All of Yanling Guo's Comments + Replies

If definition was so important to me, I could argue with you what unconditional really means and if the unsupervised Uganda program falls under the definition of UBI even when it’s only granted to applicants with a valid proposal. But I give up, you win. And I don’t have to defend Britannica, because it’s so well established.

I don’t deny that many, maybe the majority, view UBI as unconditional. But to say ALL define UBI this way is a really strong statement, do you have any proof?

Here an example I found on Britannica:

Uganda’s UBI trial, the Youth Opportunities Program, enabled participants to invest in skills training as well as tools and materials, resulting in an increase of business assets by 57%, work hours by 17%, and earnings by 38%.

Christopher Blattman et al., “Generating Skilled Self-Employment in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from Uganda,” ssrn.com, Nov. 14, 2013

Link: https://www.britannica.com/procon/universal-basic-income-UBI-debate

It doesn’t make sense to argue about definitions. If you define UBI so, then so does UBI mean for you. I’m actively pushing for a redefinition of UBI, or reshaping the policy as I said, because I thinks it’s the right thing to do.

Did I reply in so perfect English that it sounded like corrected by ChatGPT? Cheer to my English, which has improved so much! 🥂

Thank you for the explanation.

By actively co-shaping UBI, businesses can make it more effective and efficient, by training the reserve workforce in the way needed by the economy, with more cost control. Of course, if businesses prefer to pay tax and let government do it, it’s also OK, can even be more efficient if businesses trust the expertise of the government. It’s analogous to when consumers buy from businesses, it’s always more efficient to have the specialized companies produce everything, but we also observe DIY projects and it’s good that they are ... (read more)

I’m personally responsible for every point in my post, not ChatGPT. While I can conceive some don’t like ChatGPT, I don’t understand what’s the purpose of human written comments if you use exactly the same phrases as Kennaway: “something ChatGPT might right”, etc.

I have genuine belief in what I published. This post is a call to the business to actively co-shape UBI instead of passively rejecting it. Whoever pays, has accordingly more say, like if Microsoft co-finances UBI, it can ask UBI recipients to learn its online courses and make certificates, so when... (read more)

Yes, I used ChatGPT to polish the English, it did a great job 👍 while I am of course myself responsible for every point in this post.

To your comments:

This post points out that it’s better for the business to actively co-shape UBI instead of passively rejecting it. For humanitarian reasons, it’s good to ensure the existential minimum for everyone, even those too old or too sick to learn or work. If this minimum is already covered by other governmental programs or philanthropic organizations, there’s no need to include it in UBI. If business co-shape UBI, t... (read more)

I haven’t logged in for three months, so I just read your comment. Sure economics can’t explain everything and cost-benefit analysis is not the only factor affecting popularity (though often the most relevant). Can you be more specific about what do you think makes the card so popular, even if it didn’t satisfy the cost-benefit criterion?

Yes, the special card I suggested is like food stamps (I guess with food stamps you can also choose between different foods and are not bound to a particular food) or Medicare (where you can also choose I guess), only the card idea is slightly more oriented to the supply side (a flat supply curve is the premise), while ultimately the consumers also benefit.

I guess in many aspects I‘m also a poor person, but I haven’t yet found the time to really think about it, because I really doubt if things would be any different if I would be a bit richer. I certainly ... (read more)

I fully agree with Radford, while all others also made some good points. My question is: why does UBI have to be paid out as dollar, and not e.g. in form of coupons for say, e-books? The cost for producing one more copy of ebook is almost zero, so you can even finance it by printing money and the price won’t go up, as the quantity varies with demand.

You could even do it on a larger scale: you give everyone a special card with certain amount which can only be used at vendors who agree to keep price constant. For instance, if strawberry sellers have plenty s... (read more)

Great post! Really. I used to be a picky reader and even if you show me the tweet of a Nobel laureate, I can immediately pick out a few points to criticize, which, of course, doesn’t mean that they aren’t way better than me in economics. A few tweets doesn’t say much about someone’s achievement, if you read my tweets, you can certainly find more to pick on. That you’ve achieved a lot in life, doesn’t even need to be mentioned by me, all know it.

Although I don’t agree with every point in this post, I quite like its philosophical touch, which possibly explai... (read more)