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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.........
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
The permanent fund is managed by a state-controlled corporation. A certain amount of the income from oil production is paid into the fund each year, and the corporation is required to invest the fund. The fund pays out a dividend each year that's based on a rolling five year average of the profits that the fund has earned. The principal of the fund is constitutionally protected, and barring mismanagement or a massive change in political views around the fund, will always exist. Last year the permanent fund earned about $1.37 billion on a fund of about $55 billion.
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
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.
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
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.
Only if you decide to set up a dichotomy between people who want to take that benefit away and give the money to the rich, and those who don't. It's entirely possible to have a right-wing party that also supports the status quo programs because they're popular, while not wanting to socialize the whole damn economy. Just look at Margaret Thatcher's Britain. She privatized all sorts of formerly government run corporations and interests, but she left the NHS alone - why? Because it worked and people liked it.
It's not like there's some sort of slippery slope to absolute statist control, and only total unmitigated freedom is a possible alternative. People/countries/societies can and do function with some measure of social programs, and as has been proven repeatedly in advanced countries, it works out just fine. The only thing that's proved to be a problem is corruption - in countries where that is widespread/endemic, and there's no or weak rule of law, it ends badly, but that's true of corrupt countries without lots of social programs, too.
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.
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
> 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)
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.