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Silicon Valley Continues To Explore Universal Basic Incomes (siliconvalley.com)
A Silicon Valley Congressman "is pushing for a plan that has been described as a first step toward universal basic income...a long-shot $1 trillion expansion to the earned income tax credit that is already available to low-income families." An anonymous reader quotes the Mecury News:
Stanford University also has created a Basic Income Lab to study the idea, and the San Francisco city treasurer's office has said it's designing pilot tests -- though the department told this news organization it has no updates on the status of that project... The problem is that giving all Americans a $10,000 annual income would cost upwards of $3 trillion a year -- more than three-fourths of the federal budget, said Bob Greenstein, president of Washington, D.C.-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Some proponents advocate funding the move by cutting programs like food stamps and Medicaid. But that approach would take money set aside for low-income families and redistribute it upward, exacerbating poverty and inequality, Greenstein said... Jennifer Lin, deputy director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, is skeptical that basic income can do much lasting good in Oakland. What the city needs is more high-paying jobs and affordable housing, she said... The idea, [Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator] said at the Commonwealth Club, tackles the question not enough people are asking: "What do we as the tech industry do to solve the problem that we're helping to create?"
This summer Y Combinator is expected to announce a larger Universal Basic Income program, though the article also describes "small pilot studies" in the 1960s and 1970s in Canada and in several U.S. states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Iowa and Indiana, where "Some studies showed improvements in participants' physical and mental health, and found children performed better in school or stayed in school longer. But some also showed that people receiving a basic income were inclined to spend fewer hours working."
This summer Y Combinator is expected to announce a larger Universal Basic Income program, though the article also describes "small pilot studies" in the 1960s and 1970s in Canada and in several U.S. states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Iowa and Indiana, where "Some studies showed improvements in participants' physical and mental health, and found children performed better in school or stayed in school longer. But some also showed that people receiving a basic income were inclined to spend fewer hours working."
The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer.
The real problem is jobs being replaced by machines, A.I., etc. This should decrease the costs of those goods and services. But instead, it's making the rich richer and the poor unable to afford those goods and services because they're out of work.
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Okay this universal basic income is too generalized for what needs to be taken care of. It needs to be a specialized approach to be economically viable.
You can't just give money away, and let people spend it on ipads.
What you need is to take care of the most abundant things in the world, that tend to be the most lacking, that are the most essential and cover those.
Universal food program. Everyone is entitled to a certain amount of food per month.
Universal housing program. North america, massive land space, utilization is low, but somehow you can't find a place to live.
Universal transit - Public transit shouldn't have execs making huge bonuses, it should be a non profit system run by the government. Need it for work and getting around with huge stores pushing out stores to be spread instead of small towns having everything close by.
Universal utilities - Basic amount of energy and water allowed to people at no cost.
I give you - Universal essentials. Besides the transit, land is huge and cheap, food is tons, cheap, and tons thrown out, and renewables are driving down utility prices.
This works out way better as it puts in more effort at reducing the cost of these items, so the government doesn't have to spend a ton of money for someone to have the essentials while a company rakes in the profit. Maybe costs + 10% or something for items part of the program.
Want to do business in north america? Your company in these sectors will have to offer at cost prices for the basic amount for individuals. It won't take money from you. Your profit is on non essential items, premium items. People who choose to purchase beyond their basic allotted amounts.
Companies will go "Fuck you I'll go elsewhere since I won't make as much and you'll have no food etc!"
Go ahead, the more companies that leave, the more business for the ones that stay, so they'll still be quite profitable.
You might want to look at the history of the idea before you start labeling it incorrectly, I think you'd be surprised.
So here's a solution that should be stable: unless you pay taxes or do something that will bring extra taxes in the future (education, maternity leave), you don't get to vote.
If left unchecked, the dolists would vote themselves extra benefits. "When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic." -- Ben Franklin (quote disputed). But if giving those handouts is the only way those who actually work can keep the political power, they need to keep the basic income high enough (or they'd be voted out again).
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Any 10K per year would entirely replace food stamps and all other welfare measures. Why would you have UBI and still have a foodstamp system? It should also replace the tax threshholds. UBI + flat taxes + no other welfare. That's how you make it work, because it simplifies (abolishes) a whole pile of existing programs that are designed to be redistributive and massively simplifies the tax system.
Downside of that solution is that in any society, if the non-voters get too pissed, they start a violent revolution. The benefit of democracy is to allow social change without violence.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
you tell them they are only allowed to buy food
That's precisely not how UBI works. You don't tell them what to do with the money; you don't check up on them. There are no tests.
You just give them the money, and you save a whole bunch already because you no longer need a staggeringly inefficient bureaucracy to manage it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.