Is Support Now Growing for a Universal Basic Income? (bloombergquint.com) 238
Economist Tyler Cowen and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov (now the chairman of the nonprofit Renew Democracy Initiative) co-authored an opinion piece this week in Bloomberg arguing that "a pandemic is providing a tragic preview of some of the conditions UBI was conceived to address."
Though they worry about the cost of such a program, "And, though there are some important qualifications, Covid-19 is making UBI look better..." Job creation during the pandemic is as slow as many UBI advocates feared. Even in health care, where one might expect employment to be rising dramatically in the midst of a pandemic, it is sluggish... In response to an unemployment level unseen since the Great Depression, the federal government has instituted cash transfers, which in some cases result in unemployment payments that are higher than wages. This is a radical experiment. It is being called stimulus, inaccurately, when it is a humanitarian program designed to tide people over during economic duress — and it draws explicitly upon UBI-like ideas.
In contrast, many European countries have been guaranteeing wages in the hopes of "freezing" the economy and then "defrosting" it when it is safe to return to work. Yet some recent U.S. estimates suggest there will be 3 new hires for every 10 layoffs caused by the pandemic, and furthermore 42% of the new layoffs will be permanent. (In post-pandemic America, there will be less need for waiters.) That suggests the American UBI-like strategy is likely to outperform the European approach, because the world is changing rapidly and labor will need to be reallocated accordingly...
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well as Senator Mitt Romney have argued that UBI is an appropriate response to a pandemic, though Ocasio-Cortez favors making it permanent.... Covid-19 is illustrating that some aspects of a UBI may be more necessary and more workable than previously thought.
The New York Times also reported today that "three dozen influential figures at labor unions, think tanks and other progressive institutions have convened a weekly virtual meeting — known as the Friday Morning Group... one of several brainstorming-and-planning initiatives underway in Washington" to consider responses to new economic challenges, "including mainstream proposals like major new spending on public health and child care and less widely supported options like creating a universal basic income or offering a federal jobs guarantee."
Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than a million health care workers, said she had briefed Democratic lawmakers in both the House and Senate about her organization's view that it was time to "change the rules of the economy for the long term," including a powerful expansion of the rights and employment benefits of lower-income workers.
And former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris "has endorsed a plan called the Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act," writes an editor at the conservative and libertarian think tank the Heartland Institute, "which would send $2,000 per month to Americans who make less than $120,000 per year. Married couples would receive $4,000 per month, as well as $2,000 for each child... the checks would be sent for up to three months after the coronavirus crisis ends."
But that editor calls it "a preposterous plan," adding "is it such a logical leap to assume that some on the left are using the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to introduce another 'temporary' welfare program...?"
Though they worry about the cost of such a program, "And, though there are some important qualifications, Covid-19 is making UBI look better..." Job creation during the pandemic is as slow as many UBI advocates feared. Even in health care, where one might expect employment to be rising dramatically in the midst of a pandemic, it is sluggish... In response to an unemployment level unseen since the Great Depression, the federal government has instituted cash transfers, which in some cases result in unemployment payments that are higher than wages. This is a radical experiment. It is being called stimulus, inaccurately, when it is a humanitarian program designed to tide people over during economic duress — and it draws explicitly upon UBI-like ideas.
In contrast, many European countries have been guaranteeing wages in the hopes of "freezing" the economy and then "defrosting" it when it is safe to return to work. Yet some recent U.S. estimates suggest there will be 3 new hires for every 10 layoffs caused by the pandemic, and furthermore 42% of the new layoffs will be permanent. (In post-pandemic America, there will be less need for waiters.) That suggests the American UBI-like strategy is likely to outperform the European approach, because the world is changing rapidly and labor will need to be reallocated accordingly...
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well as Senator Mitt Romney have argued that UBI is an appropriate response to a pandemic, though Ocasio-Cortez favors making it permanent.... Covid-19 is illustrating that some aspects of a UBI may be more necessary and more workable than previously thought.
The New York Times also reported today that "three dozen influential figures at labor unions, think tanks and other progressive institutions have convened a weekly virtual meeting — known as the Friday Morning Group... one of several brainstorming-and-planning initiatives underway in Washington" to consider responses to new economic challenges, "including mainstream proposals like major new spending on public health and child care and less widely supported options like creating a universal basic income or offering a federal jobs guarantee."
Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than a million health care workers, said she had briefed Democratic lawmakers in both the House and Senate about her organization's view that it was time to "change the rules of the economy for the long term," including a powerful expansion of the rights and employment benefits of lower-income workers.
And former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris "has endorsed a plan called the Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act," writes an editor at the conservative and libertarian think tank the Heartland Institute, "which would send $2,000 per month to Americans who make less than $120,000 per year. Married couples would receive $4,000 per month, as well as $2,000 for each child... the checks would be sent for up to three months after the coronavirus crisis ends."
But that editor calls it "a preposterous plan," adding "is it such a logical leap to assume that some on the left are using the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to introduce another 'temporary' welfare program...?"
No, math doesn't work out (Score:2, Informative)
91% of US adults make less than $120K. that's 0.9 of 210 million which is 189 million people. You're going to give them 378 billion a month? No, you're not. Then for each kid the have too? Great, 500 billion plus a month, six trillion a year.
Fuck off, not happening. Get a job you fucking hippie.
Re:No, math doesn't work out (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't even imagine how much inflation $6T/yr in UBI payments would cause. You can't tax an additional $6T/yr from the economy, so fire up the printing presses. Do some more math...
$4000/couple/month
$2000/kid/month
Geez, UBI for a family of five is $120,000/yr.
So does a family of six lose their UBI? They'd get $144,000/yr (tax free).
The only way a insane plane like this could work is by running the printing presses 24/7. And that will cause inflation, and when inflation reaches equilibrium again everyone will be right back where they started.
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Mass automation, if/when it actually happens, would bring about functional deflation. By functional, I mean the actual cost of bringing products/services to market would drop over the long term. Doesn't mean market prices would come down, though people's inability to buy anything would eventually erode prices and lead to deflation. At that point you're dealing with market fixers who may try to prop up prices to prevent that from happening.
Therefore you would not need to tax $6 trillion per year from the
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You really shouldn't worry about robots putting everyone out of work. Over the last fifty years our government has destroyed many more jobs than robots will due to policies that incentivized offshore manufacturing. History will likely show that was a huge mistake.
Re: No, math doesn't work out (Score:2)
Deflation is bad if you want anything to get sold. When sitting on money increases its purchasing power, guess what everyone does.
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Maybe none. UBI will allow employers to pay employees less. In a competitive economy, those savings are passed on to the customers.
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Make it a second currency, only accepted for food, clothing, housing, and education.
Think about it for half a second instead of blathering bullshit.
This secondary currency, only good for food, clothing, housing, and education... is paid to farmers, textile makers, home builders, and teachers...
So now farmers, textile makers, home builders, and teachers, are holding an ever increasing pile of this secondary currency, still only good for food, clothing, housing, and education.... and make very little real money....
What you are asking for is turning farmers, textile makers, home builde
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In that case, everyone already gets UBI, it's just set to 0.
On what planet is getting nothing of something defined as getting it? Planet right wing?
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:2)
Blunt but to the point, magic is not real, and there is no endless money tree or golden goose creating wealth out of thin air. It only seems like it works because you aren't really doing it everywhere, "pilot programs" are not nearly enough to show the true long-term impact
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While AI is not happening, dumb automation will take a lot of jobs. And there will not be replacements.
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All the 'solutions' to the 'problem' of 'getting the output to individual people' involves 'redistribution of wealth', which is a fancy way of saying 'take from the rich and give to the poor'. Anyone that believes The Rich and Rich Corporations are going to gleefully go along with any demand that they fork over their fortunes so the government can mail out checks to 300,000,000 people is living in a total fantasy world, it's never going to
Re:No, math doesn't work out (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure why these proposals were even brought up in an article about universal basic income. These plans are only for during this Covid crisis, not for ongoing basic income. The Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act seems insane to me and I'm fairly liberal; it gives up to $5500 per month to a family with three kids. Even for a few months that seems excessive. Not everyone is out of work; just use that money to bolster unemployment / underemployment instead.
No basic income plans I have ever seen propose a basic income of $66k per year. Basic income payments are generally proposed to be closer to $500-$1000 per month, and the threshold for people who would come out ahead (after the increased taxes to pay for it) is far less than $120k. Probably closer to $75k.
These Covid-19 plans may show that politicians are starting to consider direct payments as a better solution to problems than regulations or corporate subsidies, but they do not resemble what basic income plans would become.
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I'm not sure why these proposals were even brought up in an article about universal basic income. These plans are only for during this Covid crisis, not for ongoing basic income.
Miss AOC, for one, would disagree on that point. You can find her recent statement on this as easily as I can.
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Miss AOC, for one, would disagree on that point. You can find her recent statement on this as easily as I can.
I actually cannot find any statements where AOC claims the $5500 per year payments would continue after the Covid-19 crisis. She certainly is a proponent of a basic income, and I do agree she goes overboard with most of her proposals, but I doubt she has ever claimed she wants basic income to be that high.
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The desperation comes from the Left realizing that if their ridiculous proposals can't even gain traction during a global pandemic that's put half the world into dire straits then nothing will ever make their ideas palatable.
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As others have pointed out, your reaction is pretty stupid and short-sighted. You don't seem to understand how UBI works at all, so here's a quick explanation:
In most UBI schemes, once you hit some fraction of the poverty level you start paying back $1 for every $2-$3 you get in UBI. In the US, the poverty line is about $12k/year, which is $1k/month. Lets take that as the limit before UBI starts getting taxed at a $2 or $3 ratio.
Someone making $2k/month ($1k over poverty) would end up paying something like
Re: No, math doesn't work out (Score:2)
What's UBI for?
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I'm just going to parrot some stuff I have heard in this UBI talk.
Why have UBI when there is Unemployment and Welfare? Administrative costs. According to the proponents for UBI, these admin costs to determine if someone is eligible for unemployment and welfare, are what cause the cost of these programs to balloon. If you simply match or do better than these programs in your UBI payouts, then you can eliminate a ton of the overhead in the budget.
Now is this going to provide the trillions we need for UBI? Dou
Re: No, math doesn't work out (Score:2)
So, they think replacing a temporary assist like unemployment payments with a full time permanent payment with UBI will pay for UBI by reducing administrative costs of temporary unemployment?
Really? That's some mighty interesting math some people got going on.
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The minimum wage could be lowered.
Unemployment benefits could be reduced, likely still need some amount of this but its cost would be drastically reduced.
Foodstamps, WIC, etc. would no longer be needed.
Interest rates would be lower as the risk of individual bankruptcy would be lower.
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Within your calculations, people still get extra money from UBI .... about additional 2 trillion USD in taxes per annum would be needed for this to work. Probably even more.....You really think this will work? Do you really find it fair?
No, I expect fucktards like yourself to read before spouting off like a fucking Donald Trump clone.
We can argue where UBI payroll reductions should kick in and how much they should be...
Well shit, it's almost like I was giving an example of how it could work.
Next time try responding like an adult so we can have a conversation.
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Re: No, math doesn't work out (Score:2)
Most people are already useless. Automation led to the design of the service economy, where instead of making coffee you make coffee for people at Starbucks. None of it matters, all of it exists to prevent mass unemployment and collapsing demand. Coronavirus has also revealed how little it matters if loads of people stop working. 70% of the economy is people sitting at desks looking busy.
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The actual cost (which would still be impressive) is the differential between your estimate and the current cost of the welfare/foodstamp/etc programs that UBI would replace. There's also the less tangible benefits, such as the improved social and geographic mobility such a program would provide. The extra $XXX billion flowing through the economy would also doubtless provide lot of benefits.$2k a month seems high, but that doesn't invalidate the idea.
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Good luck with that. These people have been trying to get jobs. It is either get money to them some other way or your country will go up in flames. Have fun when that happens.
How about universal basic taxes? (Score:2)
Everyone pays, at least 10% of income and $5000/year minimum.
If you donâ(TM)t have the cash, you can pay it via community service by being assigned to do labour for someone who DID pay.
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Comment forwarded to DHS and FBI, enjoy being investigated as a seditionist and/or domestic terrrorist.
Just kidding, but only mostly. We don't need people threatening to overthrow the government because they're upset they're not getting a handout.
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So the takeaway from your comment amounts to "Give us free government money or we'll stage a revolution"?
This is an implausible scenario. Most advocates of UBI claim it will be funded by taxing the "ultra-rich" but that doesn't work for many reasons. So any realistic UBI will be mostly funded with middle-class income taxes. A plausible scenario is that the top 60% will be net losers and the bottom 40% net winners.
The bottom 40% are not only out-numbered, but they are also the least organized, have the least resources, and are the most apathetic. If they had the motivation and organizational skills to mount
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The American tax system designed to discourage the repatriation of profits.
The money kept overseas by American corporations is not "stashed in accounts". It is invested in foreign capital such as factories and businesses.
Yet the American government will punish them if they do that at home.
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The American tax system was designed to discourage the repatriation of profits.
FTFY. The recent tax cuts have gone a long way to fix that.
The money kept overseas by American corporations is not "stashed in accounts". It is invested in foreign capital such as factories and businesses.
I don't know exactly what you mean by "money", but trillions of US corporate cash and cash equivalents were held in overseas accounts prior to the tax cut. Thankfully, much of it has been returning to the US due to our now lower corporate tax rates.
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Thanks (Score:2)
> trillions of U.S. dollars are stashed away in off-shore accounts in order to avoid paying taxes.
That statement usually seems to by "so I think we should increase taxes". Because apparently some people think that the higher taxes are, the LESS motivated people will be to avoid them. So thanks for not saying that.
Not that statement is quite true as stated. Lots of US dollars is used to build cat factories in Mexico amd wherever there are lower taxes. When you have a lot a of money, you don't put it in
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A plausible scenario is that the top 60% will be net losers and the bottom 40% net winners.
That is by far the only thing that could ever work. I think there are always a lot of people arguing past each other on UBI, because questions like who, how much, and what aid does it replace, easily change the scenario from plausible to laughable.
Without specifics, it's safe to ignore any UBI proponents, because they've proposed nothing. With specifics, an actual discussion can be had. But the numbers need to makes sense immediately, not some pie-in-the-sky "I think maybe probably people will work more"
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So the takeaway from your comment amounts to "Give us free government money or we'll stage a revolution"? Comment forwarded to DHS and FBI, enjoy being investigated as a seditionist and/or domestic terrrorist. Just kidding, but only mostly. We don't need people threatening to overthrow the government because they're upset they're not getting a handout.
Considering the people of Greece and Venezuela didn't revolt I think we have a considerable margin to go. But if you look at pretty much all the revolutions of history they happened at the point of the job market collapsing. For all the talk of ideology it's when people don't have money for rent or groceries that the torches and pitchforks come out. It's one thing when you can feel like you have some kind of semblance of control over your own situation. But when you just feel like a leaf caught in an econom
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Just kidding, but only mostly. We don't need people threatening to overthrow the government because they're upset they're not getting a handout.
That's a strange interpretation of what was stated. If people can't get by, they die. He's talking about self-preservation and you're reading it like he or she's talking about getting a bike for Christmas.
BTW I do agree with your sentiment about this being the wrong time to threaten to overthrow government, I just don't think you've quite registered the severity of what he's talking about. Imagine being accosted in a parking lot of a grocery store because you're carrying a bag of food, on our current co
Re:No, math doesn't work out (Score:5, Interesting)
OTOH, if something is not done bloody quick, there is going to be a huge number of people unable to get by, while the owners of the robots are crying "let them eat cake" from the highest heavens.
I don't think that's likely to be the case, even though it's a lovely plot for a dystopian universe. If there were a button that I could push right now that would take 100% of the worlds population and replace them with robot laborers, I would do it in a heartbeat. Sure everyone is out of a job, but there are robots producing everything that humans were previously producing and they'd be doing it at least as efficiently as the most efficient human (else why would that person have been replaced?) and they could do it around the clock, whereas most humans aren't terribly productive for more than a quarter of their day.
The material wealth available to the world has likely increased by a full order of magnitude. Even if you assume that the current wealthiest 10% take 90% of that gain for themselves, it still constitutes a doubling of material wealth for everyone else. All of those people also now the time to find some way to supply their labor. Perhaps some will have a difficult time acquiring a new skill, but the cost of existing goods and services that they previously needed has also decreased rapidly.
I like the idea of a UBI because it's the most flexible form of safety net and requires very little in the way of government bureaucracy due to its simplicity. People have been having jobs automated out from underneath them for centuries and yet we always seem to find more things for people to do. I'm not particularly worried about the horrors of automation and feel that as it continues to happen we'll find that the world continues to become a better place for the average person living on it.
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Here is your one room home. the standard grey outfit enough for 7 seven days with underwear etc all standard color with your number on it and here is your food ration. No deserts just survival rations. Basic healthcare and dental. These items are not transferable.
You now have enough to live and should come up with ways to make your life better
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The value of money is given by the people and companies offering goods and services for it, you can't print more money and expect it to have more value, so someone have to pay for it.
The megacorporations can pay for it, sure, but they will want something back in return be over or under the table.
Or you could just destroy everything in the way of the small companies from existing like over abusive IP laws, taxes, some of the most absurd regulations etc.. and have a lot of people actually employed, and from t
Re:No, math doesn't work out (Score:5, Informative)
They get the right to exist. There is no "universal right to create artificial persons". Society grants it, on such conditions as society may form time to time choose. If it is not in the interests of the majority to be stiffed by a bunch of greedy liars, they might decide to change the rules. (Probably not in America, where government is sold to the highest bidder, but perhaps in most of the world). That is not democracy, but Kleptocracy).
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Do you think any country in the world do have this kind of leverage of what megacorporation exist or cease to exist?
Trump bends over to em because they can snap the finger and move entirely to china in seconds.
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They get the right to exist. There is no "universal right to create artificial persons". Society grants it, on such conditions as society may form time to time choose.
Maybe in your backwards nation, but in the USA, our rights come from the Creator, and Government was organized to ensure these rights are protected. And if the rights are NOT protected (and that includes the right to assembly and freedom of association), then we have the right - some would say, the duty - to overthrow the Government and start anew.
Re:No, math doesn't work out (Score:4, Insightful)
but in the USA, our rights come from the Creator,
How on earth is the parent post modded insightful.
Hey Lynwood, can you point me to the place in any moderately well established religious text where the creator declares thou shalt be able to make limited liability corporations with the rights of people?
Re: No, math doesn't work out (Score:2)
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Who are they going to be aiming at, though? The open-carry types are doing it as a fashion statement to go along with their belt buckles and shitty whisky. They know the moment they start firing their lives are over, and their whole group looks more like Timothy McVeigh than George Washington. More likely I think will be a rise in violent crime, because robbing your neighbor is a lot lower risk, and a lot easier.
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We don't quite have those robots though. It's a chicken-and-egg scenario.
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The sans-culottes (trouserless, in English) only had Madame La Guillotine to defend their corner. The 189 million people you speak of have Smith and Wesson, Glock, etc on their side. As they often say "you ain't seen nuttin' yet!"
Back then, culottes were the tight knee length breeches worn with socks to the knee. They were worn by a better class of people.
The poor wore regular trousers.
Now, back to our regular program.
Historically, there was a sort of a UBI, "panem et circenses" in Rome. I suspect we're moving into that phase. Next will be declaring an enemy so that all the poor people will have jobs fighting "the filthy other", enemies which may or not be domestic.
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If you make even 60k and don't have enough savings to last 4 months I think you can only blame yourself.
The important thing is not whether or not people in a bad situation because of their own mistakes or just bad luck. It is simply important that they are in a bad situation. The damage their loss of economic activity has on the rest of the economy doesn't care whose fault it is.
Re: No, math doesn't work out (Score:3, Insightful)
It does matter why. I understand medical debt. If you get hit with a million dollar medical bill, that sucks and there's nothing a normal person could have done to prepare. But you didn't have a few months savings because you just don't like to save? Not my problem. Eat rats.
Re: No, math doesn't work out (Score:5, Insightful)
After you graduate college and see what happens in the real world maybe you'll get it.
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Add to that - he has quite a bit of stress. Make a wrong decision, and not only could he lose his job, hundreds (or even thousands) will lose theirs. Yeah, some are psychotic enough to not worry - but most that I've met do consider that kind of thing. And as a small business owner who's go so far in the past as to get a 3rd mortgage to be able to meet payroll (and keep the company going) - I get it.
But since "I'm a CEO/executive" I should just be ignored... Never mind that it's my butt on the line, and
Re: No, math doesn't work out (Score:2)
The smart ones recognize their political futures are at risk and are easing off. In other countries, France is a great example of this, people riot, burn police cars in the street, and so on. In the US we're actually pretty tolerant of government idiocy. Until we're not and then they all get voted out and need to find real jobs.
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>Said the slashdot poster who never met the typical corporate executive who is putting in 50-60 hours a week in the office
Funny that you should cite a 55-hour workweek. That's what executives say in a wall street journal survey! Let's see the breakdown in their handy pie chart
https://i.imgur.com/6NyGxt3.jp... [imgur.com]
-18 hours in meetings
-2 hours on phone calls
-2 hours on conference calls
-6 hours 'working alone'
-2 hours public events
Okay, great, that's a 28 hour workweek
5 hours 'business meals' a week. Okay, s
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COVID-19 as an excuse (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen government at ALL levels, from town to federal, doing things they've wanted to do for a long time while using COVID-19 as an excuse. As an example, a mixed-use nature trail, used for walking and biking, had a sign posted saying that as a COVID-19 precaution bike riding was not allowed and the trail could only be used for walking.
There's no question that democrats (and republicans, but in very different ways) would be pushing their agenda along, riding the extreme disruption and changes precipitated by COVID-19. The "support now growing" for UBI is just more of this.
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as a COVID-19 precaution bike riding was not allowed
There appears to be some scientific justification [urbanphysics.net] behind that. Where Covid-19 might appear to be an excuse is in places like Seattle. Where roads are being closed down to make more space for cycling. So now the poor residents won't be able to walk out their front doors without risking running into a cyclists snot plume.
As far as a UBI goes, the current state of the economy may in fact argue for additional financial support during the pandemic. But any conclusions reached will have to be thrown out once the
You bet! (Score:2)
People love free shit.
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Crap, do I need to put a lock on my toilet lid now?
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Yes.
Re: You bet! (Score:2)
No (Score:2, Insightful)
Still a stupid idea. Like all socialist ideas, it sounds great, but runs aground on the shoals of reality.
If proponents would truly agree to eliminate all other social programs - to let people starve after blowing their UBI on booze and bling - then I would take them seriously. They won't, so I don't.
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Put new laws in place that limit things you can buy only if you make X amount of money per year (including UBI).
Your only income is UBI? You're not allowed to buy superfluous things like alcohol or jewelry.
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We have this today. It's called EBT. But it has problems*, like people trying to buy pot with their food stamp money. So the UBI proponents want cash handed out so there are no questions asked. Spend it on drugs and we will still have soup kitchens and homeless camps.
*One restriction with EBT is the banning of certain products used as barter [nytimes.com] for drugs.
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You're thinking of WIC. EBT lets you buy garbage like tv dinners, potato chips, popsicles, etc etc. WIC is limited to certain products.
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Put new laws in place that limit things you can buy only if you make X amount of money per year (including UBI).
Your only income is UBI? You're not allowed to buy superfluous things like alcohol or jewelry.
Oh yeah that sounds super enforceable, not to mention constitutionally sound. You can't buy these things because you take government money. Really you're just talking about a half way house but somehow the restrictions happen when nobody is watching.
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Put new laws in place that limit things you can buy only if you make X amount of money per year (including UBI).
Your only income is UBI? You're not allowed to buy superfluous things like alcohol or jewelry.
Who's going to monitor that? I thought that one of the great things about UBI would be the tremendous reduction in paperwork and bureaucracy. Now you're going to monitor everyone's purchases based upon their income level?
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I don't know if you realize this, but you're just repeating tired cliches that you've heard. Your ideas are not based on reality. It sounds good to you, I'm guessing, but it's not how the world works.
Are you willing to question your innate biases and the propaganda that you've internalized?
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
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If proponents would truly agree to eliminate all other social programs - to let people starve after blowing their UBI on booze and bling - then I would take them seriously. They won't, so I don't.
It doesn't matter if the people actually pushing it are willing to give up those other programs. The people who champion those other programs aren't.
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You have a better idea? Because nobody does...
UBI is not a good idea, I completely agree. It is an emergency measure that is without alternative because all other alternatives are significantly worse.
I hope so it's about time (Score:4, Interesting)
I was running on this platform as far back as 1996 cause the writing (of improvement in computer automation competing against more or less static human ability levels) was on the wall back then. But apparently, it was written in really fine print. Now finally something has come along and magnified it.
To those who worry that it is taking money from the rightful earners of the money (the capitalists and entrepreneurs who get stuff done), ok, but in the past, those players always brought a large number of employees along with them. That will not be happening in the future, on a gradual curve anyway. So it probably makes sense that there by a larger tax on profit from sales of very low-human-input goods and services.
Will the top 1%, who will kind of become the top 0.1% as the middle falls out, income-wise, really be able to operate with low tax and sell only to each other amid a sea of no-income or black market operating subsistence population, protected by private, and highly automated, security companies? Because that's the only alternative scenario I can see to universal basic income, going forward.
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Re: I hope so it's about time (Score:3)
Let's see which is a better experience: getting in line waiting for the 5 morons in front of me to unload their carts and chat it up with the cashier and oh wait send someone to aisle 6 to get a replacement for this potato and oh that credit card doesn't work do
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WTF? You ACTUALLY think that? The profits will float to the top. If those jobs were useful and profitable, they would already be created and filled. No corp is going to create jobs or lower prices for ultimately charity sake.
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That would be fine, until you get someone with the IQ of a potato chip that goes to the self checkout with a completely stuffed cart. They take five times longer than a real cashier would, mostly because they are too fucking stupid to use the self checkout. Add to that the fact that store employees don't have the support of management to kick these people out and force them to go to a regular register.
Re: I hope so it's about time (Score:3)
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Because automation and AI are going to hollow out the human labour economy.
No, it won't. Stop believing the hype.
Actually it will. Not AI (there is no such thing), but automation will. And there is no stopping it.
All of a sudden deficits matter now? No. (Score:2)
https://www.bloomberg.com/opin... [bloomberg.com]
https://www.economicshelp.org/... [economicshelp.org]
UBI is a bad response to a pandemic (Score:2)
Frankly it doesn't matter how much money you give everyone if there's nothing to buy. Money isn't valuable for its own sake, it's only a commodity like everything else and only maintains its value as long as the wealth produced by the economy increases proportionally. Taken to an extreme example, if our a
Less likely. (Score:2)
If anything COVID19 makes UBI less likely. UBI is a luxury, a result of improved productivity that drives some people out of work.
The excess capital is gone. Productivity is down. For a long time productivity increased with time, but now I figure we are put back about 20-25 years,
Re:Less likely. (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything COVID19 makes UBI less likely. UBI is a luxury, a result of improved productivity that drives some people out of work.
No, it's nothing of the kind.
UBI is a very efficient unemployment fix, and a very good economic engine. It's brain-dead easy to implement and fund, and it requires minimal government oversight, unlike all of the other social services. It can replace unemployment, disability, social security, food stamps and programs like WIC. Instead of hordes of government employees making all sorts of byzantine rules and spending their time being the gatekeepers of benefits, a cron job deposts money into everyone's bank account each month.
On the back end, we withhold somewhere between 0% and 2000% of the UBI from people's paychecks, depending on how much they make. Most plans call for withholding $1 for every $2 or $3 you make over the poverty line. For most people, most of the time, UBI into their bank account is balanced with UBI withholding from their paycheck. When that paycheck goes away, UBI remains, and they don't need to do anything to tap into that resource.
Compared to shit like social security, this is amazingly easy. There aren't benefit formulas, you don't get less if you start tapping it before a certain age, there aren't choices about how much to take out when. You don't need to fight with the unemployment office to get your rent paid. If you aren't making money, you aren't taxed to fund the UBI benefit. When you are making money, you are.
Our welfare system has welfare cliffs, where if you make too much money you drastically lose benefits. Then if you stop making money, it might be months before you can get through the red tape to get them back. That encourages people to stay on welfare and avoid making too much money. UBI lets you make all you want to make, and if you make $10k one month and $0 for the next 3 months, it's all good. The month you make $10k you probably got taxed $4k for UBI but still came out $6k ahead, and the other 3 months you got your normal UBI.
It's not a luxury. It's actually a fairly sensible way to run a social safety net. And since we can largely net-zero fund it with payroll taxes, we can start it small and then increase it as needed and as we get more funding simply by adjusting the tax withholdings.
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Where the hell do you get this broken idea of what UBI is?
UBI BY DEFINITION does not withhold payments if you earn more, that breaks the whole god damn point!
Then it just becomes another form of poor benefit/wealth tax. It needs to be administered, policed, etc, etc.
UBI is a single direct amount paid to all adults in an economy, in return for the removal of other 'normal' government support benefits, and minimum wage.
It significantly increases the efficiency of said economy for a long list of reasons.
But no
Support (Score:2)
I don't think support has been that much of a problem for the universal basic income concept. True, some people have philosophical objections, but it's the practical issues that have been holding the idea back.
Right now there's lots of support for a temporary UBI as an emergency measure, and it turns out that there are still no solutions to the problems people have been pointing out for years. How do you get money to everyone? Who is exactly is 'everyone'? How do you prevent fraud? How do you deal with
Pandemic is worst possible time to implement UBI (Score:2)
A UBI might work when the country has plenty of productivity. I'm kinda skeptical, but I can understand the arguments of those saying we're approaching a state of auto
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You're missing a piece.
UBI can help productivity remain during a pandemic, rather than shutting it off completely. If you're out of a job and trying to make rent, you're not going to be all that productive. There are plenty of stories of people fighting for a month and a half or two months to get unemployment, because our sprawling bureaucracies don't have the flexibility or the staffing to handle the volume of requests. During that time, people are effectively economic dead weight.
Everyone not getting mone
It doesn't math (but in a kinder, gentler way) (Score:2)
A $1k UBI would cost the US more than all the income tax collected in a year. Let that sink in. What are our options to pay for it? ... we're gonna need to double that. or maybe triple if they push for this $2k thing...
(a) have the fed print the money. or, "hello devaluation of currency! want your Pizza to cost $300? this is how you get there!"
(2) increase income tax. yeah
(iii) VAT tax it! uh huh. national sales tax increasing the price of everything. its like option #2, just with less paperwork.
T
No (Score:2)
No. If you make the UBI the base for zero effort, you make that amount of money essentially worthless. It's like handing out a free phone, car or house. That item is then the new zero level for the people who received it, and it will be treated as such. Been there. Seen that.
Seriously, has no-one read HHGTTG and it's treatise on the economics of leaves [goodreads.com]?
There was an old Russian proverb ... (Score:2)
"There is no Pravda in the Izvestia, and no Izvestia in the Pravda".
Translated: there is no truth in the news, and no news in the truth.
Another favorite among the USSR citizens was:
"We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us".
That will be the end result of the UBI. However, the entire program, as history has revealed, is that those who give you the money then want to tell you where and how you can spend it, where and how you work to "earn it" and where you can and
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If Garry Kasparov wants to "renew democracy" then let him begin in his own country, Russia, by renewing his opposition against Putin, IF he can do it.
He tried, but ultimately he was born an outsider and didn't understand how to change things in Moscow.
Maybe combine with eliminating income tax (Score:2)
If we go down this road we could combine UBI with a national sales tax and eliminate the income tax.
One downside of a national sales tax is it overly affects the poor. UBI fixes that.
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There is some scenarios where UBI works on a basic level, but is absolutely horrible on higher levels.
The megacorporations like disney, microsoft, google etc would be willing to pay it if..
Re: If you want to make things worse.... (Score:2)
Smart UBI systems are where portion of increased profits from automation is redistributed to displaced workers. It is a political construct which allows a civilization to go all in on automation with decreased political resistance.
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There may be long time constants. Things being OK now doesn't mean that they will be OK long term with this level of shut down.
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There are immediate supply line problems but then there are longer term items. Are we making as many freight locomotives, fab line steppers, railroad rails etc as we were before. (I don't know, but I bet those have gone down).
I work at a laboratory and for a while we can continue with reasonable efficiency by working at home, but gradually we will run out of work that doesn't require large scale hardware.
It is very likely possible we can have a society were a much smaller number of people work and we all