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A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

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Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#11
Did it really? I remember strikes against "austerity" measures and such, but a wave of basic grant militancy?

> Pilot programs have been set up in several cities and countries — Utrecht

There is no such thing. They relaxed the rules for the bottom rung of welfare, which basically scraps the obligation to apply for jobs.

Doesn't bode well for the article.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#14

Spaniard here since this article[1] about Spain was prominently noted in the linked article, there isn't a basic income plan here and nothing like that has happened, please stop with making up this kind of stuff about other countries. There is regular unemployment insurance and an unemployment plan targeted to temporary job freezes (ERTE) that has always existed, nothing to do with basic income. I would also like to…

Seen similar misinformation about Nordic countries and their UBI testing/experiments. There is definitely a component to how much someone wants to believe something to clickbait/fakenews.

I'm about as "red as they get" and there's something really grating about US citizens talking about "UBI", and pointing to a variety of social policies in various European countries.

These policies are hard-fought and need to be well balanced to be effective in the long term. You can't just implement them without thinking about repercussions and side-effects.

I'd say, if you're a US citizen, forget about "UBI" as a simple answer to the various social wrongs within your country, and focus on your healthcare; that's where various European models could be used as a partial model, and it's a very good and achievable first step towards a fairer and healthier society.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seen similar misinformation about Nordic countries and their UBI testing/experiments. There is definitely a component to how much someone wants to believe something to clickbait/fakenews.

I'm about as "red as they get" and there's something really grating about US citizens talking about "UBI", and pointing to a variety of social policies in various European countries. These policies are hard-fought and need to be well balanced to be effective in the long term. You can't just implement them without thinking about repercussions and side-effects. I'd say, if you're a US citizen, forget about "UBI" as a s…

We never hear about the downsides of other countries models either. It's always a cherry-picking of the best policies and pretending there's never any trade offs. That kind of disingenuous promotion doesn't do any favors when it comes to convincing people.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#17

I’m in favor of UBI, but let’s draw it from each congressman’s personal bank accounts. It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s money.

Base assumption, we just print the money. It's how we pay for everything else like wars and subsidies and whatnot.

Then, as a courtesy to those people who benefit from a society without excessive inflation (mostly, people with lots of money who are clearly benefiting the most) we take and burn that money, to remove it from circulation.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#18
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm about as "red as they get" and there's something really grating about US citizens talking about "UBI", and pointing to a variety of social policies in various European countries. These policies are hard-fought and need to be well balanced to be effective in the long term. You can't just implement them without thinking about repercussions and side-effects. I'd say, if you're a US citizen, forget about "UBI" as a s…

We never hear about the downsides of other countries models either. It's always a cherry-picking of the best policies and pretending there's never any trade offs. That kind of disingenuous promotion doesn't do any favors when it comes to convincing people.

> It's always a cherry-picking of the best policies and pretending there's never any trade offs.

Well it's not like UBI is the exception here. This is normal in all forms of political discourse.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#19
I'm glad to see Thomas Paine referenced in this article. So many Americans don't realize that one of America's founding fathers championed the idea of universal basic income back when the USA was just being created.

This was something that Andrew Yang pointed out, but was largely ignored.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#20

What always seems to happen with UBI studies is the proponents point to results that say "the people we gave free money to are happier" but never try to quantify whether that money would have done more good used in a different way.

I don't think that's the right question to ask. It should be "Would they be happier if the tax to fund UBI was not levied"
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