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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

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271–280 of 669 posts

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personally, I'm a big fan of the "for every $2 you make, you get $1 less from UBI/Welfare" concept. This idea is called a negative income tax.

you're not describing a negative income tax

I wasn't describing anything. A negative income tax is approximately what the guy I replied to was describing. It obviously wasn't a perfect description, but I didn't think my label of the description in his comment would be taken so literally. If you'd care to describe why you believe this isn't an approximation of the outcome of a negative income tax, then feel free to explain.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YES!!!! Not every job is moral, essential or needed, the idea that 'everyone needs to participate with American capitalism as a worker drone' needs to die.

> everyone needs to participate with American capitalism as a worker drone Working a job you don't like is a leaser evil than mooching off of your neighbors. The level of entitlement required to argue the opposite is absolutely mind boggling. How many people have to work full time to support one able-bodied layabout? UBI may make sense in the event of technology-induced mass unemployment, but folks won't tolerate it…

>able-bodied layabout

The issue here is the layabout is likely that way not from his own doings. There are many people you think are normal and fine, but are some degree of mindfucked and just want to find peace, quiet, guaranty, safety, basically the tranquility of mother's bosom because they got kicked too hard too many times.

Those are (IMO) who are your likely layabouts, who need to salve bleeding minds. Depression is high, suicides and deaths of despair are high. There is always an exit from the matrix and people commonly call it selfish to take it. I do not agree with this sentiment. I am not on that journey myself but have known others who were; though, I am introspective enough to understand that often times we can play key roles in other peoples' lives and we really need to try and be there for support and understanding as much as possible. Quit assuming bad faith, or the worst intentions in people even if it's Nash. We have to try to maintain the mindframe that others are acting in good faith, or at least as good enough faith as [they think] they can while trying to survive.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#273
I would prefer to have government-sponsored, tax-free housing for all citizens rather than UBI.

Forget Universal Basic Income, give me Universal Basic Housing.

No US citizen should be homeless, or feel like they could become homeless if they lose their job.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally the second paragraph: > They also worked less on average but remained engaged in the workforce and were more deliberate in their job searches compared with a control group.

so they were more picky? I dont think that’s intrinsically good or bad, but it seems concordant with the finding in unemployment studies that a large proportion of unemployed workers who get a fixed period of unemployment payments end up finding a job in the last month when the payment is about to end. Which raises the question, should you make the period shorter to reduce financial burden of unemployment insurance o…

I'd say that's intrinsically good. What is the alternative to not being able to afford the cost of living?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm concerned about a situation similar to college tuition in the US where easy, risk free money leads to price gouging. Once everyone has an extra $XXXXX how quickly does the market realize that the cost of goods can be raised by that amount. Yeah, I'm convinced state backed student loans has led to the crazy rise in college tuition. student loans should be private (but should 100% be dischargeable via bankruptcy)…

> student loans should be private (but should 100% be dischargeable via bankruptcy) While I mostly agree, how do you prevent basically every student from going bankrupt immediately after graduation? None of the downsides to bankruptcy really apply to students so it's logically the best course of action if students loans could be discharged.

That's part of the risk. It will downsize annuity present/future values so as to reduce the windfall payout of bankruptcy vs its credit score and process costs. It will help keep college cheap: if what they teach is worthless then students should welch. The investor has more money, let him eat the friggin' risk! The student is otherwise forced to delay family for a decade and take a 67%+ cut in fertility rate as a result, a really bad outcome if we don't let students welch.

Maybe put the school on the hook in some way too, forcing it to actually screen for talent (which would absolutely murder DEI lol), that way investor isn't totally SOL if the school was the useless party.

Wow, I just made education affordable again by murdering any safety in financially speculating in it. Change the game, change the outcomes!

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#276

If you were to hand out $1k a month to everyone in my area an immediate result would likely be that rents would increase by somewhere close to $1k a month. Everyone needs somewhere to live. Everyone wants to live closer to where they work and where there friends and family are. Housing is in limited supply. If everyone had more purchasing power, then everyone's going to collectively bid up what they're willing to pay…

This is the basic uncertainty I have about UBI, and I've never heard an argument against it that went step by step and explained how that wouldn't happen. It seems intuitively like it would. In response, I've hear the equivalent of "don't worry, they've thought of that already, and the math still works". Maybe, but I'd feel a lot better if somebody could walk me through it.

I agree, in my opinion, a common misconception I've seen is people saying wealth isn't zero sum. It can be created from thin air, but as long as there are needed and scarse resources (housing, maybe medical, maybe ivy league college), the market will adapt to consume more of the wealth.

So wealth can be created but it makes everyone else slightly poorer in different ways

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the studies on UBI are flawed. The whole point of UBI is that everyone gets the money. When you give a select few extra money they can do things that they otherwise wouldn't. When you give everyone money the value of the money just decreases.

That's obvious. The point is inequality is reduced.

So a progressive tax system like what we have? (ignoring capital gains taxes)

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#278
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a podcast or video about this exact same issue in... Sweden? Some anecdata from people receiving welfare, but couldn't start a job or a business because if they received any money, they get nothing from welfare and wouldn't be able to support themselves. This resulted in people that were trying to start a business not get paid for their work (I believe one of the anecdata was a photographer) because doing s…

> Personally, I'm a big fan of the "for every $2 you make, you get $1 less from UBI/Welfare" That's..that's not UBI, at all. UBI is universal . If there are any means tests whatsoever , that's not UBI.

I disagree. Universal just implies everyone gets it. If the system includes a gradual fall off, it's still universally applied to everyone, no?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Star Trek, even in very automated industries someone has to do the things. If you don't get in the tractor and plough the field you don't get the wheat. Economic value is no less real. If anything, it's much more real at the low end in fast food, the supermarket, labouring jobs etc than it is in Uber for dogs.

Sure, someone needs to do something, but due to automation we need less labor for the same value, even if it isn’t fully automated luxury space communism (yet?). That excess time could be spent on leisure, instead the insatiable hunger for more is driving us to drudgery.

how much productive work would you undo for more leisure time? Go back to the productivity of 2000? 1980? further?

On one hand, I think this is an interesting question to put the value of work into context.

On the other, I think most of society would fight tooth and nail against it.

That said, I do know people who do live pretty simply, no electricity, healthcare, or fancy food.

It kind of reminds me of an old miner that would periodically ride into town on a donkey when I was growing up in the 90's. He was about 150 years out of place.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#280
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I'm a big fan of the "for every $2 you make, you get $1 less from UBI/Welfare" That's..that's not UBI, at all. UBI is universal . If there are any means tests whatsoever , that's not UBI.

I disagree. Universal just implies everyone gets it. If the system includes a gradual fall off, it's still universally applied to everyone, no?

Everyone making less than 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL) qualifies for free healthcare. I dont think most people would say that the USA has universal healthcare.

The same is true here. If you make $0, you get $12K UBI. If you make $24K, you get $0 UBI. Is that universal?

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