221–230 of 238 posts
I would like to see some objective standard on which the UBI would be set. Similar to how the Fed sets interest rates.
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I can’t read the article, so forgive me if that’s backed by research rather than just anecdata, but… is that really an issue people would have? I would love UBI, because it would transform what I could do with my time. Instead of working 9–5 on software for a company, I could build whatever I want. There are tons of app ideas floating around in my head that I just don’t have time to build. And I could release them fo…
This is a really popular opinion among programmers. I used to have that too. I've met people with that. But I don't think it's true. Somehow the people who believe it all happen to also have jobs and not enough time for hobbies, or are retired professionals, and even then only a few. When I've had periods without work, my motivation went with it. Doing things seems to make you want to do more things. Part of it might…
I'm not sure about your specific country though, I'd guess it's true in all countries(the majority of unemployed people aren't the kinds of people who write software in their free time) but I'm not sure and I'm interested in what you think. I also wonder, if UBI were implemented would it still be true that the motivated, creative people would be the ones who continue to work anyway? I think a larger portion of unmotivated people would drop their jobs and live off of UBI, but there would still be a sizeable portion of people leaving their jobs to pursue creative projects. I myself would definitely quit and start working on my game full time, I did it before without any kind of financial safety net and made some progress, but of course had to go back to work before getting close enough to completion. Having UBI would be life-changing for me
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They may feel less depressed if there wasn’t a stigma associated with this. On the other hand a lot of people wouldn’t be working if there wasn’t societal pressure on them.
Yes, plenty of people retire without loosing all sense of self worth.
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Universal Basic Housing just sounds like ghettos with extra steps.
So don't build ghettos. A modest proposal: make every builder donate a proportion of the flats/houses they build to local government, but decide which ones are to be donated by random lot after building work is complete.
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Because of how they utilize that money. The poor will spend it, because they need to. The rich invest their money since they do not need it all. Those investments are continuing to grow. Even if you transfer some of that money to the poor, they are spending it where? At Amazon etc...
Money being spent causes the economy to grow. How is that a bad thing? The investments of rich people often never see the consumer economy. It doesn't matter how they utilize it, UBI is still reducing inequality. You are allowing families to purchase things they wouldn't have had the money for otherwise. Quality of life purchases that the well-off take for granted.
Money spent well causes the economy to grow. Mindlessly spending money on things that aren't worth their cost is simply waste, and causes the economy to shrink.
In economics it is generally assumed that money wouldn't be spent if the transaction wasn't expected to generate a net benefit for the spender. If you make spending money a goal in its own right, however, then that is no longer true, and spending can result in a net loss instead.
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If that is so, why don’t you form an ubi society, whose members pay an ubi for everyone that wants to join (and net pay). According to you it won’t be difficult to find people that are glad to join. To the downvoters of my initial comment: I don’t want people to die on the street. But I doubt ubi is an adequate cure either.
When the people vote for UBI one day you'll have your society...
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Landlords need to compete for tenants. High rents are only tenable in hot employment markets with bad policies imposing shortages. Everywhere else, high rents lead to more construction which leads to lower rents, and the landlord who refuses the going rate sees his units go empty.
Ok, show me the real world place in the US where this actually holds true. This hypothetical gets touted around, but I’ve never seen it play out this way anywhere I’ve lived. For example, I currently live in a second-tier Midwestern city in the midst of a housing crisis. Wages aren’t great relative to their respective industries, but rents and home prices are still skyrocketing. There’s no influx of new construction…
Median rent in Toledo, OH is $550/mo. With a median household income of $33,687, renters clearly could pay more, but there's no shortage letting landlords demand more.
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What ever happened to d) this is not acceptable, and something should be done about it by individuals directly? Why do we need to abdicate responsibility for our local problems to a larger authority? Mutual Aid Societies and religions used to fill this gap - perhaps we can jointly invent a new modern substitute.
The problems are not fundamentally of local scope. Consider for example the coal mining towns that have been left in a state of ruin by the shift away from coal. There is no local prosperity to fund local aid there.
Being that this is too difficult a logistical problem, we instead propose as a solution raising many times that amount of money in campaign donations, lobbying, and volunteer hours to convince a significantly larger group of (the exact same) people (who we don't think will give a dollar or ten to the same cause) to spend at least that much in gas and time to get up and go vote for specific or general measures to care for these people instead.
Do you see the issues with this logic?
That article isn’t about UBI in much the same way that capitalism isn’t about money. Capitalism is primarily about obtaining advantage and money is one measure among many. The supposed goals of capitalism are great: competition, innovation, refinement, transformation, and others. The problem is that those are goals they teach school children. They aren’t the primary goal that actually matters in practice. If capitali…
Im not sure I agree. These things are relative, and I would argue that "Capitalism" is an environment that is beneficial to "competition, innovation, refinement, transformation, and others" relative to other things. Im not sure about what the "thing" is. Rule system? Laws? Societal norms? But I hope you get the idea. Things are obviously not universally perfect, but what are they in relation to other comparable thing…
The core concept of capitalism, multiple individuals pooling their financial resources together for a unified purpose, seems quite logical and noble to me and certainly not inherently evil in and of itself.
I think the real problem that anti-capitalists (who I find often do not understand even what money is and where it comes from) have is that they conflate the problems resulting from corporate personhood with relatively free-market capitalism.
The concepts of private property ownership, the rule of and due process of law and habeas corpus are dramatic improvements overall in the human condition and are part of the core that makes the US in particular and as well as other "Western" countries the enviable result of such concepts.
I'm of the opinion that corporate personhood is, along with money printing outside of the scrutiny of the general populace and guided by multinational origins, an insidious "backdoor" that overrides the freedoms that result from those concepts.
I am not an economics law or political science professor or anything remotely close to that, though. I could be barking up the wrong trees but giving abstract concepts like corporations the same rights as humans seems like it screws up so many things - take political election financing as one of many examples.
This is a really great discussion thread, though.
Fact: The plan is about replacing you with robots at work so they can rake in more profits. In return you get to go on welfare rebranded as UBI. Look it up UBI is about automation AI replacing humans for profit. (see geordie rose) So your 40k job becomes 10k to 15k welfare. MegaCorps pocket the rest of your wage as reward for selling you out to UBI and AI.
Well, you also get FB, YT and legalized recreational drugs. panem et circenses [1]. Never, ever forget circenses. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses