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Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

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Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#21

Post by Mz »

The problem is that giving all Americans a $10,000 annual income would cost upward of $3 trillion a year — more than three-fourths of the federal budget..

It also does not make the poor stop being poor.

My alimony is a little over $10,000 annually. I recently wrote about how this stuff is a total fantasy. This is some ridiculous fantasy that you can easily solve this problem by throwing money at it instead of doing any hard work like resolving the affordable housing crisis in this country.

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-world-ha...

Edit: They are talking about giving people $10k a year because they expect robots to take our jobs and there to be widespread unemployment. So forget the feel good anecdotes about how this will supplement your income and imagine living on ONLY $10k per year. That's enough to assuage their guilt. It does not buy you a middle class lifestyle. But if it becomes your right as a citizen, you can expect even more people to desperately want to immigrate to the US.

Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#22

Post by Overtonwindow »

mempko wrote: post #20
Overtonwindow wrote: post #3

How's this sound for a UBI scheme: Companies - including banks - with more than $2 million in annual profits will be taxed 90%. Individuals with more than $5 million in assets, cash, stock, bonds, and other investments, will be taxed at 85%. This would adequately pay for such a system that Messirs Altman, Musk, and Zuckerburg desire. Facebook 2016 net income was $1.56 billion. Their tax bill would have been $1.404 bi…

UBI won't require tax increases. The government can just deficit spend. I'm more in favor of a guaranteed job program. Also UBI is really a market solution which raises prices. I would rather see more welfare and non market oriented help.

But wouldn't a guaranteed job program incite corruption?

Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#23

Post by danjoc »

In truth, we already have UBI. It is social security. Think about it: a country full of fixed income retirees. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Currently that's not working out though. The retirement age is going up, not down. It's too expensive to give money directly and let people figure it out. The UBI end game is something like the terrafoam housing from Manna.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna4.htm

Put all the UBIs in a nice neat little box where we can forget about them, like we do with prisoners. Maybe even add sedatives and birth control to the water, because we certainly don't want resistance or more of them. We'll probably even call them that. UBIs. Universal basic inmates.

Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#24

Post by niceperson »

mempko wrote: post #19
niceperson wrote: post #2

UBI is not the solution. The fact that someone else might be in need does not give him any right to my money, or time. Forced social welfare programs ignore this. UBI does not reduce the negative imapct of these programs, but actually enforces and concretizes them and the mentality of "social debt" and "inherent social debt" (both do not exist) by declaring every citizen equally guilty. UBI sounds nice on paper becau…

Where does "your" money come from? What is money and why was it invented? Answering these questions will require some research. And no, the barter story isn't real, or based on any facts.

Money comes form the productive ability of individuals. When they make something better, people want to buy it, and hencce, money.

And no, the barter system is not a lie and neither is daddy marx true. And no, I'm not going to write paragraphs for your two-liner.

Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#25

Post by niceperson »

yladiz wrote: post #7
niceperson wrote: post #2

UBI is not the solution. The fact that someone else might be in need does not give him any right to my money, or time. Forced social welfare programs ignore this. UBI does not reduce the negative imapct of these programs, but actually enforces and concretizes them and the mentality of "social debt" and "inherent social debt" (both do not exist) by declaring every citizen equally guilty. UBI sounds nice on paper becau…

What? Let's say that the US somehow did implement UBI. You would almost certainly have to be a citizen (or at least be someone who pays taxes with a valid SSN) to get the benefits. Just being in the US doesn't mean you'll get money every month. Beyond this, how does getting UBI benefits give you a cut on your taxes? You would most likely get taxed more with UBI, given you have a job. There haven't been many studies o…

it's not about practicality, it's about morality. ANd what UBI does is mandate self-sacrifice.

And what's stopping people with UBI from sharing half of it with a non-citizen? nothing.

Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#26

Post by niceperson »

gdulli wrote: post #5
niceperson wrote: post #2

UBI is not the solution. The fact that someone else might be in need does not give him any right to my money, or time. Forced social welfare programs ignore this. UBI does not reduce the negative imapct of these programs, but actually enforces and concretizes them and the mentality of "social debt" and "inherent social debt" (both do not exist) by declaring every citizen equally guilty. UBI sounds nice on paper becau…

Your "right" not to be murdered is only a construct. We've decided it's a good one, and our society is better when people don't have to worry (much) about being murdered. We might also decide that our society is better when people have a "right" to food, shelter, and health care. Those rights would be contrivances like the ones you already take for granted. But that's not an argument for or against them.

define "right not to be murdered". I never used that.

And no, you can't just arbitrarily give people rights to shit. You can only guarantee things which do not require a human to be constantly working for it as a right. When you declare healthcare, or food as a right, you are enslaving farmers and doctors, not to mention stealing from people on a greater scale for nothing at all, for something the market could have easily done.

Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#27

Post by niceperson »

flavor8 wrote: post #11
niceperson wrote: post #2

UBI is not the solution. The fact that someone else might be in need does not give him any right to my money, or time. Forced social welfare programs ignore this. UBI does not reduce the negative imapct of these programs, but actually enforces and concretizes them and the mentality of "social debt" and "inherent social debt" (both do not exist) by declaring every citizen equally guilty. UBI sounds nice on paper becau…

Ai is on a course to put 30% of the population out of work. These people need to be supported or there will be massive social unrest.

Really doesn't matter. just because someone else is more productive does not entitle you to their money, or time. People can voluntarily pay, but forcing people to pay for it is wrong and immoral.

Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#28

Post by [deleted] »

aianus wrote: post #10
candiodari wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the basic problem with such a scheme: If you do that, you kill 99%+ of the value of those companies. Those profits pay first and foremost for the pension of mostly ordinary Americans. Worse: those people who's pensions your proposal would take away worked for those pensions for decades. Because of excessive government debt issuance, these pensions are already somewhere between in trouble and bankrupt, with a m…

You don't need to work more hours you just need better machines to make the average hour worked more productive. If the productivity went up 10% you could give everyone a UBI of 10% of GDP without any additional hours worked.

[deleted]

Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#29

Post by candiodari »

aianus wrote: post #10
candiodari wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the basic problem with such a scheme: If you do that, you kill 99%+ of the value of those companies. Those profits pay first and foremost for the pension of mostly ordinary Americans. Worse: those people who's pensions your proposal would take away worked for those pensions for decades. Because of excessive government debt issuance, these pensions are already somewhere between in trouble and bankrupt, with a m…

You don't need to work more hours you just need better machines to make the average hour worked more productive. If the productivity went up 10% you could give everyone a UBI of 10% of GDP without any additional hours worked.

Sorry - wrong answer.

The machines were mostly moved to China because of climate policy (and lower wages, and despite QE credit being easier in China) (TLDR: we moved all factories to be coal powered regions (~20x more polluting than oil, ~2e12 times more polluting than nuclear), because our nuclear and oil powered power plants were too polluting).

So this argument might have worked 10 years ago, but today too much of the economy has nothing to do with machines (other than laptops running excel spreadsheets).

Try again ?

Re: Tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman push universal basic income concept

#30

Post by mikelyons »

niceperson wrote: post #25
yladiz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Let's say that the US somehow did implement UBI. You would almost certainly have to be a citizen (or at least be someone who pays taxes with a valid SSN) to get the benefits. Just being in the US doesn't mean you'll get money every month. Beyond this, how does getting UBI benefits give you a cut on your taxes? You would most likely get taxed more with UBI, given you have a job. There haven't been many studies o…

it's not about practicality, it's about morality. ANd what UBI does is mandate self-sacrifice. And what's stopping people with UBI from sharing half of it with a non-citizen? nothing.

Morality (and the act of moralising) is a very subtle addiction.
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