i think there are lots of reasons to think that minimum incomes are preferable to wage subsidies perhaps the foremost of which is that the idea that every person shld be given X amount of money, where X is enough to feed and shelter and care for oneself is clearer and more appealing to more ppl than w/e labor-efficient econbro fixes you might suggest.
also i think wage subsidies/minimums dont fit as easily into ~the future of work~
― -san (Lamp), Friday, 29 January 2016 02:05 (eight years ago) link
my pt was technology + globalization are more impt for the trend of 'no more middle class jobs' than unions. showed that same thing happened in a lot of countries that didn't experience decline in unionship. I don't think unions are bad (as I said pretty early on) I just don't think they are good at explaining this particular trend. Unions could even be part of the solution, like the SEIU is trying to organize service workers, still a long way to go but that's potentially an amazing thing. I personally think wage subsidy + moderate min wage is a good way to put money in poor workers pockets in the short run
― flopson, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:07 (eight years ago) link
also programs that target purly the poor are a non starer and if they somehow do become a reality will forever be in danger of being eliminated where programs that are for all last forever, and while the wealthy will effectively be paying in more than they take (tho there are exceptions upper middle class kid take a year off to go abroud and so forth, dad is out of work for a year etc) out its still the case that ppl like getting a check in the mail
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:09 (eight years ago) link
my pt was technology + globalization are more impt for the trend of 'no more middle class jobs' than unions. showed that same thing happened in a lot of countries that didn't experience decline in unionship.
― flopson, Thursday, January 28, 2016 9:07 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
you did not show that these countries did not experience a decline in union membership, also like "more than" how much more than, what piece of the pie, what wld the difference be if unions werent purposely decimated, what if fast food workers had been unionized in the 1970s, how do these neo liber just so stories match up to leftbro alternate history
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:12 (eight years ago) link
if our government/society was at all interested in directing money towards unskilled workers you really think it cldnt have done so, average wealth in this country has gone nowhere but up, the money exists
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:14 (eight years ago) link
having no problem with a two tiered society as long as more boats are being raised than lowered is one of the core beliefs of neoliberalism
you didn't ask my belief and I didn't say it. I believe in progressive taxes and redistribution, that as society gets richer and more unequal we should funnel the money back down. That's the opposite of trickle down or neoliberal. the country I live in had a similar increase in pre-tax inequality (among the 99% which is what we're talking about) but we offset it with transfers. USA should do that too
― flopson, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:15 (eight years ago) link
(there was some census chart a couple weeks ago everyone was freaking out about showing that the share of workers in the middle class shrunk, but most of the shift was into jobs above middle class).
this certainly seems like its cld be p easily read as mocking those who were freaking out at the hollowing out of the middle class no
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:17 (eight years ago) link
is that but doing a lot of work
I don't think ubi would have the same popularity as social security. The people who pay into it would try to get it defunded
― flopson, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:18 (eight years ago) link
its not just social security literally every program that everyone has access to in the usa is untouchable medicare etc
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:19 (eight years ago) link
also necessarily the tax burden wld primarily fall upon high earners, especially when you consider that the majority of the country either doesnt work or doesnt make much money and then a good chunk of people getting soaked wld be for it too youd have more than the consistency to ensure its survival
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:23 (eight years ago) link
flopson dont you think that wage minimums and unionization are less effective in the face of globalization/automation? like how will those help protect app developers? uber drives? twitch streamers? with more 'work' being contract, freelance, semi-autonomous in nature isnt it better to just provide a baseline income to ppl?
― -san (Lamp), Friday, 29 January 2016 02:23 (eight years ago) link
dude you have totally used "that x is doing a lot of work" before gimme a break
― flopson, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:23 (eight years ago) link
i just thought it was a good avatar for yr overall bad passive aggressive condescending not bothering to explain what youre talking about tone
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:25 (eight years ago) link
ok I apologize I actually care about making this argument convincingly and non-condescendingly so I appreciate your constructive abuse. shit just got heated plus I just got an iPad and the text box is fn tiny and every time I hit Post it gives me the you=too slow page 18 times
― flopson, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:27 (eight years ago) link
ok im sorry too
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:28 (eight years ago) link
i still yr arguments are straight out of the encomiast tho
::screencaps this lame shit to eye-rolling rt::
― -san (Lamp), Friday, 29 January 2016 02:29 (eight years ago) link
online discourse is bad but its not my fault im going back to reading books
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:30 (eight years ago) link
so far work becoming freelance is a media narrative and not in the data (can't google but Larry mishel ran the numbers on this) and no one knows to what extent it will become more prevalent. there are pros and cons to it too, like working 9 to 5 is a drag it would be cool if future jobs were more choose your own hours (also we need to break down the 40 hour work week norm, it's fucked that every good job just presumes you wanna work full time) (also in the future more people will work from home or wherever they want, that's cool)
― flopson, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:40 (eight years ago) link
there are subtle but impt differences imo (economist is against taxing rich, thinks education can solve all problems) but idk, economists are the ppl whose job it is to study this stuff and I find most other people's attempts to think about it incoherent. you should read the paper that chart I pasted is from, "why are there still so many jobs" by David autor. It's a masterpiece imo
― flopson, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:50 (eight years ago) link
was he just looking at freelancers all categories of 'contingent workers' or w/e? my loose understanding was that temp/contract/part time employment was on the rise but i guess i could believe that isnt tru
i mean i do think from a human happiness pov having some dumb-ass regular job with dental that pays you enough to buy some cool stuff and feed yr kids that you go to for a bunch of years is probably pretty great overall but how much will firms need to employ ppl like that in the future seems like a good qn to me? i mean most corporate hr and marketing jobs are just welfare for the professional class, its not hard to imagine a future where firms no longer can/want to pay for those positions...
― -san (Lamp), Friday, 29 January 2016 02:52 (eight years ago) link
the being payed enough and your kids having dental part is good, I guess the qn is will the future jobs pay well and keep your kids teeth from falling out
― flopson, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:54 (eight years ago) link
I have always thought we should just replace all our teeth w/ fake teeth anyway, that way you never have to brush your teeth. I hope the ycombinator people are reading this.
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2016 02:56 (eight years ago) link
were already funding an app that will allow you to use yr phones camera to scan yr mouth and then send you a list of all needed fillings, crowns, &c as well as quotes from any tooth dr. in a 20 mile radius
― -san (Lamp), Friday, 29 January 2016 02:59 (eight years ago) link
working title is 'cavity search'
― -san (Lamp), Friday, 29 January 2016 03:00 (eight years ago) link
I think those economics papers that always go off historical evidence for why automation is nbd don't leave room for there being something different about current technological advances w/ machine learning etc. like I think there's a big difference between mechanizing routine factory work and automating every car in america (which could eventually, on its own, put something like 10% of the country out of a job).
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2016 03:11 (eight years ago) link
the move from an agrarian economy to an industrial one was so much far greater a disruption than anything weve seen since, which is not to say something bigger isnt coming who knows, but it hasnt happened yet
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 03:15 (eight years ago) link
one the great things abt basic income is its not tied to work fwiw its just for everybody
we have a program like this already called social security btw
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 03:16 (eight years ago) link
that ppl think they pay into and get money out of lol
but idk, economists are the ppl whose job it is to study this stuff and I find most other people's attempts to think about it incoherent. you should read the paper that chart I pasted is from, "why are there still so many jobs" by David autor. It's a masterpiece imo
― flopson, Thursday, January 28, 2016 9:50 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lol economics is so wildly ideological, you really think theres such a huge left/right divide because the economists studied stuff and came to different conclusions, which is not even getting into the ideology called economics itself
you keep saying you find ppl attempts to grapple with this stuff incoherent yet are unable to explain why which is pretty... incoherent
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 03:20 (eight years ago) link
btw i didnt say yr views are out of the economist because they are economics-y lol, i said it because they align neatly with the neoliberal thought therein as far as the causes of wealth inequality, which m/l boils down to globalism happens whatre u gonna do, when of course these people are the very architects of inequality or at least their spokespeople
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 03:23 (eight years ago) link
like the fact that u look at that chart and see that times r tough all over instead of wonder why the outcomes are so varied is somethin, i mean like no one is disputing a lot of previously well paid unskilled labor is now poorly paid unskilled labour elsewhere but how did governments etc react to that did they take opportunity to try to make new high paying unskilled jobs did they try to protect their workers, did they mastermind the whole situation in the first place embarking on a massive wealth transfer to the already rich or something else or nothing
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 03:32 (eight years ago) link
mostly our government responds by propping up the higher education racket and using public money to benefit private education "service providers" and management consultants to help manage the service providers and generally not giving one shit about actual labor or the people who do it
― service desk hardman (El Tomboto), Friday, 29 January 2016 15:35 (eight years ago) link
I think a huge thing that UBI could help is letting people have the cushion to get out of a career they hate and try doing something that actualizes them; I think most if not all of the incompetent hateful people we all encounter in office work are just stuck in a job that they need and can't find the time or cashflow to bootstrap into something that might be fulfilling. So many people come to work and make everybody around them miserable and less productive because they're paycheck-to-paycheck with no other options.
― service desk hardman (El Tomboto), Friday, 29 January 2016 16:43 (eight years ago) link
otm they shd be playing video games
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 16:47 (eight years ago) link
^^^ this is THE key thing about UBI for me. It would create some layabouts (possibly including me), but it would also kickstart so much innovation and risk-taking (possibly including me) it would stagger the planet.xp
― if thou gaz long into the coombs, the coombs will also gaz into thee (WilliamC), Friday, 29 January 2016 16:48 (eight years ago) link
jobs are literally bad, and a basic income would let a bunch of people not have to do jobs, vote basic income
― petulant dick master (silby), Friday, 29 January 2016 16:49 (eight years ago) link
i think jobs are good but so is freedom man
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 16:49 (eight years ago) link
If people didn't need to compete for the most terrible jobs possible, employers would have to actually offer something, not just offer not-nothing.
― If authoritarianism is Romania's ironing board, then (in orbit), Friday, 29 January 2016 16:55 (eight years ago) link
yup
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 16:58 (eight years ago) link
did someone summon me?
imo, which probably comes with its own package of biases, one of the problems with income disparity is career mobility. like flopson said, a number of jobs that existed in the middle class have been pulled upward by a tier of corporate management positions and the like, but few industries that have factory workers are promoting from within. some unions, especially in construction and mechanical trades, are good at ongoing training and determining career path, but there's a ceiling hit when all management is from the upper middle class and is hired directly into that level -- they were never union, they're making a parallel move from a college engineering degree into management
― μpright mammal (mh), Friday, 29 January 2016 17:55 (eight years ago) link
I also kind of wonder if there's some strong self-interest going on with techbros when it comes to basic income. There'd likely have to be an adjustment to the income based on geographic location, so an itinerant programmer settling in, say, the bay area would have to receive a larger basic income to make ends meet than someone in the midwest.
What happens to entry level wages or internships when there's a basic income? Would employers be able to actually cut the wages for the lowest-tier employees since the cost of living in some areas is consuming the majority of their salaries? like if I'm paying my new hires $100k (when they'd make half that in other parts of the country) only because rent is catastrophically high, would I be able to pay them $50k if there was a basic income if I screw around with the numbers?
― μpright mammal (mh), Friday, 29 January 2016 18:01 (eight years ago) link
who knows man wld be interesting to see and ultimately maybe no one wld care cause they know they cld always just go live in a yurt and play video games
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:02 (eight years ago) link
this is a long time coming. thomas paine: "A one-time stipend of 15 pounds sterling would be paid to each citizen upon attaining age 21, to give them a start in life."
― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, 29 January 2016 18:07 (eight years ago) link
nixon talked abt doing basic income
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:10 (eight years ago) link
tbh i'd probably go back to being a musician, something i enjoy but have never been able to balance against a full-time day job. i could live in a yurt too if that becomes compulsory
― ciderpress, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:12 (eight years ago) link
i love the tent life
― lag∞n, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:21 (eight years ago) link
i would probably have a long list of fun, ambitious projects that i would like to do and then either end up working all the time anyway at some dumb job or stream myself playing japanese srpgs for 14 hours a day
― -san (Lamp), Friday, 29 January 2016 18:31 (eight years ago) link