81–90 of 164 posts
I'm currently on an Amtrak train between Philadelphia and NYC. Especially in leafless winter, the sheer uglyness of this swath of in-disrepair America is almost shocking. Abandoned factories and houses. Lifeless downtowns. Trash along the tracks. Non-sweet graffiti. Paying people to do nothing when there is so much to be done seems crazy to me. It's not like we have figured out how to solve these problems with AI or…
"$1,000 paid monthly ... by increasing the federal debt would grow the economy." Borrowing money from my credit card does not increase my annual salary.
No but it does grow the economy. Things you buy with the borrowed money count towards the GDP. If you have people buying and selling nothing that's going to be a small economy. If you have the same people, with the same wealth, buying and selling stuff to each other, that grows the economy. If you have the same people buying and selling stuff faster, they may still retain the same wealth but the economy will grow eve…
At the expense of creating huge amounts of personal debt.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That assumes that a basic income would only motivate people to do nothing, which seems more pessimistic than realistic.
I think it is more realistic.
Crime is a huge problem in poor communities, dealing with it is hideously expensive to taxpayers, and one of the major motivators behind it is economic stress. Wouldn't it be sweet if people who are currently motivated to commit crimes were instead motivated to do nothing?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a sense basic income would be an improvement over this in that the money would be going to everyone instead of primarily to the rich.
> In a sense basic income would be an improvement over this in that the money would be going to everyone instead of primarily to the rich. Quite the opposite. The people who benefit the most from quantitative easing and inflation are people who are in debt. The rich tend to be net debt holders , not net debtors, so they're the ones primarily harmed by quantitative easing and an increase in the money supply. EDIT : Fi…
Inflation obviously helps those in debt but QE didn't inflate anything except risky asset classes objectively held by the wealthy. Even by the feds own studies & public communications by the chair woman inflation continues to remain "subdued" almost 10 years after.
Wages have stagnated & only recently picked up, GDP has been the lowest post-recovery ever, net household debt is again at new highs, interest rates at forever in the history of human civilization lows. Meanwhile every single risk seeking asset class primarily owned by the wealthy has appreciated to levels last seen at prior bubble peaks.
QE helps the rich & if it helps anybody else it's an accident. Sadly by the time non-rich households are able to participate in risk seeking asset classes they are so expensive that when objectively measured against historical readings future returns are flat to negative. Uncle Warren said "the fool does in the end what the wise man did in the beginning" & QE will guarantee the non-rich fall into the same foolish traps.
I'm currently on an Amtrak train between Philadelphia and NYC. Especially in leafless winter, the sheer uglyness of this swath of in-disrepair America is almost shocking. Abandoned factories and houses. Lifeless downtowns. Trash along the tracks. Non-sweet graffiti. Paying people to do nothing when there is so much to be done seems crazy to me. It's not like we have figured out how to solve these problems with AI or…
"Paying people to do nothing"
As easily as one might complain of rewarding mediocrity and paying into an unredeeming, bottomless void that bears no fruit, another might complain that a civilization founded on the threat of starvation and death by exposure isn't very civilized at all.
Take these two extremes on their own, and it's pretty easy to understand that a wide, ignored middle-ground exists, that rhetoric neglects. On one hand, a person is met by an offer to participate in society, in exchange for the obvious benefits society has to offer. On the other hand, stepping off the treadmill for too long risks permanent demotion, and a life sentence of perhaps animalistic subsistence, pan-handling, living off stolen cat food in a shanty town under a bridge, or worse, maybe suicide and unspoken realities in between.
I'm currently on an Amtrak train between Philadelphia and NYC. Especially in leafless winter, the sheer uglyness of this swath of in-disrepair America is almost shocking. Abandoned factories and houses. Lifeless downtowns. Trash along the tracks. Non-sweet graffiti. Paying people to do nothing when there is so much to be done seems crazy to me. It's not like we have figured out how to solve these problems with AI or…
"Paying people to do **nothing** when there
is **so much** to be done seems crazy to me."
Some of the things I have thought about when considering BI have been, is it really "nothing" we are paying for? Lets say you're living in a neighborhood without any jobs available, and without jobs and property taxes your educational infrastructure is lacking, and without a job in the first place your mobility is lacking. However you do find employment in selling illegal drugs, the market is wide spread, the risk is low for the street level dealers. Now into that market your provide a basic income for the youth who can now pursue their interests without participating in some form of underground economy. Can you see paying people to not participate in that economy?
When I think about BI I have come to think about removing worry rather than paying for 'nothing'. IF you look at income disparity versus economic efficiency, economies grow when there is incentive to get ahead but they begin to contract once that disparity exceeds a threshold. If the bottom of the economy is worried about where they are going to sleep and eat tonight, they aren't very efficient or contributory to the overall GDP, if the top end of the economy is keeping all of its wealth bottled up in trading games with other top end users, it isn't contributing to the overall GDP either.
If you force disparity to zero, you essentially get communism, if you leave disparity unconstrained forever you appear to get monarchistic type trapped wealth. If you change the rules of the game so that people can be wealthy or not, but the total difference between maximum wealth and minimum wealth is constrained to 2 orders of magnitude rather than 4. Perhaps you get a better system overall.
I'm currently on an Amtrak train between Philadelphia and NYC. Especially in leafless winter, the sheer uglyness of this swath of in-disrepair America is almost shocking. Abandoned factories and houses. Lifeless downtowns. Trash along the tracks. Non-sweet graffiti. Paying people to do nothing when there is so much to be done seems crazy to me. It's not like we have figured out how to solve these problems with AI or…
The only place I can think of that has done something similar is the oil and land rights of the native people of Alaska, who get checks somewhere in that range. How has this turned out for them?
That's not a fair comparison. Irrespective of whatever negative social effects a Basic Income may or may not have, Alaska Natives are dealing with the consequences of their ancestors being enslaved, losing 80% of their population to disease, and their culture being attacked and almost destroyed by Imperialism. Seems like that would fuck someone up way more than any Basic Income. In this case, BI basically exists _bec…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it is more realistic.
Following that maybe-pessimistic-maybe-realistic vein a bit further, that might not be such a bad thing. Crime is a huge problem in poor communities, dealing with it is hideously expensive to taxpayers, and one of the major motivators behind it is economic stress. Wouldn't it be sweet if people who are currently motivated to commit crimes were instead motivated to do nothing?
Basic income will only FEED these two problems.