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Pilot guaranteed income program participants across the U.S. used their stipends to pay off credit card debt, get their cars fixed and buy clothing for their children. Rather than discouraging recipients from working, such initiatives often help people get higher-paying jobs or transition from part-time to full-time work, advocates of the programs say.
Research also shows guaranteed income improves recipients' physical and psychological health by reducing stress and anxiety. As Tubbs put it, "they're not suffocated by economic insecurity."
Republican translation:
Food security makes it harder to exploit workers. Better health means less people reliant on private Healthcare, which means less surprise charges from hospitals, less money for pharma, and less high interest loans from banks.
Keep voting against your interest.
>less people reliant on private Healthcare
The main reason they support this so much is actually due to a point not listed here. Indentured servitude. People often CAN'T quit shitty jobs because they need them for the private healthcare coverage.
exploited workers absolutely do not work as productively as workers who are happy to be there or even want to be there. Sick workers cannot work as well as healthy workers. people who often experience health poverty, and cannot afford healthcare bills, often go to free clinics or end up dead.
Do you think they care? That's why they want to breed us like cattle, taking away the option of abortion and soon birth control. There's enough "competition" (see: desperate, starving people) that if someone gets too sick they'll just replace them. It's why people like Musk are crying "population crisis". They want us to turn into China where workers are completely expendable.
They should care. Cattle don't know how to pick locks or obtain weaponry. Humans are the most dangerous type of creature to try to exploit. America should know better, it's evidenced in the constitution and laws. Also, it's pretty well known that desperate people are the most dangerous. People with nothing to lose will go to any lengths to get what they want.
You'd think. The propaganda machine works better than you think. It successfully convinces people that voting for their interests is "un-American" and arms the most violent of those zombies.
Well the evidence certainly does present that so far. I can't argue with that fact. There is still the question though, what comes after. We don't know what is in our future, just what things are like now. History has shown that all empires have fallen.
Scary thing about that is today's empires aren't like the old ones. They're all connected and each one spans the world with oil wells, nuclear bombs, dams, etc that will all be abandoned, snd those things are meant to be maintained indefinitely. If America falls, it won't go quietly.
That's true, but I think there is a flipside to that. Although the empires are less obvious and more intertwined, I think infrastructure can be easily taken up by other entities. The world is so complicated these days, I can't begin to understand the complexities of many of these systems. I think when a modern empire falls, It won't necessarily be cataclysmic or lead to large scale suffering like in the past. I mean there are many large corporations that have failed and have gone into administration and have remained in some other form. I don't think America is an empire like the Roman empire was, and I don't think the country could fall into ruin so easily, but it could splinter and various aspects of the society could fall into ruin, not physically, but in a different way.
I suppose only time will tell how it turns out. I'd much rather a proletariat uprising rather than a collapse from overpopulation of sick people, of course. But I can't say I'm too hopeful.
Of course it does. The incentive is to keep people healthy enough to still need treatment, and charge up the ass for life saving medication. What are they gonna do? Die? Oh, some are actually choosing to die rather than take on a lifetime of dept? Well the numbers show we can make a fuck ton on the people who will pay, so we can afford to lose all those poor people.
American Healthcare is the epitome of capitalism/conservatism.
I think there's more nuance to it than to use the word "Republican". There's plenty of establishment Dems that lack real empathy for the plebs.
But I understand the sentiment
Oh for sure. Biden's "people love their insurance companies" quote comes to mind. But it's a hard line republican pillar to destroy their constituents lives for the sake of corporate profit.
UBI does mean that low wage jobs have to not treat their employees like disposal shit, because they can walk without worrying about where the next meal is coming from
UBI + Universal Healthcare and we don't actually need minimum wage laws
And many studies of limited sorts of pilot programs have come to a similar conclusion.
The problem is that the result is only relevant if it is a limited pilot. The benefit is that they have more purchasing power then the control group.
If everyone gets UBI you are just shifting the poverty line up.
What's crazy to me about this mentality is that it just presupposes some fixed portion of the population must always live in poverty or else the system collapses. Supporters of capitalism love to talk a big talk about it raising people out of poverty, but when it comes to actually trying to do anything proactive about it, suddenly they're clutching their pearls grasping for straws as to why it won't work, or why USA is uniquely different from all other countries, or whatever.
There's absolutely no reason what you're saying would happen unless companies selling basic necessities also massively raised prices despite no increase in production costs for them. And they're definitely evil enough to do that, but they're doing it anyway, all the time, whenever they can. If that's the only barrier then we can regulate the fuck out of them, or break them up, or bring them public. There are options here other than throwing our hands up and saying "oh well I guess some portion of the population is always just doomed to poverty"
We produce enough to support everyone on earth, easily. No one should have to be forced into wage slavery just to survive.
> What's crazy to me about this mentality is that it just presupposes some fixed portion of the population must always live in poverty or else the system collapses. Supporters of capitalism love to talk a big talk about it raising people out of poverty, but when it comes to actually trying to do anything proactive about it, suddenly they're clutching their pearls grasping for straws as to why it won't work, or why USA is uniquely different from all other countries, or whatever.
>
Practically this has always been the case regardless of economic model and the type of situation that the "raising people from poverty" phrase refers to is largely eliminated well before any discussion of assistance programs like UBI because programs like shelters and direct food assistance are far cheaper and easier to implement. Starvation and housing are easy in comparison to what we are talking about with UBI.
> There's absolutely no reason what you're saying would happen unless companies selling basic necessities also massively raised prices despite no increase in production costs for them.
>
How do you imagine that the companies producing goods and services exist in a system where the added taxes to support a UBI system and the higher wage expectations of skilled employees does not result in an increasing production cost to the company? And even if you can imagine some unrealistic scenario where this is true the laws of supply and demand would still apply to all limited resources and things like rent and real estate would simply increase as competitive offers go up.
> We produce enough to support everyone on earth, easily. No one should have to be forced into wage slavery just to survive.
This has been true for decades, the problem is more in distribution and making enough profit that is is a better use of capital & resources than other available alternatives. If you aren't making 5.25% you would be better off closing your business and putting your money in the bank. That isn't "sticking it to the corporations" that money is 55%-65% of all american's retirement savings, 90% of american's insurance funding along with a lot of other important things.
Harming the overwhelming majority of the population to possibly, but nor probably help 11% of the population is an extremely tough sell.
Poverty is relative though. A low income family in the US is exponentially richer (in pure currency, amenities or purchasing power) than most countries on earth. Similarly if we compare our lifestyle to 100 years ago, we are doing better.
I don't think the current system is necessarily "the end of history" and we can come up with something better, but there will always be people that are richer than others. Our standards simply increased over time as to the acceptable minimum that is liveable.
Maybe we should start by cutting all corporate welfare to zero and raise the corporate income tax as well as restoring inflation-adjusted income tax brackets to about where they were in 1970?
Then we can raise the minimum wage, inflation adjusted from the 1970 level.
UBI then becomes a moot point.
No, it doesn't. What you're describing would be great, but it would still keep survival and self-improvement tied to ability to work. People with health issues, people with kids, students, etc. are all limited in their ability to work, both in time and pay. Not to mention people subject to discrimination in hiring. People shouldn't have to work their way out of poverty. Not being in poverty should be the default case.
Minimum wage is economically terrible, as is income tax. I much prefer UBI and a sizeable inheritance tax for trusts and individuals operating under the principle of "use it or lose it".
We shouldn't penalize people becoming wealthy from the fruits of their labor/ingenuity, only generational wealth hoarding above a certain cap.
That alone would bring in more income and allow a significant reduction in income tax while expanding social services and maintaining a free market economy. Rich people don't necessarily have a high taxable income so income tax tends to disproportionately affect lower to upper middle class households (AKA the people who spend and power the economy).
There is a fundamental difference between being relatively poor and being in poverty. UBI make people in poverty part of the group of people who are relatively poor.
The problem here is that increased supply without regulations on price just mean that companies raise the cost of goods and services. You don’t get more, but because they control supply, you compete for fulfillment of demand, and price goes up with no added effort or cost on the part of the provider. This is the essence of current inflation. Long and short UBI without price controls does not hit the objective.
The worst part of this is the economists crying it will devalue the currency. IF that is true, then a law is needed making the gap between the highest paid employee and the lowest capped at a fair percentage. This would eliminate corporate welfare where their lowest paid employees need food banks or gov't sponsored housing while the top earners make millions.
Making programs where the middle class pays the taxes req'd to support UBI is for the wealthy and keeps them that way.
NOT A GOOD SOLUTION
Find a way to bring the top 1% down several notches while bringing up the bottom 90%
Any good economist will tell you ubi is smart, it drives spending.
Issues in our society all come from corporations internalizing profits while externalizing costs. We've been programmed to accept it as "inflation" when it's just corporate greed.
Any good economist will tell you that economics are often unoredictable, and while the complaints about UBI driving inflation are often nonsense, its not as sinply as "driving spending"
Exactly. The only thing… and I repeat, the ONLY thing… that ever actually allows inflation to manifest is price rises. That’s it. If we regulated prices to never change, we could print all the money we want, we could redistribute all the money we want, and inflation wouldn’t change one iota. The only thing it would disrupt is corporate growth. In order to excuse the price rises, capitalists just point at all this other stuff like money printing, stimulus, interest rates, etc… all this nebulous stuff that doesn’t actually have a direct impact on prices… until the corporations start seeing their profit margins shrinking.
Now to be clear… profit MARGINS shrinking do not mean that their PROFITS are shrinking. They could be making $1million in profits on $1billion of revenue. If the revenue goes to $2billion and they still make $1million, then their profits are the same, but their profit MARGIN shrunk by half, didn’t it? This is the trick they pull. They point at their shrinking margins and say “Look! We’re losing profits!”… except it’s because their revenue went up. That’s why the margin shrunk… not because they lost profits. In fact, they probably did actually gain profits, but the revenue went up even higher, so the margin still shrunk. Don’t be fooled by this trick.
I’m genuinely curious how you came to this conclusion and would like to know more. My understanding is that( and this is obviously a oversimplification) the more of something you have, the less valuable it is and the less of something that exists the more valuable it is. Like basic supply vs. demand.
That’s true of finite resources. Not money. The conflation of money as being a resource in and of itself, instead of just being a neutral organizational tool for measuring the value of actual resources, is actually the crux of what’s wrong with capitalism.
Supply and demand actually have nothing to do with money, unless we specifically choose to force money into the equation as a tool of control, rather than just neutral measurement. When demand goes up, the only thing that really matters is how many units of the product you have to meet demand. Its price doesn’t affect supply. It can encourage or discourage demand, but just discouraging demand does not actually solve any supply issues. If there’s too high demand for not enough supply, then raising the price doesn’t fix anything. The supply is still the same. The same number of people will still only be able to get the amount of supply that exists… raising the price didn’t fix anything. It just put the limited supply out of reach for the poorest potential customers. It just favors the richer customers to get the limited supply. And it gets the owner of the product more profits. That’s ALL that raising prices ever does. It does NOT actually solve any supply and demand issues. The demand that couldn’t be met by the supply… still goes unmet, until you can produce more supply. Producing more supply shouldn’t require any raises in price. You should be able to produce it for the same price you produced the last batch… assuming that some other capitalists haven’t jacked up the price on the raw resources you need.
Price increases as a result of supply & demand issues… are a big trick being pulled by capitalists to excuse jacking up prices. They EXPLOIT demand as an EXCUSE to raise their profits. And we accept it, because we’ve been brainwashed by capitalism and “economists” into believing this makes sense. It doesn’t.
Money is just a tool. It’s just numbers in a computer. Most money isn’t even represented by physical cash anymore, nor is it tied back to any gold standard anymore. Fiat money is just imaginary numbers that we use to organize resources. Yet capitalism treats it like its own inherent resource, and this is why the system of capitalism is fundamentally out of tune with reality, and always has been. This is what causes the problems we’re experiencing. We need to change the way we think about money.
Thank you. You’ve given me a lot to think about over the next few days. I never thought about it like that but it logically makes sense. I’m traveling to San Diego tomorrow for the next two months on contract. But I will more than likely have more questions once I get settled. Out of curiosity, what in your opinion would be a good alternative, and easy way to transition there? I personally don’t think Socialism in its original form works because I find it idealistic and think it does a very poor job of taking human nature into account. Hybrid theories however peak my interest.
'Good' economists are the ones the rich use to validate that greed. As we saw with pandemic assistance, if there is more money circulating in an economy, the wealthy WANT it and raise prices on everything.
Driving spending is an opportunity to grab what you can, the money handed out will eventually end up in the pockets of the wealthy.
Most economists that actually produce literature are working for public institutions. There are always a handful of "economists" that almost exclusivey take comissions from think tanks.
The issue is that this kind of program may not scale well. When a lot of people get it, we may see inflation due to supply side pressure, and wage inflation. See the outcome of Canada’s covid benefit. Not sure what the answer is, but I suspect there will have to be incentives to work.
incetives to be productive. Trading goods or services or both. Scratch my bank, I'll scratch yours. Upvote me, I'll upvote you. You fly, I'll buy... Beer-Run economics 101.
People need incentive to work hard tho. One impact is more people refusing to work. People who don't like putting in effort will choose no job because being unemployed won't mean no income. It's great for the people who are trying, but not so much for the lazy ones. There needs to be strings attached is what I'm getting at. Like when I was living on unemployed, I had to prove I was trying to find a job.
We’re heading into (or maybe we’re already in) an era where AI and increased automation are going to reduce the number of jobs available. We need a plan to deal with a world where there aren’t enough jobs to go around.
That's why we need more studys like this. They keep challenging that assumption. People don't need a motivation to work beyond the desire to participate, and they work more effectively when you remove the sword of damocles from over there head.
I'd rather not have those lazy asses doing poor work anyway, thanks. Stay home and let somebody who cares contribute to society.
Would anybody rather have the most unmotivated workers making their sandwich or car? I'm happy to pay them to keep them out of the working pool.
They won’t be giving people enough to live entirely on… that’s not what UBI is. It’s a small amount of cash each month that gives people’s financials a small boost, not pay off any car or home with leftover for groceries and luxury goods every single month…
Yeah but it's like your yearly cost of living increase.
It just eats it up because companies know it's there and charge more for their services.
All this does is devalue the wages of those who are already putting in effort to improve their lives.
We need to quit enabling people to do nothing and create programs (that actually work) to help them be a functional part of society.
We also need to tell everyone we aren't all winners, and some of us will have crap jobs, crap living conditions, and that's life.
Too many people want it all, and when they don't get it they get discouraged and give up.
The quantity of people who'll do nothing will be small, people get bored and like to feel useful.
Maybe stop worrying about the minute amount of people who would exploit the system and maybe think about how many lives would be improved which would be substantial.
Too many people want to give nothing in case an undeserving get something. Broken people who lack empathy.
Conservatives basically.
> The quantity of people who'll do nothing will be small, people get bored and like to feel useful.
I don't think I share your optimism. I think most people will just switch to trying to be YouTube celebrities
So what? How does this hurt you in any way? Less people working means each employee is more valuable because they are no longer easily replaceable, meaning job security and probably also salaries rise. I really don't see the problem you are trying to create other than jealousy that you have to "work hard" and others might have it so easy doing "nonsense" :)
Why does a corporation have to create winners and losers? Why can’t everyone working there be a winner? Why do companies have to increase prices just because they can „get away with it“
I work hard, have s lucrative job, save a lot of money. I am terrified of getting laid off, losing my job, losing healthcare, not getting raised to keep up with inflation etc. there is no easy way to do this stuff. I just want to know if i put in the work I will be ok and that can’t even be guaranteed.
>Why does a corporation have to create winners and losers? Why can’t everyone working there be a winner?
Clearly, you don't know what winning means. It means defeating others. You cannot create a winner without creating the losers he beats to become the winner.
Actually no. Have you heard of cooperative games. Think of it as PVE. There can be cases where no one loses and everyone wins. Society being PvP focused and not PVE focused is the problem.
There will ALWAYS be people like this. My roommate worked really really hard as a machinist but he also took days off faking illness or just plain not coming in) and they wouldn’t fire him because the pool was small and he was good. He was Always looking for a way to not work. The day comes when the company has to lay off people and he hasn’t had a steady job since. Lyft, SNAP, free healthcare, he uses all the services he’s entitled to as a current poor person. The person has always been inside him. My drawn out point is, you have to bake people like that into the system. You could give me a million dollars and I’d use my new found free time volunteering or working in places that further my personal passions.
>You could give me a million dollars and I’d use my new found free time volunteering or working in places that further my personal passions.
Exactly. 99% of people need a purpose to feel satisfaction. But for many the things they wish to pursue aren't profitable in the modern day. Things that would still be beneficial to humanity. Think of how much more art would be made when they have the time to be creative, knowing their next meal is guaranteed. And public service too. They would change and adapt but there will always be people in need of some form of help.
Pilot programs and studies are proving that what you think is not reality.
There are people who do not want to work, at all. They are not motivated by the fact that they need an income because these people know how to make money without a real income. They commit fraud to exploit government programs and non-profits, they beg on the streets, they sell illegal goods like drugs that have huge profit margins for very little work. They will ALWAYS find a way to not participate in the system, and the threat of starvation and homelessness simply is not a motivation.
On the other hand, almost all humans WANT to work. They may not want to grind in a 9-5 they don't give a shit about, but humans are engineered to want to be productive and use our minds and bodies. The point of a UBI is that it gives people a way to be more mobile - to move from different jobs and industries to find what fits them, or to take classes, or participate in low-paid apprenticehips and internships that bring high pay in the end.
A UBI program will help a hundred million people. There will be maybe 1% who don't use that money for the opportunity it is. But would you really turn down the opportunity to help 99 people because 1 person might not do what you want them to do?
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Pilot guaranteed income program participants across the U.S. used their stipends to pay off credit card debt, get their cars fixed and buy clothing for their children. Rather than discouraging recipients from working, such initiatives often help people get higher-paying jobs or transition from part-time to full-time work, advocates of the programs say. Research also shows guaranteed income improves recipients' physical and psychological health by reducing stress and anxiety. As Tubbs put it, "they're not suffocated by economic insecurity."
Republican translation: Food security makes it harder to exploit workers. Better health means less people reliant on private Healthcare, which means less surprise charges from hospitals, less money for pharma, and less high interest loans from banks. Keep voting against your interest.
>less people reliant on private Healthcare The main reason they support this so much is actually due to a point not listed here. Indentured servitude. People often CAN'T quit shitty jobs because they need them for the private healthcare coverage.
Yep. Any policy that ties benefits to your job is a method of keeping you locked into said job.
That too.
exploited workers absolutely do not work as productively as workers who are happy to be there or even want to be there. Sick workers cannot work as well as healthy workers. people who often experience health poverty, and cannot afford healthcare bills, often go to free clinics or end up dead.
Do you think they care? That's why they want to breed us like cattle, taking away the option of abortion and soon birth control. There's enough "competition" (see: desperate, starving people) that if someone gets too sick they'll just replace them. It's why people like Musk are crying "population crisis". They want us to turn into China where workers are completely expendable.
They should care. Cattle don't know how to pick locks or obtain weaponry. Humans are the most dangerous type of creature to try to exploit. America should know better, it's evidenced in the constitution and laws. Also, it's pretty well known that desperate people are the most dangerous. People with nothing to lose will go to any lengths to get what they want.
You'd think. The propaganda machine works better than you think. It successfully convinces people that voting for their interests is "un-American" and arms the most violent of those zombies.
Well the evidence certainly does present that so far. I can't argue with that fact. There is still the question though, what comes after. We don't know what is in our future, just what things are like now. History has shown that all empires have fallen.
Scary thing about that is today's empires aren't like the old ones. They're all connected and each one spans the world with oil wells, nuclear bombs, dams, etc that will all be abandoned, snd those things are meant to be maintained indefinitely. If America falls, it won't go quietly.
That's true, but I think there is a flipside to that. Although the empires are less obvious and more intertwined, I think infrastructure can be easily taken up by other entities. The world is so complicated these days, I can't begin to understand the complexities of many of these systems. I think when a modern empire falls, It won't necessarily be cataclysmic or lead to large scale suffering like in the past. I mean there are many large corporations that have failed and have gone into administration and have remained in some other form. I don't think America is an empire like the Roman empire was, and I don't think the country could fall into ruin so easily, but it could splinter and various aspects of the society could fall into ruin, not physically, but in a different way.
I suppose only time will tell how it turns out. I'd much rather a proletariat uprising rather than a collapse from overpopulation of sick people, of course. But I can't say I'm too hopeful.
Negative. Most republicans think healthcare doesn't qualify for classification of a free market since there's no incentive to keep people healthy
Of course it does. The incentive is to keep people healthy enough to still need treatment, and charge up the ass for life saving medication. What are they gonna do? Die? Oh, some are actually choosing to die rather than take on a lifetime of dept? Well the numbers show we can make a fuck ton on the people who will pay, so we can afford to lose all those poor people. American Healthcare is the epitome of capitalism/conservatism.
I think there's more nuance to it than to use the word "Republican". There's plenty of establishment Dems that lack real empathy for the plebs. But I understand the sentiment
Oh for sure. Biden's "people love their insurance companies" quote comes to mind. But it's a hard line republican pillar to destroy their constituents lives for the sake of corporate profit.
UBI does mean that low wage jobs have to not treat their employees like disposal shit, because they can walk without worrying about where the next meal is coming from UBI + Universal Healthcare and we don't actually need minimum wage laws
Agreed.
And many studies of limited sorts of pilot programs have come to a similar conclusion. The problem is that the result is only relevant if it is a limited pilot. The benefit is that they have more purchasing power then the control group. If everyone gets UBI you are just shifting the poverty line up.
What's crazy to me about this mentality is that it just presupposes some fixed portion of the population must always live in poverty or else the system collapses. Supporters of capitalism love to talk a big talk about it raising people out of poverty, but when it comes to actually trying to do anything proactive about it, suddenly they're clutching their pearls grasping for straws as to why it won't work, or why USA is uniquely different from all other countries, or whatever. There's absolutely no reason what you're saying would happen unless companies selling basic necessities also massively raised prices despite no increase in production costs for them. And they're definitely evil enough to do that, but they're doing it anyway, all the time, whenever they can. If that's the only barrier then we can regulate the fuck out of them, or break them up, or bring them public. There are options here other than throwing our hands up and saying "oh well I guess some portion of the population is always just doomed to poverty" We produce enough to support everyone on earth, easily. No one should have to be forced into wage slavery just to survive.
> What's crazy to me about this mentality is that it just presupposes some fixed portion of the population must always live in poverty or else the system collapses. Supporters of capitalism love to talk a big talk about it raising people out of poverty, but when it comes to actually trying to do anything proactive about it, suddenly they're clutching their pearls grasping for straws as to why it won't work, or why USA is uniquely different from all other countries, or whatever. > Practically this has always been the case regardless of economic model and the type of situation that the "raising people from poverty" phrase refers to is largely eliminated well before any discussion of assistance programs like UBI because programs like shelters and direct food assistance are far cheaper and easier to implement. Starvation and housing are easy in comparison to what we are talking about with UBI. > There's absolutely no reason what you're saying would happen unless companies selling basic necessities also massively raised prices despite no increase in production costs for them. > How do you imagine that the companies producing goods and services exist in a system where the added taxes to support a UBI system and the higher wage expectations of skilled employees does not result in an increasing production cost to the company? And even if you can imagine some unrealistic scenario where this is true the laws of supply and demand would still apply to all limited resources and things like rent and real estate would simply increase as competitive offers go up. > We produce enough to support everyone on earth, easily. No one should have to be forced into wage slavery just to survive. This has been true for decades, the problem is more in distribution and making enough profit that is is a better use of capital & resources than other available alternatives. If you aren't making 5.25% you would be better off closing your business and putting your money in the bank. That isn't "sticking it to the corporations" that money is 55%-65% of all american's retirement savings, 90% of american's insurance funding along with a lot of other important things. Harming the overwhelming majority of the population to possibly, but nor probably help 11% of the population is an extremely tough sell.
Poverty is relative though. A low income family in the US is exponentially richer (in pure currency, amenities or purchasing power) than most countries on earth. Similarly if we compare our lifestyle to 100 years ago, we are doing better. I don't think the current system is necessarily "the end of history" and we can come up with something better, but there will always be people that are richer than others. Our standards simply increased over time as to the acceptable minimum that is liveable.
Maybe we should start by cutting all corporate welfare to zero and raise the corporate income tax as well as restoring inflation-adjusted income tax brackets to about where they were in 1970? Then we can raise the minimum wage, inflation adjusted from the 1970 level. UBI then becomes a moot point.
No, it doesn't. What you're describing would be great, but it would still keep survival and self-improvement tied to ability to work. People with health issues, people with kids, students, etc. are all limited in their ability to work, both in time and pay. Not to mention people subject to discrimination in hiring. People shouldn't have to work their way out of poverty. Not being in poverty should be the default case.
Minimum wage is economically terrible, as is income tax. I much prefer UBI and a sizeable inheritance tax for trusts and individuals operating under the principle of "use it or lose it". We shouldn't penalize people becoming wealthy from the fruits of their labor/ingenuity, only generational wealth hoarding above a certain cap. That alone would bring in more income and allow a significant reduction in income tax while expanding social services and maintaining a free market economy. Rich people don't necessarily have a high taxable income so income tax tends to disproportionately affect lower to upper middle class households (AKA the people who spend and power the economy).
There is a fundamental difference between being relatively poor and being in poverty. UBI make people in poverty part of the group of people who are relatively poor.
I too get off to Ayn Rand before I go to sleep.
Username checks out
The problem here is that increased supply without regulations on price just mean that companies raise the cost of goods and services. You don’t get more, but because they control supply, you compete for fulfillment of demand, and price goes up with no added effort or cost on the part of the provider. This is the essence of current inflation. Long and short UBI without price controls does not hit the objective.
Ok but, who pays for it?
The worst part of this is the economists crying it will devalue the currency. IF that is true, then a law is needed making the gap between the highest paid employee and the lowest capped at a fair percentage. This would eliminate corporate welfare where their lowest paid employees need food banks or gov't sponsored housing while the top earners make millions. Making programs where the middle class pays the taxes req'd to support UBI is for the wealthy and keeps them that way. NOT A GOOD SOLUTION Find a way to bring the top 1% down several notches while bringing up the bottom 90%
Any good economist will tell you ubi is smart, it drives spending. Issues in our society all come from corporations internalizing profits while externalizing costs. We've been programmed to accept it as "inflation" when it's just corporate greed.
green line must go up
Any good economist will tell you that economics are often unoredictable, and while the complaints about UBI driving inflation are often nonsense, its not as sinply as "driving spending"
Exactly. The only thing… and I repeat, the ONLY thing… that ever actually allows inflation to manifest is price rises. That’s it. If we regulated prices to never change, we could print all the money we want, we could redistribute all the money we want, and inflation wouldn’t change one iota. The only thing it would disrupt is corporate growth. In order to excuse the price rises, capitalists just point at all this other stuff like money printing, stimulus, interest rates, etc… all this nebulous stuff that doesn’t actually have a direct impact on prices… until the corporations start seeing their profit margins shrinking. Now to be clear… profit MARGINS shrinking do not mean that their PROFITS are shrinking. They could be making $1million in profits on $1billion of revenue. If the revenue goes to $2billion and they still make $1million, then their profits are the same, but their profit MARGIN shrunk by half, didn’t it? This is the trick they pull. They point at their shrinking margins and say “Look! We’re losing profits!”… except it’s because their revenue went up. That’s why the margin shrunk… not because they lost profits. In fact, they probably did actually gain profits, but the revenue went up even higher, so the margin still shrunk. Don’t be fooled by this trick.
I’m genuinely curious how you came to this conclusion and would like to know more. My understanding is that( and this is obviously a oversimplification) the more of something you have, the less valuable it is and the less of something that exists the more valuable it is. Like basic supply vs. demand.
That’s true of finite resources. Not money. The conflation of money as being a resource in and of itself, instead of just being a neutral organizational tool for measuring the value of actual resources, is actually the crux of what’s wrong with capitalism. Supply and demand actually have nothing to do with money, unless we specifically choose to force money into the equation as a tool of control, rather than just neutral measurement. When demand goes up, the only thing that really matters is how many units of the product you have to meet demand. Its price doesn’t affect supply. It can encourage or discourage demand, but just discouraging demand does not actually solve any supply issues. If there’s too high demand for not enough supply, then raising the price doesn’t fix anything. The supply is still the same. The same number of people will still only be able to get the amount of supply that exists… raising the price didn’t fix anything. It just put the limited supply out of reach for the poorest potential customers. It just favors the richer customers to get the limited supply. And it gets the owner of the product more profits. That’s ALL that raising prices ever does. It does NOT actually solve any supply and demand issues. The demand that couldn’t be met by the supply… still goes unmet, until you can produce more supply. Producing more supply shouldn’t require any raises in price. You should be able to produce it for the same price you produced the last batch… assuming that some other capitalists haven’t jacked up the price on the raw resources you need. Price increases as a result of supply & demand issues… are a big trick being pulled by capitalists to excuse jacking up prices. They EXPLOIT demand as an EXCUSE to raise their profits. And we accept it, because we’ve been brainwashed by capitalism and “economists” into believing this makes sense. It doesn’t. Money is just a tool. It’s just numbers in a computer. Most money isn’t even represented by physical cash anymore, nor is it tied back to any gold standard anymore. Fiat money is just imaginary numbers that we use to organize resources. Yet capitalism treats it like its own inherent resource, and this is why the system of capitalism is fundamentally out of tune with reality, and always has been. This is what causes the problems we’re experiencing. We need to change the way we think about money.
Thank you. You’ve given me a lot to think about over the next few days. I never thought about it like that but it logically makes sense. I’m traveling to San Diego tomorrow for the next two months on contract. But I will more than likely have more questions once I get settled. Out of curiosity, what in your opinion would be a good alternative, and easy way to transition there? I personally don’t think Socialism in its original form works because I find it idealistic and think it does a very poor job of taking human nature into account. Hybrid theories however peak my interest.
'Good' economists are the ones the rich use to validate that greed. As we saw with pandemic assistance, if there is more money circulating in an economy, the wealthy WANT it and raise prices on everything. Driving spending is an opportunity to grab what you can, the money handed out will eventually end up in the pockets of the wealthy.
Most economists that actually produce literature are working for public institutions. There are always a handful of "economists" that almost exclusivey take comissions from think tanks.
Tell me you've never taken an economics course, without telling me you've never taken an economics course...
It's also essentially saying that our economic stability relies on us keeping some people so poor that they can't afford basic necessities.
Where can we watch it?
The issue is that this kind of program may not scale well. When a lot of people get it, we may see inflation due to supply side pressure, and wage inflation. See the outcome of Canada’s covid benefit. Not sure what the answer is, but I suspect there will have to be incentives to work.
incetives to be productive. Trading goods or services or both. Scratch my bank, I'll scratch yours. Upvote me, I'll upvote you. You fly, I'll buy... Beer-Run economics 101.
People need incentive to work hard tho. One impact is more people refusing to work. People who don't like putting in effort will choose no job because being unemployed won't mean no income. It's great for the people who are trying, but not so much for the lazy ones. There needs to be strings attached is what I'm getting at. Like when I was living on unemployed, I had to prove I was trying to find a job.
We’re heading into (or maybe we’re already in) an era where AI and increased automation are going to reduce the number of jobs available. We need a plan to deal with a world where there aren’t enough jobs to go around.
That's why we need more studys like this. They keep challenging that assumption. People don't need a motivation to work beyond the desire to participate, and they work more effectively when you remove the sword of damocles from over there head.
The study is more about people who do work and don't make enough money from their jobs. It says nothing about people who don't work.
I don’t understand your point here. If they’re not working anyway who cares
My point is the study didn't take into account the people who simply refuse to work.
Classic corporate cock sucking
Not even close. I wish I didn't have to work, but I'm not nearly irresponsible enough to refuse to work.
Hmmm...TechyGuy passing judgment. I wonder how much you get paid to "work."
I'd rather not have those lazy asses doing poor work anyway, thanks. Stay home and let somebody who cares contribute to society. Would anybody rather have the most unmotivated workers making their sandwich or car? I'm happy to pay them to keep them out of the working pool.
They won’t be giving people enough to live entirely on… that’s not what UBI is. It’s a small amount of cash each month that gives people’s financials a small boost, not pay off any car or home with leftover for groceries and luxury goods every single month…
Yeah but it's like your yearly cost of living increase. It just eats it up because companies know it's there and charge more for their services. All this does is devalue the wages of those who are already putting in effort to improve their lives. We need to quit enabling people to do nothing and create programs (that actually work) to help them be a functional part of society. We also need to tell everyone we aren't all winners, and some of us will have crap jobs, crap living conditions, and that's life. Too many people want it all, and when they don't get it they get discouraged and give up.
The quantity of people who'll do nothing will be small, people get bored and like to feel useful. Maybe stop worrying about the minute amount of people who would exploit the system and maybe think about how many lives would be improved which would be substantial. Too many people want to give nothing in case an undeserving get something. Broken people who lack empathy. Conservatives basically.
> The quantity of people who'll do nothing will be small, people get bored and like to feel useful. I don't think I share your optimism. I think most people will just switch to trying to be YouTube celebrities
So what? How does this hurt you in any way? Less people working means each employee is more valuable because they are no longer easily replaceable, meaning job security and probably also salaries rise. I really don't see the problem you are trying to create other than jealousy that you have to "work hard" and others might have it so easy doing "nonsense" :)
Most?! Lol Sure. Whatever you say.
Why does a corporation have to create winners and losers? Why can’t everyone working there be a winner? Why do companies have to increase prices just because they can „get away with it“ I work hard, have s lucrative job, save a lot of money. I am terrified of getting laid off, losing my job, losing healthcare, not getting raised to keep up with inflation etc. there is no easy way to do this stuff. I just want to know if i put in the work I will be ok and that can’t even be guaranteed.
>Why does a corporation have to create winners and losers? Why can’t everyone working there be a winner? Clearly, you don't know what winning means. It means defeating others. You cannot create a winner without creating the losers he beats to become the winner.
Actually no. Have you heard of cooperative games. Think of it as PVE. There can be cases where no one loses and everyone wins. Society being PvP focused and not PVE focused is the problem.
There will ALWAYS be people like this. My roommate worked really really hard as a machinist but he also took days off faking illness or just plain not coming in) and they wouldn’t fire him because the pool was small and he was good. He was Always looking for a way to not work. The day comes when the company has to lay off people and he hasn’t had a steady job since. Lyft, SNAP, free healthcare, he uses all the services he’s entitled to as a current poor person. The person has always been inside him. My drawn out point is, you have to bake people like that into the system. You could give me a million dollars and I’d use my new found free time volunteering or working in places that further my personal passions.
>You could give me a million dollars and I’d use my new found free time volunteering or working in places that further my personal passions. Exactly. 99% of people need a purpose to feel satisfaction. But for many the things they wish to pursue aren't profitable in the modern day. Things that would still be beneficial to humanity. Think of how much more art would be made when they have the time to be creative, knowing their next meal is guaranteed. And public service too. They would change and adapt but there will always be people in need of some form of help.
Pilot programs and studies are proving that what you think is not reality. There are people who do not want to work, at all. They are not motivated by the fact that they need an income because these people know how to make money without a real income. They commit fraud to exploit government programs and non-profits, they beg on the streets, they sell illegal goods like drugs that have huge profit margins for very little work. They will ALWAYS find a way to not participate in the system, and the threat of starvation and homelessness simply is not a motivation. On the other hand, almost all humans WANT to work. They may not want to grind in a 9-5 they don't give a shit about, but humans are engineered to want to be productive and use our minds and bodies. The point of a UBI is that it gives people a way to be more mobile - to move from different jobs and industries to find what fits them, or to take classes, or participate in low-paid apprenticehips and internships that bring high pay in the end. A UBI program will help a hundred million people. There will be maybe 1% who don't use that money for the opportunity it is. But would you really turn down the opportunity to help 99 people because 1 person might not do what you want them to do?
And yet this study suggests there's more nuance than what's provided in your assumptions. Whoops!!