211–220 of 801 posts
I feel like this is the perfect example why everyone should at some point be required to start a business. Because some of these ideas stem from to many people not understand the economy in a real sense because they are always workers and see the world through that lens.
I know these are anecdotes but I already heard several cases from my circle of friends and families where they just chose not to work because of unemployment checks. Instead of practicing music or learning programming or doing something productive during their period of unemployment, they decided to watch Netflix and play games all day. Creating is hard work, studying is hard work. Just like having information and on…
Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…
What is so bad about reduced "work"? Maybe people who are currently working at stupid, unnecessary jobs will make art and poetry and music. Or maybe invent cool things. Or maybe just relax and learn about themselves. I have never understood this obsession with 100% employment.
Why would the rest of the world finance us (the citizens of the United States) to sit around and watch Netflix all day? Put another way, someone has to buy the debt we are issuing. Today our debt is sold to savers in China, and to other hard working individuals across the world. We have no means of paying back the debt we are issuing, so we are monetizing the debt through a mechanism known as QE, otherwise known as a printing press.
If we are debasing the savings of hard working people, why would they want to continue to lend to us? We could raise interest rates, but with the levels of our national debt, servicing the debt would become impossible. So that isn't an option. If trust is lost in the dollar as a reserve currency, we will become very poor very very fast.
It won't matter if we print more money, or if UBI is 1,000 or 1,000,000 per month. The dollar will have less value.
It's better to focus on improving productivity and making stuff. There can't be consumption without production.
There is no free lunch.
I definitely need to research this topic more, but after reading everyone's arguments for and against UBI, I think maybe the right solution is somewhere right in the middle. Instead of giving everyone $X,000 a month, what if there was some sort of secondary currency or credits that all Americans receive (call them Patriot bucks or whatever) that could be used for necessities like food, public transportation, etc. I d…
Similarly for housing; offering very basic housing to anyone who wants to live in it solves 80% of homelessness (the last 20% is harder than you would think).
Food is harder, but something akin to a soup kitchen can still help a lot.
People don’t need money. People need basics like housing, food, and medical care. No UBI scheme is going to work in an economic system like the one in the U.S. that isn’t capable of providing those things. It’s not like there’s a shortage of food or shelter now and yet we still have homeless people while homes sit empty. We still have hungry people while farmers are destroying their crops. The economic system is the…
The article attempts to argue for UBI from the stance of being pro-capitalist and working within the existing capitalist framework, and I think the author would answer your criticism with something like "By providing money to people, they can allocate those resources wherever is most efficient for them- to buy the food and housing they need if they need it, or other things if not. The person receiving the money is the one with the most information about where money needs to go in their life."
Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…
Because of equality. Giving everyone a cut makes sure everyone is participated in the program.
This also applies to the negative income tax.
Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…
>I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income, even if it was low. But for every you, there's a me. I get satisfaction out of working. I had a job in college where I completed all of my work in the first week and did absolutely nothing for the next 6 months and I was MISERABLE. I needed a task to complete, a job to finish, to feel productive. Furthermore I like hav…
Everyone agrees that there will be people who will want to work, and people who won't. The question is what is the ratio, and is it enough. No one can predict this with a high level of certainty. We all just have "a feeling", which coincidentally happens to align perfectly with whether or not we believe in UBI.
Great idea. Please rebrand UBI in a way that makes it palatable to capitalists.
People need jobs though. Otherwise you get riots.