261–270 of 1001 posts
So is this basically "pure" communism? I guess historically, countries we called communistic didn't really adhere to its central idea; or they couldn't do so practically due to the accompanied political/economic instability following regime change.
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Delivering the money in small chunks might help. Instead of 70$ every week, make it 5$ twice a day. So no matter how broke you were yesterday, you'll have enough money to eat in a few hours. Another "make it easy to get food even if you really screwed up" option might be to give grocery stores 'first dibs' on the money. Basically, let people spend the money a couple days in advance if they do it at a grocery store. A…
I've not heard of or thought of this approach. It's pretty clever. Still possible to abuse, but it seems at least somewhat less likely.
So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
What do we do now when people blow their Social Security or welfare check and can't afford rent or food?
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This really isn't a good riddle. First, Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCT) work better than most people expect ( http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-... ). As noted in the article, UCTs work surprisingly well in scenarios where lack of capital is the primary problem. A UBI (at least as usually is discussed in the US) is a de-scaling UCT. Second, most proponents of a UBI see it as more efficien…
You completely side stepped the question. I find it absolutely amazing how naive BI supporters are. I grew up poor in a ghetto in New York. Studied, went to university, became an engineer and am no longer in that socioeconomic bracket. However it is very apparent that the people in my current bracket (the one's that support BI), have no idea about the issues of the poor. Poor people are mostly poor because of the dec…
BI is immoral: why should anyone who can work get money for doing nothing?
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>Do you tell them "tough shit, you've exhausted all your social safety nets" At that point we would need to investigate to see if this failure is being caused by mental illness. Treatment would be much easier if our current homeless shelters could use their infrastructure to help people like this. They take your UBI check and give you a place to stay, treat you for drug addictions, etc etc. Either that or you end up…
I think it's a bit of a stretch to lump "failure to budget properly" under "mental illnes".
There's a lot of skepticism about basic income, especially when it comes to how does it save money? The top comment as of this writing is questioning it: > But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all their money and now can't afford rent and/or food? Do you tell them "tough shit, you've exhausted all your social safet…
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You completely side stepped the question. I find it absolutely amazing how naive BI supporters are. I grew up poor in a ghetto in New York. Studied, went to university, became an engineer and am no longer in that socioeconomic bracket. However it is very apparent that the people in my current bracket (the one's that support BI), have no idea about the issues of the poor. Poor people are mostly poor because of the dec…
> ... mental illness ... This is hardly a "decision somebody made".
Can anyone explain how this can be implemented mathematically? Assume 300 million people @ $12k / year, you are spending $3.6 trillion. That is already more than current government revenue, leaving all current government services unfunded.
Pretty sure the number is significantly smaller than that. Children under the age of 18 wouldn't get money. People in prison likely wouldn't get money. I'm sure there would be other reasons to decline some people. Such as mentally disabled. (maybe parents or care giver would receive more?) So it would probably be around 200,000,000 - 250,000,000.
But their parents will get some sort of bump in their BI, surely.
> So it would probably be around 200,000,000 - 250,000,000.
A floor of $2.4 trillion now. Downright affordable!
So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
Yes it's the same thing on the current welfare. You can blow your bridge card (food stamps) on bad food and be out of it and you don't get more. It would be the same thing, you can blow your money and then you're gonna have to find something else.
I would think any basic income program would come along with available education on budgeting and counseling for how to get out of debt, etc. I think besides lack of opportunity, another big problem with social mobility in our country is lack of financial education. People just don't realize how many sharks there are out there trying to take advantage of them, and just how deep of trouble they can easily get into.
You can present all kinds of edge cases how basic income can fail in individual, specific cases, but those are the exceptions. And you shouldn't kill a great idea because of the exceptions.