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Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

gizmodo.com

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Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#81

Post by Acebulf »

monero-xmr wrote: post #48
darthoctopus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fears that the experiment would engender laziness in participants were not borne out in the project’s findings: “The ‘laziness’ contention is just not supported by our findings,” the chief data analyst of one of the experiments said. “There is not anywhere near the mass defection the prophets of doom predicted.”

We already did the experiment, across the whole country!

Yeah, and correlation isn't causality. Causal studies under controlled conditions don't back up what you're saying.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#83

Post by Detrytus »

ben_w wrote: post #56
stray wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hyperinflation.

That depends how it's funded. Printing money? Yes. Taxing economic rents? Probably not. Owning a fully automated workforce? Yet to be determined.

It doesn't depend on how it's funded. It's a simple mechanics: once the word gets out that everybody is getting free money then all the companies raise their prices, trying to capture that money, because why wouldn't they?

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#85

Post by op00to »

stray wrote: post #61
CuriousCosmic wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the price of eggs skyrocketed due to an outbreak of avian flu forcing farmers into mass culling tens of millions of egg laying hens across the US, it's probably not the money supply that caused that.

Whoosh! Ok, the price of literally everything, then. Google "Weimar Republic".

Oh, they had UBI then?

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#86

Post by HideousKojima »

anon25783 wrote: post #29
woofcat wrote: post #2

I don't think anyone is doubting that giving people money improves their lives. That seems to be the conclusion of these studies. However what is seemingly _never_ studied is how to finance such an operation. The money has to come out of the system somewhere. Is it with new taxation on XYZ, or slashing services somewhere else etc.

The GDP of the USA is about 28 trillion dollars. The US military's budget alone is over eight hundred billion dollars. I think we can manage.

Please try to do some actual math here. What annual UBI are you targeting, and how much could be funded from pillaging existing spending vs. new taxes?

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#87

Post by Shadowmist »

arp242 wrote: post #62

Most of these are either fairly short-lived limited pilots, or aren't really "UBI" (e.g. Alaska's $1,600 a year hardly qualifies as UBI as it's just enough to buy groceries with, never mind rent or any other basic needs). A large population with basic needs met and nothing particular they have to do is untested. I don't really know how that will end, but I fear it may not end especially well. Let's be real: no one wo…

I’d go work at McDonalds for a PS5 or whatever, even if I didn’t have to pay for rent and food.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#88

Post by criddell »

CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #45

Yes, of course giving people money makes their lives better. It especially works when a very small subset of the population receives such treatment, such that their relative income is higher than those outside the experiment. The issue with UBI is that enacting it at scale has two huge problems: 1. Financing it. These programs are monumentally expensive. You need to get the money from somewhere. The easiest place to…

> The USA did this during the COVID era.

Japan has being doing this for decades now and, AFAIK, there hasn't been any terrible consequences. What are they doing differently?

imf.org says Japan's dept to GDP ratio is 214% and the US' is 110%.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#90

Post by op00to »

monero-xmr wrote: post #12

In the US, we gave money to people during the pandemic. Worker shortages in low-skill labor resulted and inflation hit 10%. I think that's the major flaw - young, childless people without responsibility see no reason to work, when they can watch Netflix all day, either paying their mom some token rent or sharing a flop house with a bunch of friends.

Previously it was “welfare queens”. Apparently now it’s “Netflix slackers”?
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