Kevin Marks
Reporting of the latest UBI test programme is ignoring the key finding, obvious to anyone who knows low income people, that their first impulse was to spread the wealth to others.
This thinking is so alien to economists and financial types that they barely discuss it. https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/key-findings-spending
Key Findings: Spending | Findings

Cash is flexible and allows people to spend on their unique needs.

OpenResearch
Jul 24, 2024 at 8:33amWeb
Show threadpaulwalkJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks good to see this presented clearly at least, I guess. And yes - funny (not funny) how they don’t know what to make of it!
Show threadVereeshJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks
I thought this was the whole point of UBI in the first place, to put more money back into the economy! Poor people spend money because of the many needs and wants they've been forced to defer. Rich people just hoard it. No wonder the greedy bastards can't imagine caring about the "needs and wants" of others. They don't feel pain from seeing other people suffering.
Show threadThreadbaneJul 24, 2024
@temporal_spider @KevinMarks
And giving rich people money doesn't create jobs, either, they just buy US bonds. If they need money to start a business, they borrow it or create an IPO, and when that doesn't work out, they just have the company declare bankruptcy and either the creditors or stockholders get screwed.
Show threadSannemenJul 25, 2024
@temporal_spider @KevinMarks which is also one of the reasons “housing and bills” and “food” increases are so low in the list: someone who happens to be in a situation of “strongly benefitting” from UBI programs are likely *already* putting their *current* budget towards a roof over their heads and food over their plate. Sure UBI will embetter it, but it also opens the door to non-essentials.
Show threadDavid Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Jul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks Hmm, it's almost as if the people who organise their life around the relentless pursuit of resource acquisition at all costs are not the people whose control over capital provides the greatest societal benefit.
Show threadSue is Walking the Earth 🌱Jul 25, 2024
@david_chisnall ding ding ding! #exactly @KevinMarks
Show threadPhilip KreißelJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks In absolute terms the effect is not that big. 20$ per month out of 1000$ is not that much.
Show threadL'égrégore André ꕭꕬJul 24, 2024
@pkreissel @KevinMarks 2% of your resources for the month going _directly_ to supporting someone else is a bit of cash when you're dirt poor.
Moving to a better place those twenty bucks could come in handy to inch up to another, slightly better place, maybe on the right side of the tracks, but this month you're giving them to your sister's kid so they can get new shoes instead, next month you're making sure grandpa can get his medicine, and so on.
Lot of small big impacts in those "few' bucks.
Show threadPhDog 🇮🇪Jul 25, 2024
That's why it should be many more than 1000 dollars a month.
@pkreissel @KevinMarks
Show threadJennifer Moore 😷Jul 24, 2024

@KevinMarks

Interesting! Not sure I'd seen that documented before.

Show threadJ.D.FitzRoy 🏳️‍🌈🦾🎮🪬🏴‍☠️Jul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks If they just analyzed money in our economy based upon velocity and taxed heavily the lowest velocity sources of money (hoarded uninvested savings), that alone would probably launch our economy into double digit growth.
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellJul 24, 2024

@owner @KevinMarks

Growth is kinda useless in a world where that dynamic is breaking the world. A tax system of demurrage doesn’t need growth to remain vibrant. Best of all, usury (interest) can be zero or negative because lending takes place in an environment of minimizing tax liability instead of profit. “liquidity preference” is given an expiration date.

Show threadJ.D.FitzRoy 🏳️‍🌈🦾🎮🪬🏴‍☠️Jul 24, 2024
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @KevinMarks Growth is taking on new meanings. I do think we need to move away from GPU-heavy operations, but in a sense, virtualization allows us to grow in terms of information and services without negatively impacting the physical world. Growth in terms of research and development as well. I know nothing about demurrage, would be interested to learn more about this.
Show threadTariqJul 24, 2024

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @owner @KevinMarks

I'm no expert.

Over 25 years I've regularly asked academic economists and other learned people "what is growth?".

I'm never convinced by the answer.

The best definition I can come up with is "the rate of depletion of natural resources".

Given the earth's resources are replenished at a finite rate (the sun), limitless growth cannot be desirable.

Show threadJ.D.FitzRoy 🏳️‍🌈🦾🎮🪬🏴‍☠️Jul 24, 2024

@rzeta0 @GhostOnTheHalfShell @KevinMarks We're thinking too earthbound. One asteroid has more iron than all of humankind has ever produced. Once we leave this place, scarcity won't even be a concept anymore, at least not in natural resources. The real scarcity we face is interest, information and useful effort.

Even energy has no scarcity. A near solar orbital panel covers its development cost within the first few months. Even without a dyson sphere, we can benefit from this.

Show threadFluffy Kitty CatJul 25, 2024
@owner @rzeta0 @GhostOnTheHalfShell @KevinMarks true, but you have to get the astroid first. This suggests heavy investment into spaceflight. A dyson sphere won't be built until after the year 2500 and who knows what economics will look like
Show threadSue is Walking the Earth 🌱Jul 25, 2024

@owner becoming space locusts really *really* isn't the answer (and also frames everything *still* in terms of resource extraction and not that we're part of a vibrant biosphere that we are quickly destroying)

@rzeta0 @GhostOnTheHalfShell @KevinMarks

Show threadViolet MadderJul 25, 2024

@owner @rzeta0 @GhostOnTheHalfShell @KevinMarks

Whenever there is no scarcity, some fucking capitalist predator comes along and does everything in their power to MAKE SOME.

Stop with the fantasies. At our currently accelerating rate of energy use, we'll boil the planet in about 400 years-- just from the damned waste heat! The arrogance of assuming we'll conveniently come up with a miracle solution at the last minute is hilarious, after the amount of environmental damage that's already been done, the "last" minutes that have already come and gone, the utterly irreplaceable loss of species, forests, clean soil and water, millions of lives, without ANY plan or effort for serious mitigation or repair.

If humans succeed in leaving earth with THIS mindset, and somehow don't blow ourselves up, we'd be a horrific SCOURGE to any world we reach.

Why aren't we talking about the scarcity of social resources??? How about the scarcity of foresight, compassion, accountability, justice, or care??

Show threadcyJul 25, 2024
I think you may be underestimating the harsh environment of space. Even if we could produce some kind of biodome capable of replenishing the air and food of some small crew, we already have that, it's called Planet Earth. Anything on a smaller scale would be more fragile and prone to failure. It's also really hard to hold onto an atmosphere, without a planet's gravity to keep it near. Even the perfect airtight material would have to deal with micrometeors and ionizing radiation.

And space is big, bigger than you could imagine. Simply getting to the nearest asteroid and transporting the iron back is an incredibly long journey. The lowest estimate I could find for distance to our solar system's asteroid belt is 180,000,000 miles, which is like travelling around the Earth 7,200 times.

Add to that the cost of getting out of the Earth's gravity well... maybe we should assume that this little blue dot is all we've got. We're not leaving any time soon.
Show threadPhDog 🇮🇪Jul 25, 2024
I was thinking the other day that a really good thing for the economy would be to set some.e threshold on wealth and income, tax anything over thay at 100%, take the money collected that way, divide it by the number of people in the country and just cut everyone a check.
@owner @KevinMarks
Show threadSemi Sentient AI Cooling WaterJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks Breaking News! Economists baffled by kindness & generosity.
Show threadThe Queen of Weltschmerz🏳️‍⚧️Jul 24, 2024
@sentient_water @KevinMarks @MOULE Economics is voodoo. The fundamental assumption is that humans are perfectly rational economic entities, to which I’d say- have you ever met humans? That assumption completely invalidates any conclusions, if you ask me.
Show threadSemi Sentient AI Cooling WaterJul 24, 2024
@rebelrebel62 @KevinMarks @MOULE Yeah I've met them. Confusing things, that's why I'm hanging with a cat rather than a prat right now.
Show threadLi ~ Crystal SystemJul 24, 2024
@rebelrebel62 @sentient_water @KevinMarks @MOULE it also assumes that screwing over everyone and doing things that are completely unsustainable is a 'rational' thing to do.
Show threadJanne MorenJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks
Rather odd that they include alimony payments. That's not optional giving or charity or support any more than making rent or paying school fees.
Show threadStephen CookJul 24, 2024
@jannem @KevinMarks
Alimony is supporting someone other than yourself, not paying for goods and services intended for your own benefit. I think that's why it's included in the category of supporting others, which is broader and more objective than altruism.
Show threadJanne MorenJul 24, 2024

@sccook @KevinMarks
It's also court ordered. It's more like paying back a loan to somebody than anything else.

All the other examples are voluntary, something you can choose to do or not. This is very different in that aspect.

Show threadStephen CookJul 24, 2024

@KevinMarks
Very interesting.

There is previous work by economists on generosity, going back at least to Richard Titmuss's book The Gift Relationship.

Mainstream economics assumes that Scrooge is normal, entirely missing the point that Dickens was making.

Show threadNiniJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks Problem is reporting it to people for whom poverty is more a concept than any lived experience, some are so removed from it that they consider it a lifestyle choice.
Show threadTeflonTrout  he/himJul 24, 2024

@KevinMarks Economics is literally vague guesses and generalizations. Making estimates is key to the process, just about the only hard science they've come up with is finding market equilibrium- which is just an average spot in the middle of supply and demand.

Not to throw too much shade, there are so many variables it'd take forever to account for them all, and we aren't talking about physicists here

Show threadJoe WoodJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks trickle up economics!
Show threadVirginicusJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks Musical accompaniment: “Danny’s All-Star Joint” by Rickie Lee Jones
Show threadStanley Black-DeckerJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks It makes sense, given that ordinary personal income for many adults does get used to support others (kids, spouse, parents, etc)
Show threadMulboxJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks it's call empathy, something "Haves" lacks of.
Show threadlateralus_kittyJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks people are very rarely poor alone. There is probably a lot of interpersonal pressure to share resources especially since that is likely how they've survived all this time (by resources being shared).
Show threadDenis BuckleyJul 24, 2024
@KevinMarks
Low income people also >spend< a big part of their grant on necessities, like food and rent. This pushes money into the economy from the bottom, where many transactions are taxed, and many participants earning their living thru' these transactions are also paying more taxes as their incomes rise due to 'bottom-up' prosperity flow.
Show threadCeceliaJul 24, 2024

@KevinMarks Seeing my experience reflected here is satisfying. How much more resilient we could be if we all had a better base of support!

@taralconley, this relates a bit to a conversation we had.

Show threadenoch_exe_incJul 24, 2024

@KevinMarks Capitalists getting tripped up by the very idea of redistribution? No way!

(/s)

Show threadScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈Jul 24, 2024

@KevinMarks

I was a low income person, for a good chunk of my life. That pent up desire to do more, to help others, to give to others - finally having the few extra dollars that let you do it is amazing.

Show threadcyJul 25, 2024
I'm surprised food and beverages is so low. Is it because most of their income was already being spent on food, and that wasn't counted as spending the UBI part? I'd think rent would be a huge expenditure, too.
Show threadKim ScheinbergJul 25, 2024

@KevinMarks
Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia For Realists and probably UBI's biggest advocate, thinks some of the criticisms are fair. He wrote elsewhere that the Vox writeup is fairly nuanced

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/361749/universal-basic-income-sam-altman-open-ai-study

Artificial intelligence isn’t a good argument for basic income

A major study backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman shows that cash could be a great tool against poverty. No need for fears of runaway AI.

Vox
Show threadThe Animal and the MachineJul 26, 2024

@KevinMarks @falcennial
Indeed. The poorest people know what a little money means. They know that £10 ‘spare’ to them is ‘children fed’ to their neighbour. They always pull together.

It tends not to be a gift of money directly. Either actual food or invited around to share a large shepherds pie or something.

Poverty is so avoidable and unnecessary, it bothers me greatly that it still exists in rich countries.

Show threadLeonard RitterAug 18, 2024

@KevinMarks big bar saying "other" like clearly their chosen categories *suck*.

the entire bar graph is a catastrophy.