41–50 of 90 posts
When it comes to UBI, there's an interesting psychological phenomenon. I believe that McDonald's and similar establishments could have automated away the vast majority of their work force years, maybe even decades ago. And yet there are still people working there. In fact, McDonald's is often viewed as many people's first entrance into the work force, and as a safety blanket if anything goes south (well worst case at…
I'm deeply skeptical of the idea that we're going to get some sort of new deal where the rich are suddenly happy with increased subsidy of the poor, in return for increased social cohesion or whatever. The rich generally resent paying taxes and avoid it where possible. Why are they suddenly going to be happy to pay more tax, to subsidize people who have no specific need for the subsidy? Supposing the US replaces its welfare system with basic income, surely the next thing that happens is that the rich buy a government that guts or kills basic income (which is, by definition, not needed). I suspect if you want the rich to pay for this you're going to have to be prepared to go full French revolution.
I'm glad the video briefly touches on this question, but I find it frustrating how much of this debate focuses on the silly question of whether receiving free money morally taints people or whatever.
Edit: I mean, one of BI's highest profile advocates is Mark Zuckerberg. Does Mark Zuckerberg seem enthusiastic about paying tax?
First line: "What if the state covered the cost of living?" Who is paying for the income? It's not "The state". It's everyone else, by taxation. You're telling people you have a right to seize their earnings for their labor. You're literally taking someone else's money, and giving it to someone else. UBI is nothing but people ignoring the moral problems of seizing assets and saying "The end justifies the means." If a…
You aren't complaining about UBI, you are complaining about taxes (yes, I get how they are related, but they aren't the same thing). We've long ago decided that we as a society are OK with taxes. If you don't want to pay them, go somewhere that doesn't make you pay them.
Your argument is comparable to saying we've as a society accepted we pay for food. What we get in return for whatever we pay is not part of the equation. I won't pay $40 for a fast food burger.
First line: "What if the state covered the cost of living?" Who is paying for the income? It's not "The state". It's everyone else, by taxation. You're telling people you have a right to seize their earnings for their labor. You're literally taking someone else's money, and giving it to someone else. UBI is nothing but people ignoring the moral problems of seizing assets and saying "The end justifies the means." If a…
>But taking assets from people and giving them to another person is wrong, no matter how good the outcome is. This describes "profit" equally well as "taxes."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Is it? The US monetary base has more than tripled since 2008 but inflation since then is only 14.6%. For comparison between 1999 and 2008, the us monetary base increased by about a third and inflation between those years was around 29%.
Inflation being a monetary phenomenon is the technical definition of inflation. When you mention the 14% number, that is based on market price for basket of goods which is not technically inflation (under the definition used by economists, not the definition used by journalists).
First line: "What if the state covered the cost of living?" Who is paying for the income? It's not "The state". It's everyone else, by taxation. You're telling people you have a right to seize their earnings for their labor. You're literally taking someone else's money, and giving it to someone else. UBI is nothing but people ignoring the moral problems of seizing assets and saying "The end justifies the means." If a…
I'm not sure why this is being down voted as this is a matter of opinion - an opinion that many agree with. In fact, in the US there is nothing in the constitution that supports the taxation of the people for these programs. I'm all for UBI actually but this opinion is still valid.
In capitalism money naturally accumulates at the top, but the whole system depends on money changing hands regularly. It's the essence of the economy. With no taxation all money ends up at the top with people who have nothing to buy, the system grinds to a halt and you have total economic collapse. In order to keep the system working the rich needs to keep feeding money back into the bottom so it can trickle back up to them. Human nature being what it is, you can't expect people to do this on their own. A few (Bill Gates for example) will, but in the majority of cases they would rather sit on the money so it can make even more money for them. Giving to the poor is not "fiscally responsible". Plus it would be very inefficient to make every multi-millionaire/billionaire/multi-billionaire manage their own welfare system.
That's why it is the government's job to redistribute wealth downward to keep the economy healthy. We have endless examples of governments that failed to do this and ended up with stagnant economies and endless economic depression. Look at feudal European economies for example, where the lords hoarded the cash and left charity to the church.
If you want to see this in person, crack open a game of Monopoly. The winning state in Monopoly is total economic collapse where one person has all of the money and nothing to spend it on. If you want to make it more realistic start the game with one player having $20,000, two with $200, and everybody else with $1. That's how real life economies are. If those $1 players lose tell them they didn't work hard enough and that they should pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
> There would be still be very rich and poor people, but we could eliminate fear, suffering, and existential panic for a substantial part of the population. #6m28s I actually laughed when I heard them say this, given their videos on things like the Fermi Paradox.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The premise of UBI is that not everybody needs to work. It's not that everybody will move towards low-profit pursuits it's that otherwise unemployed people will. The taxes will come from the same places they are expected to: automation increasingly taking over the creation of most of the wealth in society. We'll see if it works in practice, but that's the theory.
It seems everybody has different goals for UBI. Getting unemployed people to work is not one I've encountered before I think. I fail to see how giving everybody free money is going to get unemployed people to work. For them, nothing changes. > The taxes will come from the same places they are expected to: automation increasingly taking over the creation of most of the wealth in society. I think this is the "lets tax…
> Why do you think companies would stand for such a thing and not oursource their automation to a country that doesn't do UBI?
The "U" is why. Where would a company outsource their automation if every country in the world taxed their automation?
I'm not a politician or economist, so I can't give you a breakdown of every last detail of how UBI might work. That said, the fact that you haven't seen anyone trying to account for the real-world considerations seems to be more of an echo chamber effect than a sign that those conversations aren't happening.
What a dystopian future. So then, 99% of the population will be powerless, barely subsisting, as if they were rabbits in a cage in the pet store, while the remaining 1% own the entire world.
I still don't see how UBI doesn't cause inflation enough to offset any benefit(in the near term ie before robot job apocalypses).
Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. As long as you are paying for UBI through taxes rather than by printing money, there shouldn't be any overall inflation. Certainly there will be price adjustments: the prices of some things will go up while others will go down. But that definitely wont "offset any benefit".
I can see a situation where necessities increase in price, leaving low income household in the same position they have now.