Moving Forward on Basic Income

Wow, this is extremely condescending with no actual backing information.

The fact of the matter is, people make bad choices. People who make bad choices are more likely to be poor. Lack of impulse control is extremely prevalent in poor communities. Like the GP, I was poor, I know poor people, and 95% of them are just shit at thinking long term.

The educational system fails people sure, but why does that mean we should give $1200/mo to people who do not have the necessary discipline to use it appropriately? CCTs have been used extremely effectively, and do combat this problem on a structural level.

There is actually a huge lack of skilled professionals in blue collar fields. We import mechanics at a ridiculous rate. This is true throughout a large portion of the world -- a SKILLED mechanic in Mexico can earn roughly the same wage as a skilled mechanic in the U.S...

It is hard to support your basic needs because you need to budget appropriately and you don't have extra money to spend -- but a large portion of poor people spend it anyway. I can't tell you how many of the people I know will drop $30 on some alcohol, drugs, club cover, concert, when they know that they'll be struggling to pay rent at the end of the month.

If you're actually an engineer you'll realize that most problems are multi-faceted and flat out telling people who have lived in a situation that some poorly researched secondhand analysis (i.e. the joke that is modern Sociology) is more relevant is absurd.

Although I admire the intent here, my opinion is that it's focused on the wrong variable. Lack of "enough" income is not the root of the problem for why people get sucked into poverty and stuck there. The problem is that working people have become increasingly unable to turn their income into equity. And the number one expensive expense of "shelter" is why. So the poor people will have more money to pay rent ... woohoo. Landlords in Oakland are probably already salivating, factoring this into their next rent increase, maybe even planning to build a few more "brand new affordable housing units" in a complex that will increase both supply and price of rent. Are people ever motivated to work harder to pay their landlords more? Almost never... But give them an opportunity of ownership, and that truly turns the tables on not only what kind of work they can do, but how they spend their time and money.

I'm slowly building Ecosteader to go this direction of enabling ownership to build equity. My motivation was originally to build a land development network of people interested in green / sustainabile building, but the more I investigate this piece of the project, the more apparent it becomes that land ownership really does solve both problems in one. People who own land or homes tend to care more about environmental quality / NIMBY issues.

For the "property tax is just rent" crowd arguing that angle -- property tax on a small and undeveloped piece of land is almost nothing... build a small structure on that land and it doesn't go up by that much. In 90 percent of the US, I'd imagine that tax for the whole year is less than one month's rent in Oakland. It's when people who have massive square footage on massive acreage start complaining that property tax makes them poor that the perception gets skewed.

This is the wrong question to ask, based on the wrong premise.

The point of BI is NOT to save money but to provide income for the increasing number of people who wont be able to provide value for the labour market.

If someone has a secured income then there is also a better chance that they can get insurance, a loan and so one.

Few people complain when rich and middle class people start moving into historically low income areas (at least until the poor can't afford to live there)

When it applies to companies, I think it's pretty universally suggested that hiring people from poor backgrounds who've worked very hard to get close to the hiring thresholds and are probably being overlooked by other companies is usually a good decision. You don't get any additional "diversity benefit" from paying them less though...

It's in the corporate interest to promote Basic Income. Relieves the social unrest of an automated future.

Corporate calls for Basic Income aren't very credible unless they come with a new corporate tax.