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Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

timjrobinson.com

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Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#261

Post by cjsawyer »

jtlienwis wrote: post #258

I am opposed to UBI. I want smart people to have more money. I want less smart people to have less money, provided they have enough to live on. A smart person might invest in books, study and self improvement. Then those industries that create these will be stimulated. That is what you want. Less smart people might spend their money on lottery tickets, junk food, booze etc. Those industries would be stimulated by UBI…

> “provided they have enough to live on”

That is the entire point of a UBI.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#262

Post by freddie_mercury »

justinzollars wrote: post #242

This is going to explode in our faces. 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 mech…

> Today our debt is sold to savers in China, and to other hard working individuals across the world.

No it isn't. The overwhelming majority of our debt is sold to other Americans. US debt is $26 trillion. Foreigners only hold $6 trillion of that.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#263

Post by [deleted] »

jtlienwis wrote: post #258

I am opposed to UBI. I want smart people to have more money. I want less smart people to have less money, provided they have enough to live on. A smart person might invest in books, study and self improvement. Then those industries that create these will be stimulated. That is what you want. Less smart people might spend their money on lottery tickets, junk food, booze etc. Those industries would be stimulated by UBI…

[deleted]

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#264

Post by thephyber »

Aerroon wrote: post #182
thephyber wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most likely implementation in the existing US federal government is a negative income tax. > I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. You aren't alone, so your $1200 would not go as far in that future as it does now. There would be some inflation (perhaps only localized increased costs to some industries), but I'd suspect that people working less would be a featu…

> Some people would move from industries which have lots of crappy manual jobs (like janitorial services) That work still has to get done though. Somebody has to be the janitor. If you then increase the pay of a janitor then lots of people that would otherwise increase their skills to do with that requires more skills would end up as a janitor instead. This triggers a pay increase in those jobs too. I don't see how y…

I agree there would be inflation, but how much and where it would present aren't clear.

The highest paid jobs (eg. CEO) inflate very little and the lowest page jobs inflate quite a lot. There is currently an anti-inflation effect in the lowest paid jobs when inflation would help these workers have a better living.

Jobs thought of as "minimum wage jobs" in the USA (eg. hourly workers at McDonalds) pay a decent living in Denmark. They don't have runaway inflation. We should examine why there is a such stark difference in expectation between the USA and these other countries.

That said, I don't think UBI is the only way to solve the issues I care about. I might be satisfied simply by easier and fairer access to existing welfare programs (which are already subsidizing those low-wage employers).

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#265

Post by mythrwy »

fiblye wrote: post #193
bluedevil2k wrote: post #12

I can’t help but think that UBI would distort job markets. Let’s pick an example of a “sucky job” (and I say this as just an example, I realize these guys work hard and are vital). A garbage man. He get’s paid $42k a year because they have to find people who would be willing to do this sucky job and need to pay higher than minimum wage to do so. At some point of income, people would be willing to accept the suckiness…

Garbage men are working one of society's most important jobs. They're deserving of respect for the hard work they do. If UBI results in underpaid people leaving, employers will have to raise wages to match the true value of the job or they'll invest in automation. Either way would be good.

I wonder how hard it would be to automate the garbage man job?

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#266

Post by rtkwe »

phillpot wrote: post #20

GDP is a bad metric. The planet does not have unlimited resources to fuel unlimited growth.

GDP isn't just physical goods produced it includes services which make up a large portion of the GDP of most advanced countries. These don't inherently require resources beyond energy and people's time so GDP can continue to grow.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#267

Post by m0zg »

krapp wrote: post #248
m0zg wrote: post #229

People need jobs though. Otherwise you get riots.

People need food, clothing, shelter, access to healthcare, education and communication, and jobs only because employment provides the income necessary to purchase those actual necessities. No one riots for jobs simply to have a job to do.

Actually, no. People need jobs to occupy their time with something "good" and productive. Otherwise they will fuck around and do stupid shit. This is severely exacerbated by the existence of social networking, as well.

I will agree that people do not need to work as much as they currently do, but they do need to be useful to society. Idle hands are devil's workshop. That much should be clear as a day by now, even to the skeptics.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#268

Post by ChrisLomont »

alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

Most estimates on a carbon tax raise at best $200B a year in the US. For the ~150M adults, that would be a UBI of about $100 a month. Not much of a UBI. It’s also paid by the same people as explained elsewhere in this thread.

Tell me again how this works?

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#269

Post by justinzollars »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #262
justinzollars wrote: post #242

This is going to explode in our faces. 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 mech…

> Today our debt is sold to savers in China, and to other hard working individuals across the world. No it isn't. The overwhelming majority of our debt is sold to other Americans. US debt is $26 trillion. Foreigners only hold $6 trillion of that.

All the same, why would American savers want the dollar debased?

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#270

Post by foxrob92 »

gcpwnd wrote: post #256

> This is happening because we’re reaching the end of the current stage of capitalism and need a new paradigm for the 21st century. Can anyone explain how to find the end of capitalism? Is there a finishing line or is there just a theme which suggest I am getting close?

It's a blurry thing, like how Europe slowly moved from Feudalism to Capitalism over a period of time.
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