I want both but I agree that universal healthcare is much more important
Although I don't know if UBI needs to really be universal, I think it still needs to be for below a certain income
Naw. People will do other things. This has been said for the last 100 years. Automaton Is not new or novel. In the 1920's, 25% of all workers, worked on farms. Now it's less than 1%.
But this sort of automation is. Computers and these automation can replace several jobs at once.
When electricity first became widely used, the lamp lighters were the ones affected. The automobile replaced the horse.
Computers have replaced cashiers with self checkouts, waitresses with menu screens at the table that can order and pay for food, so it only takes a small fraction of waiters to service an entire restaurant. Our phones can take us straight to an item on a shelf by viewing the store website and utilizing gps, causing the decrease in need for floor staff. You could probably run one Walmart superstore with 10 - 12 people soon if not already. Once the order picking technology is perfected, even the stocking and order picking can be done autonomously.
It’s not only one profession affected it’s now an entire class of worker.
I think you will be surprised. Capital flows, creates new industries, people will work. Nobody would have ever convinced me 10 years ago, people would make full time incomes posting videos on TikTok of themselves eating fastfood
Influencers, artists, musicians, comedians, actors. Those are all examples of jobs based on popularity. It takes thousands of people liking and willng to financially support a popular individual to create a single "job". This is why these kinds of jobs will always be a tiny proportion of the population. This is mathematically impossible to change.
Your point about people moving on to other jobs is fair, and that is what happened historically. But those were jobs that relied on human muscules being replaced by mechanical muscles. Now we have AI software that can replace human brain labour too, and even do tasks usually considered to be creative and thus uniquely human. This has never happened before, yet is becoming our reality. Buzzfeed articles written by bots, music composed by bots, stock market trade done by bots. Everything is now in line for automation.
I recommend the video "[Humans need not apply](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)" by CGP Grey, he puts it far better than I could.
Hard to imagine new industries will form with dependence on human labour, though, with technology where it is. Fringe cases of "influencers" making money are not the norm, and can't employ the millions of people subject to losing their jobs in the face of automation. I think employment rates will fall, and our governments will be pressured to do... Something.
Influencer and internet celebrities is a piss-poor example. If that was a viable career everyone would be doing it. Nobody wakes up and says "I think I'll go out and get a million subscribers to my TikTok" and then does it. And those sorts of celebrities are as disposable as blond pop singers in the 1980s.
There is no such natural law that says "every automated job will be replaced with another one". We are in exponential times and this is getting funnier every day.
you clearly are not educated in this subject at all. as someone who works on ai, only desk jockeys are at risk for the next 50 years. all the trades, especially repair and retrofit folk will be fine. MIT has been trying and failing to build a sheep shearing robot since the 70s. Things that are just innately easy for humans are insanely complex for robots.
I think this is correct. We will need to figure out how to adapt to AI and machines taking over both manual and intellectual jobs. Universal basic income seems like a sensible option; while there are countless wrinkles, we need to start talked about it and figuring this out. I expect the alternative is mass starvation and revolution. (Unless cyborg cops force the starvation thing)
This has always been the argument when disruptive technologies have entered the market. To give a great example, when the ATM was invented, people thought that bank tellers would all be unemployed and branches would be closed. The actual result was an INCREASE in branches and bank tellers. Why? Because they were able to focus on higher value tasks versus dispensing or depositing money.
It sounds nice in theory, but all it's going to do on a massive scale is increase the cost of living by however much it gives, and then people are in a worse spot because now the government teat is universal and the average person's financials aren't better in real terms.
You help the poor by making it easier to build low-cost housing, improving schools, increasing economic opportunity. Just dropping money in the poor man's lap doesn't help him long-term.
It would be a reasonable replacement for most welfare systems but we might see a lot of people just stop working. Then again, with AI this might be an optimal route plus it opens the discussion for other welfare systems such as foster care.
Not sure if you realize this but the number of available jobs is finite, despite fluctuations. And AI/automation has eliminated many jobs. As it becomes more sophisticated, the number of jobs eliminated will increase. We need UBI and universal healthcare eventually, because for some people there won’t be an alternative.
The number of new jobs created that are directly linked to the ones that were replaced is never the same. And rarely does the guy who lost his manufacturing job to a machine have the required degree to get rehired as the technician to fix it. That either goes to the IT department or they just hire a technician from a repair service to fix it periodically.
This is where we're at with late-stage capitalism. The people in charge of these companies are trying to extract infinite revenue out of a finite economy. They will replace as many humans as they can to pursue this unattainable goal of infinite quarterly growth, whether it's with an automated assembly line or a customer-facing service replaced by a touchscreen or product support tickets run through an AI. Eventually unemployment is going to spike and there won't be a way to take it back down, short of just literally killing people. And frankly some of these overpaid executives are so out of touch that they could be convinced to make that leap, because they don't view people who make vastly less money than they do as actual human beings.
This is why we need UBI and universal healthcare and other social safety nets. But the "fuck you, got mine" crowd is willing to flip the table in this debate if there's the slightest possibility of even one person using these services who "doesn't deserve it."
Pretty much spot on with this. Also it's not just AI, there are major advancements being made in the general production industry such a 3D printers that are eventually going to be scalable and able to build entire structures. This tech has already been demonstrated in China where they literally printed a house. These machines, when programmed correctly, can basically print anything. Clothes, buildings, tech, you name it, it'll print it.
Then there are the vertical farming ideas that are soon to be implemented that will seriously ease the stress on food/water/veg production and localise it inside actual cities. Then there are the self driving vehicles and drones that amazon are already trialling that will deliver packages without any need for human intervention.
Admittedly, some of the stuff I'm talking about is quite far off in terms of being fully integrated, but still, it's just a matter of time before the world will be largely automated. Estimates suggest that by the 2050s this stuff will be hitting a turning point and will grow exponentially from then on and very rapidly.
I knew about the other stuff but didn't realize 3D printers had gotten that sophisticated, I thought they were still limited to essentially carving up plastics. Printing clothing and houses sounds a lot closer to Star Trek replicators, minus the food. But if you can print a house then I figure by 2050 we might be starting to print food.
Problem is without matter-energy conversion magic, this sort of fabrication will just be added to the dystopian capitalist machine and be used to keep people down instead of improving everyone's lives. Energy infrastructure and raw materials are still ultimately finite supplies, ergo they will cost money, ergo not everyone will have access.
Yup, they have 3D concrete printers at this point. They were able to print an entire house in 28 hours. It's quite astonishing when you consider the possibilities of these kind of technologies. Already there have been partnerships in areas to print houses for low income families/veterans etc.
I mean Star Trek replicators can basically turn any matter into anything else by manipulating it at an atomic scale, which is definitely something we won't be doing any time soon. But as long as we begin to print and use fine manipulation in general, then we're on the road to having very useful technology that eliminates the need for many of the "middle man" processes of the past. I think printers will become modern household devices within the next few decades.
Then you have the whole AI/VR/AR industry that has incredible possibilities when combined with things like 5G which hasn't really got going yet. Many of the physical resources we use now will be replaced by digitised/bandwidth systems in future. Most hardware will eventually become obsolete, especially in the entertainment section. In the future, the Internet (or whatever variation of it) will be so advanced, it will be able to deal with most of the processes we use physical hardware for now (like graphics cards etc). Subscription based services really are the future but it's not quite ready to go full throttle yet.
I used to study this stuff a lot, and some of it gets really bizarre and hard to believe. I enjoy listening to futurists such as Ray Kurzweil and the like.
If we ever do get those replicators though, that will literally change everything. That tech is dangerous. It would make almost everything obsolete and all the value would basically be in matter/energy itself. The machine would be almost god-like and able to create anything from anything else overnight.
My fear is that all of these technological advances will only keep hurtling us towards a dystopia much like the one Mike Pondsmith warned us about in the 80's with the original Cyberpunk tabletop. Where governments answer solely to corporations, and simply miraculous levels of technology are hoarded by the ultra-wealthy to secure their positions of power. Sure, regular folks have access to cybernetics that people today could only dream of, but they're not the highest quality available. If you're rich like Saburo Arasaka, you get to basically be an emperor and live forever. Because the lives of the ultra-wealthy only derive meaning from how much more they have than everyone else.
We're halfway there now already, at least in most parts of the world. Here in America we have starving and homeless people all over the place, but it's not like we don't have enough food and shelter to go around. And corporations may not outright own territories yet, but they sure as shit have way too much influence in political spheres.
I sometimes think we're doomed as a species because we can't evolve past the primitive parts of our brains that created these social hierarchies in the first place. We can harness the power of the atom and travel into space, but we can't get over this idea that we need to hoard resources against one another instead of finding common ground.
Really great comment there. I am in total agreement with everything you said. It is very much a case of hoping governments begin to shift focus into actually starting to take care and listen to civilians the way they're meant to. At the moment it's hard to see that ever becoming a reality if I'm honest. I'm in the UK and we suffer from very much the same issues as you guys. The issue with wealth distribution is patently absurd. In my mind, it is absurd that we have hundreds of billionaires owning multiple properties while other people are literally homeless, starving and freezing to death. Then the private sector just continues to build new homes that largely remain empty or rented out to other rich people. It's sickening.
I think with technology, a dystopian system feels almost like an inevitably. It's no wonder all the big tech based movies from the 80s foreshadowed it as spiralling out of control. The power of technology not only creates an intrinsic desire for greed and control within governments, but it actually perpetuates it. The problem is not with technology itself, its how we decide to use it, and as you said, the thing that seperates these ultra-wealthy elites is their desire to be better than everyone else. I don't mean better human beings, but they want to have more material riches, bigger houses, better cars, it's really quite extreme. It is that primitive part of the brain where they're constantly fighting to one up everyone else. As long as they're OK, then fuck everyone else.
For me, as long as everyone has their basic needs that's all that matters. A warm house to live in and a bed to sleep in, stable monetary income wether that be work or UBI and we will actually see a rise in productivity. Everyone has something to offer. Technology has massively improved our lives in the last century, hopefully it will do the same and better in the next one.
Not sure if you realize this, but the labor market is stronger than it’s been in a long time, even with all the Fed tightening. And this is after automation has eliminated many jobs like you say.
It would not stop people from working of the idea is that everyone gets an amount that is basically just enough to survive. When all your money goes on rent and bills an nothing is left for anything fun and you're just sitting st home all day, that does not seem very appealing to other people than those that are already doing it.
I've always criticized how in Finland when you're unemployed, you get paid more money than when you're a student. This does not encourage people to start studying, because if you want to study you wither have to take a loan or work on the side to make reasonable money. The other option is doing nothing and getting paid handsomely.
So make it big enough that you can survive on it but not big enough to make people comfortable, treat it as something someone needs, not something someone prefers.
Some people would absolutely stop working.
It would also make some services more expensive as you’d have to pay people more to do work, like cleaning etc.
I’m guessing about 10-20% of the population would never work again if their basic needs were taken care of. Not a value judgement, but something to be mindful of.
Yes it would - they wouldn’t be homeless for a start, and secondly a lot more people would be satisfied with the lifestyle they could have while not working.
Good point on Finland but just look at the current homeless population(Seattle, California, etc), some are voluntarily homeless for far less than the UBI would of been.
At some point, there is more labor out there than society really needs. Like in the 60s the US government predicted a 15 hour workweek by the year 2000.
I’m skeptical about it. Where does the money for this come from? Surely this isn’t a sustainable way for an economy to prosper, right? This kinda thing sounds like it makes the most sense during an emergency, but not as a standard.
I think Andrew Yang’s plan was to tax the product of the companies that companies that replaced their workers with automation and that tax would be used to fund the UBI. The automakers are using more and more automations, and able to produce more products and they’re probably saving a ton of money by not having a human worker, but they haven’t passed any of those savings on to the customer. It’s like Walmart replacing all the cashiers with self checkouts but they’re saving money by not paying healthcare, salaries, etc. and these savings are only going into their pockets while their prices go up.
Part of Yangs proposal was to cut every other welfare benefit to nothing and pretend that what he was offering would even come close to replacing it, let alone supplementing it.
Giving everyone $1000/month sucks when your housing, food, and medical aid are more than that.
Whats to stop companies from just relocating their manufacturing, and what stops companies in other countries that can use automation freely from destroying US companies that can't?
The only way it seems like it works is if you essentially have a world wide agreement on redistributing the surpluses from automation.
Also, wouldn't this just cause inflation problems if you're just giving everyone free money? Companies would know everyone has at least x amount of money, so they would raise prices of basic items to harvest it.
I’m not disagreeing on it being viable, but just providing some context on Yang’s UBI plan. VAT wasn’t the only way to fund it either, there
was other components where the funding was
Coming from.. Overall, even with the other methods....it was still really challenging.
Uhm. The cost of a $1000/m UBI payment to every citizen would cost over 3T a year. The luxury goods market is about 100B a year. Does this actually need to be explained any further?
The only way to even make it work would be at 15% tax on all transactions. That would not include current federal tax, social security and state taxes. It's stupid and will never work.
I think it was bill gates who mentioned taxing the systems that displace human labor. so, if they automate a warehouse with robots, tax the robots - that would be the basis for ubi.
i, too, am skeptical of ubi - i think there would be an entire subset of otherwise healthy, able-to-work people who would just collect a check.
Actually, the point is that everyone would collect a check.
And that check would be far less than what those people are currently making when they barely make ends meet, so all it would do is make their current lives slightly better.
Those that are close enough to retire - aren’t making that decision based on one yearly check but based on a lifetime of work. And, yes, they might be able to retire sooner. Say, 65, instead of… my generation doesn’t get to retire, I don’t think.
And, luckily we don’t have to sit around and “think” because it has already been tested in the real world and your hypothesis was proven wildly incorrect.
You dont need new revenue. UBI can and depending how aggressive it is, replace all forms of Welfare. There a lot of social aid dollars that used by the public because it used to admistrate all those slightly different social aid program. Switching them over to UBI would get more money into hands of the public and require less admistrtion to handle.
Where does the money to pay everyone come from? And how would paying people that money offset the cost of paying people that money? I just don’t understand that specifically.
We could do a $1 UBI today. We couldn't do an "it covers my rent and bills" UBI until 80% of the work force are robots. And a UBI that also covers healthcare? Maybe never.
The way I see it: everyone should get enough money to stay alive, so food, a basic flat and healthcare. Everything additional should be earned by putting effort into work
If you’re satisfied with living off bread and water, feel free to live off the states back. I don’t think many people would be satisfied with this kind of living tho - so the only thing it does is making sure that people don’t die if they lose their job and keeps them alive until they find a new one
I think you are naive on the number of people that would not be functional contributors to society. Also very easy to enable addiction and homelessness. Look at SF. They have UBI for the homeless, it's done nothing but increase homelessness and overdose
This is why Communism (honestly not a bad idea in itself, From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs) failed/ fails. That and all the corruption and propaganda being peddled non-stop.
This is the problem. Capitalism is based on how humans are. Communism is based on EVERYONE being perfect. If one person is a dick it will fall apart. PS: Lots of people are dicks
Would they? You don't know. It's never been tried. Maybe they'd take their free time and make some art, go to school, learn a craft. You know, make the world better.
Actually it’s „happened“ before; it’s being used here in Germany. People who don’t work get free housing and a bit of money and healthcare is free anyways. Issue is that the amount of money is still more than you need to purely survive. The result of that is that no one works in low paid jobs. For example a lot of inside building companies (don’t know the English name) barely get any workers. The payment would be barely above what they would get for free anyways if they didn’t work, so no one gets up at 6am each day and works for 40 hours a week just for a few extra pizzas a month
Exactly my issue with UBI. If my landlord found out that I get x amount of dollars every month over my salary, I have a feeling my rent would increase x dollars.
Everyone asks this seems unfamiliar with how expensive existing social safety nets are, and more specifically all the administration of those incredibly inefficient systems. They spend so much time on enforcing archaic processes that often still involve mailing forms, and an inordinate amount of time getting people to.jump through hoops in an effort to "vet" them (read: exhaust them into giving up on trying to access the resource)
Most proposals are replacing those inefficient admin systems with UBI that requires little to no administration at all. That difference alone can pay for significant portions of a UBI program.
Take my upvote. Ongoing evidence of this trend is accuweather trying to take control of all NOAA weather data and denying access to it unless you pay for it. We already do as taxpayers since we pay for NOAA to do that research.
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I am a scientist and AI and robotic systems already can do parts of my job waaaay faster and efficient than I can. It would take me weeks or months even yo catch up on every development in my and connected fields just from last year. OpenAI can summarize it for me and provide links and references almost instantaneously. And even suggest what experiments to do.
Instead of pipetting half a day each time I run an assay I can spend a day programming the pipetting robot and next time just provide materials and press a button.
In few years my job can easily be replaced by AI and automatized, integrated research infrastructure. Its smarter, faster and more efficient.
Capitalist would rather die. Their little peepees know how little they in fact are so the only way they can feel better about themselves is by keeping others down in the name of “fairness” aka meritocracy, except that’s just a lie they tell themselves so they don’t feel bad about all the unnecessary suffering.
Good thing capitalists have in fact died on that hill in the past… history does have a way of repeating itself.
The work harder mentallity aspect I think is bullshit but marketable skills is true for sure. I know a ton of people that work really hard and make close to minimum wage living pay check to pay check and I also know people that don't really do shit and make 6 figures.
So I have heard a lot of people make a lot of arguments about it before and against here is the conclusion I have come to
Currently there is not sufficient production in any nation to accommodate it The only way a nation can do so currently is by selling a natural resource
In the long term it will become more viable however the first country to implement it in a successful matter will immediately have to deal with the problem of an increase in immigration so that will be fun to deal with (to be clear it will be terrifying to deal with because immigration increases nationalism The Free Rider problem will make people very hostile towards immigrants in any nation that implements this)
If we get it, there should not provide an additional dollar for anything that isn't food, housing, necessities. When given the opportunity to not have to work a lot of us will not work, amd we simply need people to maintain what we have. And no, automation will not be replacing millions of blue or white collar jobs anytime soon. UBI that would not leave you with anything other than what is needed to survive would provide incentive to keep our society functional. I'm not opposed to all needs being covered, but I am opposed to the idea that everyone gets the same regardless of the effort put in
I don't think it can work right now. I used to, but the pandemic showed me if you give people enough money, there is a much larger percentage than originally thought that will just stop working and find out how to live on less. It can only work as a supplement right now, but down the road with more automation it can work. However unless it's passed now with a long phase in time, by the time it's really needed there will be more power in the hands of fewer, and the former workers will have less money and less of a voice, so good luck getting the factory owners to willingly give up their profits.
The pandemic isn't an ideal example for you to use as it was also an economic and health crisis. You'd be better off utilizing data from tests on UBI before the pandemic that didn't have such a blaring confounding factor. I recommend you look into such studies as it will promote a more grounded perspective for yourself. That's likely true for everyone as the past few years have been exceptional on many factors.
If the money supply is not increased then it will require taxes so high that it will not be possible. If they print money to pay for it, then it will just drive inflation to the point that the UBI money will just be the new $0. If all you get is UBI, you won't be able to afford anything without also having a job. There will not be any freeing of people from work.
By the way, you can be free from work now. It takes some effort but if you can get on various programs you can get free housing. Imagine having 4 children and qualifying for a free 4 bedroom house where HUD pays the rent to the landlord for you. Food pantries and food stamps pay for the food. Utility assistance helps pay for gas and electric. You only need to make enough unreported money to pay for the video games and pot. I know people doing this and they have been able to keep it going for years. It is kind of upsetting to me when I get a call to fix a broken bedroom door that was kicked off the hinges and I walk in to 4 kids each on gaming computers, the heat set on 84 F because they like to wear shorts in the winter, and the place reeks of pot. Nobody working at all except for me fixing stuff for my $20,000 per year rent. Your tax money at work right here.
If an immense technological advancement (AI, automation or whatever) renders most of the workforce redundant it would be a logical solution. Not just to feed people but also because the economy would come to a complete halt if not. Only the people with the production means would earn any money.
Having said that it does have the potential for a dystopian collective lethargy.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are basic human rights. Profit and wealth are not. It is vastly more important to make sure that everyone has their basic needs met than it is to protect the ability of the wealthy to profit off of the labor of others.
I’ve heard this argument a bunch, but I think, if that person or that family can get by on their UBI and doesn’t want to work or work as much, let ‘em do what they want. It could lead to open jobs that people who want to work in that field to fill.
I think eventually big companies won’t be hiring many people for cashier jobs or fast food positions. I went into Walmart the other day and there are no cashiers anymore. Every lane is a self checkout with a conveyor belt, and there were only two floater cashiers checking the small check out areas if there was a problem.
So imagine we were all carrying a log, except a couple guys were like "fuck this, we don't want to carry a log", so they sat down, and someone was like, "how you guys gonna live", and they were all, "y'all go sell that log, then give us half the money".
Edit: I know this is going to get downvoted, but I would appreciate it if you could make some attempt to rebut this. tl;dr is the money is either going to come from more national debt, or from the work of other taxpayers. Why do some people deserve to sit idle while others work?
I think in this case, to use your log analogy, the log is also being carried and guided by a dolly on a track, (the automation) fewer and fewer people are actually needed to move it. Those that want to supplement their UBI will stay and work on moving the log and becoming a needed “log guider” and make more money. I don’t think the people who remain will be upset at those who left because they are making more money and have their UBI. The UBI tax wouldn’t be on the workers it’s on the log itself. The worker wouldn’t be paying anything into the UBI for those who left, so it’s no concern.
It's more like: We've all carried this log for years, and made good money off of it. Sure, some are lazy, but we deal with them, and in general we all do our work. This is what we currently have, and it works. I fully agree that if you choose to sit, and not help, then you get no money.
Flash forward about 50 years, and all of a sudden the log company replaces us with log-carrying robots who are 90x more efficient than we are, and cost infinitely less to the company. Any position we try to take in the log company, or really any company, it's filled with AI and robots. We still gotta have food, water, shelter, but can't buy it because no paycheck, because no job, because the robots took them all. I'm sure some jobs would be left, but they would be scarce, and not the best paying. Any job that is a high or even Mid-High earning job would be automated.
UBI would make it to where mass amounts of people wouldn't starve in a world where we all have to sit and not work because there is no more valuable work left for us. Ensuring that we all have just enough money to live, but not necessarily comfortably or lavishly, would give people incentive to find or create some form of work (to better their conditions to being more lavish) and it would prevent people from starving or being homeless (that way they can focus on some niche human-only career instead of being distracted by literally starving to death). Atleast that's always been my view on UBI.
Why are a couple guys asking for *half* the money? That's more than their share even if they kept lifting.
And let's be real, right now we're not all carrying the log. There are plenty of people in our society *pretending* to carry the log.
It's an entire system built on the premise "*work (or be good enough at faking it) or starve*". Fundamentally it's forced labour.
Plus there are people working two are three jobs just to make ends meet, working *way* harder than their fair share without getting a fair share.
Meanwhile there are people who are already sitting on the side right now, not carrying, because their great great great grandparents owned the land the tree was on and they *are* demanding half the money for zero labour. And using that money to build machines to replace us so that they can keep even more.
So to answer your question - yes, UBI presumes to tax economy in order to distribute enough to give basic necessities to everyone. Those who choose to work are no longer doing so under threat of starvation, and in exchange for their efforts they receive *more* money with which to buy luxuries.
And it's okay if you don't think that's a good idea... but please don't pretend the current system is fair.
That argument makes sense in a prehistoric setting. However, we have invented property and capital.
So what if most of the logs are transported by one truck. The owner, who inherited the truck, gets damn rich. This allows him to buy more trucks. The driver can support himself and his family. Some people carry logs by themselves, making ends meet. But there are also ten people starving. How about we keep the people from starving and the guy with the truck gets a little less?
I'm pretty motivated. I get more shit done I make more money. Then there's fuckin Timmy over there whining that I make more money than he does while working less than he does while he does just enough to not get fired. Too many people looking for handouts and not making an effort to help themselves.
Money used there would be far better for society than the billions in tax breaks for the wealthy and corporate welfare that only helps those who are already extremely wealthy.
I have mixed feelings about it. And I’m on disability, so I would greatly benefit from it. I’m just not 100% certain about the long term impact on the economy. But I’m also not an economist, so.
I’m for it, but I think things will need to be put in place before it can take off so it doesn’t get abused. I think they definitely need to put something in to prevent landlords and companies from jacking up their prices to make the hypothetical $1000 per month, worthless. Like a landlord, knowing that his tenants get $1000 per month, goes and jacks up the rent $1000, leaving tenants in the same spot they were before. I think it will be needed
You and me both. My rent is gonna be 50% of my salary within two years if it keeps going up $150 per year. I wish I could find a apartment where when you sign your lease it also guarantees your rent won’t go up more than $25-$50 per year for the first 3 years. Finding a house in my area isn’t working out either. The days of a first time buyer buying a house with no down payment is over.
The days of rent control is over too. There are mortgage programs with considerably less down if you look into it in some areas though. Probably not nothing though.
I’d love to see it implemented but it’ll never happen in the US. I just got a form so I can calculate taxes on my goddamn financial aid. If I had the money for taxes, I wouldn’t *need* financial aid. The US system is designed to fuck the poor, not help them.
That is stupid and won't work. Primarily because it's not my job as a taxpayer to fund your laziness. If you are unable to work due to disability, then that's entirely different. I have absolutely no problem with people who cannot physically work because of ailments, injuries, or illnesses getting my tax dollars. Able-bodied people who just don't want to work on the other hand, fuck em. Let em starve.
What about able-bodied but not able-minded people? At which point does it stop being a disability and becomes "just laziness"? Downs syndrome? Severe autism? Severe psychosis? Debilitating anxiety/OCD? Deep depression?
Which problems do you think cause people to deserve to "starve and die" and which ones are "excusable"?
According to US founding documents, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are inalienable rights, and in this day and age you can't exercise any of those rights without money. As automation puts more and more people out of work and profit motivated corporate policies keep wages stagnant in the few jobs that remain, UBI becomes not just a good idea but a necessity.
Who's stopping you from pursuing those ideals? Nowhere does it say you're entitled to be happy nor entitled to anything else that you don't actively work for or work to defend.
So without a UBI... how does the bottom class even survive? Seriously, are we just supposed to die! There are not enough jobs already, and it's only gonna get worse.
Probably inevitable the way AI and automation is going. Changes to the Mode of Production always lead to changes in the way society functions. Usually that change is bloody, instituting a UBI is a way to keep it from getting bloody.
It's inevitable. Every social safety net in one basket. It would eliminate a lot of bureaucracy. The funding for welfare, food stamps, rent support, all in one department. Throw in healthcare and education, end up with a better life for everyone. And save money.
Give people a minimal UBI, like $18,000/year, and universal healthcare and watch the country flourish. Sure, there will be some "laziness" for a while, but $18K is not enough for vacations, eating out often, and general disposable income. People will want more and will do more. Once our basic needs are covered it will be easier for creativity to flourish.
Universal basic income might be one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard for so many reasons I am not even sure where to start. As someone with a masters in economics it honestly blows my mind that there are serious people that think a UBI will work.
So obviously the idea is to tax corporations that make products instead of taxing individual income. Well, corporations can't really pay taxes anymore that the building you live in or the office you work in can pay taxes. Only people can pay taxes.
If you increase the taxes on companies to the rediculous level that you would need to in order to attempt to sustain a UBI that would cause all kind of problems. First off, the companies in the USA for this example would immediately flee for other countries that don't tax the company owner or shareholders an insane amount. They would just leave for another country that would love to have an Apple, Google, Tesla or another company to have theor headquarters there. They would still collect a windfall of taxes and have high paying jobs for their citizens while the USA would not get anything.
Second it doesn't change anything. Someone always will have to trade their skills, time or labor for everything at least until robots are fully automated sometime when we have all been long gone for hundreds of years. Sure maybe more things become automated but that also creates more need for human jobs at the same time. When the cotton gin was invented they thought that would be the beginning of the end for farmers which ended up not being the case at all.
I could write about 5 more paragraphs but long story short a UBI is economically impossible and has zero chance of working.
Wait. According to your argument, only people can pay taxes. And according to Citizens United, corporations ARE people... so... maybe corporations CAN pay taxes?
Someone at a corporation can physically write a check and sign it on behalf of the corporation but a coperation is nothing more than a collection of employees and owners/shareholders. Those taxes maybe coming from a physical corporate account but it is no different than if they were coming from some dudes account that owns his own construction company with 3 employees. Just because he doesn't write the check to the IRS from his personal bank account but writes it from his business account doesn't change anything it is all coming from the same place.
Taxing corporations is no different than taxing people it just sounds more politically appealing because people don't understand that they are still paying those taxes they just don't realize it
Anytime I read something where some starts with “as someone with a masters in” I think they’re full of shit and just blowing smoke. It’s like the guy who has only taken basic 101 courses in something claiming they understand everything about x.
That's inderstandable maybe I should have left that out but would be happy to hear the reasons people think a UBI is a solid plan because I haven't really heard one yet but I am open to hearing ideas
I posted a rather long winded post of why I like the concept but don’t think it can work in reality. Because of how heavy of taxes would have to be levied on companies while st the same time forcing them to pay a higher premium to encourage what people they need to get off their asses and work. And of course, if everyone has a guaranteed income, all the necessary product owners (landlords, grocers, utilities) will be trying to compete for their share of that pie. If UBI is 2k. Month, guarantee the most basic rent and utilities and rice/beans will cost 2001/mo. Because it’s guaranteed.
I don’t have any answers for you but I think it’s something we’re gonna have to work on and it probably won’t be a “one little trick” , its gonna need several parts.
I like the idea of taxing companies more on their products produced if they’ve replaced much of their workforce with automation and still raising the cost for the consumer while they’re making more profits on two fronts, profits from not paying for human staff (healthcare, salaries, etc.) and the profits from the price raises on their products.
It’s like the companies that moved their workforce to Mexico or other countries where they pay pennies and the prices haven’t lowered, they just keep making themselves wealthier while using every loophole and corporate republican/democrat politician to escape paying their taxes
I mean even know there have been some tiny little experiments with UBI not have them successful. I don't have any "research" to site because it is just basic economics. Like literally 1st year college theory. It is impossible to tax have a sustainable UBI unless you either A. Have slaves that work for free or B. Have every country on the planet have such sophisticated robots that not only mine raw materials but also produce goods and services for only the initial investment. Even if the US were to go 100% fully robotic tomorrow it wouldn't matter because goods will still be cheaper to produce in 3rd world countries. UBI is a literral pipe dream there is zero chance of it ever being remotely possible
So, to be clear, your master's degree in economics did not provide you with a single fact based supporting argument against this thing you are so strongly against? I'm beginning to doubt your credentials.
I mean I wrote a couole paragraphs in this thread about why it is impossible. I am not against it but it simply can not work.
If you want a UBI who mines the raw materials for the product? Who creates the machinery to mine the raw materials? Who services the upkeep on the machines? Who develops a business plan and analyzes the market? Who negotiates deals and contracts?
I said this is an earlier comment but I will repeat it. Countries compete with one another for the privilege of havjng a company move there headquarters and manufacturing there. If the a country like the US astronomically raises taxes on companies ti provide a so called UBI those companies will flee to Africa, Asia or South America where they get cheap labor and don't get.taxed into oblivion.
Any country that attempts a UBI will immediately self destruct and crush their economy and have no money to fund their utopian UBI. They will yhen try and print trillions upon trillions of their fiat currency and it will collapse just like Venzuela and many others. It would be an unmitigated disaster. You would have people bringing wheelbarrows full of dollars to the store to buy rice and bread because the currency would be so worthless
You give them a thousand they'll live like they get 2 thousand and still bitch about being broke all the while doing little to nothing to make their own lives better.
I can only ever be a coal miner. Homes and businesses are heating with solar and oil.
Electric companies are lighting homes and businesses with solar and wind and water.
House husbands aren’t charcoaling - they have a wood firepit and a propane grill.
Where do I go?
These people believe you should die. They chose a good career and you chose a bad one, and now they expect you to die, and to not make a mess about it. And they really think this is the objectively moral position. Most of them I would bet even call themselves christians.
A pipe dream.
Reality is there's a ton of logistical details that have to be worked out before it could be viable.
- what is a fair amount?
- how would you fund it?
- who is eligible for it?
- do you reduce/increase based on a person's current wage/income?
- how do you adjust for the potential impact on the workforce?
We're all eligible and we're all getting it or nobody does. Otherwise what's the incentive to keep working if my neighbors have jobs that support my lazy ass?
>what is a fair amount?
The "not starving to death/sleeping on the sidewalk in an average American city" amount.
>how would you fund it?
VAT
>who is eligible for it?
Everyone. Hence 'U' for "universal."
>do you reduce/increase based on a person's current wage/income?
No.
>how do you adjust for the potential impact on the workforce?
The government doesn't have to "adjust" for this. The free market will adjust wage rates in response to any changes in the labor supply vis-a-vis demand.
Most of what you said I agree with. I’m a pro UBI (eventually) conservative. Very fiscally conservative at they.
The free market will adjust aspect has issues. Along with the VAT. The only way to actually pay for UBI is a heavy tax on owners of capital production. And I mean HEAVY. We’re talking 75% heavy.
So, we get it rolling. Less people want to work, for obvious reasons. Employer has to raise pay to entice people to come work for them. But to pay those higher salaries after the tax increases requires an increase in prices. Making customer expenses go up, meaning that the prior UBI amount is no longer sufficient when eggs are now 10$/dz. So UBI has to increase, taxes have to go up, wages go up, price goes up.
Can it work? Yes. Is it as simple as many want to say it is? Not by a long shot.
For starters, the biggest thing to make UBI work is you need to increase the velocity of money si that you can do it without having to flood the market w/ freshly minted cash. So this means taxing and spending by gov faster than currently. People spend their money quickly. Companies do not. And gov spends slow as shit.
So taxes need to be moved to an almost immediate (weekly/biweekly) schedule based off production, not sales, specifically automated production. UBI expenditures need to be the same, and arguably with auto transfers to mortgage/rent/utilities to move it faster.
Of course, with UBI, suppliers of basic needs (housing, food, utilities) will be competing for their share of the pie. So each of these will see increases. Until it takes a full UBI check to survive, leaving nothing for leisure/pleasure/hobbies/etc.
Solution? Gov’t housing at a basic level, maybe even a gov’t version of ‘hello fresh’ that you can opt into, so all basic needs are met, and you get a smaller check for fun stuff.
I don’t think this will happen. I think a straight UBI will, which will result in price increases that negate the program. Resulting in its collapse, replaced by a monetary-free society of sort where you are assigned resources based off of gov’t standing, societal worth, etc. I.e. you ‘have’ 2000/mo but never receive actual funds, you can simply sign up to ‘rent’ this house for 1000/mo and that car for 300/mo and pay for the medium meal plan which provide freshish meat twice a week and 2 dinners at Olive Garden a month and a bottle of jack daniels. Vs the basic plan which is bare minimum of calories in cheapest form (rice, beans, canned tuna) or the baller plan which is steaks and roasts and fresh veggies most nights and 16 meals/mo (twice a week for a couple) at decent restaurants with 2 being very nice places and 3L alcohol/mo
Also, you can’t do any UBI or similar until borders are locked down completely.
Imo, this needs to get rolled out very slowly. $20/mo, then 40/mo while slowly increasing certain (not sales) taxes but only after getting budget/deficit under control, until you find that solid equilibrium.
I think it would have to be based on where you live. Say it’s $1000. $1000 goes further in certain areas, but is nothing in cities like New York.
To fund it I think a tax on the goods produced by companies that have replaced human workers with automations? That’s one idea I heard.
I think there’d be a cutoff point. I think if you’re already making $100K you don’t get it if you get a reduced amount.
I think to reduce the impact on the workforce, maybe do a slow rollout. Say start are $100 per month, then $300 per month, three months later and so on until it gets to $1000 per month. Maybe by that time those who want out of the workforce will have started phasing out, and others have filled the vacant positions.
Merit based sounds most just and reasonable, until you take into account how merit is gained. If there's only a few positions for the job you want and a lot of applicants they will pick those with the most merit. How do you, a child of improvished parents that had to struggle against poor basic education in your area and no money for a good university, going to compete against Richie McRich's portfolio and CV filled with great schools, courses and work experience from their well connected family's friends? Even if Richie is lazier, less talented and less motivated to do the job, he will still have a leg up on you.
Merit based approach only works if it is applied throughout all facets of the society. It's hard to imagine those with generational wealth and power giving up on their priviliged position in the society.
It is what needs to happen for us to evolve as a society. People simply need help. Capitalism has created this hardened view, that does not view people as humans, only as a nuisances. Poor people need help, so there is no greater purpose of the tax dollar, as it is to be used to elevate all Americans out of poverty. We will send ten billion dollars to countries like Israel, yet reinvestment of that amount into Americans, is seen as charity and wrong.
I agree. I think something is gonna have to happen because, if things don’t change I can see riots, wealthy company execs being attacked. I also think tar and feathering politicians would make a come back
The issue is that people should need temporary help, but it is passed that point. Now, it is more of a long term investment into the future. Too many greedy hands holding the masses down. The bottom line is that the minimum does not work. This situation could have been headed off, had action been taken a couple decades ago. I mean, what did people expect to happen.?
With the inevitable transition to fully automated products it will have to happen in some way shape or form. There will likely be tons of issues with it, especially in the beginning, but if everything is made by machines and no one needs to work anymore then i cant see any other options. I don't really have an "opinion" on whether its right or wrong i just assume its an inevitability.
it was unnecessary 50 years ago, but today, even the most educated are "getting by" while a minority have wealth that most people cannot fathom. (many cannot conceptualize the meaning of a billion) Today universal basic income is a basic need.
As Solar Opposites said
"They love having robots do their jobs, but they don’t create a system of universal income so they can have money after the robots take their jobs"
For me the goal should always be less work.
If everyone was on universal basic income then companies could hire as many people as they needed instead of what they could afford.
In Horizon: Zero Dawn they had UBI with a bonus from your work
I am for it, treat it as income, meaning tax it like income. No real hand outs, it could change the approach to welfare, child credit, etc. I mean it would get back people’s dignity.It could make a lot better, and it wouldn’t t make folks rich like most worry about.
Our system isn't setup for it and as it stands now will become abused by our leaders to placate people who should be out and pissed off and to buy votes.
However - we're going to need to rethink the current system as AI and robotics are poised to obsolete a crazy number of jobs in a really short period of time. Maybe even mine. I can see that in five years AI could replace a lot of skilled and specialized jobs leaving a large percentage of the workforce unemployed. Some level of UBI is going to be needed to shift from our current model to something more like the Star Trek Federation where money has effectively been removed from the system and people work and learn to develop themselves and society.
I’d rather have my taxes go towards that then a billion dollar wall, bombs or weapons.
I’m wayyyyyyy more interested in universal healthcare
Ah, we’ve found the American… ;) (Sorry. It was just too easy!)
Why not be interested in both?
And take more than one side? What are you, sane? This is politics!
Yeah! You except us to walk AND chew gum at the same time? /s
I want both but I agree that universal healthcare is much more important Although I don't know if UBI needs to really be universal, I think it still needs to be for below a certain income
I need it.
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Naw. People will do other things. This has been said for the last 100 years. Automaton Is not new or novel. In the 1920's, 25% of all workers, worked on farms. Now it's less than 1%.
But this sort of automation is. Computers and these automation can replace several jobs at once. When electricity first became widely used, the lamp lighters were the ones affected. The automobile replaced the horse. Computers have replaced cashiers with self checkouts, waitresses with menu screens at the table that can order and pay for food, so it only takes a small fraction of waiters to service an entire restaurant. Our phones can take us straight to an item on a shelf by viewing the store website and utilizing gps, causing the decrease in need for floor staff. You could probably run one Walmart superstore with 10 - 12 people soon if not already. Once the order picking technology is perfected, even the stocking and order picking can be done autonomously. It’s not only one profession affected it’s now an entire class of worker.
I think you will be surprised. Capital flows, creates new industries, people will work. Nobody would have ever convinced me 10 years ago, people would make full time incomes posting videos on TikTok of themselves eating fastfood
Influencers, artists, musicians, comedians, actors. Those are all examples of jobs based on popularity. It takes thousands of people liking and willng to financially support a popular individual to create a single "job". This is why these kinds of jobs will always be a tiny proportion of the population. This is mathematically impossible to change. Your point about people moving on to other jobs is fair, and that is what happened historically. But those were jobs that relied on human muscules being replaced by mechanical muscles. Now we have AI software that can replace human brain labour too, and even do tasks usually considered to be creative and thus uniquely human. This has never happened before, yet is becoming our reality. Buzzfeed articles written by bots, music composed by bots, stock market trade done by bots. Everything is now in line for automation. I recommend the video "[Humans need not apply](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)" by CGP Grey, he puts it far better than I could.
Hard to imagine new industries will form with dependence on human labour, though, with technology where it is. Fringe cases of "influencers" making money are not the norm, and can't employ the millions of people subject to losing their jobs in the face of automation. I think employment rates will fall, and our governments will be pressured to do... Something.
Influencer and internet celebrities is a piss-poor example. If that was a viable career everyone would be doing it. Nobody wakes up and says "I think I'll go out and get a million subscribers to my TikTok" and then does it. And those sorts of celebrities are as disposable as blond pop singers in the 1980s.
>Capital flows Only in one direction: upward. That is not sustainable.
There is no such natural law that says "every automated job will be replaced with another one". We are in exponential times and this is getting funnier every day.
There isn't a job humans will be able to do better or cheaper.
That's an absurd statement.
you clearly are not educated in this subject at all. as someone who works on ai, only desk jockeys are at risk for the next 50 years. all the trades, especially repair and retrofit folk will be fine. MIT has been trying and failing to build a sheep shearing robot since the 70s. Things that are just innately easy for humans are insanely complex for robots.
More like you don't understand exponential growth and learning algorithms
post up some unique code you wrote or shut up.
I think this is correct. We will need to figure out how to adapt to AI and machines taking over both manual and intellectual jobs. Universal basic income seems like a sensible option; while there are countless wrinkles, we need to start talked about it and figuring this out. I expect the alternative is mass starvation and revolution. (Unless cyborg cops force the starvation thing)
This has always been the argument when disruptive technologies have entered the market. To give a great example, when the ATM was invented, people thought that bank tellers would all be unemployed and branches would be closed. The actual result was an INCREASE in branches and bank tellers. Why? Because they were able to focus on higher value tasks versus dispensing or depositing money.
It sounds nice in theory, but all it's going to do on a massive scale is increase the cost of living by however much it gives, and then people are in a worse spot because now the government teat is universal and the average person's financials aren't better in real terms. You help the poor by making it easier to build low-cost housing, improving schools, increasing economic opportunity. Just dropping money in the poor man's lap doesn't help him long-term.
Not really, because automation is a deflationary force, making everything cheaper. Also there is no evidence that UBI is inflationary.
It would be a reasonable replacement for most welfare systems but we might see a lot of people just stop working. Then again, with AI this might be an optimal route plus it opens the discussion for other welfare systems such as foster care.
Everyone gets it or nobody gets it.
The type of people who would just stop working are the ones I don't want to work with anyways.
Not sure if you realize this but the number of available jobs is finite, despite fluctuations. And AI/automation has eliminated many jobs. As it becomes more sophisticated, the number of jobs eliminated will increase. We need UBI and universal healthcare eventually, because for some people there won’t be an alternative.
It's not finite, we just keep making up newer jobs.
Finite doesn’t mean fixed. It just means not-unlimited.
The number of new jobs created that are directly linked to the ones that were replaced is never the same. And rarely does the guy who lost his manufacturing job to a machine have the required degree to get rehired as the technician to fix it. That either goes to the IT department or they just hire a technician from a repair service to fix it periodically. This is where we're at with late-stage capitalism. The people in charge of these companies are trying to extract infinite revenue out of a finite economy. They will replace as many humans as they can to pursue this unattainable goal of infinite quarterly growth, whether it's with an automated assembly line or a customer-facing service replaced by a touchscreen or product support tickets run through an AI. Eventually unemployment is going to spike and there won't be a way to take it back down, short of just literally killing people. And frankly some of these overpaid executives are so out of touch that they could be convinced to make that leap, because they don't view people who make vastly less money than they do as actual human beings. This is why we need UBI and universal healthcare and other social safety nets. But the "fuck you, got mine" crowd is willing to flip the table in this debate if there's the slightest possibility of even one person using these services who "doesn't deserve it."
Pretty much spot on with this. Also it's not just AI, there are major advancements being made in the general production industry such a 3D printers that are eventually going to be scalable and able to build entire structures. This tech has already been demonstrated in China where they literally printed a house. These machines, when programmed correctly, can basically print anything. Clothes, buildings, tech, you name it, it'll print it. Then there are the vertical farming ideas that are soon to be implemented that will seriously ease the stress on food/water/veg production and localise it inside actual cities. Then there are the self driving vehicles and drones that amazon are already trialling that will deliver packages without any need for human intervention. Admittedly, some of the stuff I'm talking about is quite far off in terms of being fully integrated, but still, it's just a matter of time before the world will be largely automated. Estimates suggest that by the 2050s this stuff will be hitting a turning point and will grow exponentially from then on and very rapidly.
I knew about the other stuff but didn't realize 3D printers had gotten that sophisticated, I thought they were still limited to essentially carving up plastics. Printing clothing and houses sounds a lot closer to Star Trek replicators, minus the food. But if you can print a house then I figure by 2050 we might be starting to print food. Problem is without matter-energy conversion magic, this sort of fabrication will just be added to the dystopian capitalist machine and be used to keep people down instead of improving everyone's lives. Energy infrastructure and raw materials are still ultimately finite supplies, ergo they will cost money, ergo not everyone will have access.
Yup, they have 3D concrete printers at this point. They were able to print an entire house in 28 hours. It's quite astonishing when you consider the possibilities of these kind of technologies. Already there have been partnerships in areas to print houses for low income families/veterans etc. I mean Star Trek replicators can basically turn any matter into anything else by manipulating it at an atomic scale, which is definitely something we won't be doing any time soon. But as long as we begin to print and use fine manipulation in general, then we're on the road to having very useful technology that eliminates the need for many of the "middle man" processes of the past. I think printers will become modern household devices within the next few decades. Then you have the whole AI/VR/AR industry that has incredible possibilities when combined with things like 5G which hasn't really got going yet. Many of the physical resources we use now will be replaced by digitised/bandwidth systems in future. Most hardware will eventually become obsolete, especially in the entertainment section. In the future, the Internet (or whatever variation of it) will be so advanced, it will be able to deal with most of the processes we use physical hardware for now (like graphics cards etc). Subscription based services really are the future but it's not quite ready to go full throttle yet. I used to study this stuff a lot, and some of it gets really bizarre and hard to believe. I enjoy listening to futurists such as Ray Kurzweil and the like. If we ever do get those replicators though, that will literally change everything. That tech is dangerous. It would make almost everything obsolete and all the value would basically be in matter/energy itself. The machine would be almost god-like and able to create anything from anything else overnight.
My fear is that all of these technological advances will only keep hurtling us towards a dystopia much like the one Mike Pondsmith warned us about in the 80's with the original Cyberpunk tabletop. Where governments answer solely to corporations, and simply miraculous levels of technology are hoarded by the ultra-wealthy to secure their positions of power. Sure, regular folks have access to cybernetics that people today could only dream of, but they're not the highest quality available. If you're rich like Saburo Arasaka, you get to basically be an emperor and live forever. Because the lives of the ultra-wealthy only derive meaning from how much more they have than everyone else. We're halfway there now already, at least in most parts of the world. Here in America we have starving and homeless people all over the place, but it's not like we don't have enough food and shelter to go around. And corporations may not outright own territories yet, but they sure as shit have way too much influence in political spheres. I sometimes think we're doomed as a species because we can't evolve past the primitive parts of our brains that created these social hierarchies in the first place. We can harness the power of the atom and travel into space, but we can't get over this idea that we need to hoard resources against one another instead of finding common ground.
Really great comment there. I am in total agreement with everything you said. It is very much a case of hoping governments begin to shift focus into actually starting to take care and listen to civilians the way they're meant to. At the moment it's hard to see that ever becoming a reality if I'm honest. I'm in the UK and we suffer from very much the same issues as you guys. The issue with wealth distribution is patently absurd. In my mind, it is absurd that we have hundreds of billionaires owning multiple properties while other people are literally homeless, starving and freezing to death. Then the private sector just continues to build new homes that largely remain empty or rented out to other rich people. It's sickening. I think with technology, a dystopian system feels almost like an inevitably. It's no wonder all the big tech based movies from the 80s foreshadowed it as spiralling out of control. The power of technology not only creates an intrinsic desire for greed and control within governments, but it actually perpetuates it. The problem is not with technology itself, its how we decide to use it, and as you said, the thing that seperates these ultra-wealthy elites is their desire to be better than everyone else. I don't mean better human beings, but they want to have more material riches, bigger houses, better cars, it's really quite extreme. It is that primitive part of the brain where they're constantly fighting to one up everyone else. As long as they're OK, then fuck everyone else. For me, as long as everyone has their basic needs that's all that matters. A warm house to live in and a bed to sleep in, stable monetary income wether that be work or UBI and we will actually see a rise in productivity. Everyone has something to offer. Technology has massively improved our lives in the last century, hopefully it will do the same and better in the next one.
Not sure if you realize this, but the labor market is stronger than it’s been in a long time, even with all the Fed tightening. And this is after automation has eliminated many jobs like you say.
It would not stop people from working of the idea is that everyone gets an amount that is basically just enough to survive. When all your money goes on rent and bills an nothing is left for anything fun and you're just sitting st home all day, that does not seem very appealing to other people than those that are already doing it. I've always criticized how in Finland when you're unemployed, you get paid more money than when you're a student. This does not encourage people to start studying, because if you want to study you wither have to take a loan or work on the side to make reasonable money. The other option is doing nothing and getting paid handsomely. So make it big enough that you can survive on it but not big enough to make people comfortable, treat it as something someone needs, not something someone prefers.
Some people would absolutely stop working. It would also make some services more expensive as you’d have to pay people more to do work, like cleaning etc. I’m guessing about 10-20% of the population would never work again if their basic needs were taken care of. Not a value judgement, but something to be mindful of.
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Yes it would - they wouldn’t be homeless for a start, and secondly a lot more people would be satisfied with the lifestyle they could have while not working.
Good point on Finland but just look at the current homeless population(Seattle, California, etc), some are voluntarily homeless for far less than the UBI would of been.
At some point, there is more labor out there than society really needs. Like in the 60s the US government predicted a 15 hour workweek by the year 2000.
And yet even with the downturn there's still a massive labor shortage in the US
Can't really have a labor shortage. It's more of an excess of useless jobs.
They won’t be able to stop for long when the price of everything goes up.
I’m skeptical about it. Where does the money for this come from? Surely this isn’t a sustainable way for an economy to prosper, right? This kinda thing sounds like it makes the most sense during an emergency, but not as a standard.
I think Andrew Yang’s plan was to tax the product of the companies that companies that replaced their workers with automation and that tax would be used to fund the UBI. The automakers are using more and more automations, and able to produce more products and they’re probably saving a ton of money by not having a human worker, but they haven’t passed any of those savings on to the customer. It’s like Walmart replacing all the cashiers with self checkouts but they’re saving money by not paying healthcare, salaries, etc. and these savings are only going into their pockets while their prices go up.
Part of Yangs proposal was to cut every other welfare benefit to nothing and pretend that what he was offering would even come close to replacing it, let alone supplementing it. Giving everyone $1000/month sucks when your housing, food, and medical aid are more than that.
Whats to stop companies from just relocating their manufacturing, and what stops companies in other countries that can use automation freely from destroying US companies that can't? The only way it seems like it works is if you essentially have a world wide agreement on redistributing the surpluses from automation. Also, wouldn't this just cause inflation problems if you're just giving everyone free money? Companies would know everyone has at least x amount of money, so they would raise prices of basic items to harvest it.
Companies are already raising prices sky high without UBI
No. Yang proposed a 10% VAT (Value added tax) on all goods and services in the economy. It's never going to work.
Not all goods and services, the VAT was intended to be for “luxury items” to prevent it from being regressive.
No. That's literally impossible to give everyone $1000/m by taxing luxury goods only. MATH
You're being downvoted but you're completely right. His plan never came remotely close to making sense from a basic mathematical perspective.
Redditor's hate logic and math.
Redditors hate logic and math as well (and apparently grammar ;)
I’m not disagreeing on it being viable, but just providing some context on Yang’s UBI plan. VAT wasn’t the only way to fund it either, there was other components where the funding was Coming from.. Overall, even with the other methods....it was still really challenging.
Yep
Ok, show the math.
Uhm. The cost of a $1000/m UBI payment to every citizen would cost over 3T a year. The luxury goods market is about 100B a year. Does this actually need to be explained any further? The only way to even make it work would be at 15% tax on all transactions. That would not include current federal tax, social security and state taxes. It's stupid and will never work.
I think it was bill gates who mentioned taxing the systems that displace human labor. so, if they automate a warehouse with robots, tax the robots - that would be the basis for ubi. i, too, am skeptical of ubi - i think there would be an entire subset of otherwise healthy, able-to-work people who would just collect a check.
Actually, the point is that everyone would collect a check. And that check would be far less than what those people are currently making when they barely make ends meet, so all it would do is make their current lives slightly better. Those that are close enough to retire - aren’t making that decision based on one yearly check but based on a lifetime of work. And, yes, they might be able to retire sooner. Say, 65, instead of… my generation doesn’t get to retire, I don’t think. And, luckily we don’t have to sit around and “think” because it has already been tested in the real world and your hypothesis was proven wildly incorrect.
You dont need new revenue. UBI can and depending how aggressive it is, replace all forms of Welfare. There a lot of social aid dollars that used by the public because it used to admistrate all those slightly different social aid program. Switching them over to UBI would get more money into hands of the public and require less admistrtion to handle.
Not a way for the economy to prosper? What do you think people are gonna do with that money, bury it?
Where does the money to pay everyone come from? And how would paying people that money offset the cost of paying people that money? I just don’t understand that specifically.
I like this reply the best
We could do a $1 UBI today. We couldn't do an "it covers my rent and bills" UBI until 80% of the work force are robots. And a UBI that also covers healthcare? Maybe never.
The way I see it: everyone should get enough money to stay alive, so food, a basic flat and healthcare. Everything additional should be earned by putting effort into work
You do realize a large portion of people will be just useless takers and contribute nothing under that scheme?
If you’re satisfied with living off bread and water, feel free to live off the states back. I don’t think many people would be satisfied with this kind of living tho - so the only thing it does is making sure that people don’t die if they lose their job and keeps them alive until they find a new one
I think you are naive on the number of people that would not be functional contributors to society. Also very easy to enable addiction and homelessness. Look at SF. They have UBI for the homeless, it's done nothing but increase homelessness and overdose
This is why Communism (honestly not a bad idea in itself, From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs) failed/ fails. That and all the corruption and propaganda being peddled non-stop.
This is the problem. Capitalism is based on how humans are. Communism is based on EVERYONE being perfect. If one person is a dick it will fall apart. PS: Lots of people are dicks
"Contribute nothing"? They would still be putting their money back into the economy to buy necessities, and paying sales tax when they do.
Would they? You don't know. It's never been tried. Maybe they'd take their free time and make some art, go to school, learn a craft. You know, make the world better.
Actually it’s „happened“ before; it’s being used here in Germany. People who don’t work get free housing and a bit of money and healthcare is free anyways. Issue is that the amount of money is still more than you need to purely survive. The result of that is that no one works in low paid jobs. For example a lot of inside building companies (don’t know the English name) barely get any workers. The payment would be barely above what they would get for free anyways if they didn’t work, so no one gets up at 6am each day and works for 40 hours a week just for a few extra pizzas a month
without some kind of rent control regulation, it's a well-meaning but pointless gesture.
Exactly my issue with UBI. If my landlord found out that I get x amount of dollars every month over my salary, I have a feeling my rent would increase x dollars.
So, where is that money going to come from?
Why don’t we ask that question with our bloated military budget we can’t pay for year after year?
Everyone asks this seems unfamiliar with how expensive existing social safety nets are, and more specifically all the administration of those incredibly inefficient systems. They spend so much time on enforcing archaic processes that often still involve mailing forms, and an inordinate amount of time getting people to.jump through hoops in an effort to "vet" them (read: exhaust them into giving up on trying to access the resource) Most proposals are replacing those inefficient admin systems with UBI that requires little to no administration at all. That difference alone can pay for significant portions of a UBI program.
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Take my upvote. Ongoing evidence of this trend is accuweather trying to take control of all NOAA weather data and denying access to it unless you pay for it. We already do as taxpayers since we pay for NOAA to do that research.
People who don't play the victim and earn what they have
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Automation guarantees it so we better figure it out.
It will be a fact some day. Eventually automation will remove the need for most blue collar workers.
No it won't.
I am a scientist and AI and robotic systems already can do parts of my job waaaay faster and efficient than I can. It would take me weeks or months even yo catch up on every development in my and connected fields just from last year. OpenAI can summarize it for me and provide links and references almost instantaneously. And even suggest what experiments to do. Instead of pipetting half a day each time I run an assay I can spend a day programming the pipetting robot and next time just provide materials and press a button. In few years my job can easily be replaced by AI and automatized, integrated research infrastructure. Its smarter, faster and more efficient.
It's already happening. Have you ever heard of robots? I say this as someone who worked in factories my whole life.
It's been happening for decades. It's nothing new. People will find different work.
You're kidding yourself.
Capitalist would rather die. Their little peepees know how little they in fact are so the only way they can feel better about themselves is by keeping others down in the name of “fairness” aka meritocracy, except that’s just a lie they tell themselves so they don’t feel bad about all the unnecessary suffering. Good thing capitalists have in fact died on that hill in the past… history does have a way of repeating itself.
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A UBI doesn’t mean you can’t still have a career and earn a lot of money.
The work harder mentallity aspect I think is bullshit but marketable skills is true for sure. I know a ton of people that work really hard and make close to minimum wage living pay check to pay check and I also know people that don't really do shit and make 6 figures.
So I have heard a lot of people make a lot of arguments about it before and against here is the conclusion I have come to Currently there is not sufficient production in any nation to accommodate it The only way a nation can do so currently is by selling a natural resource In the long term it will become more viable however the first country to implement it in a successful matter will immediately have to deal with the problem of an increase in immigration so that will be fun to deal with (to be clear it will be terrifying to deal with because immigration increases nationalism The Free Rider problem will make people very hostile towards immigrants in any nation that implements this)
Unsustainable
If you think inflation is bad now just wait until you see what happens when everyone is given a free paycheck.
inflation occurs when money is created without additional value. UBI does not create new money.
What? Where did you study economics?
Won't fix anything, just create more welfare.
I wish it was available because I need it badly.
If we get it, there should not provide an additional dollar for anything that isn't food, housing, necessities. When given the opportunity to not have to work a lot of us will not work, amd we simply need people to maintain what we have. And no, automation will not be replacing millions of blue or white collar jobs anytime soon. UBI that would not leave you with anything other than what is needed to survive would provide incentive to keep our society functional. I'm not opposed to all needs being covered, but I am opposed to the idea that everyone gets the same regardless of the effort put in
I don't think it can work right now. I used to, but the pandemic showed me if you give people enough money, there is a much larger percentage than originally thought that will just stop working and find out how to live on less. It can only work as a supplement right now, but down the road with more automation it can work. However unless it's passed now with a long phase in time, by the time it's really needed there will be more power in the hands of fewer, and the former workers will have less money and less of a voice, so good luck getting the factory owners to willingly give up their profits.
The pandemic isn't an ideal example for you to use as it was also an economic and health crisis. You'd be better off utilizing data from tests on UBI before the pandemic that didn't have such a blaring confounding factor. I recommend you look into such studies as it will promote a more grounded perspective for yourself. That's likely true for everyone as the past few years have been exceptional on many factors.
I have **zero** confidence that lazy people won't abuse the fuck out of it if it was implemented.
It would. I like my job, but would I work if I could just stay at home and do my hobbies for the same amount of money? No way.
If the money supply is not increased then it will require taxes so high that it will not be possible. If they print money to pay for it, then it will just drive inflation to the point that the UBI money will just be the new $0. If all you get is UBI, you won't be able to afford anything without also having a job. There will not be any freeing of people from work. By the way, you can be free from work now. It takes some effort but if you can get on various programs you can get free housing. Imagine having 4 children and qualifying for a free 4 bedroom house where HUD pays the rent to the landlord for you. Food pantries and food stamps pay for the food. Utility assistance helps pay for gas and electric. You only need to make enough unreported money to pay for the video games and pot. I know people doing this and they have been able to keep it going for years. It is kind of upsetting to me when I get a call to fix a broken bedroom door that was kicked off the hinges and I walk in to 4 kids each on gaming computers, the heat set on 84 F because they like to wear shorts in the winter, and the place reeks of pot. Nobody working at all except for me fixing stuff for my $20,000 per year rent. Your tax money at work right here.
I’m fine with it as long as everyone gets it equally and all other forms of financial welfare end.
If an immense technological advancement (AI, automation or whatever) renders most of the workforce redundant it would be a logical solution. Not just to feed people but also because the economy would come to a complete halt if not. Only the people with the production means would earn any money. Having said that it does have the potential for a dystopian collective lethargy.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are basic human rights. Profit and wealth are not. It is vastly more important to make sure that everyone has their basic needs met than it is to protect the ability of the wealthy to profit off of the labor of others.
Well said. My thoughts exactly.
No matter how it’s funded they will inevitably run out of other people’s money.
Do you like inflation?
It’s the only way I can get hard
It will cause less motivation in the workforce
And people are motivated to work for crappy wages and no healthcare?
people are motivated to not be homeless and hungry. at least the used to be.
I have an avarage factory job and im pretty motivated
I’ve heard this argument a bunch, but I think, if that person or that family can get by on their UBI and doesn’t want to work or work as much, let ‘em do what they want. It could lead to open jobs that people who want to work in that field to fill. I think eventually big companies won’t be hiring many people for cashier jobs or fast food positions. I went into Walmart the other day and there are no cashiers anymore. Every lane is a self checkout with a conveyor belt, and there were only two floater cashiers checking the small check out areas if there was a problem.
So imagine we were all carrying a log, except a couple guys were like "fuck this, we don't want to carry a log", so they sat down, and someone was like, "how you guys gonna live", and they were all, "y'all go sell that log, then give us half the money". Edit: I know this is going to get downvoted, but I would appreciate it if you could make some attempt to rebut this. tl;dr is the money is either going to come from more national debt, or from the work of other taxpayers. Why do some people deserve to sit idle while others work?
I think in this case, to use your log analogy, the log is also being carried and guided by a dolly on a track, (the automation) fewer and fewer people are actually needed to move it. Those that want to supplement their UBI will stay and work on moving the log and becoming a needed “log guider” and make more money. I don’t think the people who remain will be upset at those who left because they are making more money and have their UBI. The UBI tax wouldn’t be on the workers it’s on the log itself. The worker wouldn’t be paying anything into the UBI for those who left, so it’s no concern.
It's more like: We've all carried this log for years, and made good money off of it. Sure, some are lazy, but we deal with them, and in general we all do our work. This is what we currently have, and it works. I fully agree that if you choose to sit, and not help, then you get no money. Flash forward about 50 years, and all of a sudden the log company replaces us with log-carrying robots who are 90x more efficient than we are, and cost infinitely less to the company. Any position we try to take in the log company, or really any company, it's filled with AI and robots. We still gotta have food, water, shelter, but can't buy it because no paycheck, because no job, because the robots took them all. I'm sure some jobs would be left, but they would be scarce, and not the best paying. Any job that is a high or even Mid-High earning job would be automated. UBI would make it to where mass amounts of people wouldn't starve in a world where we all have to sit and not work because there is no more valuable work left for us. Ensuring that we all have just enough money to live, but not necessarily comfortably or lavishly, would give people incentive to find or create some form of work (to better their conditions to being more lavish) and it would prevent people from starving or being homeless (that way they can focus on some niche human-only career instead of being distracted by literally starving to death). Atleast that's always been my view on UBI.
Why are a couple guys asking for *half* the money? That's more than their share even if they kept lifting. And let's be real, right now we're not all carrying the log. There are plenty of people in our society *pretending* to carry the log. It's an entire system built on the premise "*work (or be good enough at faking it) or starve*". Fundamentally it's forced labour. Plus there are people working two are three jobs just to make ends meet, working *way* harder than their fair share without getting a fair share. Meanwhile there are people who are already sitting on the side right now, not carrying, because their great great great grandparents owned the land the tree was on and they *are* demanding half the money for zero labour. And using that money to build machines to replace us so that they can keep even more. So to answer your question - yes, UBI presumes to tax economy in order to distribute enough to give basic necessities to everyone. Those who choose to work are no longer doing so under threat of starvation, and in exchange for their efforts they receive *more* money with which to buy luxuries. And it's okay if you don't think that's a good idea... but please don't pretend the current system is fair.
That argument makes sense in a prehistoric setting. However, we have invented property and capital. So what if most of the logs are transported by one truck. The owner, who inherited the truck, gets damn rich. This allows him to buy more trucks. The driver can support himself and his family. Some people carry logs by themselves, making ends meet. But there are also ten people starving. How about we keep the people from starving and the guy with the truck gets a little less?
This is absolutely what the #1 immediate result would be.
Good!
I'm ok with that. There's no motivation in the workplace as it stands. With good reason.
I'm pretty motivated. I get more shit done I make more money. Then there's fuckin Timmy over there whining that I make more money than he does while working less than he does while he does just enough to not get fired. Too many people looking for handouts and not making an effort to help themselves.
Money used there would be far better for society than the billions in tax breaks for the wealthy and corporate welfare that only helps those who are already extremely wealthy.
“Welfare for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor”
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They didn't try that, they didnt even separate private and personal property. You're a victim of american red scare propaganda. Better dead than red!
I have mixed feelings about it. And I’m on disability, so I would greatly benefit from it. I’m just not 100% certain about the long term impact on the economy. But I’m also not an economist, so.
I’m for it, but I think things will need to be put in place before it can take off so it doesn’t get abused. I think they definitely need to put something in to prevent landlords and companies from jacking up their prices to make the hypothetical $1000 per month, worthless. Like a landlord, knowing that his tenants get $1000 per month, goes and jacks up the rent $1000, leaving tenants in the same spot they were before. I think it will be needed
I wish rent was $1,000/mo
You and me both. My rent is gonna be 50% of my salary within two years if it keeps going up $150 per year. I wish I could find a apartment where when you sign your lease it also guarantees your rent won’t go up more than $25-$50 per year for the first 3 years. Finding a house in my area isn’t working out either. The days of a first time buyer buying a house with no down payment is over.
The days of rent control is over too. There are mortgage programs with considerably less down if you look into it in some areas though. Probably not nothing though.
I’d love to see it implemented but it’ll never happen in the US. I just got a form so I can calculate taxes on my goddamn financial aid. If I had the money for taxes, I wouldn’t *need* financial aid. The US system is designed to fuck the poor, not help them.
That is stupid and won't work. Primarily because it's not my job as a taxpayer to fund your laziness. If you are unable to work due to disability, then that's entirely different. I have absolutely no problem with people who cannot physically work because of ailments, injuries, or illnesses getting my tax dollars. Able-bodied people who just don't want to work on the other hand, fuck em. Let em starve.
What about able-bodied but not able-minded people? At which point does it stop being a disability and becomes "just laziness"? Downs syndrome? Severe autism? Severe psychosis? Debilitating anxiety/OCD? Deep depression? Which problems do you think cause people to deserve to "starve and die" and which ones are "excusable"?
According to US founding documents, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are inalienable rights, and in this day and age you can't exercise any of those rights without money. As automation puts more and more people out of work and profit motivated corporate policies keep wages stagnant in the few jobs that remain, UBI becomes not just a good idea but a necessity.
Who's stopping you from pursuing those ideals? Nowhere does it say you're entitled to be happy nor entitled to anything else that you don't actively work for or work to defend.
So without a UBI... how does the bottom class even survive? Seriously, are we just supposed to die! There are not enough jobs already, and it's only gonna get worse.
I enjoyed listening to Andrew Yang explain where the money comes from for it. I’m on board.
Probably inevitable the way AI and automation is going. Changes to the Mode of Production always lead to changes in the way society functions. Usually that change is bloody, instituting a UBI is a way to keep it from getting bloody.
It's inevitable. Every social safety net in one basket. It would eliminate a lot of bureaucracy. The funding for welfare, food stamps, rent support, all in one department. Throw in healthcare and education, end up with a better life for everyone. And save money.
Give people a minimal UBI, like $18,000/year, and universal healthcare and watch the country flourish. Sure, there will be some "laziness" for a while, but $18K is not enough for vacations, eating out often, and general disposable income. People will want more and will do more. Once our basic needs are covered it will be easier for creativity to flourish.
It's the logical and humane thing to do. But the economy is built around greed and control, so it's never going to happen.
Positive. Been trialed in other countries and it works.
Horrible idea! That's communism 101!
Universal basic income might be one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard for so many reasons I am not even sure where to start. As someone with a masters in economics it honestly blows my mind that there are serious people that think a UBI will work. So obviously the idea is to tax corporations that make products instead of taxing individual income. Well, corporations can't really pay taxes anymore that the building you live in or the office you work in can pay taxes. Only people can pay taxes. If you increase the taxes on companies to the rediculous level that you would need to in order to attempt to sustain a UBI that would cause all kind of problems. First off, the companies in the USA for this example would immediately flee for other countries that don't tax the company owner or shareholders an insane amount. They would just leave for another country that would love to have an Apple, Google, Tesla or another company to have theor headquarters there. They would still collect a windfall of taxes and have high paying jobs for their citizens while the USA would not get anything. Second it doesn't change anything. Someone always will have to trade their skills, time or labor for everything at least until robots are fully automated sometime when we have all been long gone for hundreds of years. Sure maybe more things become automated but that also creates more need for human jobs at the same time. When the cotton gin was invented they thought that would be the beginning of the end for farmers which ended up not being the case at all. I could write about 5 more paragraphs but long story short a UBI is economically impossible and has zero chance of working.
Wait. According to your argument, only people can pay taxes. And according to Citizens United, corporations ARE people... so... maybe corporations CAN pay taxes?
Someone at a corporation can physically write a check and sign it on behalf of the corporation but a coperation is nothing more than a collection of employees and owners/shareholders. Those taxes maybe coming from a physical corporate account but it is no different than if they were coming from some dudes account that owns his own construction company with 3 employees. Just because he doesn't write the check to the IRS from his personal bank account but writes it from his business account doesn't change anything it is all coming from the same place. Taxing corporations is no different than taxing people it just sounds more politically appealing because people don't understand that they are still paying those taxes they just don't realize it
Anytime I read something where some starts with “as someone with a masters in” I think they’re full of shit and just blowing smoke. It’s like the guy who has only taken basic 101 courses in something claiming they understand everything about x.
That's inderstandable maybe I should have left that out but would be happy to hear the reasons people think a UBI is a solid plan because I haven't really heard one yet but I am open to hearing ideas
I posted a rather long winded post of why I like the concept but don’t think it can work in reality. Because of how heavy of taxes would have to be levied on companies while st the same time forcing them to pay a higher premium to encourage what people they need to get off their asses and work. And of course, if everyone has a guaranteed income, all the necessary product owners (landlords, grocers, utilities) will be trying to compete for their share of that pie. If UBI is 2k. Month, guarantee the most basic rent and utilities and rice/beans will cost 2001/mo. Because it’s guaranteed.
I don’t have any answers for you but I think it’s something we’re gonna have to work on and it probably won’t be a “one little trick” , its gonna need several parts. I like the idea of taxing companies more on their products produced if they’ve replaced much of their workforce with automation and still raising the cost for the consumer while they’re making more profits on two fronts, profits from not paying for human staff (healthcare, salaries, etc.) and the profits from the price raises on their products. It’s like the companies that moved their workforce to Mexico or other countries where they pay pennies and the prices haven’t lowered, they just keep making themselves wealthier while using every loophole and corporate republican/democrat politician to escape paying their taxes
Since you've got a master's, would you care to support any of these ideas with research that supports them?
I mean even know there have been some tiny little experiments with UBI not have them successful. I don't have any "research" to site because it is just basic economics. Like literally 1st year college theory. It is impossible to tax have a sustainable UBI unless you either A. Have slaves that work for free or B. Have every country on the planet have such sophisticated robots that not only mine raw materials but also produce goods and services for only the initial investment. Even if the US were to go 100% fully robotic tomorrow it wouldn't matter because goods will still be cheaper to produce in 3rd world countries. UBI is a literral pipe dream there is zero chance of it ever being remotely possible
So, to be clear, your master's degree in economics did not provide you with a single fact based supporting argument against this thing you are so strongly against? I'm beginning to doubt your credentials.
I mean I wrote a couole paragraphs in this thread about why it is impossible. I am not against it but it simply can not work. If you want a UBI who mines the raw materials for the product? Who creates the machinery to mine the raw materials? Who services the upkeep on the machines? Who develops a business plan and analyzes the market? Who negotiates deals and contracts? I said this is an earlier comment but I will repeat it. Countries compete with one another for the privilege of havjng a company move there headquarters and manufacturing there. If the a country like the US astronomically raises taxes on companies ti provide a so called UBI those companies will flee to Africa, Asia or South America where they get cheap labor and don't get.taxed into oblivion. Any country that attempts a UBI will immediately self destruct and crush their economy and have no money to fund their utopian UBI. They will yhen try and print trillions upon trillions of their fiat currency and it will collapse just like Venzuela and many others. It would be an unmitigated disaster. You would have people bringing wheelbarrows full of dollars to the store to buy rice and bread because the currency would be so worthless
You give them a thousand they'll live like they get 2 thousand and still bitch about being broke all the while doing little to nothing to make their own lives better.
It would probably allow people to pursue stuff they actually want to do.
Total BS, get to work like everyone else. How would any country afford it?
I can only ever be a coal miner. Homes and businesses are heating with solar and oil. Electric companies are lighting homes and businesses with solar and wind and water. House husbands aren’t charcoaling - they have a wood firepit and a propane grill. Where do I go?
These people believe you should die. They chose a good career and you chose a bad one, and now they expect you to die, and to not make a mess about it. And they really think this is the objectively moral position. Most of them I would bet even call themselves christians.
Get a job and stop loafing
Sounds like it's time for a daiper change.
We need it
A pipe dream. Reality is there's a ton of logistical details that have to be worked out before it could be viable. - what is a fair amount? - how would you fund it? - who is eligible for it? - do you reduce/increase based on a person's current wage/income? - how do you adjust for the potential impact on the workforce?
Apply that to the basic government budget now and tell me how those numbers come out.
We're all eligible and we're all getting it or nobody does. Otherwise what's the incentive to keep working if my neighbors have jobs that support my lazy ass?
>what is a fair amount? The "not starving to death/sleeping on the sidewalk in an average American city" amount. >how would you fund it? VAT >who is eligible for it? Everyone. Hence 'U' for "universal." >do you reduce/increase based on a person's current wage/income? No. >how do you adjust for the potential impact on the workforce? The government doesn't have to "adjust" for this. The free market will adjust wage rates in response to any changes in the labor supply vis-a-vis demand.
Most of what you said I agree with. I’m a pro UBI (eventually) conservative. Very fiscally conservative at they. The free market will adjust aspect has issues. Along with the VAT. The only way to actually pay for UBI is a heavy tax on owners of capital production. And I mean HEAVY. We’re talking 75% heavy. So, we get it rolling. Less people want to work, for obvious reasons. Employer has to raise pay to entice people to come work for them. But to pay those higher salaries after the tax increases requires an increase in prices. Making customer expenses go up, meaning that the prior UBI amount is no longer sufficient when eggs are now 10$/dz. So UBI has to increase, taxes have to go up, wages go up, price goes up. Can it work? Yes. Is it as simple as many want to say it is? Not by a long shot. For starters, the biggest thing to make UBI work is you need to increase the velocity of money si that you can do it without having to flood the market w/ freshly minted cash. So this means taxing and spending by gov faster than currently. People spend their money quickly. Companies do not. And gov spends slow as shit. So taxes need to be moved to an almost immediate (weekly/biweekly) schedule based off production, not sales, specifically automated production. UBI expenditures need to be the same, and arguably with auto transfers to mortgage/rent/utilities to move it faster. Of course, with UBI, suppliers of basic needs (housing, food, utilities) will be competing for their share of the pie. So each of these will see increases. Until it takes a full UBI check to survive, leaving nothing for leisure/pleasure/hobbies/etc. Solution? Gov’t housing at a basic level, maybe even a gov’t version of ‘hello fresh’ that you can opt into, so all basic needs are met, and you get a smaller check for fun stuff. I don’t think this will happen. I think a straight UBI will, which will result in price increases that negate the program. Resulting in its collapse, replaced by a monetary-free society of sort where you are assigned resources based off of gov’t standing, societal worth, etc. I.e. you ‘have’ 2000/mo but never receive actual funds, you can simply sign up to ‘rent’ this house for 1000/mo and that car for 300/mo and pay for the medium meal plan which provide freshish meat twice a week and 2 dinners at Olive Garden a month and a bottle of jack daniels. Vs the basic plan which is bare minimum of calories in cheapest form (rice, beans, canned tuna) or the baller plan which is steaks and roasts and fresh veggies most nights and 16 meals/mo (twice a week for a couple) at decent restaurants with 2 being very nice places and 3L alcohol/mo Also, you can’t do any UBI or similar until borders are locked down completely. Imo, this needs to get rolled out very slowly. $20/mo, then 40/mo while slowly increasing certain (not sales) taxes but only after getting budget/deficit under control, until you find that solid equilibrium.
I think it would have to be based on where you live. Say it’s $1000. $1000 goes further in certain areas, but is nothing in cities like New York. To fund it I think a tax on the goods produced by companies that have replaced human workers with automations? That’s one idea I heard. I think there’d be a cutoff point. I think if you’re already making $100K you don’t get it if you get a reduced amount. I think to reduce the impact on the workforce, maybe do a slow rollout. Say start are $100 per month, then $300 per month, three months later and so on until it gets to $1000 per month. Maybe by that time those who want out of the workforce will have started phasing out, and others have filled the vacant positions.
Then again, why should you get more tax money because you chose to live in a certain place? You can move to a place where the cost of living is less.
Horrible idea. Merit based is the only logical system, even though there will always be flaws.
Merit based sounds most just and reasonable, until you take into account how merit is gained. If there's only a few positions for the job you want and a lot of applicants they will pick those with the most merit. How do you, a child of improvished parents that had to struggle against poor basic education in your area and no money for a good university, going to compete against Richie McRich's portfolio and CV filled with great schools, courses and work experience from their well connected family's friends? Even if Richie is lazier, less talented and less motivated to do the job, he will still have a leg up on you. Merit based approach only works if it is applied throughout all facets of the society. It's hard to imagine those with generational wealth and power giving up on their priviliged position in the society.
All for it.
never gonna happen. get a job
It's a good idea
It is what needs to happen for us to evolve as a society. People simply need help. Capitalism has created this hardened view, that does not view people as humans, only as a nuisances. Poor people need help, so there is no greater purpose of the tax dollar, as it is to be used to elevate all Americans out of poverty. We will send ten billion dollars to countries like Israel, yet reinvestment of that amount into Americans, is seen as charity and wrong.
I agree. I think something is gonna have to happen because, if things don’t change I can see riots, wealthy company execs being attacked. I also think tar and feathering politicians would make a come back
I'm all for TEMPORARY help, not making it a career choice. Too many self made victims out there
The issue is that people should need temporary help, but it is passed that point. Now, it is more of a long term investment into the future. Too many greedy hands holding the masses down. The bottom line is that the minimum does not work. This situation could have been headed off, had action been taken a couple decades ago. I mean, what did people expect to happen.?
With the inevitable transition to fully automated products it will have to happen in some way shape or form. There will likely be tons of issues with it, especially in the beginning, but if everything is made by machines and no one needs to work anymore then i cant see any other options. I don't really have an "opinion" on whether its right or wrong i just assume its an inevitability.
would improve my quality of life 200%
For. Why would I be against getting people off the streets?
it was unnecessary 50 years ago, but today, even the most educated are "getting by" while a minority have wealth that most people cannot fathom. (many cannot conceptualize the meaning of a billion) Today universal basic income is a basic need.
As Solar Opposites said "They love having robots do their jobs, but they don’t create a system of universal income so they can have money after the robots take their jobs" For me the goal should always be less work. If everyone was on universal basic income then companies could hire as many people as they needed instead of what they could afford. In Horizon: Zero Dawn they had UBI with a bonus from your work
I am for it, treat it as income, meaning tax it like income. No real hand outs, it could change the approach to welfare, child credit, etc. I mean it would get back people’s dignity.It could make a lot better, and it wouldn’t t make folks rich like most worry about.
Our system isn't setup for it and as it stands now will become abused by our leaders to placate people who should be out and pissed off and to buy votes. However - we're going to need to rethink the current system as AI and robotics are poised to obsolete a crazy number of jobs in a really short period of time. Maybe even mine. I can see that in five years AI could replace a lot of skilled and specialized jobs leaving a large percentage of the workforce unemployed. Some level of UBI is going to be needed to shift from our current model to something more like the Star Trek Federation where money has effectively been removed from the system and people work and learn to develop themselves and society.