Brazilian here: A local tax expert pointed out that Sony is adding a huge profit margin on top of the taxes [1]. Sony has disclosed the tax figures to the media but not their profit margin, and trying to blame it only on taxes because they know the Brazilian consumer will believe.
Some suspect that Sony is importing at an even higher price than the retail US price. No one knows for sure, but clever US sellers were buying PS4 at full retail price, shipping to Brazil, paying all taxes, and still they were able to sell cheaper than the retail price of the Brazilian PS4.
If Sony produced PS4 in Brazil they would pay 6% taxes instead of the 40% protection tariff. Microsoft (actually Foxconn) is doing exactly that in Brazil and that's why the XBox One is actually cheaper than a PS4.
Sony simply did not want to incur the labor costs and risks associated with investing in the local tech industry. Nothing wrong with that (it's their decision), but they are not being truthful to the local consumer.
> Sony simply did not want to incur the labor costs and risks associated with investing in the local tech industry. Nothing wrong with that (it's their decision), but they are not being truthful to the local consumer.
You can't expect them to set up a factory in every single geopolitical location that imposes these rules.
Actually the data is available. The city of Newark for example has implemented several small-scale social innovations during the past few years, and they focused very much on data gathering and statistics. We don't see that in the media because it does not fit their narrative, and it does not fare well for opinion-makers to stand-up for that either. But the data is out there
Google "Cory Booker". He is a politician, so any link I include here will create controversy, but his model was to implement small-scale experiments, collect data, and use that data to gather additional funding from external sources.
> I believe that if you remove the incentive to work to survive, vast swaths of people will simply choose not to do anything
Three-quarters of adult recipients of the Brazilian basic income system do work [1].
Like the parent commenter said, "without solid evidence, statements like that are little more than expressions of ideological preference, both on the left and on the right."
Three quarters work, and one quarter do not. What's the unemployment rate in the USA now? If you include those who've 'given up' looking for work or whatever, I think it's around 12%. Yeah, let's fork out a couple of trillion dollars a year and double that.
If you want to do this, you need the data which proves that it can work in the USA.
This entire "lazy" argument misses the biggest point: your definition of "work" is worthless. Someone reading interesting books and having meaningful discussions with friends and being there for their families and loved ones… people healthy and happy enough add good to the world without doing bullshit labor. A huge portion of "work" today has no need to be done at all.
Your argument amounts to: But, with a guaranteed income, people might refuse to do wage labor and would just live in the world going about their day following their interests instead of mindlessly processing meaningless bureaucratic forms in some office!
Indeed they might! There's a lot of work happening that need not happen. There's a TON of value coming from things you do not call "work." And your suggestion that having health and food and shelter should be dependent upon doing some miserable useless "work" is fundamentally corrupt perspective.
My definition of work is most certainly NOT worthless! "Work" is what produces the interesting books, the couches they sit on, the lights and heat which keep them warm, the houses, and everything else they depend on, ad infinitum.
If less people work, there are less things being produced, period. If less things are being produced, there are less things to go around. If there are less things to go around, we are ALL less wealthy.
Is this decrease in wealth trumped by the increase in mental, emotional, and physical health which would supposedly occur under a basic income economy?
I don't know, and neither do you. It would, however, be relatively trivial to do some experiments, gather the data, and analyze that data.
It would certainly be preferable to do this than to dive headlong into a basic income scheme, only to find out that your posterior-derived claims are entirely false.
This seems like a case of "Is the cup half full or half empty?"
In any case, methinks your obsession with unemployment rate is one of the things that we must seriously reconsider if we really want to be objective about the merits (or lack thereof) of basic income (BI).
Let's get a bit philosophical here. One of the fundamental premises of BI is that it's OK for a substantial portion of a future society not to do anything that is traditionally considered "work". And one of the reasons we need to experiment with BI is to see whether or not this seemingly outrageous premise turns out to be correct after all.
Including the unemployment rate in your definition of "it can work in the U.S." is inherently biased against BI because it already assumes the opposite of one of the premises of BI. It's like trying to decide between theism and atheism using the Bible as your measuring stick. Regardless of what conclusion you draw at the end of the day, that competition ain't fair.
In order to make a fair decision, we'll need to go a little meta and ask, for example, about the total productivity of the society, the physical and mental well-being of its citizens, or something like that.
In any given economic system at any given time, there is a finite level of wealth to be shared by everyone participating in that system. (note: by 'wealth,' I mean things, not currency.) When people work, they produce things (and services), and this increases the total level of wealth within that system. When they do not work, they do not produce things, but they are still consuming things. Thus, people who do not work yet still consume in a given system reduces the overall level of wealth within that system, which reduces the level of wealth that everyone within that system can enjoy.
Thus, from a wealth standpoint, a system with less unemployment is preferable to one with more.
Proponents of basic income usually claim that when people are freed from the drudgery of working a normal job, they will be free to be creative, to take risks, to start businesses, and that this new productivity will compensate for the loss of productivity in the traditional system.
But that's all that is: a claim. It's completely worthless without some kind of data backing it up. It's akin to a preacher saying that God exists because he said that God exists. It simply has no merit.
So would the loss of productivity be compensated for by the increase in physical and mental well-being? I have no clue, nor do you, nor does anyone, because we lack data.
There is plenty of "work" that happens outside of the labor market. Some days I pay a babysitter to take care of my daughter; other days my wife has off instead and does the same job.
Once, my battery died and a paid a tow truck for a jumpstart. Another time, I was able to call a friend to get a jump instead. Both times the same service was provided.
The last time I moved, I paid movers to haul boxes. The time before that, my brother and I did the work.
Money in exchange for labor isn't the only way useful work gets done and counted. Some things will still get done even when people aren't paid to do them.
Do you consider advertising to be work? As in, people who work for Pepsi or Coke, convincing consumers to purchase their brand of sugary water over their competitors'. Is that producing wealth? Is society as a whole enjoying a higher level of wealth as a result of their work?
Or would our collective wealth (more broadly defined) be higher if those same people were creating works of art with their skills?
If you did a quick Google on the real unemployment rate you would see estimates on the unemployment rate of 11% to 30%.
But that figure from Brazil is not the same as the unemployment rate so stop comparing apples and oranges. The figure from Brazil is going to include people on disability and old age pensions, etc.
> Three quarters work, and one quarter do not. What's the unemployment rate in the USA now? If you include those who've 'given up' looking for work or whatever, I think it's around 12%. Yeah, let's fork out a couple of trillion dollars a year and double that.
Not everybody is on the Brazilian system, only people below a certain income level. According to http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2011.pdf the employment level among those in poverty is something like 10%. Obviously you can't directly compare that to the Brazilian system without knowing more about how the US vs. Brazil define poverty, but it's obviously wrong to assume that all income levels are employed at the same rate.
What about those who are in school? or retired? or home-makers?
Edited to add:
Per the CIA World Factbook, our workforce is 155 million, including the unemployed. Our population is 316 million, of which about 20% are under 14, and less than 35% are under 25. If we assume everyone under 25 is too young to work (which is crazy, but will give conservative numbers here) then we have 100% * (1 - 155/(316 * .65)) = 24.5% adults who aren't working or seeking work, which is right about the 25% in Brazil. If we assume everyone above 14 should be working (obviously overly aggressive, but for reference) we get 100% * (1 - 155/(316 * .8)) = 38.6%.
I think your math might be a little off. The idea isn't to give basic income to everyone. The idea would be basically give it to anyone who can't afford basic living expenses. Not to everyone. It's not 25% of the entire population that isn't working, but only 25% of the poorest people being provided income and who probably weren't working anyways
What is the problem in calling public people for what they really are? Vikram Pandit is overpaid [1], John Sculley was clearly unfit for the position, and although Tim Cook is talented as a supply chain expert, he is not the visionary that Steve Jobs was.
Also, while Tim Cook is not quite the visionary that Steve Jobs is, Apple's supply chain and ability to exert quality and pricing pressure over suppliers is a huge competitive advantage, and arguably one that keeps their profits so far above other hardware manufacturers.
There are plenty of companies with awesome vision that fail because they can't execute the way Apple can.
When Steve Jobs accepted the job as a interim-CEO to clean-up Sculley's mistakes, back when Apple was almost bankrupt, he accepted the $1 salary on the expectation that he would be paid only if Apple would perform well. That's how much faith and commitment he had in Apple succeeding, and that was before the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad...
Compare Steve Jobs attitude with Pandit's, who announced he would "reduce" his salary to $1 in 2009, only after the $25b in govt bail-out. On that same year, he was compensated "just a few million dollars" (as opposed to $38m in 2008), plus $165m for his hedge fund. [1]
First, including the $165M from the sale of a hedge fund in his CEO compensation is misleading. He received this for a completely different reason than his tenure as CEO.
Second, if you are going to include Pandit's full compensation, you need to include the millions of Apple shares that Steve Jobs received for his tenure as Chairman of the Board at Apple:
My statement "on the expectation that he would be paid only if Apple would perform well" meant "paid in bonuses", which includes the shares and perks. Also, I never stated that Jobs made less than Pandit -- You said first: We are not arguing about compensation here.
Point being: Jobs accepted a new position and would earn money only if he would deliver. Pandit in the other hand would make money regardless what was the outcome, staying on the position he was before. He screwed it up, got bail-out by the government, reduced his salary to $1 as a mea-culpa, then made a bunch of money and left. Is this what a good CEO would do?
To say that Pandit, who became CEO in December 2007, somehow screwed up Citibank, reflects a misunderstanding of the history of the crisis.
The CDO and MBS markets had been in place for a decade, and were already cratering when Pandit was brought on, and in fact he was brought in to replace the previous CEO following "unexpectedly poor Q3 performance."
Pandit took a reduced salary in 2009 following the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in fall 2008, which eventually led to the creation of TARP funding. His compensation was only brought back after 2 years and 5 consecutive quarters of profitability.
>>and although Tim Cook is talented as a supply chain expert, he is not the visionary that Steve Jobs was.
There are very few people in the entire world who can be compared to Steve Jobs in this regard. In America, there is only one such person and he is busy running an electric car company and a space rocket company simultaneously.
So yeah, the fact that Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs v2.0 should not be surprising. He was never meant to be. What matters is that he is exceptional in other ways and Apple has benefited from his talents tremendously.
Not at all, why would you think that? I'm arguing that learning how to code while living on the street is going to require a spectacular amount of motivation, and only a certain percent of people will be able to pull it off (not sure I could).
Since $100 has a higher marginal utility for a desperately poor homeless person than most people with adequate shelter, the fact that someone turns it down shows an uncommon amount of motivation.
But really, if you're going from what I said to "root causes of homelessness", I can't help but feel you're just looking to pick an argument.
No, learning to code requires motivation. Turning down $100 in favor of coding lessons indicates that the person is motivated to try and learn to code. That's borne out by the fact that he's (maybe with some assistance) delivered an app to the marketplace.
So if I go to an upscale neighborhood and offer $100 at random, would that mean that anyone who refuses my offer is motivated enough to code?
Of course not, that's silly. We are discussing within the context of homelessness, in which the guy is playing a game with a vulnerable individual by offering an amount that is far higher than a change, but far lower that any developer (even junior) would consider an offensive offer for a mobile app.
Homelessness is a serious and complex issue rooted in mental health and poverty, and the "mentor" behind the homeless coder reduced it to a game, just to show that all one needs to succeed is the patronizing goodwill of some privileged narcissistic clown.
Stories like this are actually a disservice to the cause of technology as an agent for social and environmental change.
Wow.. Where do I begin with your comment? I very rarely get upset about comments on the internet, but yours is particularly revolting. When was the last time you stopped in your day-to-day life to try to help someone? And, I don't mean give money to a homeless person or donate to a charity.
I have imagined myself doing what the "privileged narcissistic clown" -- as you call him -- did in this story. I haven't done it yet, but one of these days I am going to push myself enough to do it. I fail to see how he was patronizing the homeless gentlemen. It seems to me that he was treating the guy as a fellow human deserving of respect, and as having potential. If he didn't think he had potential, he would not have bothered. Seriously... what is wrong with you?
I have a very close family member who went missing and eventually was found homeless. In the course of the investigation we found that several people exploited and took advantage of him for personal gain.
If you study the issue (like we did) you will find that this is a common and recurring problem, as homeless people are mentally vulnerable and open to narcissistic individuals.
Nothing against helping others -- I myself volunteered for social-change tech ngos for several years. My problem is in exploiting a vulnerable person for personal gain, which this guy is obviously doing.
we found that several people exploited and took advantage of him for personal gain.
which this guy is obviously doing.
You're not projecting your own personal experience into this story at all, are you? The only way for you to draw this conclusion is to have spoken directly with Patrick McConlogue, and for him to confirm to you that his motives were to exploit this guy.
Two people can have wildly different internal motives that produce similar-looking behaviors. Careful with your snap judgments.
While I'm sorry about what happened to your family member, that doesn't mean the same thing is happening here.
I think McConlogue's point is that homeless people aren't all stupid, stoned-out losers. And that some are capable of learning pretty complex stuff. Sure, plenty of homeless are screwed up, some hopelessly so, but we can't blanket them all with that label.
Here's a guy who's acting locally. And it takes some guts to do something risky. McConlogue may not be thinking globally, but he's doing what he can. Which is far more than a lot of us can claim.
From your perspective, what should McConlogue do or have done differently? He's obviously going to benefit from the exposure but I don't see any evidence that he's throwing Leo under the bus in the process.
It seems like a mutual gain to me, compared to a do-nothing approach. If the news story were "Leo goes back to square one after software engineer ditches him after getting publicity" then it would be a different story, but for now, the cynicism feels pregnant but premature.
Why the choice is between exploitation vs. do-nothing? Why not the old-school approach? Interview experienced professionals in the area (people who actually work with homeless people) and then interview homeless people in order to find out what are the problems they face, then design a repeatable and sustainable plan and implement it.
I'm not accusing McConlogue to throw Leo under the bus. I am accusing McConlogue to throw technology professionals under the bus: People who believe in the cause of technology for social development and environmental change. People who make real sacrifices and take their job seriously instead of making up little games. People who would not call a homeless person "unjustly homeless" as if others were "justly homeless".
Given that he doesn't seem like a soup-kitchen kind of guy (from reading his Medium), why not take a new approach where you try one thing, understand one person in depth, see what you can do, and work from there? That's how you learn and get in-touch with anything.
There's more than one way to skin a cat. People do methods A, B, and C all the time. This guy is trying method D, and doesn't seem to be gunning for repeatable or sustainable or "solve the homeless problem in one fell swoop". He comes across as arrogant and out-of-touch on his blog but he's basically got the dude's back. IMO, at the end of the day all of that adds up to a good thing.
Also, I've worked with some NGOs and I've found them to be generally ineffective at solving problems but great at making volunteers feel good about themselves so the last place I'd want to go if I wanted to understand homelessness would be aid workers, and the first place would be some reading, my own instincts, and working with one individual homeless person. I personally like the "ballsy n=1 experiment" approach he's taking - even though his language makes him come across as kind of a dick.
Also, he is making a real sacrifice - one in terms of time/effort teaching him to code, and two in terms of reputation/job risk. If Leo fails, or if the media twists it the wrong way, McConlogue looks like a jackass and he seems smart enough to understand that.
This might sound obvious - but he was really teaching the man to catch fish, rather than feed him with it. He might turn out to be good, or bad fishermen, but at least he's trying.
I leave money to homeless people, but I do it since it makes me feel good. I do it for me first (to be honest), then for them. I wish I have the dedication to do what this young man did, because I often think how cool it would be, but I end up just giving money. huh...
It is a serious issue, but I don't think the guy's goal was to reduce it to a game, but to do something well-intentioned.
In a lot of ways, what he's doing, on a small scale, is similar to the street newspaper concept that has gained significant popularity in cities worldwide. (Disclosure: I do some volunteer layout for such a newspaper.) The guy has a way to build income for himself now, and has learned skills which could someday be useful. But most importantly, he didn't have a creative idea foisted onto him. He came up with it on his own. It might not make him a ton of money, but there is the potential it'll make him a few dollars he didn't have before.
That part about coming up with the idea on his own is huge—way huger than you think. That is something that will help Leo build confidence in his own talents. It's exactly why street newspapers are largely written by the homeless, rather than merely sold by them.
I'm not saying that this is going to solve anything, and as we've learned from similar stories (golden-voiced Ted Williams, made-over veteran James Wolf), these situations often turn dark and raise huge ethical questions the second the person relapses in any way. So maybe it's not good that our energy is focused on two guys, one of whom may find himself unprepared for the pressures of unexpected fame.
But I think that there's something to be said about the fact that McConlogue is thinking about how to scale the concept. If he turns this idea into a nonprofit driven by donations, who knows what could happen next?
I don't think anyone expects what happened here to solve the problem. But there's some room to expand and build this idea. What if, like street newspapers, this concept grows into a way to build apps for the homeless, apps that work on easily-obtainable prepaid phones that help the homeless obtain easy access to public resources often hidden away by paperwork or location, or apps that make it easier to receive assistance from a bystander? Maybe you could even create a task-based micropayment app that allows people in such situations to raise money for themselves by performing small tasks like taking photos or reporting on their surroundings—say, a Mechanical Turk for mobile. Perhaps it could use a gameplay style similar to Waze or Foursquare? I'm spitballing here, but you see what I'm shooting for.
Maybe it's wrong that we're focusing our energy on a single tree when there's clearly a forest that needs to be dealt with first. But you know what? I'd rather that someone at least try to plant a seed rather than immediately dismiss the idea out of hand.
It's interesting that you mentioned the newspaper model, because that's actually what I had it on the back of my mind when I wrote my comment above: The newspapers you are referring to actually have a history rooted in social-justice activism and grassroots movements, which are very different from the patronizing approach McConlogue decided to take. I do not see a minimal interest in his Medium blog, in the video, or anywhere else related to the homeless issues, their lives, how they got there, and so on. To the contrary, his choice of words are actually offensive and demeaning.
This seems like a cart before the horse situation. If someone was willing to invest in Grand to educate him to program, why would they also not invest in his overall wellbeing? Why did he have to be continue to be homeless to accomplish this if he had someone helping him out?
If it was me helping, I could afford to invest a certain amount in someone and help them learn to code, but providing enough money for stable housing is probably beyond my capability.
What if all a homeless person needs to succeed is the patronizing goodwill of a privileged narcissistic clown, and you're wrong that mental health and poverty on the other side of the scale are enough to tip it in the direction of enduring homelessness?
If this is the case how would we know it - what data points would show it? And how might a report on those look?
This is gobsmackingly negative. How did this person harm anyone? Leo now has some programming skills which might eventually find him a job and a better life.
By that reasoning, helping someone who has fallen on hard times by teaching him/her new skills is counterproductive? That doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Thank you! Almost forgot that we shouldn't spend time teaching willing people in rough situations useful things because it's narcissistic and patronizing.
I appreciate your reminder that the correct approach is to keep a safe distance and loudly bemoan the problem as "a complex issue".
I actually agree with the view you express here. While I find the story to be positive - after all, it is apparent that someone did something nice for someone else and improved their life a great deal - I think you are right to say that it is a disservice to the gravity of homelessness in the United States. It is such a complex problem, as you said, rooted in extremely serious issues like mental health, wealth inequality, and lack of proper healthcare. While I love to talk about how code literacy is the solution to many problems, it really has almost zero salience to the topic of homelessness. Ultimately, what helped this guy was the kindness of a complete stranger. Not the education. Not the computer.
How did he reduce it to a game? According to the story the "narcissist" actually sat with this guy for many hours teaching him how to code. He gave his time and effort to teach someone new skills. New wealth was earned. Pretty great really.
Wow, I can't believe there are people like you around. Your comment is nothing but negative. What do you consider a positive story ? How did he reduce it to a game ? What are you talking about ?
....every single time. Now watch as the comment section get destroyed. It's already the top-comment. By the time my comment is 12hrs old, this comment thread will take up 2 screen lengths and hardly any other comments will occur outside of it.... that is, if HN's algo doesn't drop this story from the frontpage in the next 15mins.
We could write something untruthful or harmful in the newspaper (maybe about acai berry weight loss).
So why not let the government go through a process, investigate whether what we write is conducive to the public good, and once approved it can be safely published.
Some suspect that Sony is importing at an even higher price than the retail US price. No one knows for sure, but clever US sellers were buying PS4 at full retail price, shipping to Brazil, paying all taxes, and still they were able to sell cheaper than the retail price of the Brazilian PS4.
If Sony produced PS4 in Brazil they would pay 6% taxes instead of the 40% protection tariff. Microsoft (actually Foxconn) is doing exactly that in Brazil and that's why the XBox One is actually cheaper than a PS4.
Sony simply did not want to incur the labor costs and risks associated with investing in the local tech industry. Nothing wrong with that (it's their decision), but they are not being truthful to the local consumer.
[1] (in portuguese) http://info.abril.com.br/games/noticias/2013/10/sony-divulga...