k to care for.

A UBI works well, I think, for those able to work anyway, even if their current work is unpaid. It breaks down once you look into those disabled by birth, injury, disease or old age.

To my mind, a UBI is like a flat income tax - it's appealing in its simplicity, but would be pretty harsh on some.

[Leisured]

What would UBI represent? An inheritance that we as a country all pass on collectively for having built up our collective investments for centuries.

Nice point, and is a version of something Thomas Paine (I think) said in the late eighteenth century when he advocated a UBI on the grounds that all Englishmen should share in the national birthright. The enormous capital investment since his day has given us a much larger birthright, and that birthright combined with automation makes a UBI attractive.

I have always regarded automation as an intelligence test for society. The long term point of automation is to allow people to retire and live like nobles. It now seems that many people regard automation as something to fear, and so fail the intelligence test.