It will absolutely solve poverty, what it won't do is make everyone rich.
Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
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Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
#12Relative poverty is insoluble without totalitarian levels of redistribution to a very low common denominator, and that is unlikely to include the inevitable oligarchs. Absolute poverty is rapidly being solved ( https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_... ) by markets and globalization, and radical redistribution such as a basic income tends to interfere with that.
By some measures, poverty already is a solved problem in the United States. Relative poverty is all we have left to solve....
There are quite a lot of people in the USA that consistently starve. I'm quite sure that according to most definitions that's clearly absolute poverty, not a relative one.
Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
#13Relative poverty is insoluble without totalitarian levels of redistribution to a very low common denominator, and that is unlikely to include the inevitable oligarchs. Absolute poverty is rapidly being solved ( https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_... ) by markets and globalization, and radical redistribution such as a basic income tends to interfere with that.
Many people are still homeless in the US. Calling that 'relative' poverty is abusing the term enough to become meaningless. The most enlightening thing about this debate is the idea that we don't care about peoples basic standards of living and are happy to pretend there is no problem. PS: Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in January 2012 annual point-in-time count found that 633,782 peopl…
Absolute poverty is pretty much a solved problem. Homeless people are a very small percentage, and continues to fall.
Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
#14Relative poverty is insoluble without totalitarian levels of redistribution to a very low common denominator, and that is unlikely to include the inevitable oligarchs. Absolute poverty is rapidly being solved ( https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_... ) by markets and globalization, and radical redistribution such as a basic income tends to interfere with that.
Many people are still homeless in the US. Calling that 'relative' poverty is abusing the term enough to become meaningless. The most enlightening thing about this debate is the idea that we don't care about peoples basic standards of living and are happy to pretend there is no problem. PS: Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in January 2012 annual point-in-time count found that 633,782 peopl…
There's probably a significant percentage of homeless people who are homeless because they have untreated mental illnesses. They'd likely be homeless even if they weren't monetarily impoverished.
Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
#15Relative poverty is insoluble without totalitarian levels of redistribution to a very low common denominator, and that is unlikely to include the inevitable oligarchs. Absolute poverty is rapidly being solved ( https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_... ) by markets and globalization, and radical redistribution such as a basic income tends to interfere with that.
When you haven't even fulfilled the bottom tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I don't think that it matters whether the poverty is relative or not.
Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
#16It will absolutely solve poverty, what it won't do is make everyone rich.
And frankly the world is likely to be better off that way.
research have shown over and over that as economic differences grow, social structures deteriorate.
Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
#17The very first argument in the article is flawed which leads me to wonder how much of it is or isn't flawed. It talks about a Universal Basic Income for everyone over 21.. then it complains that would cost 3 trillion dollars for all of the 300 million Americans. According to the Census Bureau as of 2015 there were 321 million Americans and 24% were under 18. No clue how many were under 21. But that still takes it dow…
You are arguing about specifics that do not make any difference to the overall argument the author is trying to make. UBI for 244 million is still unfeasible.
UBI is just a bad idea, jobs in themselves have nice externalities that UBI wont give. People that have jobs generally don't commit crimes. Also a UBI will disincentivize working jobs that are undesirable but are necessary for a functioning society.
Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many people are still homeless in the US. Calling that 'relative' poverty is abusing the term enough to become meaningless. The most enlightening thing about this debate is the idea that we don't care about peoples basic standards of living and are happy to pretend there is no problem. PS: Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in January 2012 annual point-in-time count found that 633,782 peopl…
There's probably a significant percentage of homeless people who are homeless because they have untreated mental illnesses. They'd likely be homeless even if they weren't monetarily impoverished.
I don't think it's all that clear cut. Living on the street likely promotes a range of mental health problems. Though, most of this is temporary. One out of 50 children or 1.5 million children in America will be homeless each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta...
Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Poverty is an issue long solved in USA. We are talking about relative poverty and governments are trying to push totalitarian redistribution schemes everywhere.
> Poverty is an issue long solved in the USA. When? How? EDIT: While I disagree with the parent poster, primarily because I've seen plenty of homeless, underemployed, malnourished individuals in my travels around the US my entire life, and no significant decline in the past several years, my questions were not meant entirely sarcastically. If poverty is solved, explain how or by what measure you consider it to be sol…
I was going to say "Well jeez, can someone please alert the media? Where's the photo op with "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner in the background? :P
Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty
#20Relative poverty is insoluble without totalitarian levels of redistribution to a very low common denominator, and that is unlikely to include the inevitable oligarchs. Absolute poverty is rapidly being solved ( https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_... ) by markets and globalization, and radical redistribution such as a basic income tends to interfere with that.
You could simply introduce more taxes. For example, one interesting idea is a universal land tax - with more expensive/desirable land being taxed much more - the idea being that there's no fundamental reason why the right to use a piece of land would belong to one citizen and not the other just by the virtue of their birth. So those who want to use scarce land (wealthy people, corporations) would be paying rents to the rest of the society. That would quite quickly restore inequality back from inherited inequality to just meritocratic inequality (people who produce more would be richer).