421–430 of 786 posts
Owners of capital think people aren't happy unless they are working making money, because capital owners are made happy by having money. It's hard for them to understand that there are other, better sources of happiness. There are tons of examples of people forgoing money for something more satisfying.
A link to the actual research paper would be helpful. In this experiment, what amount was given to the treatment group that received basic income? How often? How does that amount compare to the cost of living in their city? > ‘It’s sometimes said that people will sit around doing nothing if you give them free money.’ I’m not an academic, so take this with a grain of salt. If my job requires menial labor or involves g…
> If my job requires menial labor or involves getting berated by customers (many retail jobs), personally I would absolutely not work. Maybe that's a good thing. It's insane how people in service industries are treated - like they're less than human. Shifting some power to them and giving the job a little more of an air of dignity or status would probably help a lot. And the pay would obviously go up. People would be…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Inflation would rise if UBI is paid with newly printed money and deficit (e.g. covid checks). If it's paid with taxes, nothing should change in terms of inflation. Surely, prices close to the consumption should rise, and price of capital goods should fall, but overall it stay the same.
We don't have a balanced budget. Programs like UBI would most likely not be paid by taxes (which would be better used for education/trade programs that I mentioned) but by increasing the deficit. There is no undo button. Millions of people would be dependent on it. You will have no choice but to print money. I suspect California will try UBI anyways and fail spectacularly. It will be a canary in the coal mine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there are plenty of jobs where you absolutely will quit And so what if people refuse to do shitty jobs? Perhaps we as society can do without those jobs. And if we can't, we should value them more
The "So what" is that if pay for waiters and labourers has to compete with UBI, the cost of service, food, and housing increases significantly, putting it out of reach of more people, and contracting the entire economy as a result. You can postulate about how much we should value these jobs, but the reality is that most people wouldn't be able to afford a meal at a restaurant where all the staff make 50k, or a packet…
Whether it’s China or Crypto, it seems like the reign of the PetroDollar is coming to an end, and with it the easy access to money printing.
Also any debates on UBI typically start with a country-centric view (US in this case), but what will be the implications for the rest of Earth citizens who live in countries without UBI?
I strongly suspect that the lion's share of UBI would go directly to landlords or existing property owners.
This is true, which is why UBI would have to be combined with housing reform. Both are doable and needed. One of my favourites is to encourage cooperative housing and to have the government become a landlord itself, but with rents capped to a share of income. This way, the government would have an incentive to make the system more efficient and to make more and better public housing, as the money would go back to the…
Can you explain this a bit more? What would be their sources of income other than rents? I am not able to follow your efficiency argument.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not for the other group who will have products of their labor "redistributed" to pay for other's leisure time?
You mean for the machine's labour - progressively more and more as more and more is automated, and where people with their UBI are paying into the system (consumers aren't a fuel leak, they're the largest cog in the wheel) and workers will be getting paid adequately on top of the UBI they'll be getting too? A concept missed by most is that the buying power of "$1,000"/month grows exponentially as more and more gets a…
How do you propose to finance UBI? All proposals that I've seen assume middle class to pay (for example, "everyone pays percentage of their income and then everyone gets fixed amount of money at the end of the period"), not nebulous machine-automation overlords.
> A concept missed by most is that the buying power of "$1,000"/month grows exponentially as more and more gets automated.
I don't observe housing getting exponentially cheaper "as more and more gets automated". In fact, I believe landlords would capture non-trivial amount of any potential UBI program.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or those jobs will be eliminated altogether. Need to speak to a live human to solve some issue? Bad luck, here is our AI chatbot programmed for six common situations and wishing you a good day.
I’m dealing with this infinite loop chatbot with Verizon right now haha. My number port to become a Verizon customer was supposed to take 4-24 hours. Ten days later still nothing. Chatbot asks me for topics to help with, put in my number but it’s not a Verizon number (it’s mid port) so they recommend I register, I try to register and I cannot because my number isn’t a Verizon number, so back to the chatbot about my p…
In some businesses the margins are so tight that increased CS costs will put them under - the answer for those businesses is, unfortunately, to go under. However, everyone that's left should be held to a reasonable standard - maybe companies will start levying "Abusive customer" charges on especially painful support calls and piss off a small portion of their customer base while keeping the vast majority happy and well served - maybe they'll just up their charges across the board (or cut the costs into their profits) - that's up to them. What's up to you is the choice to cease being a customer[1] you can chose to discontinue your services with them - and if they have difficulties closing your account or continue to charge you erroneously for services... then you can reverse charges and report the behavior to whatever passes for a better business bureau in your neck of the woods.
Dealing with crap CS is a cost that companies are currently levying on customers because they can - but you can refuse to play their game.
1. Unless you're living in a service monopoly in which case - shake your fists at the heavens, bend over, and consider moving to some country with sane anti-monopoly laws.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Part of the appeal of UBI is that it doesn't come with a ton of bureaucratic overhead.
Look up and demonstrate this "ton of bureaucratic overhead". All US programs have efficiency ratings you can find. There is not the overhead you (and UBI people in general) claim. Pick the system you think is most inefficient, then look up to find admin budget versus money paid out. I've done all this, under the same initial belief you have, and it's simply not true. And UBI will also require the same overhead to col…
If you can tell us the % of bureaucratic overhead that's consumed by the US welfare system, then please do so. Otherwise you can simply say nothing.
A link to the actual research paper would be helpful. In this experiment, what amount was given to the treatment group that received basic income? How often? How does that amount compare to the cost of living in their city? > ‘It’s sometimes said that people will sit around doing nothing if you give them free money.’ I’m not an academic, so take this with a grain of salt. If my job requires menial labor or involves g…
That is the thing. My definition of UBI is suppose to keep people alive. You wont die in starvation and live on street. But it is not suppose to give you Netflix, movies and popcorn. If you want those you need to work. Which is why >> ‘It’s sometimes said that people will sit around doing nothing if you give them free money.’ this never make sense unless people have different definition of UBI. You will need to work…
UBI would be a major part of the solution, because it would enable people to move to lower cost-of-living areas where their UBI payment would go a lot further. Today this sort of mobility is heavily impeded by the need to be around meaningful job opportunities and all sorts of government services provided in-kind. With UBI, the job opportunities would spring up where people reside and not vice-versa.