121–130 of 188 posts
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> reducing reproduction amongst the population that cannot raise children to a standard that is contributing to society How would one predict who is going to have children that contribute to society and who is not? If the idea is to stop them reproducing then you have predict ahead of time, after all.
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> I don't see a path where citizens come together to agree on a UBI. In a convoluted, bureaucratic way, we have many of the pieces of UBI (welfare, unemployment, social security, minimum wage). We just lack the "universal" part. I agree that UBI is contentious, but I wouldn't be surprised if UBI dressed up in some definitely-not-socialism clothing eventually reaches critical mass of support. > fixing the hard things…
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> Why's that ridiculous? Because drawing conclusions about what happens if you guarantee income to everyone , based on studying a project that only guaranteed income to homeless people, is ridiculous. > a small scale trial Is not what this is. You can't have a "small scale trial" of universal basic income. That's the whole point.
No, what's ridiculous is claiming that conclusions from this study cannot apply to UBI. Nobody is claiming the study models inflation, it's about homelessness. Basic Income is part of Universal Basic Income, and I think it's pretty reasonable to expect some conclusions apply to each.
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Fixing education? What does education have to do with this? Are we really still pretending in this day and age that education is some magical panacea to fix even a fraction of the ills? A populace with a lot of education and a poor means to earn a living wage just means you'll end up with a lot of educated poor people. The current way of things is an anomaly in human history. You can't have a continuous consolidation…
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No, what's ridiculous is claiming that conclusions from this study cannot apply to UBI. Nobody is claiming the study models inflation, it's about homelessness. Basic Income is part of Universal Basic Income, and I think it's pretty reasonable to expect some conclusions apply to each.
No, you still misunderstand: "Basic Income" for some small groups of people works on a totally different principle than "Universal Basic Income" that applies to everyone. One is about giving a break to some unfortunate people, and helping them make a living in the current economic environment. The other is a complete overhaul of the economic reality we live in.
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I don't think UBI is a politically stable idea. It will be diluted by different initiatives to favour certain groups over others, and the actual UBI income will soon be eaten by inflation. Fast forward 10 years and the same problems will remain.
i imagine if we tried to introduce this there would be a huge campaign by companies like food delivery apps against it.
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> reducing reproduction amongst the population that cannot raise children to a standard that is contributing to society How would one predict who is going to have children that contribute to society and who is not? If the idea is to stop them reproducing then you have predict ahead of time, after all.
it's less about children that will ultimately contribute and more about parents that are incapable of providing for their children
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I don't think you can have a $0 control group just because you have to pay the controls to fill out your surveys and such, otherwise their stats will be very out of whack.
Wouldn't it make more sense to compare to existing welfare programs (if there are any?). A bit like new drugs often are not tested against placebo, but against existing drugs which already treat the same condition.
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What's a scenario in which adding $20K to my income results in more than $20K in additional taxes? The highest marginal tax rate in the U.S. for 2023 is 37%, and it kicks in after about $578K for a single filer. So increasing my income by $20K increases my tax bill by at most 37% of $20K.
We can't give everyone $20K without raising taxes. The money has to come from somewhere. Taxes would go up to pay for it. You can't have both UBI and the current tax rates.
Stock buy-backs don't create any value, or, if they do, it is obscure to me. You may get a one-time bump in capital gains tax, but it's nothing to build an economy on.
A million new dishwashers, though - that's taxable profit and increased emploment. Could UBI drive a virtuous cycle in which everyone gets richer? It certainly looks from here like inequality fundamentally shrinks the pie, even if it works out nicely for some eaters.