Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dv_dt 3289 days ago
I'd agree with the suspicion that UBI alone is not sufficient to handle our future economy. Though I'm not sure you have the right breakdown with what might be needed beyond UBI.

I've been feeling that in order to really accelerate/maintain a future economy beyond our current stagnation, some improved capital circulation mechanism is needed to release huge accumulations of capital from essentially centralized controls. This could be accomplished via multiple methods on a spectrum of compulsory / voluntary scale. From proposed taxes on capital or enticements to apply capital in non-traditional/higher-risk paths. If you can cause mega-accumulations of capital to actually circulate, I think that there would basically be no problem for people looking for work to find it.
1 comments
Mz 3289 days ago
Though I'm not sure you have the right breakdown with what might be needed beyond UBI.

My comment was in no way intended to be comprehensive. A more comprehensive picture includes a need for universal basic health coverage and real solutions to the huge affordable housing crisis that has been going on for decades and only getting worse.

I write about my views on what I see as The Second Industrial Revolution and try to gather related posts here:

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/ir2.html

link
dv_dt 3289 days ago
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was. I'll give that link a read as it seems we're somewhat on the same page in this area.

With respect the the housing affordability crisis: One symptom of capital accumulation is that competes with regular people for housing. Capital accumulation hurts housing prices to the extent that parking capital in housing that is being used by no one, or being used to just own housing and provide landlord income with a low positive benefit to society. As long is it's cheaper to buy existing houses and rent them vs deploying that same capital to building houses and selling them we will have an affordable housing crisis. And that is just one aspect of stagnant capital accumulation.

link
Mz 3289 days ago
One of the problems is that average house size has more than doubled since the 1950s. Meanwhile, average number of people living in houses has shrunk, from about 3.5 to about 2.5, iirc. We also eliminated a lot of SROs and other housing well suited to single adults and childless couples. This occurred at a time when such housing wasn't really needed, but it was not brought back as demographics changed.
link