Interesting article regarding Unversal Basic Income

[fishonjazz]

Subsidized housing, free healthcare, free food, utilities.....


It for sure goes beyond a small basic income everyone is talking about in this thread.......

Maybe you don't realize how generous it is?

See you and boris come off like you think welfare is some lucrative situation to be in.

I have people in my life who I'm close to who are on welfare. Their lifestyle is far from lucrative. They are struggling.... bad. And they even have side hustles, that are not on the up and up, to try to add some income to get them by. They are barely making it. Don't have no gaming systems, fancy phones, or working vehicles. They take the bus when they need groceries, clothes so worn out and second hand. They are not happy. A lot of the reason they are in the situation they are is their own faults (convicted felons, and never getting an education are a few) but they were also dealt horrible hands in life (mom smoking Crack in front of us whenever I was at their house when I was a kid, father dead.... again, just to name a few)

Ya'll act like being poor and on welfare is a wonderful life..... like its easy street.

Head down to a slum/ghetto around you and check out the lavish lifestyle being lived by people on welfare. Hell, watch a few episodes of the TV show shameless.

Welfare aint no gravy train of money pouring in making life all cushy. At least not from what i have seen of my friends (and some of my in-law family members) lifestyles.

 

[Miggs]

I've been bitching about the eventual need for guaranteed basic income for a long time now.

Continue with the current policies that encourage growth and concentrates wealth at the top, like globalization and automation. Heavily tax the top. Cut everyone a check that covers basic living expenses. Say $1500-$2000 a month to every adult American.

Like I've been saying, this idea is not popular, but you will hear A LOT more about it in the next decade. Technology has historically created more opportunities than it eliminated. This won't be the case this time. As lower-skilled positions continue to disappear, we'll eventually have unfixable high unemployment in the US, and we'll be forced to think about such redistribution efforts.

Cutting a check for basic living expenses is an awful idea imo. Many if not most will blow through that money on ******** like cigarettes, alcohol, going out and other such nonsense. I'd propose that money be divided, a portion simply being deducted off of utility bills, a portion sent to spend (on whatever the person wants) and a portion to be put into some sort of retirement plan, ideally that a person can not touch until a certain age, though this isn't some hard and fast rule, and people with better investing knowledge can speak up here. I'm not saying it should be divided equally three ways but I think this is a prudent balance based on our responsibilities, desires and needs.

 

[Miggs]

Also, 100,000,000 households x $2,000 a month is $2,400,000,000,000 a year spent on this. That's 2.4 quadrillion provided annually here. Not billion. Not trillion. Quadrillion. The math just ain't gonna work. Obviously, welfare costs, unemployment costs, and such could be cut back, but still, there is no way in hell the country is saving that much money. It doesn't seem even close to fiscally possible or responsible. Could a better "economist" here spell out the math a bit better for me in a way that works?

The 2K a month is based off a figure Siro threw out there. If it's 2K a year as mentioned in the article, that's still 200,000,000,000 or 200 trillion a year.

So help me out here. Because I just don't see it working in any way, shape or form.

 

[The Midnight]

Quick question - what would happen to the Education industry if high school kids know they can just graduate then live on handouts and not need to go to college and get a job? Why would they bother getting a student loan?


Kids nowadays all they want to do is sit in front of TV playing xbox, or snapchats, or hook up on facebook.


What would motivate them to go out and have a career?

 

[Gameface]

Quick question - what would happen to the Education industry if high school kids know they can just graduate then live on handouts and not need to go to college and get a job? Why would they bother getting a student loan?


Kids nowadays all they want to do is sit in front of TV playing xbox, or snapchats, or hook up on facebook.


What would motivate them to go out and have a career?

Once again, you're holding up this idea that the purpose of human life is to go work for someone. What if that wasn't the standard of a life well spent?

 

[The Midnight]

Once again, you're holding up this idea that the purpose of human life is to go work for someone. What if that wasn't the standard of a life well spent?

So you'd rather somebody grow up playing xbox than finding a cure for cancer?

 

[Gameface]

So you'd rather somebody grow up playing xbox than finding a cure for cancer?

The two things are not mutually exclusive and neither really has anything to do with our current model of going through public education to get trained to provide labor for 40hrs/wk vs a world where much of our production will be automated and we will not need/want a labor force as is presently required.

So the question is, once robots are making our stuff far more cheaply than people in India, China, Mexico, and this stuff is available for pretty much everyone at extremely low prices, what do we do with all these people who no longer are required as labor? How will they earn a living if we don't need them to work?

There will be the owners of capital who will be doing MUCH better in that automated world than they are doing today.

Do we hold onto this idea that the point of human life is to wake up before dawn and drag yourself to your labor station and produce widgits for 8hrs a day if your a do the bare minimum type or for 60hrs/wk if you're a hard worker? Just tell all the unemployed people that it's their fault they can't find a good job, that they are lazy, even though reality is that there are 1/10th the jobs there used to be?

If your idea is to convert the labor force into a cure for cancer force let's hear how that will work. You think most people punching a clock today are working towards a cure for cancer?

 

[Beantown]

Once again, you're holding up this idea that the purpose of human life is to go work for someone. What if that wasn't the standard of a life well spent?

A society that is not based around hard work and solving problems sounds horrible.

 

[Gameface]

I should say, I'm not really any kind of expert, but I do have experience in the automated world.

In the Navy I worked on automated weapon systems. At IM Flash Technologies I worked on automated semiconductor fabrication equipment. Presently I work on automated food packaging lines. I actually think I'll have an easier and easier time finding work doing what I do, repairing automated systems when they break down, but I've seen enough to realize that even what I do, at some point, will also be automated.

 

[Gameface]

A society that is not based around hard work and solving problems sounds horrible.

You added the solving problems part, why?

 

[Beantown]

You added the solving problems part, why?

You can't solve problems without hard work and dedication.

 

[green]

Bro welfare can be dope. Section 8 housing. Food stamps plus you need to get on WIC for that bonus. Take a few college courses for that $6000 pell grant. Work very little to get like $5,000 in earned income credit plus a couple more grand for kids. Send your kids to free school breakfast an lunch then sell your food stamps to neighbors.

All you have to earn is like $5,000 a year an take a few recreational management classes like golfing an kayak.

Sounds like most of Utah County. You forgot to add in the under the table jobs your father in law gives you and the $28,000 a year your parents "gift" you every year.

That would be UC to a T.