UBI is fundamentally right, my biggest issue with this approach is that this is the last step before eliminating support for the poor altogether. No longer hampered by the intricacies of providing a service, it now becomes a debate over "how much do people need to survive? Why do we need this in the first place? This is redistribution!" This is a battle "the people" not only have lost typically, but failed to even take up an interest in defending for themselves.
What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
331–340 of 474 posts
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think something similar has happened with minimum wages. It appears to me that the natural next step is to make the minimum wage grow with inflation. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened, so we're stuck with various government-mandated minimum wage levels that are tied to the value of money from several years before. Companies can now point to the law, and use this obsolete number as a metric by which to set their o…
Minimum wage doesn't grow with inflation because the point of inflation is to steal wealth from the working class: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hi...
And the point of COLA is to give it back. You can't look at half a system in isolation.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#333One day we will look at all the homelessness and blatant poverty in our society we allow in absolute disgust, similar to the repulsion people feel about slavery. UBI isn't just about liberty and accelerating ourselves forward (though it's also about that), it's a statement that no matter how dire your circumstances, no matter how useless you are seen to our corporate overlords and private employers, that you belong t…
Agreed that everyone deserves a basic standard of living as a human right but disagree that UBI is the path to that. Giving money to people instantly creates a class of beggars. Beggars with voting rights will vote for people who give them more and more and more for no more work. It's the road to ruin. My suggestion is a set of hospitals, schools and housing that is super basic but sufficient to give people dignity a…
No, it is not a human right. It might be the right thing to do but it isn't a right you have.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#334One day we will look at all the homelessness and blatant poverty in our society we allow in absolute disgust, similar to the repulsion people feel about slavery. UBI isn't just about liberty and accelerating ourselves forward (though it's also about that), it's a statement that no matter how dire your circumstances, no matter how useless you are seen to our corporate overlords and private employers, that you belong t…
We have UBI in France "RSA" (€556 with no kids, €839 with one kid and €1000 with 2 kids and then €223 per extra kids), we also provide free lodging (logement sociaux) with free healthcare, transportation, electricity and more. We still have a huge amount of homeless people. I believe it is more of a mental issue for people who chose to remain on the street, at least in France but I know it's the case in the US too. Most sane people can find a job and a cheap room to survive. Those who don't usually have mental issues no UBI can solve. I don't know how this can be solved, maybe force people to go to mental institutions? Doesn't sound super glamorous either. The only countries that seem to have solved this problem are either super cold countries or countries where they jail them away.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#335>> Seventy-eight percent of Americans are already living paycheck to paycheck; almost half can’t afford an unexpected $400 bill On big part of this is Americans a whole need to get better with their money. I know many people can't save because of low income (or lack thereof), but 78%? Don't forget about all those people making six figures who can't get it together.
Again, blame the poor for their poverty. Gives a nice tummy feel but does nothing good for society.
Again, absolve the poor of all personal responsibility.
Gives a nice tummy feel but does nothing good for society.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#336>> Seventy-eight percent of Americans are already living paycheck to paycheck; almost half can’t afford an unexpected $400 bill On big part of this is Americans a whole need to get better with their money. I know many people can't save because of low income (or lack thereof), but 78%? Don't forget about all those people making six figures who can't get it together.
Again, blame the poor for their poverty. Gives a nice tummy feel but does nothing good for society.
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Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m so confused why this inflation argument keeps popping up. If you’re paying for the Ubi with taxes then there’s no inflation. Net money supply hasn’t changed (0). If you pay for ubi by printing money then yes, inflation would be a problem. But no one has suggested that. (0) I’m willing to entertain an argument about the velocity of money increasing from ubi but I really doubt it would be too significant.
My understanding is that if it's known that every American adult collects $1000 in addition to their regular income, prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess, so that the net result isn't that everyone gets an extra $1000 in discretionary income, but that everyone ends up paying that extra $1000 back in inflated prices. Similar logic to how raising tariffs doesn't hurt companies a…
Has this happened with the oil dividend in Alaska? https://www.aoga.org/facts-and-figures/permanent-fund-divide...
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that if it's known that every American adult collects $1000 in addition to their regular income, prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess, so that the net result isn't that everyone gets an extra $1000 in discretionary income, but that everyone ends up paying that extra $1000 back in inflated prices. Similar logic to how raising tariffs doesn't hurt companies a…
> prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess The assumes financial excess. The reason for UBI is that there isn't excess. If 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, then that's not excess. If 63% of Americans can't afford an unexpected $500 bill, that's not excess. You're right that inflation happens when there is excess, but given these stats, I don't buy that part of the…
>The assumes financial excess. The reason for UBI is that there isn't excess. If 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, then that's not excess. If 63% of Americans can't afford an unexpected $500 bill, that's not excess.
But if the core problem is that everyone is bidding away all their financial slack on rent, then they will still take any such windfall and do the same with it, pushing themselves right back to the same (low) level of slack they have today.
Earlier advocates for poverty alleviation noted this effect early on. Winston Churchill told of a time when they got the tolls on a bridge removed, and then rents advanced by the cost of using the bridge twice a day.
http://www.landvaluetax.org/current-affairs-comment/winston-...
(search for "bridge")
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
America is not spending trillions on their military, and even then it's still barely affordable. To give every American 12k per year would cost about 10 times the military budget (7 trillion versus 780 billion). And that's before we even discuss shenanigans like debt jubilees and free healthcare. Even dramatic cuts to the us military barely make a dent to these kinds of spending proposals.
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Would you please stop it with the flamewar comments? We had to ask you about this just recently. That last sentence is completely unacceptable regardless of how wrong someone is or it feels like they are. Being right matters less than destroying the commons here.
And nationalistic swipes, which we've also had to warn you about before, are emphatically not ok.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#340Congress woman Tulsi Gabbard (the Clinton blacklisted presidential candidate) took on Yang's UBI initiative after he ran out of money and dropped out of the presidential race. Gabbard introduced HRes 897 last Thursday and has been vocal about providing an urgent $1k per month UBI payment for the projected 10 million US citizens who will lose their jobs. The DNC in their wisdom have again chosen to blank Gabbard and f…
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