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Mark Zuckerberg Doubles Down On Universal Basic Income, Calls It a 'Bipartisan Issue' (cnbc.com)
Mark Zuckerberg praised the Alaska Permanent Fund and used it as another platform to lobby for universal basic income, as he did during his commencement address to Harvard in May. The Alaska Permanent Fund was established in 1976 as the Alaska pipeline construction neared completion. According to CNBC, the "goal was to share the oil riches with future generations." From the report: Zuckerberg says the state's cash handout program "provides some good lessons for the rest of the country." The dividend averages $1000 (or more) per person. "That can be especially meaningful if your family has five or six people," says Zuckerberg in a post he wrote about the payment. "This is a novel approach to basic income in a few ways. First, it's funded by natural resources rather than raising taxes. Second, it comes from conservative principles of smaller government, rather than progressive principles of a larger safety net," says Zuckerberg. "This shows basic income is a bipartisan idea." Fundamentally, Zuckerberg says people think and work differently when they have their basic needs met. "Seeing how Alaska put this dividend in place reminded me of a lesson I learned early at Facebook: organizations think profoundly differently when they're profitable than when they're in debt. When you're losing money, your mentality is largely about survival," says Zuckerberg. "But when you're profitable, you're confident about your future and you look for opportunities to invest and grow further. Alaska's economy has historically created this winning mentality, which has led to this basic income. That may be a lesson for the rest of the country as well."
Err....have you actually seen the massive number of high wealth people that are with the "progressive" democrat party these days...?
I'd dare say that the split between the parties is pretty equal, maybe even tipping towards the democrats somewhat.
A lot of BIG money was behind Hillary..she had a lot of the Big money and a lot of the no money....the lower middle to middle class is what seemed to propel the republicans into the white house.
I don't think the old class/wealth to party connection holds these days....in fact, it may have switched.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's free money! Well, it costs you 2x in taxes, but it's "free", so it must be good!
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
If your only criteria for being bipartisan is that the plan conforms to both conservative and liberal ideals, then this wouldn't a problem. But when Obama basically copied previous conservative proposals in order to reach a bipartisan deal, he met with resistance just because it was proposed by a Democrat.
As long as liberals think Universal Basic Income is a good idea, they are going to need strong super majorities to get it through the legislative process because the other side will block literally anything that even smells liberal in origin.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
No, there's fundamental differences in philosophy behind those who want their lives dependent on the government and those that don't.
That's a simplistic, Ayn Randian view of the world that a 13 year old would have. Life ain't that simple, kiddo.
I don't respond to AC's.
Not really
Look at the political activities of the Koch brothers
They have completely transformed the republican party from an economically conservative body to a well-trained attack dog who believes that their every single action must be focused on reducing taxes on their wealthy benefactors
Between them, Adelson and the owner of Hardee's, they pack more political punch than any number of liberal-wealthy who you may want to name
Don't have three or more kids, especially if you don't have the means to support them. It's hard enough to make concepts like minimum wage and UBI work for individuals alone. It seems that a lot of these efforts are being viewed through the lens of normalizing and accepting situations caused by, in part, irresponsible breeding, rather than affecting the root causes.
You can't be serious. Silicon Valley money dwarfs the Koch bros. How many of those folks vote for Republicans? Sorry, the Koch bros meme is outdated by about 10-15 years.
Indeed. Oh look, another wonderkin billionaire believes his will should be public policy, while his army of lawyers "double irish" his tax liabilities out of existence. And don't you take your next breath until you've vectored this "news" to the next node of the progressive echo chamber. Yay slashdot.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
The rich can avoid taxes, the poor and middle class not so much. All taxes are regressive.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Rose Tinted glasses my friend. Everything is as it should be, not as it actually is.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I'm dependent on the government for my safety when driving a car, clean water, fire and police protection, military protection against terrorist states, pure food and drugs, financial predators... (and a whole lot of other things).
What protections do you want to give up?
What is your philosophy? Mine is that I want to be safe.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Because it's not true.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
taught to do things by rote with an 80K-120K loan that hard to get rid of even with disability. Hell even with an va disability 100% unemployable student loans still don't get wiped away with out having to fight it out in court.
Janitors are eating cat food to survive? Hint: Hyperbolic exaggeration is how you got Trump.
And you think the CEOs of internet-related companies really deserve their multi-million dollar pay checks? There's dozens of companies with a supposed value calculated in million of dollars but don't have a single product apart from pushing ads on their users.
If you think UBI is bad, I wonder what you must think of these companies.
#DeleteFacebook
The janitor can be easily replaced by thousands of other people who have the skills to do his job. Despite what you think of CEOs, their responsibility puts dinner on the plates of every employee at the company. If they screw up, or quit, or get fired, a lot more is at stake than in the case of a janitor. Also, CEO's can be dragged into court for the failings of anyone in their employ, and since Sarbanes-Oxley they can even be held personally liable for malfeasance of their other employees. So, while a janitor expends much more physical effort doing his job than a CEO does, it doesn't matter to as many people. And by matter, I mean, literally put hundreds or thousands of people into successful homes or out of a job. There is a smaller talent pool for CEOs and if they want to keep the ones that handle that pressure the best, then they have to compete against other companies looking in the same pool.
However the State has tried many times to stop or limit how much they pay the citizens. The current Governor did cap the amount that they paid for last years dividend and the State is currently trying to impose an income tax.
http://www.newsminer.com/news/...
https://www.usnews.com/news/bu...
The people love the PFD but the State would love nothing more than to spend every damn penny of it.
What does one thing have to do with the other? You saying you'll never support anything Zuckerberg says until his earnings are same as mean salary in US? By that measure we have very few people who's ideas are even worth listening to.
That's insane. The John Birch Society was thoroughly discredited and run out of the Republican Party over 40 years ago. Seriously, you need to read something from this century.
You just want to play video games. Mommy's basement gamer clicking "like!" "like!" "like!" on UBI stories. She's on board as well; no hope of getting rid of you otherwise.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
The US already has a very successful UBI. It's called Social Security. Right now, it only applies to older people and those with disabilities.
Social Security has done a remarkable job of eliminating poverty among the elderly. It gives them enough money to afford basic necessities of food and shelter. Everyone gets a basic income with no requirement to work and no "means test".
Don't know why the same system wouldn't work for everyone. Just increase the SS tax and give everyone a basic income.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I might do minimum work for maximum pay, but I'm not taking an 80% paycut to sit around the house.
Your reductio ad absurdum argument is not even funny.
So... It's ok for a drug company to sell me ineffective, dangerous or contaminated drugs?
How would I know (before I died)?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The lure of free is indeed hard to resist.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
As we automate more and more people out of work, as ownership of those automated facilities concentrates more and more, we MUST switch to UBI or admit we're making almost the entire population redundant. This isn't weavers destroying Jacquard looms - computers and robots are on the threshold of obliterating general labor as a way to make even a subsistence living.
And if we decide the general population is redundant, how long until someone who is in the 'have' group decides the 'have nots' need to starve to death or be killed off before they storm the gates looking for their share?
The problem is that while much of the rest of the world is at least slightly socialist already, the USA is still paranoid about communism and resists social programs even if they're dying as a result - the Republican support for repealing socialized healthcare being a textbook example.
So UBI may not fly in the USA until past the time when its needed, and then we will get to see if the masses die off before they revolt.
During a Marc Andreesen twitter thread, UBI came up. He noted that it would apply to the income levels of upper middle class and higher, and that would be wasted money as they don't need the extra UBI. For that reason against it. Someone had suggested a 'negative income tax,' which he retweeted, and this one made a bit more sense.
If you make less than, say 30K a year, your tax rate would be negative and you'd get money back instead of paying into it. This would help with people who are on minimum wage, and it couldn't be exploited by those who don't need it.
One way or the other, the government will pay for the poor, this way seems more regimented and fair than the others.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
You don't have to be sure or even worry about it much: Zuck's credibility on weighing in on this issue is about the same as yours or mine. It's a bit like Beyoncé telling you how to vote: it's advice that you can safely ignore.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Zuckerberg seems to conveniently ignore the fact that the dividends paid on oil in Alaska are a pretty unique scenario in the USA. That was implemented long before anyone was running around praising the virtues of a UBI for all citizens. Everyone has understood that the money paid out for being an Alaska citizen is well balanced out by some huge downsides of choosing Alaska as your place of residence.
If this wasn't the case, you'd have a disproportionately large number of people moving to Alaska with their families, hoping to collect that $5,000 - $6,000 per month of zero effort income. Heck, one might ask why Zuck didn't start Facebook from Alaska, given how great those monthly government payouts are?
The frustrating thing about UBI is you've got people from all political affiliations discussing it as a potentially viable (even inevitable) outcome, but they're really talking about two COMPLETELY different things. The people trying to push for implementing it today are just pushing socialism under a different name. If the economy is based on Capitalism, a UBI won't ever do anything except create inflation. The economy will adjust to the assumption that everyone suddenly has this "baseline income" they can spend, even if they do nothing at all to try to earn more.
The types discussing UBI as a long term possibility are more interested in a hypothetical post-Capitalist economy where automation and technology has advanced so far, it made human labor obsolete. Machines are fixing other machines that do all manner of work required. In this scenario, people would be essentially free to pursue anything that interested them. Money would still change hands, but you'd only use it for "extras". Perhaps hand-made furniture would become a luxury that many people appreciated as a type of art, despite anyone being able to obtain all the basic furniture they needed at little or no cost, given out by a government in charge of the operation of the robots and machines that assemble the rest of it? So if you WANTED to do it, you could build your own furniture and sell it at a premium. But you would have no NEED to work to survive. But this is more like the "Star Trek" universe than reality any time in the near future.
Like I pointed out on another forum recently .... after 6 or 7 generations of them, you still can't even buy a Roomba that reliably cleans your house with no human intervention. They break regularly, need new batteries, brushes and other parts, get stuck under furniture, can't clean stairs, and have dust bins that are so small they need regular assistance emptying them out. All the hype about robots taking all the jobs? We're a LONG way from that reality still.
1 All other forms of welfare and social programs are shut down the moment this program goes live. This includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and public school programs.
2 All gov't employees are immediate fired from all the now closed programs.
3 Anyone that has been in prison 3 or more times is automatically banned from the program.
4 1st generation immigrants will never qualify for this program.
5. No one is exempt from paying into this program and the tax rate is a flat rate that applies to all forms of "income" as in any money that come from another person or entity to you. Get a paycheck you pay, sell your house, you pay, make money on stock you pay. You get the idea
6. All gov't employee health and pay perks benefits are canceled.
The Alaska Permanent Fund was established in 1976 as the Alaska pipeline construction neared completion
So what will happen to this when the wells go empty?
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
What about:
Denmark
Finland
Netherlands
Canada
Sweden
Norway
Ireland
New Zealand
All of which are socialist, all of which are quite successful, even with relatively high tax rates.
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Obama didn't get resistance because of who proposed it, he received resistance because this is, and was, a massive government power grab which is unconstitutional.
Agreed. People got upset because Massachusetts did something that resembled Obamacare under Mitt Romney's (Republican) governership but then when it was proposed at the federal level there was lots of resistance from conservatives. The idea, as I pointed out in the Seattle $15/hour minimum wage story is that the US Constitution puts rather clear and firm limits on what the federal government can and cannot do. In particular, based on the 10th Amendment if the Constitution does not specifically grant a power to the federal government or prohibit it to the states, then the federal government has no business being involved.
To me, the idea is the same for UBI. If you like it, then fine, feel free to convince your city, county, or state government to implement it in their jurisdiction. However, the federal government should not be involved. Now, some have pointed that particular problems are very widespread and have national impact and so they should be solved by the federal government. That's fine, so long as the solution does not have the government exceed its constitutional powers. When personal income tax was implemented more than a century ago it required a constitutional amendment. I suspect that lots of people today would want the federal government to just go ahead and do it regardless of whether it is constitutional. Just remember that if you think the Constitution is just "guidelines" you can't get upset when someone comes along violates parts of it you don't like (NSA warantless wiretapping?).
There is no greater fallacy today than the belief the government must tax what it spends. All money is created by a ruling sovereignty. There is a reason the Secret Service is one of the oldest institutions around - counterfeiting is a direct attack on sovereignty.
Taxes are about inducing demand for state currency, and in modern economies, controlling for the inflation that comes from a government regulated banking system. You'll know the income tax was legalized within months of passing the Federal Reserve Act. Now you know why.
Birchers are nuts. But the KGB archive has been opened, they weren't wrong about everything.
That's not what UBI is. And most humans will NOT want to stay at what qualifies for UBI housing. Either it's a single room with shared toilet, living space and kitchen, or it's a barracks style bunk beds with a foot locker for your personal stuff. That's what UBI provides. Sure, if you're lazy, you might be happy with shared living quarters, but most people want at least their own personal bathroom, which requires more money. Where's that money come from? Working, of course.
But instead of having to be forced to work as a janitor just to live, as you do today, perhaps you can work as a craftsman - whittling wood or something, who makes enough money to not only afford a better location, but doing what they love. And of course, paying taxes.
And people may be lazy, but they also are not lazy. Think of it this way - why do people do things for recreation instead of staying in bed all day on the weekend? They run, they do exercise, they do hobbies, etc. When instead they could be sitting on the couch watching TV with a beer in their hands?
Hell, even with UBI, most people like where they live, so they'll continue to work at their present jobs. Those who are unhappy will likely quit and find more satisfying jobs, not being stuck in a job just to make the mortgage payment and otherwise live. Others may take a pay cut to work less hours because they're not forced to work long hours just to survive, and use the spare time for things they may enjoy more, including raising kids.
No, UBI is not a utopia, but it's far from a disaster. There's a reason why people want to house the homeless and give them healthcare - it's cheaper to do so than for them to live on the streets and incur increased policing costs and healthcare costs. Hell, jailing someone costs over $100K a year. And those without healthcare use ER, the most expensive form of medical treatment available. It's far cheaper for them to be able to access a regular doctor and do proactive treatment than reactive treatment in an ER.
And if there's some idiot homeless person who spent all their UBI money on drugs, well, you can't really feel sorry for them anymore. Lock 'em up, I guess if they can't take care of themselves properly.
The janitor's work is one that can be replicated by anyone. It is a commodity job, and will soon be replaced by robots who work longer hours, show up sober, and rarely call in sick.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
When we start having serious layoffs in the millions due automation, people will begin insisting on UBI. If it doesn't happen then there is no need to panic.
It will be too late for a lot of people but you can't help those who refuse your help. :(
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
seek professional medical help.
I suggest a CT scan of the head
The people always ranting about Putin or the Koch brothers remind me very much of the old Birchers. Next thing you know, the Koch brothers and Putin meme will add-in the Queen of England, the Rothschilds, the Free Masons, and the Pope and/or Illuminati.
This is where people of low intellect go when the big scary world does things they do not like and cannot understand (like electing Trump).... they run to the comfort zone that there is a simple explanation for what has confused and terrified them: some grand and shodowy conspiracy. Rather than accepting that large forces are at play as a sum result of the small actions of millions of people individually responding to annoyances, inconveniences, intrusions, offenses and such by a big government and the general culture, the mentally fragile run to the idea that there is a grand evil scheme deliberately designed by a handful of conspiritors/manipulators; it's easier to assume design than accept natural organic consequence.
If Trump is the result of conspiracy, then the left has clean hands and he is illegitimate and the liberal/progressive world view is intact... but if Trump is an organic push-back by the population, then Trump is a consequence of Obama and his policies and Hillary and her incompetence/offensiveness and the left then is partially to blame and their models are broken (an unthinkable idea). Obviously, therefore, there is a Koch-Putin-Trump consiracy...
Sad [Facepalm]
You're living in a FANTASY WORLD. Either that or you're a SHILL for the Rich who want the rest of us to be their SERFS.
That's very reductionist. Considering that people are already willing to fight tooth and nail to avoid helping fund people who will literally die without medical treatment, I seriously doubt that taxes would be increased for UBI.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Unfortunately the JBS techniques of distracting people with senseless conspiracy theories, while turning them against their own government and interests are more popular and widely used now than ever before in our history
Just look at the rise of fox news under the guidance of Roger Ailes and it is easy to prove that your theory is crap
Coming from Texas where there's not a whole lot of federal government representation (outside of the federal court system) it always stuns me to hear this great hatred of the federal government and I've not understood why a "power grab" that is represented as better health care for everyone. Is this a states' rights issue or who exactly are they stealing power from, and why are you so opposed to it?
moox. for a new generation.
The Koch Brothers aren't going to be an issue in ten years. The base of their power, fossil fuels, is in a price decline that probably will never end, until oil and natural gas simply follow coal into oblivion. For the Koch Brothers, as with all the fossil fuel companies, the next 15-20 years is about maintaining economic conditions just long enough for them to eek out the last bit of profit fossil fuels can generate. In the long term, the Koch Brothers and their ilk will be irrelevant. Not that their accumulated wealth won't keep their families going for a while, but they'll be like the great robber barons of previous ages, each generation afterwards being less relevant.
The real power base going ahead is technology centers like Silicon Valley. Already companies like Apple are among the wealthiest entities to have ever existed in the history of humanity, and in the end they will be the center of economic gravity. The Kochs are dinosaurs. The Tim Cooks and Elon Musks of the world are the future, and these people are very much in the Progressive camp. Indeed, I'd say demographics in the US are decided blue, and all the gerrymandering in the world can't hold back that tide forever.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Despite what you think of CEOs, their responsibility puts dinner on the plates of every employee at the company.
No he doesn't. Market demand does, which the employees fulfull, and could do so equally for any other individual with the skills of a McDonald's manager. The manager then siphons off the value created by them at an absurdly disproportionate level.
Look at, say, the management of Google or Microsoft, ostensibly with the very best executives around. How many completely off-the-mark products and services have they advanced, to be discontinued as a business failure later?
I challenge you to name anything a CEO does fundamentally more insightfully than a McDonald's crew manager, or taking ideas gleanable from reading Slashdot or any other technically competent publication, putting the ideas on a dartboard, and throwing darts. Don't let me give the impression that I'm saying the CEO's ideas are of equal number or quality to random Slashdot readers, though. The CEO is inferior on both counts.
Inequality of opportunity (having money is an automatic win in any business competition regarding anything over those who don't), and old boys' networks is why they're there. That's mostly it. Don't get the impression I'm some leftist decrying capitalism, though. It works better than the alternatives. But to elevate it to a idealized meritocracy is just leaving the realm of reality entirely for a self-serving fiction.
The Alaska dividend is funded through a 12.5% gross royalty on all oil, Alaska's natural resource, produced in the state. Since the "natural resource" of the US is its dynamic economy, I am curious how Zuckerberg would response to a 12.5% royalty on FB gross revenues to fund his UBI.
If by that you mean they want to expand the number of people with disposable income, well sure, of course they do. Isn't that the whole fucking point of Capitalism? If wealth becomes concentrated in just a few demographics, then you have a serious economic problem, and history teaches that extreme wealth concentrations are a very bad thing for social cohesion and the economy. Even the Romans knew it, which is why they distributed bread to the populace of the city of Rome, because when they didn't, they had food riots that cost the wealthy a helluva lot more money then just "panem et circenses".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
$65billion/320million people = ~$200 per person.
I look forward to his contribution to my welfare.
No, there's fundamental differences in philosophy behind those who want their lives dependent on the government and those that don't.
Then there is the very simple and well proven problem of one segment of the population largely providing for another. One group working hard while another gets something for nothing results in greater divisiveness and resentment, particularly when times are tough. Add that growing entitlement programs are the single most challenging financial element to sustain for almost every country, its not something you want to pursue quickly. Every other means should be first exhausted to find ways to keep people productive and earning their income.
I'm JEALOUS and BUTTHURT that 1 in several MILLION people make so much more money than I do working at Jiffy Lube, so I want FREE MONIES from the government to 'compensate' me (regardless of what it does to the REST of the country) because I'm a SELFISH CUNT and don't care about anyone but me!
I'd rather shoot you in the head than allow UBI, you stupid JACKASS.
What Zuck proposes is nothing more or less than LBJ's plan. Get as many people as possible converted into state dependents, and you can count on them voting to expand the state. Bread and Circuses brought down the Romans, too.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Seeing Zuckerberg getting involved in politics makes me cringe for some mysterious reason. Anybody else?
Exactly. UBI would provide only the very basics; a humble abode and a few necessities. I for one would have no intention of living in a Tokyo-sized apartment eating just Soylent Green. It really is a fallacious claim.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
> Zuckerberg should take a look at Venezuela, Russia, much of Africa, and the Middle East. They too subscribe to the idea that state-run oil companies should share their wealth and create a wonderful paradise for everyone.
And Norway. Which actually does share the wealth and invested its money long term, and taxes the heck out of domestic petroleum consumption.
Problems with Venezuela, Angola and Russia and the Gulf states comes down to the "not really sharing very much at all" business.
... oh, wait.
Freeman says, many homeless people come to Anchorage from a village for one reason or another, and get stuck here.
Around 70 percent of the 700 or so homeless people surveyed say they’re Alaska Native. Many are from rural villages.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Exactly. It won't exactly be a Star Trek future, but with automation increasingly reducing the amount of outright toil, it will liberate many. If I didn't have to work 50 hours a week, but rather could work 25-30 hours a week, I'd probably spend a good deal more time writing, which is what I actually enjoy (not that I don't like my job).
Sure there will be layabouts, but according to all the libertarians and conservatives I talk to, there already are, but I suspect most people are quite capable of finding other productive things to occupy their time. And they'll have to, because sooner or later, as automation increasingly intrudes into many different industries, there simply won't be the demand for full time five day a week jobs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's not going to be free, it's just that how it gets paid will change. I don't think a tax on robots is the best way to do it, but there will be changes in how governments draw revenue, but those revenues will still be drawn.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There will never be a cure for sociopaths, sadly, so yes, people like you will be around.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In this particular debate; it's more of a difference between those who think that buying off the poor will be easier and cheaper; and those who think that fighting off the poor will be easier and cheaper.
The Republican Party of the mid-1800s is a helluva lot different beast than the Republican Party of today, as was the Democratic Party. Progressivism as a major political ideology didn't even really exist as a coherent political movement in the US, or really anywhere, until after the First World War, and modern Conservatism is largely a creation of Nixon and Reagan.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I live in Canada and I most certainly would not call it outright socialist.
While really basic health care is provided to the entire population, things like medication, dental, eyes, ears are not covered unless it's a medical emergency.
We have Welfare programs for the very poor, some help for families with young children (called Canada Child Benefit), but we still have problems with poverty just like the US despite our "high" taxes (though if your household income is less than $35,000 you don't pay taxes).
Personally I welcome the idea of UBI, but that's my opinion, and certainly is not the opinion of the majority of Canadians (otherwise we'd have it by now).
I also live in one of the most natural resource rich provinces, but we're also in massive debt because our provincial government is a bunch of idiots. I have no idea how they won the most recent election.
I think the USA leaves them all in the dust. In 200 years we went from barely being able to fend off the half hearted nearly bankrupt British with the help of the French to being able to outclass the world in industrial production and are second to none in military power, so much in that we have assumed the majority of the policing of the world. During the same time we expanded from 13 small states to 50 and multiple territories that filled the land from one sea to the other while fighting one civil war and at least one war with a neighbor that invaded our country where we TOTALLY defeated them, then returned the majority of their lands. In spite of this, capitalism in the USA grew both the USA and the cause of freedom.
We were pivotal in establishment of the free world MULTIPLE times by winning war after war (Two world wars we attempted to stay out of). For WW2 alone, we helped destroy then rebuild Europe at large, while also defeating Japan, then rebuilding their economy. We were/are the center of technical innovation in medicine, technologies including communications, aviation, Construction, petrochemicals and many other things that benefit the world at large. We learned how to mas produce goods, food and services and have produced wealth that has raised the standard of living world wide. As a country we donate more food and supplies than any other, then deliver them to people in need world wide. The world would starve without out vast food production and export.
What makes all this possible? Capitalism. NOT socialism, Capitalism. It may not be perfect, but it's the best thing going out there. Socialism fails, history proves it. History provides only ONE example that works long term, capitalism. Nothing else could do this.. End of debate..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
That's a silly ad hominem attack. Ayn Rand's views are rational and nuanced, she understood and described the collectivist ideology to such a fine degree that it makes it impossible for them to attack her ideas, they can only attack her personally.
You can't handle the truth.
One has to define what one means by "socialism". The countries you list are "social democratic", in that they have adopted some socialist elements like unemployment benefits, public health care and a social safety net, but their economies are still largely capitalist and free enterprise.
Venezuela, on the other hand, was basically taken over by a pack of kleptocrats masquerading as a socialists, who quoted Marx and Guevara even as they have spent the better part of two decades looting the country. Sure, there was lots of money to go around while oil prices were sky high, but their base criminality has been exposed by the collapse in oil prices. I doubt the likes of Chavez and Maduro were ever really socialists at all. Chavez, in particular, was pretty much a populist nationalist, one might even say an imperialist as he siphoned off billions to try to build some sort of Bolivarian Empire. Whatever gains the poor made in Venezuela were simply funded by what amounts to the world's most profitable lottery; plentiful long-chain hydrocarbons.
The countries you list are by and large technocratic in nature, in that elected governments of any ideological stripe still rely on a professional civil service which creates a sort base continuity in state organs regardless of the party in power. While there is doubtless corruption to be found, sadly that is a part of human nature, by and large they are governed by responsible people who are bound and limited by democratic norms.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Oh fuck off. There's nothing overtly socialistic about UBI, at least not more so than social security, unemployment benefits, welfare, Medicaid or dozens of other federal and state programs. The fact is that, other than health care, the US is largely as a "social democrat" as any other industrialized nation, and I'd say that single payer healthcare is probably going to be coming in the next decade or so as everyone finally declares defeat on trying to keep the ridiculous and expensive system going with the series of bizarre tweaks that both the ACA and the current Republican solutions represent.
In some ways UBI will be an improvement, because you can get rid of all these various programs, and get rid of a lot of the enforcement and investigation branches of these agencies. As everyone would get a base income, there would be no means testing, and "welfare fraud" would become a lot rarer.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
A basic income should allow a worker to tell his or her employer where to get off if they mistreat their workers, and take their labour elsewhere. Surely the libertarian dream?
A basic income means that employers need only pay small wages in order to attract workers, in fact, no minimum wage would be necessary.
Small businesses could start up and workers take a risk by joining the business for stock instead of pay and still afford to live.
Many more people could try that business they always thought about but couldn't risk their family's future on.
Of course the massive wealth inequality we have today would have to go, because the money necessary for a basic income is in the hands of the billionaires and the hands of the big corps.
We know there is enough money in total, because we are always being told that if everyone works hard enough they can all have nice houses, pensions etc. implying that there is sufficient money for said.
Unfortunately a basic income is also a big boon to rapacious capitalist types:) because now they can ramp up the prices of things since poor people who previously didn't have money, now do, and also the cost of housing will shoot up. Inflation then reduces the basic income to less than what is needed to live. Price control is necessary for basic needs and utilities. Not so libertarian! :)
Experiments in basic income prove little unless they are on the scale of an actual nation state and there is tight control of immigration, for example no EU state could try this while the unemployed of every other EU state can just pop over and claim it! The EU as a whole could though if it managed to get a grip on all that tax avoidance.
I'm a lefty, I love the idea of a basic income, I believe that if it worked it would markedly increase the freedom of all those current 'wage slaves' who know they are never going to be a CEO because, well, how many CEOs can there be? But the necessary changes in the behaviour of people and businesses, and the alterations to tax codes and housing policy might very well be too big a change to institute at once; and like an unstable equilibrium, I fear that a basic income would fail rapidly if there aren't some strict controls in place, and those with the 'active consent' of the vast majority of the population.
snake
People in poverty:
1. have more illnesses which cost more money
2. have more need of social service, which costs more money
3. are more likely to be involved in the justice system (crimes, etc) which costs more money
4. keeping people in prison cost 5-6 times the cost of any benefit each year.
5. People in poverty are more likely to have children who will also be in poverty
The economics just don't stack up.
Citation needed. I agree that both parties have this problem, but since at least Reagan the so-called conservative party has been pretty flagrantly plutocrat. Much more openly than the democrats.
Can't tell if being serious...
There is no greater fallacy today than the belief the government must tax what it spends. All money is created by a ruling sovereignty. There is a reason the Secret Service is one of the oldest institutions around - counterfeiting is a direct attack on sovereignty.
Taxes are about inducing demand for state currency, and in modern economies, controlling for the inflation that comes from a government regulated banking system. You'll know the income tax was legalized within months of passing the Federal Reserve Act. Now you know why.
What a load of hogwash.
Except for recent actions like "quantitative easing" and other pump/dump strategies, way less than half of the "money" is created by sovereignty. It is created by the banks (and other financial institutions). Part of it is regulated by fraction reserve lending, the other part is the wild west (e.g., credit default swaps). The government tries to monopolize this by creating some demand by "taxation", but that only affects a portion of the "money" that gets exchanged (because many transactions are shielded from taxation).
For example, just the other day, Apple created $7B out of thin air by issuing bonds backed by money in Ireland out of the reach or purview of the Fed. The global Credit Default Swap market is estimated at around $500 trillion. Compared to the federal reserve about about $1.6 trillion actual deposits times the reserve ratio of 10% would only be a fraction of only the CDS market, not even including the corporate bond market and other financial derivative markets.
The cart is now driving the horse for better or worse...
In modern times, if the govt were to simply try print money to increase its budget, it probably couldn't print it fast enough to outpace inflation (as many countries that have tried have found out the hard way).
No, you are dependent for your own safety in every situation you mention except foreign terrorist states (unless you willingly go to one).
Why are 'foreign terrorist states' deemed out of my control but companies doing things I can't see, using processes I can't find out about; not out of my control?
I control companies and other potential bad actors, by living in a country that regulates business, monitors the environment, punishes harmful behaviour and does all this with a government. Because I am not equal in power to a big company but a government bloody should be!
snake
The point of capitalism is to create a bigger middle class, not a bigger sponge class. Someone has to pay the bills.The fat cats have armies of lobbyists and lawyers to avoid taxes. That effectively leaves the rest of us.
If you are fixated on the minimum wage, your economic policy is a failure.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Assuming that an UBI will be paid for by taxes, it is equivalent to a negative income tax. Paying the UBI as a tax credit would make it explicitly a negative income tax. Nothing really changes but the name, the effect is exactly the same.
That is how I advocate an UBI should be done:
First, in preparation, make tax refunds paid out in monthly installments instead of in one lump sum (and to be fair and symmetrical, allow tax payments still due after filing to be paid in monthly installments too). Most people, who already get at least some small tax refund, will thus get a small payment from the government every month right away with just this change.
Then, give everyone the same tax credit of some (initially small) fraction of the mean income, and fund that by an additional flat tax of that same fraction of their own income. (So e.g. if you start with a 1% mean income tax credit, it's funded with a 1% flat tax). That is automatically completely revenue-neutral (because that's how averages work), but reduces the tax burden / increases the tax refund of low-income people, shifting it to high-income people, with people near the mean income seeing almost no change. (Because 1% of the mean income minus 1% of your income is greater than zero the further below the mean your income is, exactly zero when your income is the mean, and less than zero the further above the mean your income is).
Then, slowly increase that percent until the tax credit being given is at least equal to a poverty-line income. Et voila, you now have a tax-funded basic income. Make the tax credit received from this program count as "income" for the purpose of means-tested welfare programs, and watch people gradually fall off the rolls of those means-tested programs as the percent is increased, until most of them can be shuttered entirely, reducing everyone's taxes in the process.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The problem is that people are more productive than ever but there's no need for them to earn their income - there isn't demand for that much work. Would digging holes and filling them back in count as earning income?
The rich would certainly prefer paying a bit more in taxes than to deal with a Global French Revolution 2.0, the question is if they'd rather commit killbot-powered genocide against the 99% than pay a bit more in taxes.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The Victorian notions of charity had debtors prison and child labor. Relying on the good will of wealthy benefactors does not produce a reliable system of taking care of the poor.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Horseshit. A permeable, hackable tax code is regressive. A secure one without loopholes is not. The rich couldn't avoid taxes in the New Deal era.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Likewise the accountants job is going to be replaced, and the lawyers job.
Then i'm sure you won't be taking your social security check to the bank, but returning it to the government. You can stop drinking water that someone else paid to have cleaned, air that other people paid to have cleaned, roads that other people paid to have laid down, and maybe you shouldn't be calling the police next time you feel yourself in danger, or the fire department if your house catches fire, or go to the hospital unless you have the money to pay for everything they charge.
Society itself is a form of socialism, it's just some stupider than fuck people are too fucking stupid to understand that.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Where exactly was that ever the point of capitalism. The point of capitalism is to work towards a functioning economy that spreads benefits widely via the use of largely free markets. A strong middle class may be a byproduct of capitalism, but in reality, much of the middle class in the developed world relied upon well paying but relatively low-skilled jobs, and it isn't "socialism" that's destroying those jobs, it's robots.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Mod parent up. We have individual regular human beings making one or two tenths of a billion dollars per year. And nobody bats an eye.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Someone on UBI won't be able afford to live somewhere
The U part (universal) means everyone is on it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Yeah, and those little fuckers should have voted with their wallets and not been born, or at least chosen better parents. Anyway they should certainly suffer to serve as an example.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Ireland
All of which are socialist, all of which are quite successful, even with relatively high tax rates.
Not if you're Apple.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So you are saying it must be done due to threat of violence. Not sure I'd agree that is the best angle to drive a solution from.
So government doesn't help the situation at all? What the hell am I paying taxes for?!
Don't ask a question you don't want to hear the answer to.... ;^)
You are simply paying taxes because society wishes that you do so and you are compliant. Tomorrow, society can wish something different in the future and most people will be equally compliant. They call it society because it is "social".
You don't pay taxes in say Cuba and you get (or sometimes don't get) government services, but the societal contract is different there... You may (or may not) consider the contract "fair", but that's society.
The big problems come when there is an inherent "flaw" in the societal contract (can't provide the services due to lack of, or due to the poor distribution of resources like Venezuela), or too many folks don't follow the wishes/rules their society lays out for distribution of resources (e.g., Italy, Greece)...
Abbreviated for the stupid: US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States....
....To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
> Don't care.
The don't argue against UBI on economic grounds.
And history is full of people who "don't care" and who were removed from their position of privilege by the poor using force.
we celebrate disruptive technologies , e.g. MP3 player vs tape/CD. Well we are about to enter a disruptive economic period whey the old economics and wealth and privilege values are about to get removed too. The people making old tech fought against their replacement, but they still lost.
Brexit victory in the UK informed everyone is that if voters feel detached enough, and underserved enough (whether those sentiments are justified or not), the power of the ballot box still trumps (excuse the pun) all the wishes of the upper classes/elite.
Yeah! We certainly showed the upper class elite of David Cameron by siding instead with Boris Johnson. Suck it, toffs!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Progressives were the ones that abolished slavery. Progressives passed the Civil Rights Act. Conservatives have always been the party of slavery and Jim Crow.
I get it. People like you are so fucking stupid that if someone like Trump shit on a plate and gave it to you telling you it's the best steak ever, you'd eat it, love it, and praise it as the best steak ever for the rest of your life. The early Republican party was the progressives, the Democrats were the rural conservatives. Either you actually are that fucking stupid, or you're a lying piece of shit. Which is it?
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
When the welfare system in the USA was signed into law, during the FDR days, it was MAINLY for poor families with dependent children. In the 60's LBJ and government really expanded it with the advent of medicare/medicade. People, when they are "given" anything, will work LESS. People can be lazy if they don't have to get up off their butts and work for a LIVING. Who really wants to work? Some do. It gives them purpose in life. "GIVING" people anything, at times, most don't appreciate it but will end up thinking they are "entitled" to something.
Unlike what most people apparently believe, the market price for something has almost nothing to do with the actual cost of producing it. It is actually entirely based on supply and demand. The price for things fluctuates accordingly.
So assuming everyone gets say $10k/yr just for being alive, the average cost of living will just very quickly go up by $10k/yr, leaving a net benefit of exactly 0 even possibly a negative benefit because we will have to pay more income tax because of our "free" income. For the rest of us, the higher cost of living just means everything is more expensive and the really poor will just suffer more.
Not at all, if anything I'm saying we should work this out before killbots become an option.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
SS is a Pyramid scheme plain and simple. It REQUIRES future generations to work enough to pay for those who worked, retired and now expect their SS payments. If future generations don't work or work less (as is happening now) those who payed into it - won't get their "guaranteed" payments. My current SS statement alone already says that with current work force I will only get %79 of what is shown on my statement. If the Millennials and snowflakes don't work or don't work enough I and many others won't get our SS we paid into. So SS is ALREADY running out of money. I would expect it to last MAYBE 20 more years TOPS. I'm not expecting ANYTHING from SS at this point. I've been investing and putting my own money away to cover myself. NO ONE should be relying on or expecting SS to be there when they retire at this point. It's a dieing horse..... This alone shows UBI is an EXTREMELY bad idea!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
So you *wouldn't* call the fire department if your house was burning down with your loved ones inside? Got it.
I suppose you pave your patch of road outside your house too, or pay someone to do it for you.
Do you catch your own rainwater too?
I also assume you have no problem with someone selling you a deadly concoction and slapping an "Aspirin" label on it because, well, you should know better right?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Someone doesn't know their history! it was the DEMOCRATS who imposed slavery and fought to keep it! Get a clue! Go do your research and quit spouting "Fake History"! Your from the failed public education system obviously.
"After 1854, Republicans argued that the Slave Power, especially the pro-slavery Democratic Party, controlled two of the three branches of the Federal government."
"The Southern Democrats endorsed slavery, while the Republicans denounced it."
"...War Democrats opposed emancipation,..."
Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Truth is a Virus!!!
We're not debating what ACA was trying to accomplish, we're trying to establish if it was a power grab by the federal government, and if so, what (if any) of the status quo changed.
moox. for a new generation.
Government actuaries disagree with you and they have actually done the math.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Giving people things just for existing, rewarding people without direction for having no direction, is sabotaging those people.
A very few people who are self motivated will benefit, but for the vast majority, 'UBI' is intended to flush them all down the toilet. Our society purposely tries to divert peoples' efforts to pointless activity en masse. People will retreat into the internet, not living their lives, not creating anything, not reproducing, and they will all die out.
The media bombardment is just beginning. You think poor people will sit around and fuck and make babies all day? They won't. They will become absorbed in their echo chambers, lose social skills, and when they do fuck, it will be with contraception provided for free by the government.
That is the plan here. Welfare and 'UBI' are meant to be a magic solution to the liabilities the masses present.
Consider your list of nations. Smaller groups of well educated citizens in closed wealthy nations with a set rules for gov help after 1945 or around the 1920's or 1980's.
Citizens got looked after to prevent communist parties from winning elections sometime in the 20th century or other political parties from offering more help to a set of voters.
The nations has success in the past as they only looked after their own citizens. Good health care, good education for each generation of their own citizens.
So some got some health care, dental care, old age pensions and educational support.
Good education produced productive hard working citizens that then paid into the tax system for health care or a later old age pension.
Support for not working was limited and most people could expect to find work again given a good economy and exports. Good jobs existed or people found work and wanted to work. They could afford homes, holidays , savings or just stay out of poverty. Happy, productive citizens who paid taxes been looked after by their gov.
People worked hard in the private sector and paid real taxes most of their working life. Pension systems only ever expected a set amount of their own nations older workers to ever need and be granted a full pension. Private or a company pension plans also got promoted and supported. Private health care was also an option.
A given rate of citizens growing up, working hard and getting the old age pension could be predicted and supported. The maths worked if the number of real citizens paying into the system could be understood an old age pension was only for an old age.
Citizenship was the legal test for all the free good things from the government and many support services also needed to proof of been poor or not been able to work.
The USA totally lost control of its citizenship tests. Millions of illegal migrants are wondering around cities and states using local and federal services only intended for the very poor citizens of USA.
To be like the list of the above nations the USA would to secure its paperwork for the first time in every city and state.
Only eligible US citizens would get support after showing real US photo ID or having someone help them with getting their US ID ready.
That would at least get support back to the US working poor or poor and help with spending issues in every state and city.
Would a UBI work in the USA? Only if it was means tested and for citizens looking for work, been educated full time or unable to work.
A very limited safety net for US citizens only that gets fully repaid by workers paying taxes.
What to do about very wealthy areas in the USA that need low skilled workers to clean and look after services everyday?
The working poor cant afford rent in the wealthy areas and have to get to low wage jobs in the most wealthy areas of the USA?
Why is a UBI been requested? For the poor? Or to cover a local wage gap so wealthy people don't have to pay poor workers extra?
Should all US tax payers have to support the working poor in CA so that can they work for the wealthy to enjoy support services in a few very wealthy areas?
If the wealthy in the USA want workers in expensive areas, pay real private sector wages in that state.
Technician or scientist wages for all support services?
Requesting the rest of the USA pays a UBI to cover for low wages in one state is not going to work with the US tax rates.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
If Silicon Valley really wants to put the fears at bay, they can always use their own income to fund UBI, versus mandating it. That is, give all theirs to fund something that concerns them so much.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
That made me shoot beer out my nose. Good one!
I don't respond to AC's.
The same government that says people will only get a percentage of what their SS statements say - right gotcha! it's that public school math....
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Give them money so they are OK with not participating in society so you and your buddies Zuckerburg can reduce competition.
Insuring people stay at home stuck to the fake news TV screen stay out of your way.
The whole thing smacks of Eugenics with the worst sort of 1984 overtones.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I realize it's easy to get lost in the MSM rhetoric where both sides are progressives, but that is _STILL_ the issue.
We don't even have a single mainstream progressive party in this country. We have a far right and a moderate party. Even Bernie Sanders is considered far left in the USA. Travel a bit outside this country, or read a non-partisan book every once in a while, and you will see how drastically conservative American politics are.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I wasn't ignoring everything else. Nothing about UBI can be said to apply to "common Defence" or to "general Welfare". Before you tell me that UBI falls under "general Welfare", please note that this is the definition of the word ":welfare" from Webster's 1828:
WELFARE, noun [well and fare, a good faring; G.]
1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.
2. Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to states.
It is clear that the intended meaning was that "welfare" was adjunct to "defence". That is, protection from attack, and perhaps arguably assistance when natural disasters of outbreaks of disease strike. However, a system where the government pays every citizen an income is considerably outside of that scope.
That's the simplistic view of a member of the privileged middle class wage slave who has been enriching himself at the expense of his fellow Americans, both poor and rich, for so long that he simply cannot imagine standing on his own two feet.
Let's fund it with Facebook. They seem to be doing well enough and should share their profits with the poor.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Exactly. That's why each year we have to increase the ubi payments. We can't have citizens living like that!
A car on every garage, a chicken in every pot, an iPhone in every hand, a 70" tv on every stand!
Vote for me! The other guy won't give you as much free stuff!
Taxing robot "workers" is dumb. They're not people. Tax the people who own the robots, but not because they own the robots, just tax them like everyone else, and fund a basic income with that tax. Then if robots make their owners super rich and make a lot of other people unemployable, those owners will end up paying a higher share of the taxes and the newly-unemployables will keep a bigger share of their basic income, automatically. The whole system can be robot-agnostic and perfectly address the potential robot problem just as well as any of a myriad of similar problems that we've already got.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
That's not what UBI is. And most humans will NOT want to stay at what qualifies for UBI housing.
Universal Basic Income isn't forcing people into tenements or housing camps, universal basic income is a system where every citizen, regardless of employment status revives a basic income. If you want more than the basic income, you can go out and work for it. UBI isn't providing basic services, it's providing a basic income. Trying to provide the same system piecemeal is wasteful and inefficient. The amount the US wastes trying to maintain dehumanising programs for welfare is astounding, and all of this so some constipated angry old conservative can feel better.
No, UBI is not a utopia, but it's far from a disaster.
. This, UBI is what we envision will be required when most of the basic jobs are automated. Not just manufacturing and services but soft AI is starting to threaten jobs that are based on understanding rules and patterns like accounting and legal services. The problem wont be that people aren't unwilling to work, it will be a lack of opportunities.
And if there's some idiot homeless person who spent all their UBI money on drugs, well, you can't really feel sorry for them anymore. Lock 'em up
I'm sorry, but that is a very stupid suggestion.
The minimum wage in the UK is less than £15,000, to keep one prisoner locked up for a year is £65,0000. We'd end up spending more money trying to keep them incarcerated instead of trying to help them get clean. If you take that £45,000 per year and put it into a rehabilitation program there is a chance that next year, you wont have to pay that extra amount. Incarceration for minor crimes increases recidivism.
The answer to petty crime is never harsher sentencing, the answer is removing the motivation to commit it. This goes double for drug abuse, if you penalise someone for a bad habit they wont stop, they'll just become sneakier about it. If you send them to prison for it, they'll just learn even more bad habits.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Essentially, Hunger Games meets Game of Thrones where we all play the starving serfs.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The point of universal income is to still be able to have a consumer class when robots/AI have taken 99% of our jobs. This is NOT altruism, this is very forward-thinking greed.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
this is, and was, a massive government power grab which is unconstitutional.
Point to the screed that you read that convinced you of that, because it is bullshit.
It's about removing control from those who pay into the system as a method of wealth distribution.
Control of the system should not be in the hands of those who can afford to pay into it, because they will only abuse their control to continue to keep the money out of everyone else's hands. It should be in the hands of The People, with one person having one vote. That would be democracy.
If all you hear is the same old crap, try finding some different sources for the debate.
You're still here :(
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
or too many folks don't follow the wishes/rules their society lays out for distribution of resources (e.g., Italy, Greece)...
Everyone keeps blaming the poor who don't have any money and don't make any rules, instead of the rich who have all the money and make all the rules that allow them to amass it. This is a lot of crap. Every one of these governments knows who has the money, and what they are doing to get it, and usually what they are doing with it, but they don't go after them because of corruption. That's true whether you're talking about Greece or you're talking about the USA.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They'll be replaced by AI. won't even need a robot body to tell the other employees what to do.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
We don't even have a single mainstream progressive party in this country. We have a far right and a moderate party. Even Bernie Sanders is considered far left in the USA. Travel a bit outside this country, or read a non-partisan book every once in a while, and you will see how drastically conservative American politics are.
Well, of course they are! The US was founded on principles totally off the scale by European standards! That was the entire reason the US declared independence! Totally incompatible basic principles!
Why does anyone think that the US should give up it's founding principles that differentiate it from the rest of the world and made it a super-power with the most individual freedom of any nation up to that point, or that it would be a good thing for the US?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Zuck, should take his brilliant ideas of his and put it somewhere they will see no daylight. In this country, thanks to the legislation liberal governments passed, we have the do-nothing-collect-paycheck crowd already. We need to find a way to convert those good-for-nothing people into a semi-productive members of society, not to increase the numbers of them. But of course, universal income receiving lazy-ass mo-fo's will spend their every waking moments on social networking sites, mainly facebook. Of course this will butter the bread, zuck has been holding and feeling there is no more butter coming. He needs more people with a lot of time in their hands and nothing else to do in life. What is better than universal income receiving lazy people ? Absolutely nothing. Self serving anyone ?
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
It makes sense that Zuckerberg would think this, since money basically falls out of the sky into his lap because of the popularity of his creation.
BUT when you start giving away money to EVERYONE, the math just doesn't work out. You can't manufacture money out of nothing. Well, technically, the Fed can, but even this has the consequence of devaluing currency. This is exactly what would happen with UBI...that money would become worth less.
We have forgotten a basic principle of trade. Money is nothing on its own, its just a medium of trade. Instead of bartering actual things, we barter or work for money, then use it to buy things. If you don't have to do anything or sell anything to get it, it loses its value.
Bi-partisan my eye!
Most humans are NOT lazy.
Most humans will get bored relatively quickly. Sure SOME will spend their time playing computer games or watching porn but most others will want to do something that has meaning. Some may even commit suicide because of that boredom.
Look at all the people who volunteer, the people who still work in retirement (when they dont have to).
A UBI will mean one parent will be able to afford to stay home with the kids, help with school trips, etc which will be good for the kids.
A UBI means humanity can get back to its roots of community, helping one another. I see the UBI strengthening community bonds, reducing crime.
Standing on your own two feet, is also not claiming ownership of resources that can generate an income, employing those who will kill to prevent others gaining access to those resources and then demanding those who are now blocked from access to those resources under threat of death, work to generate value from those resource whilst only collecting a pittance from the value of that production.
The biggest parasites are the ones at the top who deny everyone else access to the resources of life under threat of death and demand labour to produce from those resources, keeping the majority of the value of production, whilst those doing the actual work get next to nothing.
All citizens own all the resources of a society, control is allowed to some citizens upon the basis it will be of benefit to society, not just the benefit of those individuals and the murders they employ to enforce their control.
So why the fuck should the majority get a basic wage, whilst a minority own every fucking thing. Time to tax billionaires out of existence, clearly as parasites they are no longer sustainable. Those who consumer the most resources and generate the most pollution should be reviled upon a planet with limited resources and really belong in insane asylums rather than being allowed to run stuff.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The USA will probably be one of the last to catch up. They already are unable to solve simple problems so it's naive to think they'd lead the world in anything other than another example of how to fall into despotism quickly despite being (formerly) at the top of the world.
One transition to the future would be to remove income taxes and replace them with corporate taxes and capital gains taxes and use this to fund UBI. Forget about a serious discussion in the USA on such things even if you describe it in terms of Star Trek.
Automation will replace most jobs as it has already done for many jobs... since WW2 the USA pioneered the consumer economy but that is no longer sustainable for them and never was for most the planet (not that they cared... they still don't really. )
There are nowhere near enough meaningful jobs and it will continue to decline. Only when the problem is unavoidable will the USA start to admit there is a problem. Look at global warming for example. Or look at how bridges collapsing still has most people upset at the suggestion of raising the gas tax (which funds bridge upkeep and has been cut because it's impossible to peg funding to inflation when you don't understand math or money.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
He also just went to Idaho to hang with truckers. ÃOE think he's getting ready to try to be president.
or too many folks don't follow the wishes/rules their society lays out for distribution of resources (e.g., Italy, Greece)...
Everyone keeps blaming the poor who don't have any money and don't make any rules, instead of the rich who have all the money and make all the rules that allow them to amass it. This is a lot of crap. Every one of these governments knows who has the money, and what they are doing to get it, and usually what they are doing with it, but they don't go after them because of corruption. That's true whether you're talking about Greece or you're talking about the USA.
FWIW, nowhere did I blame the "poor" for tax evasion in Greece. For example, I doubt the poor are responsible for the estimated €20B in swiss bank accounts owned by Greek citizens, and the poor are probably a small fraction of the estimated 15,000 individuals that owe €37B in back taxes to the government...
Would tight immigration controls be necessary for a nation's basic income scheme if the nation had sufficiently trustworthy mechanisms for ascertaining citizenship and restricted its scheme to its own citizens?
If this wasn't the case, you'd have a disproportionately large number of people moving to Alaska with their families, hoping to collect that $5,000 - $6,000 per month of zero effort income.
Per Year.
I'm not good at making signatures...
Not sure a guy who can afford to buy an island in Hawaii should be giving economic advice. Concentrating so much wealth into the hands of a few people is unkind, manipulative, and I daresay Evil.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
https://www.theatlantic.com/na...
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
As the article points out... there is no "specifically" or "expressly" written into that amendment. That word was used in the Articles of Confederation, but were INTENTIONALLY left out of the Constitution. The article not only explaines that, but also goes into detail on why, and how, and what the author of that amendment thought about limiting the federal government:
When Representative Thomas Tucker of South Carolina moved to insert the word "expressly" into what became the Tenth Amendment, Madison (in an eyewitness account reprinted in The Complete Bill of Rights, edited by Neil Cogan) "[o]bjected to this amendment, because it was impossible to confine a government to the exercise of express powers, there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the constitution descended to recount every minutiae. He [Madison] remembered the word 'expressly' had been moved in the convention of Virginia, by the opponents to the ratification, and after full and fair discussion was given up by them, and the system allowed to retain its present form." Tucker's amendment was voted down.
But lets get to the even bigger picture here of what's really going on. Read the 10th again, and note the last 4 words: "or to the people." Some times when 10th'ers talk about the encroach of the federal government onto the states, what it is is they don't wan't the feds telling them they can't use tyranny of the majority to strip away peoples rights.... such as with same sex marriage. The Supreme Court didn't find a "new" right for people, but it reaffirmed that marriage to the person of your choice is a fundamental right, a right OF THE PEOPLE, and that states could not curtail those rights through tyranny of the majority.
States rights people are not fighting for people to have more rights, or even equal rights... they're fighting to let states be allowed to be tyrants.
....establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity....
And for your notion that "general welfare" and defence" are the only two things important, and for some inexplicable reason they're importance is manifest by where they fall in that line (3rd and 4th out of 5 things) outright ignores everything else in that line, and , well, i seriously cannot think of a rational reason for such a suggestion. You could just as easily say that "establish justice" and "insure domestic tranquility" are the only two that matter because they were written next to each other, and they fall at #1 and #2.... it's a stupid argument on it's face.
On a last note, maybe you should read you're 1828 definition of welfare again;
1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.
A UBI would actually be pretty much a requirement to fulfilling that definition, as well as guaranteed health care.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Of course you can't print money fast enough to outpace inflation. Printing money increases inflation.
How the hell do you know what UBI would provide, in terms of housing, or anything else? UBI is at the fantasy stage.
Birthrates have been falling in industrialized nations for decades, if not longer. Losing a significant percentage of jobs to further industrialization (robots, whatever) should only increase the trend.
Many are from rural villages
Villages are, by definition, rural.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
... our provincial government is a bunch of idiots. I have no idea how they won the most recent election.
The idiots didn't come out of nowhere. Your whole province must be filled with idiots.
This is why Bill Gates suggested we tax robot workers.
How do you tax a robot that usually earns no money for its job? :->
Sounds like a cheap version of the wealth-sharing program that awful Gaddafi allowed Libyans to benefit from:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/l...
Here's what got him killed (thanks to central bankers):
https://www.rt.com/news/econom...
You really don't understand freedom.
Try the Declaration of Independence... it's a good definition of freedom.
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundations on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to Them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Well, so then what's the alternative?
> Don't care.
The don't argue against UBI on economic grounds.
And history is full of people who "don't care" and who were removed from their position of privilege by the poor using force.
we celebrate disruptive technologies , e.g. MP3 player vs tape/CD. Well we are about to enter a disruptive economic period whey the old economics and wealth and privilege values are about to get removed too. The people making old tech fought against their replacement, but they still lost.
I think UBI will happen one day, and will be disruptive on world governments. It will be a ripple that will go around the world.
The problem is, it's too early now. In the past as automation took jobs- new jobs were created in "thinking" positions. Now machines can think, those aren't so safe. There's not many places left to create new jobs for people.
However, we're not there yet. Most people CAN work. Most people CAN and DO find jobs still. UBI would be a huge risk right now.
Essentially it would cause inflation Give everyone $20k. Living now costs $18k more. Everyone currently with a job will feel a lot poorer as they're paying more in taxes than they get from the government and on top of that inflation is going up. Ironically, the people least impacted will be the rich, despite them necessarily having to foot a larger portion of the bill.
Eventually UBI will have to take hold when jobs become scarce. (I'm talking consistently 33% and higher unemployment) And when UBI does take affect, we'll all be relatively poor except the owners of the automations, but hopefully fewer people will live in absolute poverty.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Everyone's life is dependent on government, and has been since the first humans gathered together in units much larger than a few dozen families. The Libertarian philosophy you admire is simply a form anarchist fantasy. It could never exist, not in a society of any significant size.
When there is no government, the man with the biggest gun is the government.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Well, of course they are! The US was founded on principles totally off the scale by European standards! That was the entire reason the US declared independence! Totally incompatible basic principles!
The problem with your analysis (heavy on the anal, light on the sis) is that those principles were totally off the scale to the left. Now you're suggesting that they are an argument for right-wing politics?
Why does anyone think that the US should give up it's founding principles that differentiate it from the rest of the world and made it a super-power with the most individual freedom of any nation up to that point, or that it would be a good thing for the US?
What made the USA a superpower is that we not only sat back and watched but actually sold war supplies to the Axis during WWII, then entered the war very late after everyone else had been bombed to fuck. And what laid the groundwork for the USA to become a superpower was treaty violations and slavery. That you are proud of this shows what an ignoramus you are at best, or more likely, a shitheel.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The problem this kind of Socialism runs into is human nature.
You are always going to have a portion of the population become shiftless as they see living off the dole is better than working
They have free (as in paid for by taxpayers not as in beer) cell phones, land lines, computers, television, apartment, food stamps.
They get part of their food stamps as cash for liquor or drugs.
Because they do not have to work for anything single parent families are the norm, usually with everyone in Section 8 and on the dole. Poverty is not the only contributor to crime, in this Socialist utopia it is also boredom.
We're not debating what ACA was trying to accomplish, we're trying to establish if it was a power grab by the federal government
Keep reading that sentence until it fails to make sense. Int hat moment, the student will have been enlightened.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You make some reasonable points, but forget one of the big tenets of Capitalism. It's the quest for the allmighty dollar, and due to individual (or corporate) greed, it quickly becomes a "Screw you, I got mine and need more" mentality. Just look at the news regarding off-shoring corporate taxes. The Apples and Googles of the world make billions a year, yet pay minimal taxes and in some cases get paid instead. How exactly is that looking after your fellow man? How is that fair and even taxation?
If you want another counter-example of just how great the U.S. is, take a look at our debts and where we borrow from. We owe billions, if not trillions, to China yet we send billions in foreign aide to places like Israel. That's right, we cut funding for our own education, increased spending on standardized testing (now ~10% of the school year), cut after-school programs, and still give borrowed money to other nations. Capitalism is a great way to make money, but it's not a great way to boost a nation. The middle class has been slowly disappearing, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The government doesn't step in to level the playing field because they are bought and paid for by the rich.
We already have this, under a different name. Refundable Tax Credits.
This includes the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Additional Child Tax Credit ($1,000 per kid, last I checked), and others.
The IRS code has for many years been a sneaky back door to additional welfare/subsidies/credits/what have you.
Yet another reason to reform & simplify the tax code, and be honest about what we're doing.
Most humans are basically lazy, and will do minimal work for maximum pay.
That's a very cynical attitude to humanity I greatly disagree with.
Most humans want to be accomplished and do something meaningful and enjoyable that they can relate to.
If many humans are perceived like that, it's probably because many companies force their employees to work under bad conditions for shit pay. You get what you pay for.
Or perhaps you are projecting your own attitude towards life on all others.
It is clear that the intended meaning was that "welfare" was adjunct to "defence".
No, no it is not. Dictionaries don't work the way you want them to work. In the absence of an explicit explanation, any or all of the meanings could apply. That is why legal documents are chock-full of definitions today.
The constitution mentions defense and welfare in the same breath. If you didn't mean welfare separately, you wouldn't have to mention it at all — if it were all about defense, then you could simply say "look, it says defense, and we won't be defended if people are starving, so right now we will feed people" without any mention of welfare. That it was explicitly mentioned suggests that it was intended to be distinct from defense, and that it was mentioned in the same sentence suggests that it was intended to be considered as important as defense.
It's sad that you don't know how dictionaries or legal documents work.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
People in poverty:
Don't care.
Since you don't care about people being in poverty, which is a situation you help create through your lifestyle, I stopped reading right here and decided that you should probably be shot in the face. See, I "don't care" about you, either.
Maybe we should care about one another, because the alternative is that we shoot one another in the face, because there's not enough resources for us all to go around when we live the way we are living right now — living by a puritan ideal that enshrines make-work which our biosphere cannot sustain.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your forward-thinking is jumping the gun a bit. We are a long, long way from having a society where most people have no jobs. Like, 100 years or more.
Even then, when I look at human want and desire- I see no end to the jobs that will be created. A small family farmer can manage thousands of acres, yet I see no mass unemployment when I check on my iPhone, on my home wifi, in my home, filled with stuff...
There are other metrics one could use, however, if one were not a money-obsessed parasite like, sadly, the people who are buying the laws. For instance, buying off the public has better outcomes. Killing off the public will make a mess. At minimum you have a bunch of corpses to deal with, but probably there will be a lot of property damage as well.
The biggest problem, though, is that the people buying the laws don't want a sort of Star Trek-esque future, because in that future they will be just another guy. If they've even seen Trek, they know that they will be just another Mudd.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You don't have to be sure or even worry about it much: Zuck's credibility on weighing in on this issue is about the same as yours or mine.
I disagree strongly, because...
It's a bit like Beyoncé telling you how to vote:
...well it's funny that you mention voting because the only really meaningful votes you can cast are with dollars, and Zuck's got a bunch of 'em. That means, like it or not, that he gets a larger voice in economic debates than you do. Or, you know, any kind of debate. He is exactly the kind of person who needs to support MGI if we are going to have MGI: one in a position to help foot the bill.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you make less than, say 30K a year, your tax rate would be negative and you'd get money back instead of paying into it. This would help with people who are on minimum wage, and it couldn't be exploited by those who don't need it.
The problem with a negative income tax is that you now have to make tax time come every month (or more!) in order for people to get their payments. Converting the Social Security office to the MGI office and having it make flat payments to everyone and then taxing it away from people who don't need it at the end of the year is not only probably significantly cheaper to administer than having tax time twelve times a year (even with a simplified tax code that we never seem to get) but also means that if someone's financial situation changes partway through the tax year and they go broke, they don't have to wait long for an MGI payment to cover their basic needs.
A big part of the argument for MGI is that it simplifies administration. If you're making a counter-proposal, you need to be certain that it simplifies the system if you want it to be taken seriously.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Thats a horrible example, the janitor clearly does far more work than the majority of CEOs and should not be eating cat food to survive.
I don't think we'll have to worry about janitors eating cat food. Have you seen what it costs these days??
The days of old people and janitors living on cat food is long gone.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Mitt Romney got hurt in the 2008 Republican Primary for his 'Romneycare'. Romney was criticized as a liberal from Massachusetts. Some other plan was proposed in the early Clinton years as a distraction from Hillary's health care plan. Hell, W was criticised heavily for Medicare Part D.
That is exactly why both Romneycare and Obamacare are such good examples of a plans worthy of bipartisan support. If conservatives were thrilled about either Romneycare or Obamacare, it would mean the liberals would be furious. For the Republicans to mostly dislike Romneycare, but still be willing to put Romney on their Presidential ticket, shows it was a great compromise. For Medicare part D to bring heavy criticism to Bush, but for his base to still turn out enough for him to win reelection, again shows it was a good compromise.
Both sides don't have to be thrilled for a bill to be worthy of bipartisan support.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
we pay into social security. if i can opt out of making SS payments sure ill forgo my check.
I have a well, i paid someone to put in that well, so im not dependant on someone else cleaning it.
roads existed well before the 20s
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The point of capitalism is to create a bigger middle class, not a bigger sponge class. Someone has to pay the bills.The fat cats have armies of lobbyists and lawyers to avoid taxes. That effectively leaves the rest of us.
If you are fixated on the minimum wage, your economic policy is a failure.
The point of Capitalism is to make money for the capitalists. The fact that they accumulate wealth for themselves, keeping it out of the hands of others, and then, as you point out, spend some of it to avoid giving much of it back to the society that enabled their hoarding makes me wonder who the actual sponges are.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The poor can't be taken care of because the majority of them are never going to leave that life behind. It's not some great oversight that created them. There are great masses of them that literally lack the will and intelligence to get off their asses and earn a living and everything since Johnson's Great Society has taught them now that they don't have to. Fuck the poor. I've been poor and it's not that hard to get out of it if you are willing to put some sweat equity in your life.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Maybe we should care about one another, because the alternative is that we shoot one another in the face
You should rewrite the Bible.
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Stupider than fuck people don't get that when you have an endlessly increasing number of people who contribute nothing at one end and a bunch of rich people who do everything in their power to contribute as little as possible on the other end you can't milk the people who go to work every day dry trying to pay for those poor lazy fuckers at the bottom. Any time you give them anything to "lift them up" they turn it into a lifetime handout and a lifestyle. Who was supposed to live in public housing forever? Nobody but look around the country at generations born in it who you now can't get out of it. Eventually enough people will succumb to the handout and then what's the point? It's a race to the bottom and you end up with people who won't work. Why don't you morons get that?
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
There is no greater fallacy today than the belief the government must tax what it spends. All money is created by a ruling sovereignty. There is a reason the Secret Service is one of the oldest institutions around - counterfeiting is a direct attack on sovereignty.
Taxes are about inducing demand for state currency, and in modern economies, controlling for the inflation that comes from a government regulated banking system. You'll know the income tax was legalized within months of passing the Federal Reserve Act. Now you know why.
What a load of hogwash.
Except for recent actions like "quantitative easing" and other pump/dump strategies, way less than half of the "money" is created by sovereignty. It is created by the banks (and other financial institutions). Part of it is regulated by fraction reserve lending, the other part is the wild west (e.g., credit default swaps). The government tries to monopolize this by creating some demand by "taxation", but that only affects a portion of the "money" that gets exchanged (because many transactions are shielded from taxation).
For example, just the other day, Apple created $7B out of thin air by issuing bonds backed by money in Ireland out of the reach or purview of the Fed. The global Credit Default Swap market is estimated at around $500 trillion. Compared to the federal reserve about about $1.6 trillion actual deposits times the reserve ratio of 10% would only be a fraction of only the CDS market, not even including the corporate bond market and other financial derivative markets.
The cart is now driving the horse for better or worse...
In modern times, if the govt were to simply try print money to increase its budget, it probably couldn't print it fast enough to outpace inflation (as many countries that have tried have found out the hard way).
It's not hogwash. Taxes create a demand for currency. That's not important now that the Federal Reserve Note is a standard and accepted currency. But back when it was introduced they needed a way to ensure a demand for the new currency. Taxation in dollars fills that need.
You are correct that most dollars are created through fractional reserve lending. But that doesn't address the fact that the US government can and does spend without taxing. Yes, it adds to the "debt". But you know as well as I do that it doesn't matter. There will always be debt, because every dollar represents debt. It's just a matter of who is holding it. The US government cannot just print money with abandon, as you point out. But as long as the money supply doesn't grow faster than the overall economy, the Fed can print money for the government to spend.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
> People in poverty:
Don't care.
They don't want to change or they don't think they can. Liberals will happily enable them and tell them they can't.
UBI is not going to solve the urban crime problem. Those people already represent some degree of ambition and consumerist hunger. They want more than their mere pittance and they are willing to do whatever it takes to get it.
Hey look, someone else who thinks poor people are poor because they just don't want to work! As if there are all these unfilled, good paying jobs, but so many people would rather live in squalor. But hey, at least you can feel superior and absolve yourself of any sympathy by judging them and assuming you know fuck all about their lives.
I also love how you confuse desperate choices borne from a lack of legitimate options with "ambition and consumerist hunger". You seem to understand on some level that these people are turning to a life of crime, which is dangerous and will probably end with them dead or in jail, because they have no other options between that and a mere pittance. Yet you can still think that poor people are poor because they're lazy and make bad choices. It's the definition of doublethink.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
However, we're not there yet. Most people CAN work. Most people CAN and DO find jobs still. UBI would be a huge risk right now.
It doesn't matter if "most people" can get a job still if enough people can't to be more disruptive to the economy than MGI. And here's what's really nuts: MGI will stimulate the economy. The only people who stand to "lose" are the ultra-wealthy who are currently hoarding all the cash needed to make the system work. I put lose in quotation marks because they are just sitting on that money. They have more money than they can literally spend within their lifetimes. And if they want to care for their offspring, what better way than by helping to secure the welfare of the nation by prying that money out of their crusty, dusty offshore bank accounts? That money will be given to people who will then spend it, increasing economic activity.
Eventually UBI will have to take hold when jobs become scarce. (I'm talking consistently 33% and higher unemployment)
How well do you trust the official unemployment estimates? Looking around, the signs of unemployment are up, while the unemployment statistics say it's down. But every time I go out I see more homeless, more empty storefronts. People keep saying that we'll see more service jobs take over as retail jobs go away, but I don't see more service establishments opening up as retail spaces empty. It's just deteriorating spaces. And I'm talking about jam-packed cities and bedroom communities along the 101, not empty wastelands in bumfuck.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I also live in Canada. Though I always thought it silly that dental and eyes are not covered (haven't had to worry about ears yet). If you look at the market, those are also where people get gouged, largely because of monopolistic professional organizations. My glasses are about 800$, and there isn't much I can do about it, even shopping around. Ditto with dental, you pay what they tell you to pay and you have little choice but to go without. Some employers have benefits for those which help, but many people do not. I always like the example that someone could come punch me in the face and knock out a tooth, and I'm on hook for paying for it, while if he broke his hand doing so, it would be covered by universal health care. Just using as an example, and I know you could sue the guy for for the cost, however at the same time the idiots that would likely do something like that are not going to have any assets to sue for anyway making it moot. Of course rather than including them in the universal system they could fix the problem and regulate it more, but then again is that more or less difficult/expensive.
My other beef with the system is medication. Not so much that it isn't free, but more so that it isn't universal. It is managed at the provincial level which is silly. I know there have been various federal politicians that have promised to do something about it by doing national bulk purchasing from suppliers, but so far it hasn't happened. There are plenty of instances where a particular drug is available in one province, but not another, meaning you either have to use something different, more expensive, or move someplace that has it. Case in point my sister required medication in our home province, but the inexpensive version wasn't available. My parents figured out that the a University covered it under their student plan, and it was cheaper to enroll my sister in university so she could get the drug (with the spin off of additional education I suppose) than to simply pay for it, so she was a professional student for a time. Anyway how medications are handled in Canada could really use some standardization and modernization, particularly with much of our population aging and going to require more in the way of medications in the foreseeable future.
Also on the whole poverty issue (and UBI really), is that I'd say if Canada did a better job addressing addiction and mental health that would probably account for 2/3 of the issue. For the remaining 1/3 (of non-addicted, mentally well people), things like a better back to work/education opportunities/business growth policies would probably solve half of those again. For the rest, there is probably little anyone is going to do about it... might as well UBI, as a society we'll be paying for it one way or another anyway. For me one the saddest part of our society is that so many mentally ill folks without strong family support structures get left behind it seems.
That said, if I ever do get SS checks, you damn well better believe I will cash them. I've been forced to pay in to the system, I'm going to get out what I want.
Roads? Yeah, I'm forced to pay for those too, and alternatives are often not an option due to regulations and laws. So I'm going to use them too.
Same goes with water. I am not allowed to drill my own well, and the county has made sure that there is no competition to my current water provider, so absolutely I'll continue to use them.
I'm no fan of Ayn Rand, but it's the same BS argument used against her taking her gov't checks in the end, "Oh see? She was a welfare whore!" No, she paid in to the system because she had no choice, it would be economically stupid to let them keep it.
You're right, they couldn't move to another country, or move their business overseas. My bad /sarcasm
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I can't support a UBI because of all of the force and violence it would require to implement.
But you probably like Capitalism, with all the force and violence it requires.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
What you're overlooking is that there is less and less work to be had as automation takes over. Stop looking backwards and start looking forwards. For most lower level work, odds are high that 50+% of it will be automated within 20 years. Even burger flipping will be gone.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The minimum wage in the UK is less than £15,000, to keep one prisoner locked up for a year is £65,0000. We'd end up spending more money trying to keep them incarcerated instead of trying to help them get clean. If you take that £45,000 per year and put it into a rehabilitation program there is a chance that next year, you wont have to pay that extra amount. Incarceration for minor crimes increases recidivism.
Sure but we get to feel superior by judging people and then punishing them. Can you really put a price on that?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Alaska is successful in it's dividends since it makes money of profits from oil leases. Now that the price of oil is less than $55 a barrel, Alaskan citizens aren't makingmuch at all. As far as the entire concept, wherever it's been tried in real life it's utterly failed .
So, Zuck is fine with exploiting natural resources to fund a UBI?
Let's start drilling!
Medicare / Medicaid have to stay as health needs it's own system to fix it and even 20K / year UBI will only cover 1 night in the ER.
They can but they generally don't. The rich fleeing from taxes has historically not been a real thing. The Gerard Depardieus of the world are very much the exception rather than the rule. Turns out they'd still greatly prefer to live in a nice civilization than to hole up in a fort in Somalia.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That's a silly ad hominem attack. Ayn Rand's views are rational and nuanced, she understood and described the collectivist ideology to such a fine degree that it makes it impossible for them to attack her ideas, they can only attack her personally.
Ayn Rand had a thing for powerful men and a half-baked philosophy to go with it. She was completely blind to the fact that wealthy people can and do act myopically and irresponsibly. To her they were all industrial supermen. One of her students, Alan Greenspan, put it well, "I made a mistake in presuming that the self interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders" Self-interest, and the greed it excuses, led us to the brink of economic collapse. Greenspan acknowledged the flaw in his ideology; Rand's ideology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkLDdQ3HORo
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I see a lot of "outdated" but nothing about why you people think/claim so.
Rand is just one of numerous Philosophers who believed that the individual is more important than the State. Natural Law predates the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution by thousands of years. Socrates, Cicero, Luther, Locke, much later Rand, and countless others in between.
Many of the ideas like UBI sound like new Utopian ideas, but they are regressive. Same stuff we see from Hegel, Marx, and others who promote a State over the individual.
The US is known as the great experiment because it was the first nation to promote the individual over the Government, not the Government over the individual. The Government being untrustworthy if given too much power has been played out over and over since, and it never works out well for the individual.
GP is correct, there is a difference between two schools of thought in Philosophy. It is very distinct. By your own statement, somehow marked informative, your answer is "That's a simplistic, Carl Marx view of the world that a 13 year old would have. Life ain't that simple, kiddo."
Oh how the masters would love to have complete power to take money from some and give to others under the guise of "helping" society. Seems quite strange that the people promoting these policies are consistently the richest people in the world doesn't it? Would Gates, Zuckerberg, and Musk be worth many tens of billions by themselves if they were so worried about the poor lowly commoner? Think very hard about that answer.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
One group working hard while another gets something for nothing results in greater divisiveness and resentment, particularly when times are tough.
This is true. Once all the workers, who actually do the producing, realize how much the owners are skimming off the top, there could be hell to pay.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Which other country was as oil-dependent AND as broke as Venezuela? They're not exactly comparable to the UAE.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You're living in the 1950's.
So you're saying the R's are the party of conspiracy theories these days? Have you watched Rachel Maddow, or opened the Washington Post lately?
The point of Capitalism, is that it creates wealth. Your stupid moronic UBII only distributes wealth and does nothing for wealth creation. It will fail, and if we're lucky it won't destroy everything along with it.
Your description of Capitalism applies perfectly to every Socialist and Communist society I have ever seen.
You are engaging in a bait-and-switch. You demonize billionaires, but taxing billionaires can't feed the welfare state, there simply isn't enough money there. The people progressives and the left are actually are proposing to "tax out of existence" are professionals: entrepreneurs, small business owners, doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, people who have worked hard for a lifetime to accumulate the skills necessary to make a few times median wage.
Your goals and policies are again inconsistent. If you are concerned about too much consumption and too much pollution, the last thing you want to do is to transfer money from high earners to low earners via taxes or a UBI, because that is a classic way of increasing consumption; that's the whole point of such Keynesian policies.
Because it's not possible for all of us to live in a cabin in the woods and hunt game for food anymore. We're living in a world-wide economy, like it or not, and everything is increasingly interconnected. Letting your fellow Americans starve in the streets because AIs took their jobs is neither humane nor economical in the long run.
Give everyone $20k. Living now costs $18k more. Everyone currently with a job will feel a lot poorer as they're paying more in taxes than they get from the government and on top of that inflation is going up.
I'm not sure I buy this. In an isolated scenario, you'd be correct. However, even today, we have a large swath of the population covered under some kind of safety net program that would be replaced by UBI. And those programs have not caused living costs to rise as much as the safety net funding.
The problem as I see it is that programs in the US are always half-assed. We don't ideologically want UBI, so instead we institute 50 different anti-poverty programs that end up doing 70% of what UBI would do and costing 100% more for administration and "means testing".
Even the military-industrial complex is basically one giant welfare program. Tons of money goes in, very little actual tech comes out. Most of that money is appropriated because said defense contractor "creates jobs" in areas where congress-critters need votes. Are those jobs actually adding value? Or are they jobs for the sake of giving someone a job? And what's the difference between that and just cutting a citizen a check directly? Wouldn't it be more efficient?
So while in principle your analysis of increased income would lead to increased prices, a cursory look at current data doesn't seem to suggest that.
I would theorize that the increased productivity from having basic needs met outweighs the inflationary forces that increased universal income would cause.
How well do you trust the official unemployment estimates? Looking around, the signs of unemployment are up, while the unemployment statistics say it's down. But every time I go out I see more homeless, more empty storefronts.
Anecdote != data. Your immediate surroundings are not indicative of 320+ million people.
While "unemployment" can be a fuzzy number, "people with full time jobs with benefits" is much easier and less fuzzy to answer. And you can take the total 18-65 population count and subtract the number of full-time jobs with benefits to get to the most basic of "unemployment" numbers. As a percentage of population, it's decreased over the past 8+ years.
That being said, the absolute number is growing as the population grows. Which means the economy isn't growing enough to give everyone reaching the age of 18 a job to fill. Now, historically that has always been the case. We've always hovered around some percentage of unemployment that's similar to today's numbers (with slightly higher highs such as in 1990 vs lower lows like in the 1970's). So maybe there's just nothing we can do about it.
Actually, 0.9% lower payroll taxes, 2.5% lower marginal corporate profits taxes, top tax bracket falls from 39.6% to 35%, and the least-advantaged are single-earners making $200k/year with only about $2,700 more spendable income.
Essentially a tax cut on everyone, and stronger support than modern welfare benefits. It's not a hard problem.
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if you penalise someone for a bad habit they wont stop, they'll just become sneakier about it. If you send them to prison for it, they'll just learn even more bad habits
I see this with kids all the time, your preaching the truth.
Cheap storage VM.
If you ask kids what they want to do when they grow up, none of them say they want to do the least work possible.
You might get that answer if you ask someone who has been forced into working shitty jobs for years.
This tells me what type of person we're talking to.
Cheap storage VM.
The idea behind UBI is that it gives the recipient the absolute least amount of money to basically survive on. Similar to welfare but the money doesn't get clawed back if you get any income. The idea is that since there will be less jobs available to get employed in it allows a person to come up with their own way of making income without the fear that they will be living in a box behind the 7-11. Pretty much every western country in the world is looking into it as it isn't a question of if, it's a question of when. A lot of the money that goes into social assistance (disability, Unemployment insurance, govt pension plans, etc) is to ensure that there is no abuse. With UBI, these all go away.
What you will definitely see is a tightening on immigration though.
>we pay into social security. if i can opt out of making SS payments sure ill forgo my check.
Do it. You can if you really want to. If you're paying you're doing so willingly.
The constitution explicitly states that the federal government is only to receive funding from the States themselves (and not Citizens). The only reason you're paying is because you don't know how to defend yourself in court, and the lawyers are all officers of the court, trained & indoctrinated in its higher protocols, but void of fundamental plain understanding.
You might have to forgo being a U.S. federal citizen, and instead merely become a U.S. national/state citizen.
This should not be called "Basic Income", but "Citizen's Dividend". After all all citizens own the resources of the country so they should receive a dividend.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Not Fantasy, conceptual stage.
Buddy's wife works for the Privy Council here in Canada and they are already talking about it.
Something is going to need to be done. Doubt it will be in my lifetime but it is going to be a shakeup similar to the Internet or electricity
Clearly, Schmuckerberg doesn't understand that the money Alaskans get comes from the sale of oil. Furthermore, he doesn't understand how much money people spend to essentially rent they entire daily life. You rent your living space either by renting a home or apartment or by paying a mortgage and property tax. You rent your healthcare by paying a ridiculously high insurance premium and no, your employer doesn't really pay for it. You rent your car by getting a new one every three years. You rent your telecommunications and your utilities particularly when you don't use them in the form of "service fees". You rent your entertainment. Everything. There are fewer and fewer things that you own outright.
All a universal basic income does it disguise the fact that you're renting more and more of your life in exactly the same way that income tax withholding fools people into thinking that they get a tax refund every year and that government spending doesn't affect them. Full time employees are also fooled into thinking that their employer pays their healthcare and social security. No, they don't. You just get a smaller paycheck every other week.
When the actual dollars don't pass through an individual's hands, the person has no appreciation for it.
Lawyers are interesting since there is less need for articling students due to improvements in search engines. Why hire someone to read through dusty books for finding precedence when you can find it with a well executed search query.
The government must tax what it spends.
See the Wiemar Republic. See most countries in Africa. See the history of France. See Greece. See Spain. See Italy.
How would you end the cycle of poverty?
Education is supposed to be the great equalizer, but equal education for all won't end the cycle of poverty because poverty creates a cognitive load that puts poor people at a disadvantage compared to their wealthier classmates. The playing field is tilted in favor of the wealthy.
So how would you end the cycle of poverty? This is an important question because the lives of people trapped in poverty are dependent on the government, and that's a bad thing, right?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Pretty sure the at meglion used the term Progressive not Democrat or Republican and also pointed that at one time Republicans were the Progressives but now the Democrats are.
progressive: (of a group, person, or idea) favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.
1840: Progressive was advocating the elimination of slavery. AKA the early Republican Party
2010: Progresive is advocating the extension of healthcare to more citizens of the United States. AKA the Democratic Party
#ReadingIsFundamental
#ThingsChange
Unfortunately most individuals of child-bearing age can't really afford to have a kid. If you wait until you can afford a kid you get a situation like Japan is in where your population is shrinking and consequently the economy stagnates.
#BiologySucks
Historically, people in countries with planned economies that are centrally controlled don't do much.
In the car safety has to do more with how you and other drivers choose to drive. Everything else is isolated incidents.
And since when has the government done anything about terrorism? (Other than declare "the system worked" after a bombing?)
I'm born and raised in WV. The people of Appalachia had their culture and economy destroyed long before Johnson entered into the picture. In fact it was the startling poverty and deep despair of the region that led to the social projects in Appalachia. Especially during the new deal era but also with Johnson. From the moment the first logging companies bought nearly every available scrap of land and latter sold the land back to the citizens without the mineral rights our area was finished. The money from logging, coal, and natural gas have been drained out of the area and into the hands of large corporations in wealthy north eastern states while the people lived like indentured servants right into the mid 1900's. The wealth from resource booms other areas would have used to modernize infrastructure and educate the population was stolen from Appalachia. The social programs of the 30's, 40's, 60's, and latter had little culture left to damage.
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
Welfare fraud is already extremely rare. If it gets any more rare, it will be statistically nonexistent
I never called capitalism perfect... I'm only claiming that historically it's the only system that works consistently that we've come up with.
Also, you assume that people who are rich must have somehow broken some moral, legal or ethical rules to get where they are. While *some* may have, I'm positive that the majority of the super rich folks didn't cheat to get what they have. For those who did lie, cheat or steal their way to riches, that's why we have laws about fraud, unfair business deals and theft for the government to enforce. If the government fails to enforce those laws, why do we take it out on all rich people?
Personally, I know a couple of *really* rich folks who I've known for decades who where not that well to do when I met them. I know how hard they worked, how many hours they put in growing their business to what it is today. I don't begrudge them their wealth or envy their ability to buy expensive things, take expensive trips or live in expensive houses. They have been passing all this on to their kids, who won't have to work a day in their lives if they didn't want to. They didn't lie, cheat or steal what they have, why should we assume that the rich generally have?
What it boils down to here is plain old class warfare... "Tax the Rich" because they don't pay their fair share!
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Most humans are basically lazy, and will do minimal work for maximum pay. That is called "Capitalism",
It's called "economization". You want to expend the least means (time, effort) for the most gains. The opposite of economization would be for you to expend maximum means (work yourself to death) for the least gains (give me all your money).
Can you explain what happens when nobody is working because they all expect "a living wage" for not doing anything?
Well, that depends on a number of factors. Notably, the size of the income. Other things are at play, as well, primarily risk and that whole economization thing.
Take unemployment insurance.
If you work more than three jobs in three years, you don't get unemployment insurance. That means if Lockheed lays you off in early 2017 due to Legg Mason expanding and taking their contracts, and then Legg Mason lays you off in late 2017 due to the contract you were on expiring, and then T. Rowe Price lays you off in mid 2018 due to outsourcing their payroll to ADP, you're kind of stuck. When OmniTI lays you off in 2019, you'll be denied unemployment benefits.
Likewise, unemployment doesn't pay out if you're terminated with-cause. That means you should probably avoid taking a job if you can't keep your shit together; and the risk of an abrasive management chain has large consequences outside your own control, unless you're a useless, pandering asshole who will take getting a paycheck over doing anything useful.
On top of that, unemployment pays a certain amount of income. For me, this was equivalent to $10.25/hr. When FedEx offered me a job at $10.50/hr, I didn't even look; that's $10/week for 40 hours of work. By not working, I made $10.25/hr; by working, I would lose $10.25/hr and gain $10.50/hr, a net quarter per hour's work. No thanks.
As a result, unemployment has a certain kind of discouraging effect on work. To minimize your financial risk, you need to avoid getting a job for the full six months, and try to get employment as close to the end of that period as possible. On top of that, any job offer is devalued by the lost unemployment benefit. If they would continue to pay unemployment for the full six month term even if you got fired, then getting a job would make more sense.
Welfare is basically built around that.
There's also the problem that humans are tended toward self-preservation. If a human can't get sufficient means to live, he will find those means. No job, no welfare? Rob people. Steal stuff. Prostitute. Sell drugs. Do something to survive, to feed your family if you have that sort of thing. People won't just lay down and die.
So what happens when you give people some minimal benefit that allows them subsistence, but doesn't provide any real luxury in life?
Well, for one, there's no risk. If they get a job, lose the job, get the job, and so forth, nothing changes with their benefits. They don't lose benefits for working, they don't risk failing out of the welfare system.
Likewise, a job which pays close to their benefit amount is economical. What happens if you give a man $8,700/year, regardless of his situation? He sees a minimum-wage job paying $16,500/year, and it triples his income. Were you to remove the benefit when he gets employment, that job is worth $7,800/year and doesn't even double his income. The incentive to work is maximized.
Welfare systems have controls to prevent people from getting to the end of unemployment, getting a job, pissing everyone off, getting fired, and getting six more months of unemployment. Likewise, a person who receives welfare close to his working income will have little to gain from employment. A constant, irrevocable income supplement doesn't have those problems because such antisocial behavior doesn't incite a change in situation and working provides income in addition to the benefit.
So what will ha
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The idea is that since there will be less jobs available to get employed
Stop saying this, because it's absolutely untrue, and is a line of argument which demonstrates to reasonable people who actually make policy and cry out for policy changes that your idea is stupid.
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Not necessarily.
My own framework suggests giving naturalized American citizens a social security rendered as an end-of-the-year non-refundable tax credit. If it's supposed to pay out $8,000 and you owe $5,000 in taxes, you get $5,000. The other side of this is that you are now an aid-dependent member of the household: if the household income falls below the aid threshold, you get welfare services (childcare welfare stays around because you don't want to give people cash for children).
I've been looking harder at social security, though. There's a transition path out.
Currently, OASDI allows the accrual of "credits" for income earned. These credits determine your retirement benefit under OASDI. Under my system, OASDI only funds the difference between its benefit and the Universal benefit, so the credit system still stays around.
It would make sense to pay out to naturalized Americans based on their Social Security credits.
Let's say that the (average) $1,300 OASDI is replaced by a $729 universal benefit that pays when you hit age 18, and those in retirement age receive an additional (on average) $571 from OASDI. An American with freshly-granted citizen obviously has no credit, and gets none of this; instead, he receives that $8,750 as a non-refundable tax credit each year, and is eligible for welfare.
Now consider: five years later, this citizen has earned enough credits to be eligible for $250/month. Today, OASDI just says you're not eligible for retirement benefits. Under a universal Social Security, this new citizen receives $250/month, plus the remainder of the benefit as a non-refundable credit.
This inherits from OASDI the problem of not providing benefits to late-life immigrants; that's fine essentially because it's fine now. At the same time, an immigrant who comes to this country, gets citizenship, and then doesn't work is in exactly the same position as today. We've now controlled for the immigrant risk in a graceful manner.
While our own citizens are born here and learn to want for the luxuries of their working-class parents, immigrants come here from whatever lives they lived in whatever countries from which they come. They must learn to desire that higher standard-of-living that comes from gainful employment so as to become equivalent to the young adults just entering our workforce. We can care for them, and even afford them the benefit we grant to citizens; and we can do so without simply assuming all responsibility when we let them into this country. They will first learn what it is to be a working-class American, and then can decide if they'd rather to live on the scraps which we throw away--and I believe nobody wants to take that large step down.
So no, we don't need tighter immigration controls at all. We only need people who can figure out how to write legislation which controls for risks.
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Some of us are familiar with business and economics, and can construct things called budgets, business plans, and profitability projections.
As such, I based my initial attempt at universal social security strictly on what would make landlords and business owners richer than Warren Buffet in a year. Later I started using other peoples's budgets--only after I'd realized I didn't quite understand the income balance sheets and had essentially excluded the self-employed by only counting wages as personal income. That's fine: I'm tended to make mistakes in ways which disadvantage my position.
In practice, I went from a 17% tax and $564/month of income to a 15% tax and $729/month of income.
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I challenge you to name anything a CEO does fundamentally more insightfully than a McDonald's crew manager, or taking ideas gleanable from reading Slashdot or any other technically competent publication, putting the ideas on a dartboard, and throwing darts. Don't let me give the impression that I'm saying the CEO's ideas are of equal number or quality to random Slashdot readers, though. The CEO is inferior on both counts.
You remind me of a guy. His name was Adolf Hitler.
Hitler was an enlisted man in the army. He fought on the front lines. He knew how to fight a war, and what it was to face the enemy. Hitler knew, better than any general, how to face a complex tactical situation. He had seen their incompetence time and again, and thought to himself how much better it would have been if someone would have listened to his objections.
Hitler never went to officer school.
Then, Hitler became the leader of a country. That country went to war and, in a few short years, demonstrated the height of human incompetence in tactical and strategic warfare.
You think, with no concept of business risks, with no concept of marketing, with your blindingly-superior hindsight on how much better you could do, that you know better than Google and Microsoft on how to run a business?
IBM nearly failed thrice. Each time, IBM had looked at new products, new markets. They watched people get into those markets and fail, repeatedly, each trying to scrape out a position for themselves. They scoffed, and said that the market as-is was never going to change, and that these new toys were stupid.
IBM stayed out of the PC market after major players like Xerox failed. The VIC-20, the Sinclair, the Apple, the little things that scraped for market, hung around for a half a decade, maybe got a revision, and failed utterly? IBM said, "Those PCs will never amount to anything; computers are for businesses, and businesses want mainframes."
IBM almost lost that battle, as businesses started trying to escape the mainframe, even on the garbage that was clogging the pipes.
Finally, when their CEO came under fire, he passed his job to his kid of all people, who immediately directed the company to standardize, license, and produce its own PCs. Commodore was contracted to write the PCOS; they dicked around, and IBM passed the contract to Bill Gates, who bought QDOS and gave them MS-DOS. The PC market started to fill with players like RadioShack (Tandy) and HP, licensing IBM designs.
That's what happens when your CEO knows better than to bother with those obvious failures: your company collapses as we leave your old ass behind.
Microsoft lost the Zune battle because they thought they could go up against Apple's iPod. They lost the console battle because they thought they could wedge a place in with Sega, Sony, and Nintendo--oh, wait!
That's right: Apple jumped in on the music service thing where Rhapsody et al failed, where tons of MP3 players like the Creative Zen went nowhere, and they made a shitload. Microsoft got the gaming console market. Google has business services. Amazon got into online hosting, for some fucking reason--Microsoft didn't learn from their bout with Apple and... is also a major player in online hosting.
ffs, Google took on the iPhone and has 7x the market share, and with it a chunk of the revenue from app purchases and IAPs. Microsoft tried the same, and I bet you think they were stupid for trying to bring out the Windows phone, just like Google was for trying to bring out Android phones when they didn't even have a phone to sell.
I see you're a fantastic business strategist, though, because you can plug in a cable modem and read Yahoo Business to learn what product failed today.
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Problem: you can't just hand people money. Nobody is working; who is building these houses, maintaining these roads, and making the food?
For like 400 years, people have been saying that, just next decade, these new machines will end all human labor, and we'll all live with our mechanical servants caring for us. It hasn't happened yet, for important reasons: any machine which can do that has to be a sentient, creative intellect, which is essentially human, will want rights, will want pay, will want free time, and thus won't be free. Anything less just paves the way for us to apply our labor to make even more shit.
More to the point, though, every industry has a break in it. The major break is the logistics of marketing: every business wants to exceed its peers, or at least keep its position, and so we have competition; and robots can't compete. Humans can utilize robots as they compete.
That doesn't get down to the recursion problem: robots aren't self-maintaining, and we need machinists and QA and such to keep the robots running. There are little things for which we'd use more labor to build and maintain robots than to do on our own. Instead of 3,500 people running a candy factory, we use fewer than 300; and we use those 300 people because the robots can't do some stuff cheaply enough.
In a decade, it'll be 30.
So you have two considerable situations: The rich have nothing because nothing is made, because they can't sell to anyone, and so can't remain rich; or everyone is rich because the means to make things are cheap and easy. Neither of these actually works out.
Thus you have the only remaining option: we have the same kind of working population as we have now. Oh, we might cut our working hours in half, because suddenly we can produce 3x as much and nobody wants that as much as they want 1.5x as much stuff and half the time spent working to get it. We'll still be a working society.
With a universal social security, the bottom of society--the poorest--have a minimal standard. What's just above that, though?
I've been trying to get a good visual down for this, but I'm not the world's best Web designer (I can't, at all). The policy is easy to work out, while the politics are... hard. Bear with me for a minute.
A universal Social Security, sufficient to better achieve the mission of our welfare services, without dismantling our welfare system, causes a reduction in taxes at all levels. In payroll, it's 0.9% marginal lowered taxes; in corporate profits, we fall from 35% to 32.5%; and the individual has greater retained take-home income when you include the benefits check that comes twice a month.
Currently, our personal income tax brackets range from 10%+6.2%(OASDI) to 28%+6.2%, then fall to 28% and climb back up to 39.6%. I've cut my proposal back to only tackle the naive implementation and leave straightening it out to the CBO, which means I inherit that flaw: the blunt proposal has the highest tax bracket on the middle class, like our 34.2% tax bracket on $91k (single)/$153k (married, 2 incomes under $118k).
Under that proposal, the impacts on taxable wages hit a low point around $200k, with only $2,800 more income (single earner). In other words: the total Federal taxes paid on $200k as a single earner falls from 27.53% to 26.15%.
At $50,000, it's about $5k more spendable income single, $13k more spendable income married.
Let's look at minimum wage, though.
The poorest of poor end up with $8,751/year, or $17,502 for a two-adult household. That's in untaxed income (benefits disbursement). If you have no job and no income, that's where you stand.
At minimum wage ($8.25/hr), one full-time income gets a single earner $7,204 more income than today, $21,579/year, or $12,828 more
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Actually, the state enforces laws to prevent people from driving dangerously. In countries without such laws, you see a lot of insanity on the road (and lots of vehicular incidents resulting in death and dismemberment).
Likewise, fire protection is important for stopping the spread of fires, which can destroy your property and quickly make it impossible for you to retain your employment and financial position. In my case, the house in which I live has a firewall; yet the roof over each porch is connected by a single span of continuous wooden framework. Fires spread from house to house easily, just with a small delay since they have to go around. A few years ago, a house here caught fire from an errant cigarette, and seven houses burned down before the fire department got the fire under control.
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I actually blame people like you.
From a policy perspective, I can easily put an end to all homelessness and hunger in the United States, and get an enormous cut in taxes across the board doing so. It's a trivial problem.
This ends in personal income tax brackets falling from 39.6% at the top end, and corporate income taxes falling from 35% to 32.5%.
So people like you look at a state in which the poor are able to eat, retain living quarters, afford utilities, clothe themselves, and care for their hygiene, and ... ... ... immediately complain about the rich not being taxed more.
Fuck the poor; nobody cares about them. Solving poverty isn't the point; we need to beat the people who have more than the rest of us. They have more money, but we have more sticks.
That's what we're up against. That's what's impeding social progress: people wave their hands in the direction of the dirty, homeless, starving poor while looking up at the mansions of the rich and complaining that we need to tear those down for whatever reason.
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"Everyone's life is dependent on government"
Where do tax revenues come from? Not the government.
You cannot have a government without individuals.
You can have individuals without any government.
See how the dependency works here?
How do you know the credibility of every person on such an issue? I can lay out and competently defend a detailed framework for providing a stable social security benefit in America with a tax cut everywhere, immediately remediating the problems with our welfare system, ending hunger in the United States, and making homelessness a thing that happens to people in other countries and Aesop fables.
I can't seem to get the politics quite right, though. I'm starting to think people are right about that stick thing: the upcoming recession is the next opportunity for change, because people need to be in great pain before they're motivated to listen and act.
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The United States is, historically, a social democracy as well.
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Every citizen should have the income to afford an internet connection and computer to access Facebook. Every citizen should have the means to purchase the products they see advertised to them on Facebook.
In other shocking news, Mark Z. is a proponent of an unhindered H1-B programs and open immigration in general (really). He sponsors propaganda on the subject.
If you fund it as a percentage of all income (i.e. a flat income tax earmarked for a social security benefit, next to the progressive general fund tax), it increases in purchasing power year after year.
This is because gdp-per-capita increases year after year, and so a percentage of that also increases at the same rate.
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We might (or might not) be far away from a time of 100% unemployment, but I think the disappearance of the consumer class is a lot closer.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
How well do you trust the official unemployment estimates? Looking around, the signs of unemployment are up, while the unemployment statistics say it's down. But every time I go out I see more homeless, more empty storefronts.
That might very well be a regional issue. It's certainly not true where I am. I see fewer homeless people now than I did 10 years ago. Far fewer "will work for food" signs. Either the county has scared them all away, or there are fewer of them after help. (I couldn't say which is the real reason). I can walk down main street now without being asked for money to buy "medicine" every 100ft.
We have more stores and restaurants being built than are being closed down here too. I'm sure all this is very regional though. As one place grows another may be contracting.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The French aristocracy thought much the same, right up until their heads were being shoved into Madame Guillotine.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And you of course have the data to show they lack the intelligence, right? I mean, you wouldn't just be making that up to satisfy your own particular prejudices. That would make you a pretty vile and repugnant human being.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Hey, instead of getting upset at the deal that the worker agreed to (or that you and I agreed to, presuming that we have jobs) what about just let the worker go into business for himself?
Don't like the deal? Don't join it, don't sign up for it.
Think you could do better on your own? Go and have at it and more power to you.
Think you would be such a better person if you were in charge? Feel free to start your own company and be the magnanimous awesome person that you say you are.
Until then, stop complaining.
Communism and socialism look wonderful on paper, too, and if that's all there was to it, we'd all be living in one or the other and everything would be lovely. But both of those systems overlook some undeniable truths: human greed, human lust for power, and how power corrupts humans. So it is with your so-called 'universal basic income' and with the alleged automation allegedly taking everyones jobs. Corporations and the Rich won't give a crap about anyone but their profits, will weasel out of paying taxes like they always do, the country will become bankrupt and collapse, the poor will get poorer, the middle class will disappear into the ranks of the poor, and no one who isn't already rich and powerful will ever be anything other than poor -- and the rich and powerful will pay lip service to 'ending poverty' and do NOTHING about it, just like always. The poor will be used like a toilet like they always are. There won't be any 'being productive', there won't be any 'accomplishments', not unless you're one of the Privileged who can afford to do anything other than scrape by on your government dole and otherwise live like animals. This is not Star Trek, there is no great social awakening, we still have war everywhere, we still have racism and sexism and bigotry, we still have money and capitalism, and all the 'Universal Basic Income' in the UNIVERSE isn't going to change ANY of that. Stop living in a fantasy world! IT WON'T WORK!
at how the incredibly , ridiculously, absurdly wealthy have fantastic, wide reaching plans for spending someone else's money.
Stop making the bogeyman less bogey...
Like Zuckerberg arguing for UBI....
I tire of the argument about how poverty makes everyone terrible, and it's not their fault.
You know what? My Dad's family had six kids, were essentially sharecroppers. My grandmother worked in a one room school house, back when teacher was the only job a woman could get. My grandfather, ten years her senior, spent 20 years farming, ten of them with cancer. My father tells stories of him plowing fields then stopping to vomit, then plowing another row.
All six children were reasonably successful. None of them were criminals. But we're led to believe that magically, because they were poor, they should all have been thugs, and that because of their poverty that would be OK.
It's the character of the parents that has the largest affect. But nobody pays attention to that.
I would encourage people to have more children. We need more people so we'll have more great thinkers and doers to solve the big problems and lead into the future. That means it would be a very good idea to encourage breeding. The planet can easily sustainably support 50 billion humans. The key is not to over use. It's not hard. And you don't have to go vegetarian either.
> A UBI would actually be pretty much a requirement to fulfilling that definition, as > well as guaranteed health care.
Interesting. How do you propose to force another to provide a service to you, except via force?
Guaranteed health care is the ultimate expression of such force. By right do you have to force a physician to do a thing at some price you decided? It's grossly immoral in any free society.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Um, you mean ultra left and moderately left political parties.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Not remotely simplistic...that's the very definition of individualism vs. statism.
The simplistic person is the one who advances that discredited philosophy.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Question about a UBI: If this is a thing I own because it's given to me, can I sign it away to some other entity in return for, say, a lump sum payment?
Why or why not?
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
You mean like in Cuba, Venezuela, Russia?
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Your post reads like a shill, but on the off chance you are simply ignorant..
Coming from Texas where there's not a whole lot of federal government representation (outside of the federal court system)
If you are really from Texas you have much more than just courts. DEA, ICE, FBI, and shit tons of military. I served in the US Army and spent most of my permanent duty station in Texas.
it always stuns me to hear this great hatred of the federal government
Expressing distrust in the accumulated powers is not "hatred". The Federal Government has a purpose, and is restricted in its purpose by Law. The name for that Law is the US Constitution.
and I've not understood why a "power grab" that is represented as better health care for everyone.
Well, then you don't even bother to try. The only way to pay for "health care for everyone" is to take money from those of us who already pay into the system. More than 50% of my income goes to taxes, 28% of which is Federal (not including extra Federal like SS, Medicaid, etc...) I don't make enough money to have shit tons of write offs like a millionaire, but like most Middle class people can't get very far ahead because of taxes. The claim that this money all comes from the top 1% is simply bullshit, because there are not enough of those people to pay the budget. In fact, we are 20Trillion dollars in debt even with all of the billionaires, millionaires, and people like me who pay taxes.
Is this a states' rights issue or who exactly are they stealing power from, and why are you so opposed to it?
With even cursory knowledge of the US Constitution you would understand that any power not expressly defined for the Federal Government is a State issue. If NY wants to overtly tax people and give their money away, that is their power. What would happen is what we see happening already, where people from NY and CA are moving to States who don't tax the shit out of them to redistribute their income.
So when CA and NY go broke (I can't say much about NY but CA is already broke and will be bankrupt in 5 years by the best estimates) people will vote in new leadership who will change the laws and make taxes fair.
Perhaps you have heard the phrase "No taxation without representation!", but then again you could be a product of public schools. Time to do some homework.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
How do you propose to force people to pay for cleaning the water you drink, the air you breath, keep the food you eat safe, to lay down roads for you to drive on, to train and upkeep a police department to keep you safe, a fire department to protect your home, and a military to protect you from even greater threats.
As for forcing a doctor to "do a thing," i assume you mean "practice medicine." Many doctors are in the business of saving lives because they actually want to help people. I know, that's an entirely alien concept to people like you, but it's true... some people actually care about someone other than themselves. Now, more directly to your question.... every industrialized country IN THE WORLD has some for of universal health insurance, and in every case it is cheaper than ours, and in many cases it has much better outcomes than ours. I do get it... your world view has been shaped by really stupid people probably your entire life, people who say that can't be done (even though it's done EVERYWHERE where there's not a bunch of republicans fucking things up for everyone). You're used to that level of stupidity, so naturally you think everyone must be that stupid. But they're not.
What is immoral are people who have been given a vast gift by being born into the US, who have grown up so well off BECAUSE OF prior generations building this country, and making sacrifices for the next generations, and those people then turn around and actively try to destroy this country for all generations to come... becoming nothing more than leeches from society. That is the current conservative, a leech on society attempting to destroy this county.
How this thread morphed into me pointing out the flaws of someones analysis of the 10th amendment, and correcting their reading comprehension on something they themselves posted is odd, but not unexpected. There's a lot of whiny little dipshits around that can't be bothered to actually read and understand what is written, and a lot more whiny little bitches that are simply too fucking stupid to understand anything.... so i pretty much was expecting someone like you to chime in eventually.
Now, i don't know that a UBI is the answer. I know that people living homeless and destitute is not, unless you eventually want to make a killing buying stock from the next resurgence of guillotine manufacturers.... so to speak. With automation coming as fast as it is, this is a question that is going to need solved in the near term though, and i can guarantee that stupidity and ignorance is not going to have the answer. As for universal health care... that is the answer. It's the answer everywhere except here because stupid people keep thinking everyone is as stupid as them, so nothing gets done. I'd like to think at least a few people in the US aren't that stupid, unfortunately stupidity is trying to drown them out. But, i don't need to tell you about stupidity, do i; you're intimately familiar with it.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
That might very well be a regional issue. It's certainly not true where I am. I see fewer homeless people now than I did 10 years ago. Far fewer "will work for food" signs. Either the county has scared them all away, or there are fewer of them after help.
Must have scared them away to California, then. That's where I'm seeing them, and no matter where in California I go, I'm seeing more of them than I used to.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I know New York ships their homeless out to the rest of the country. http://nypost.com/2014/09/06/d...
I've not heard of South Carolina shipping theirs out to California... but you never know.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Ah.... per year. Ok... that makes much more sense. For some reason, I thought he was talking about a monthly payment, but no clue what made me think he alluded to that in the original article now that I look back at it.
It just further reinforces my original points though. Even if Alaska was offering me potentially $1,000-$2,000 per MONTH to move there, I wouldn't consider it enough justification to do it.
You mean like in Cuba, Venezuela, Russia? Ferret
No, I'm thinking more like Mosaddegh in Iran and a host of Central and South American countries that had their democratically elected governments overthrown because they weren't playing nice with big western companies. Can't have local people making their own decisions, no siree! They might start thinking crazy things like their natural resources are there to benefit the population rather than be exploited by multinational corporations.
When Capitalism doesn't get its way, Capitalism sends in the CIA. Ask John Perkins about it sometime.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
You're one of those idiots who said all through the 70s as I grew of age that "Oh we will have blimps delivering everything here and there...."
Actually, I'm one of the people that still wish for flying cars, realizing that when they do arrive, they'll be quite a bit different than what was envisioned.
Let me ask you this since you are a frigging "Rocket Scientist, why the hell do you need an "income" if the entire damn world is automated to the point of nobody works anymore? Huh? It's ALL kumbaya free is what you keep telling me. What's up with this "income" bullshit?
Just riddle me that one?
How many houses are available on the cliffs overlooking that picturesque bay? How will you decide who gets one?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The only reason the ER is so expensive is because only the people that can afford to pay for it are billed NOT because there is anything particularly expensive about the ER. Here is a typical ER/Urgent Care situation, a kid falls down and needs stitches.
Stitches in the ER $1500-2500.
Stitches in Urgent Care $200-300.
Why is it that much different? Because urgent care can legally tell the 1 bum, 3 welfare moms, 2 illegals who came in before you who wanted free service to take a hike. The ER legally cannot reject anyone, which is why now there are very few private/commercial ERs anywhere not attached to a Local, State, or Federally run hospital.
When I was a kid in the 70's ERs were all the rage, they were rapidly becoming the McDonald's of the medical world. It was affordable, it was fast, and the service and quality was pretty decent and in some cases was beating doctor office visits on all three categories. Then the progressives got the wild idea that it should take care of everyone, not just those that can pay. Now the ER is slow, very expensive, over regulated, and the last place you want to go for treatment if you can help it.
All of which are socialist, all of which are quite successful, even with relatively high tax rates.
Tax rates in Canada are only slightly higher than the US for the average person. I think maybe 2% higher for the average person, and I feel like we get a lot of value for that minimal tax increase. Other countries on your list I don't know.
I wish I had a lawn.
Indeed. I did not vote for our current Government.
My family and I are planning to move across the country if things don't improve here.
I agree with all of your points. We're definitely on the same page for all of them, and that gives me some hope for the future of our country.
My 7 year old son has an auto-immune disease, and requires ~$600/month in prescriptions just to keep him alive. Thankfully we do have some personal coverage, but there are limits that can be inconvenient. The entire idea that we have to pay for life sustaining therapy for a child is absolutely ludicrous to me.
It is not curable, and will be with him his whole life. National average cost for people with his condition cost is over 1/2 million in their lifetime just spent on prescriptions for life sustaining therapy.
Which is obviously zero.
Which has....what to do with what? Mike Bloomberg is a Republican. Mike Bloomberg supports abortion and gun control laws. Therefore, gun control and abortion rights are Republican values, if we're just going by party labels used by rich scumbags.
Right, in the same way that public roads are a crime against humanity. Randian moron.
We need more people so we'll have more great thinkers and doers to solve the big problems and lead into the future.
And for every thinker and doer we'll get a dozen non-thinking non-doers, making the problems that much worse.
The key is not to over use.
What the hell does that mean?
Or, pull our heads out of Ayn Rand's rotting ass for a few seconds. Starting a business takes money. You think a poor person is going to manifest that money out of sheer force of will? You think a burger flipper at McDonalds can quit and be handed the reigns of a small oil company or baseball team the way George Bush was, despite any track record of competence (or employment in general) to speak of?
Yes, and we need lots of non-thinkers to support the thinkers. Not everyone can be a researcher, a rocket scientist, etc. We also need farmers, plumbers, mechanics, clerks, etc.
>"The key is not to over use."
>What the hell does that mean?
Don't overuse resources.
Live lightly.
Those that stay there are relatively content and unwilling to put forth the effort to get out of poverty. I don't know their individual IQ's but I'd call that "challenged in the area of intelligence" Admittedly it could also be simple laziness on their part. Much like bears who would no doubt prefer a salmon but are unwilling to stray far from the dumpster that's conveniently filled for them every day many of the poor take their handouts, live in their trailers and public housing, and buy drugs/booze, rims, and poorly made firearms. I don't care what anyone things of me as a human being so feel free to call me repugnant and vile. 50+ years of steadily increasing numbers receiving some form of public assistance tells me that if you don't make people fend for themselves they quit doing it and they never teach their young to either.
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