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'We Could Fund a Universal Basic Income With the Data We Give Away To Facebook and Google' (thenextweb.com)
Tristan Greene reports via The Next Web:
A universal basic income (UBI), wherein government provides a monthly stipend so citizens can afford a home and basic necessities, is something experts believe would directly address the issue of unemployment and poverty, and possibly even eliminate hundreds of other welfare programs. It may also be the only real solution to the impending automation bonanza. According to AI expert Steve Fuller, the problem is, giving people money when they lose jobs won't fix the issue, it's a temporary solution and we need permanent ones. Sounds fair, and he even has some ideas on how to accomplish this end: "We could hold Google and Facebook and all those big multinationals accountable; we could make sure that people, like those who are currently 'voluntarily' contributing their data to pump up companies' profits, are given something that is adequate to support their livelihoods in exchange."
It's an interesting idea, but difficult to imagine it's implementation. If the government isn't assigning a specific stipend value, we'll have to be compensated individually by companies. One way to do this, is by emulating the old coal mining company scrip scams of early last century. Employees working for companies would be paid in currency only redeemable at the company store. This basically created a system where a company could tax its own workers for profit. Google, for example, could use a system like that and say "opt-in for $10 worth of Google Play music for free," if they wanted to. Which doesn't help pay the bills when machines replace you at work, but at least you'll be able to voice search for your favorite songs. Another idea is to charge companies an automation tax, but again there's concerns as to how this would be implemented. A solution that combines government oversight with a tax on AI companies -- a UBI funded by the dividends of our data -- may be the best option. To be blunt: we should make Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other such AI companies pay for it with a simple data tax.
It's an interesting idea, but difficult to imagine it's implementation. If the government isn't assigning a specific stipend value, we'll have to be compensated individually by companies. One way to do this, is by emulating the old coal mining company scrip scams of early last century. Employees working for companies would be paid in currency only redeemable at the company store. This basically created a system where a company could tax its own workers for profit. Google, for example, could use a system like that and say "opt-in for $10 worth of Google Play music for free," if they wanted to. Which doesn't help pay the bills when machines replace you at work, but at least you'll be able to voice search for your favorite songs. Another idea is to charge companies an automation tax, but again there's concerns as to how this would be implemented. A solution that combines government oversight with a tax on AI companies -- a UBI funded by the dividends of our data -- may be the best option. To be blunt: we should make Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other such AI companies pay for it with a simple data tax.
Send Google and Facebook the bill, NOT the taxpayers.
It just keeps everyone perpetually in poverty, debt slaves to the state, with no hope or drive to move forward. Communism doesn't work. Communism without workers would be even worse, stripping people of their meaning on top of their earnings.
The solution to automation is not to do it. "Because we can doesn't mean we should".
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
UBI is ultimately pointless because the problem right now isn't that people don't have money. It's that the market adjusts itself to maximize profits which will always price some people out. Consider this: A person makes $100 a month and only wants to spend $10 on an apartment. But there is another person willing to spend $15 on that apartment, so that's what the market sets it's price at, which causes a lot of financial strain on the person. Good news! The government passes a UBI law, and provides everyone with a minimum $15 salary, bringing the persons monthly income to $115. The person can now easily afford the apartment, right? Well no. You see, that person gets the salary, but so does the other person competing for the same apartment. The second person is now willing to pay $20 for that apartment. So that's where the market says the price. So ultimately, all the UBI does is raise the prices on everything for everyone.
There will be a tipping point when enough human jobs are replaced by automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence whereby it'll be in the interest of companies to get behind a Universal Basic Income... otherwise, to whom will they sell their wares?
At that point, people will figure out something else to do for money.
Until people realize that any kind of universal basic income scheme will never do what it's intended to do. Money isn't the endgame of what an economy does; it never has been, rather it is all about creation and allocation of resources. If you just give people money, you just give them money, and at the end of the day they'll just outbid one another for those same resources. If nobody builds anymore housing in say SF, then guess what? No amount of UBI is going to solve the shortage of available housing.
Minimum wage increases won't work either. This is such a dead simple concept that so many people seem to spectacularly fail.
Industry was going to take away all the jobs. The, the tractor was going to take away all the jobs. Mechanization was going to take away all the jobs. Automation was going to take away all the jobs. Outsourcing was going to take away all the jobs. And yet here we are after all of that we have the lowest unemployment rate this country has ever had. Something tells me that with even 3D printing and artificial intelligence Americans will figure out something to do.
Our economic system is first built on land ownership and natural resources, then on services extracting, processing, and delivering product from those resources. Everything else is just moving little green pieces of paper around when those first two groups are done with them.
You can't take something like 'mining personal data for sales and marketing' and turn it into an economy-driving primary natural resource, and any economic scheme that isn't ultimately rooted in property and natural resources is doomed to fail before it is even implemented.
When I add up income tax, Medicare/social security tax, state taxes, property, sales, hotel, gas, airport and the rest I pay, the total is at least 50% of my paycheck, and I am not by any means rich. Taxing the companies more just means that the prices will be higher - your Youtube Red subscription will be $11 and not $9, your Office subscription will be $75 a year and not $69... How about we maybe try cutting waste and abuse of the system and use that money to cut taxes so people can save more money and need less government assistance when a rainy day comes around. .
Money is a representation of something that someone did for someone else that had value in the receiving person's eyes. For instance, if I go buy some wood for $100 at the store and spend some time turning it into furniture, then I might sell it for $400. That means I created $300 more value in the eyes of the market, or at least the buyer, by doing that. I then take that $300 profit and trade it for other useful things that people will do for me. On the other hand, if you give people money for doing nothing, and eventually everyone's doing nothing of value, then what is there of value left to buy? Just the stuff made by robots? So I own a robot, it makes furniture for me which I sell to people who haven't done anything useful for anyone except consume oxygen, then I take that money and do what... buy food from the robot food manufacturer? Why can't the robot food manufacturer just give me some food in exchange for some furniture I build for her? The only reason for UBI is to pay useless people enough money that they can afford enough drugs to get so stoned that the don't bother going out to commit crimes, because that's cheaper than a bigger police force.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
...Because apartments are a finite resource and no one could ever possibly build more of them and increase competition thus lowering prices.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
By worry that we here on the left have pointless kooks that are worse than useless too. For the record, the correct 'we could fund' talking point it that we could pay our national debt off in ten years with the money single payer healthcare saves.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
better workers rights at least UBI can give people some to fail back on so they can tell there boss to shove it when being asked to put in a 80 hour week or deal with some of crap at low end fast food places.
In america, at least according to the constitution, the people *are* the government.
Monopolies are also coercive.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
Google and Facebook provide services in exchange for user information. Of course it's questionable as to whether or not this is a good idea - I'd say a very bad idea - but that's the deal. There is no compensation due.
The reality is that the data of a single user would be near worthless. A stipend for any given user would be near worthless assuming an even division of the money. How would you even calculate the value data down to an individual except in the extreme outliers?
It's a nonsense idea that reeks of socialism's sense of entitlement and lack of real world application in anything but cautionary tales. Universal basic income may have applications, but paying for it this way is a crazy person's idea.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
We throw away enough food to feed entire countries, there are millions of properties that sit vacant,
You have unused food and unused property, and yet you think adding in "free money" will solve things. Why not start by redistributing that excess food that gets thrown away?
If you think the current system provides for efficient allocation of resources, you are well and truly mistaken.
If you need to take control of the entire government in order to make your idea work, then your idea is not workable. Start on a small bit of the problem - try giving away the free food that gets thrown away.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Exactly my thought. "Simple data tax" is absurdly naive.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
One of the biggest problems I see in our political stance is the Left seem to be anti-capitalism, while the right seem to be all out Capitalism. However the real issue is much different. Is it better for a company to save money to produce cheaper stuff, or is it better to have more customers who are willing to buy the more expensive but better quality stuff.
Normally if we have the choice, and it wont hurt us in the long term, we will want to get the best, even if it isn't the best deal out there. However the best is often not the best deal, so we go with good enough. Because we as customers of products needs to ration our finances. The lower our income the stricter the rationing. You can be poor and buy an expensive sports car, however it will mean other aspects of your life will need to reflect this.
We can look at the popularity of "Premium" Smart phones. Being the Top of the line "Premium" phones are around the $1000 range, they are actually rather popular. Not because they are the best deal, you can get an older model, or a brand without the shiny glass back.... and get the same utility for a fraction of the price. But because they are suppose to be the best we can get, and the price point of $1000 is a price that for most will require some sacrifice, but not a big one. This means the majority of the people can purchase the Best Smartphone on the market. Thus their popularity.
I am not really sold on the idea of basic income, neither am I opposed to it. Because I can see two things happening with it.
The good: The costs of basic living for all people are covered, this will allow freedom to take additional risks start businesses, and being able purchase better stuff with their income from their jobs.
The bad: The incentive for most people to work may be gone, they will be happy to live with what they have. Companies will need to do a bunch of cost cutting methods to make the product cheap enough for people to buy the stuff. Laying off people on a whim would be much easier with basic income, because they know they are not just throwing people to the streets.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yes, but people by and large are not starving to death in the US. Starvation isn't what the basic income claims to solve in the US. You also mention homelessness. While certainly a problem in the US, it is mostly a transient problem for most. The exceptions tend to be people with mental illness who eschew the kind of help that would get them off the street, and any claims that UBI would solve this type of homelessness should be met with skepticism.
The current system certainly does not meet any kind of efficiency benchmark, but it's important to note that the system is not a free market. We have deep government interference in ways that tend to reinforce the cycle of wealth: Limited liability (and corporate structure in general), IP laws (government-enforced monopolies on ideas), tax laws which favor the rich, an education system that shepherds poor kids into poor schools and rich kids into rich schools, a safety net that encourages people to stay in shitty areas with no jobs, etc.
I favor experiments with UBI - I've donated to charities experimenting with UBI. I hope it works out, because to me it represents a step back in government's ham-handed attempts to solve societal issues with over-complicated rules solutions. Someone's poor? Give them money. Simple. Unfortunately, I think we'll discover that it fails for all but the most impoverished societies. In, say, Kenya, almost everyone is poor and so dumping some money on them gives them a place to start. The overwhelming cause of poverty (same word, much different circumstance than in Kenya) in the US has much deeper roots and will not be solved by cutting a check, IMHO.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Money's value is in being able to store the wealth you incur selling the wood you've upgraded into furniture. The barter system, as old as it may be, was inefficient enough thousands of years ago to inspire people to look for ways to improve the exchange process.
Something else we owe to the Mongol Hordes:
Upon establishing the unified Mongol Empire, Chinggis Khan introduced gold and silver coins called Sukhes and later, in the year of 1227, introduced the world's first paper money /banknote/ into circulation.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It's interesting. In the US, people generally trust corporations rather than their government. In Europe on the other hand, it's exactly the opposite, people rather trust their governments than corporations.
I say we should take this as an opportunity to find out which system works better. Let's compare!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People are giving away their information without fee under their own free will. It's not anyone's place to get the way of that until they begin to do so at their own detriment. The reason for this is that it will have crossed over from activity to addiction. That said, a proper tax structure is needed to keep a society from destructing. We currently have a regressive tax system which has been shown to be to the detriment of society and yet politicians keep pushing it further. The reason things are moving in the wrong direction is not because of political party X or Y but due to the crony capitalism has bought off the politicians on both sides to ensure that there will and not the will of the people is being executed.
We don't need a miracle solution, we need proper government representation that will work for the people. I've said it before but the less representative a government becomes the greater the level of crime, violence and civil unrest. If we do not do something in the near future then we're going to have riots breaking out sporadically and then regularly. The US has a lot of guns and when people get desperate then they are going to start using them to survive and I don't mean hunting.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Like what, exactly?
In the end, you will only get money the "old fashioned way" if someone else is willing to give you money for the goods and services you provide. Now, what goods or services can you provide that AI and robots don't?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Prostitution. At least for the time being.
Government is a monopoly.
Indeed, Government is the worst kind of monopoly; rather than arise to power through voluntary trade, government is founded on violent imposition.
That's what distinguishes an organization as "a government": It can throw you into a cage (or worse) if you refuse to buy its services.
Fundamentally, there is no difference between a warlord, a monarch, a dictator, and a representative democracy, etc.
... If you're not worth a paycheck?
I don't think people appreciate how politics and power structures interface with economic imperitives. Much of the social and political liberalization in the Western world was a direct result of economic changes that made individuals more relevant to the logistical framework of the society.
The more the society becomes a command economy with top down control... the less the individual matters and thus the less the individual will matter. Your political agency will decline.
What is more, if you're economically and logistically irrelevant to the underlying requirements of the society... what is your leverage? Why should the society give you anything?
UBI = not just serfdom... it equals literal marginalization and eventually... Death.
Careful what you wish for...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
All of US corporate profit is running around 1500 billion / year right now.
1500 billion ($) / 330 million (Citizens) is $4,545 per citizen per year.
Leaving aside the issue of what corporations would do if they could not keep their profits, which does not seem likely to be a good thing, it's pretty clear that all corporate profits in the current economy would not suffice to do anything useful.
However, the idea of UBI, or at least, the sane version, is that it would be implemented in an "economy of plenty" where automation was producing goods and services at much lower costs and much higher availability. Those conditions are hand-wavey; we can't quantify them yet, so it's problematic to try and predict the costs of living, etc. But that's why UBI or similar will be required; workers will be out and automation will be in. It's not today's landscape that defines the need.
The current economic model will almost certainly be unsustainable with pervasive automation and the number of citizens we have. That's pretty clear. We also know that although distribution of wealth right now is very uneven, there's enough of it to keep everyone eating and sheltered (which is not to say that always happens... but money in, goods and services out, the numbers work.) So given an economic sea change - a very, very painful one, I'm guessing - UBI or something along those lines should be feasible.
The problem comes when we try to see how it would work today, in the current economy. It wouldn't; it can't. Tests can work - certainly the extra income is welcome and used by recipients - but that's only because such tests are far less costly compared to the amount of money available to fund them. When you count everyone in, suddenly the available funds aren't there. But that's today. The future holds the potential for massive change. "Funds" may not even be the operative mechanism; because if survival is no longer pendant upon an exchange of value, it may not be reasonable to try to quantify and structure it that way any longer.
It's still worth talking about.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No we're not.
The US Federal government is given its power by the individual States, not the people. It's State government which gets its power from the people.
If this was implemented we'd quickly discover that our information is currently overvalued. The info they collect is not worth what it is being traded for these days. This would fall apart in short order once everyone realized they're worth a whopping 2 cents per day.
there are millions of properties that sit vacant
If you don't own that vacant property then it's none of your business if its vacant. This is just another example of you wanting to spend someone else's money
not start by redistributing that excess food that gets thrown away?
Because apparently you don't understand how things actually work. Distributing that food efficiently and actually getting it to people would cost more than the value of the food. We don't throw the food away because we are stupid or wasteful (most of the time). It's literally cheaper to throw it away than distribute it.
But maybe you think we shouldn't care about that. Maybe you think we should spend a thousand dollars to distribute a hundred dollars worth of food. Once again, an example of you wanting to spend someone else's money.
Most software engineers don't produce anything. They code intangible goods that are often never used or never redeem the value that someone else worked for and they got just for sitting at a desk typing into a computer for nothing but money. How many millions of lines of code are produced every day that will never be used, never be seen and never add value to anything. Yet people are paid good money to do it.
once more into the breach
Yes. Libertarians in a nutshell. Every country is north Korea. *rolls eyes *
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
People always looking for handouts. The only thing my robots will be doing in the coming automation age for the "public good" is throwing dirty hippies/hipsters off my property.
The People may collectively delegate their individual authorities to an organization called "government"; the American philosophy is that rights existed before government (they were "endowed by their Creator"), and that government can merely act as a delegate for the attendant authorities of those rights.
However, no individual ever had the right to walk into his neighbor's pub, smash his beer bottles, and declare that his 100-year-old family business may no longer operate.
Yet, that's precisely what the United States Government did during Prohibition.
They promised to protect "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness", but they have done nothing of the sort. Your government is a fraud; your government is a bait and switch.
That depends on whether the economy lacks supply or whether it lacks demand. And bluntly, currently it lacks demand. Yes, there are local shortages, in the grand scheme, though, what we lack is demand. Not for a lack of wanting, but for a lack of being able to afford.
Our economy is heavily dependent on the tertiary sector. I.e. services. Services are great for an economy. Because it sells what's usually in supply in surplus: Work force. Unlike products from agriculture or industrial production, there is no need to sell any resources. You don't have to have large fields to plant crops, you need not raise lifestock, you don't have to dig up materials from the earth, you sell what you have in near limitless supply in most countries these days, the raw working ability of people.
This is by definition the best thing you can sell and the best contributor to your GDP. Because it's 100% renewable. You can't run out of workforce, at least by no means as easily as you can erode your soils and exhaust your natural resources.
It is also very sensitive to an economic downturn. Because it is also the expense that can be reduced easiest. You have to eat. You have to live in a home. You have to dress. But you can do without the hairdresser, the restaurant and the dripping faucet can drip another month without a plumber taking a look at it.
We are at our core, though, a service economy. And a service community. We have diversified to the point where people can do one thing, and one thing well, but aren't really good at most other things, where they would depend on others to provide that service for them. These people want to buy services, but cannot, lacking money. This in turn means that those providing those services cannot do so, lacking customers that would pay them.
In other words, I'm convinced such a basic income would be a boon for our economy. I don't expect the price hike for contested commodities, they might experience a small increase, but I'd rather expect a lot more demand for services, which are (comparably) cheap because they are easy to produce and easy to provide. If, and only if, there is someone who has the money to pay for them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Jaron Lanier is a crackpot who have never done any actual work in his life.
Yes, it's minimum wage, labor unions and a strong social security system that ruined Venezuela.
Along with the other countries that have these things, like Austria, Germany, Sweden, France, Britain...
Wonder why these countries didn't spring to your mind as examples for these horrible, horrible socialist ideas.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Money is an asset the value of which is realized only at the moment when you part with it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Feedstock for tasty, tasty Soylent Green. . . .(evil grin)
Universal basic income isn't a universal basic way of life.
Unless you call consumerism a way of life, in which case you're wrong. A fire consumes but we don't say that fire is alive, do we?
You can't just give people money and no motivation to work toward anything. Then they just stagnate in their present circumstances. Grow or die. That is the natural law.
And that is the real purpose behind a guaranteed annual income. To placate the masses in such a way that they stop trying to live their lives and eventually die out.
My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
The main problem with communism is the efficient distribution of limited resources. It's basic information theory - you have a complicated set of interdependent production units that have varying needs for resources on each other. To make steel you need water, to move water around water you need pipes pumps, to make pipes pumps you need steel... and on and on ad infinitum.
A market system works pretty well at distributing these resources. If you make steel you don't need to know anything about demand other than the price of steel.
A planned / communist economy relies on meetings to figure out what gets made. The problem is nobody has all the information needed to plan out production, especially on a large scale. This is why you have perpetual shortages of goods in countries with planned economies.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
The only reason for UBI is to pay useless people enough money that they can afford enough drugs to get so stoned that the don't bother going out to commit crimes, because that's cheaper than a bigger police force.
A bullet is cheaper still and further encourages remaining people to be more useful
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
It's interesting. In the US, people generally trust corporations rather than their government. In Europe on the other hand, it's exactly the opposite, people rather trust their governments than corporations.
I don't trust either, but there's a distinct difference between the two. I can decide to opt out of dealing with any corporation. If I want to opt out of the government, eventually men with guns will come to force me to deal with the government.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
If all of this data is being *given away*, then how is it objectively worth any money?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
A Universal Basic Income is a good idea but it will never pass because both sides of the isle have made it pretty damn clear that America was, is, and always will only be about profits over people. Sadly, it is going to take an economic catastrophe that decimates everyone, not just the lower and middle classes. The wealthy need to be taught a lesson that the lower and middle classes have to be stable for a healthy society. We never learned our lessons from the Great Depression. If we had, perhaps there would be a Universal Basic Income and a Universal Healthcare System. Then we had the Great Recession of 2008 and the wealthy became greedier, hoarding more and more of their cash. Experts are predicting another big economic crash and I believe it. Never mind that unemployment is historically low and consumer confidence is good. Those indicators can change overnight; just as the recession of 2008 literally hit.
Our economy is not based on bedrock, but on shale; a collective belief that currency, stocks, and bonds hold value. When that belief gets shaken, the system implodes. The next bubble to go will be the so-called crypto currencies. It will be curious when the bottom falls out from under bitcoin and the paper millionaires will be left penniless.
That is a little bit an exaggeration.
Especially considering countries that still has a relatively high rate of corruption or where you have "politics as job" and on top of that lobbying.
However true is that our governments, especially the EU, constructs laws that protect the consumers and citizens and workers/employees from corporations. In so far we can trust the governments.
In other words: we don't have to sue after we feel abused to get a ruling defining "law" telling the company: you did wrong.
The big difference between the EU/europe and US is:
We (the citizens) have a clear idea what the states responsibility is, and we have governments that more or less are run by citizens that have the same idea
The US have a clear idea what the states responsibility NOT is, and have governments that more or less are run by citizens that have the completely different ideas
From our point of view the US is a state in constant anarchy, consisting of entities trying to sue each other into oblivion and presidents who have nothing better to do than to revert the work of the previous one.
And if nothing interesting is going on inside of the country they quickly launch a war somewhere for no particular reason.
The crime rate, the gun possession/obsession, the health care issue, the industrial/medical complex, the military, the amount of people in jail, the education situation, the homeless etc. p.p. Completely unthinkable in a civilized country. But americans consider themselves to live in a civilized country: amazing.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That's not enough to drive an economy. Let's imagine I have 900 and you, along with 9 other people, each have 10. Our whole economy has a purchasing power of 1000.
Let's say that we could all be happy with "stuff" for 100. That's basically what someone would sensibly spend, at the most. Sure, you can somehow survive at 10, be ok with 20, feel satisfied with most your needs spending 50, but if you can spend 100, pretty much all you could sensibly want is paid for. We're talking Ferrari in your garage on the mansion on the hilltop with the private air strip and the private Learjet. The point where there's simply no more spending that could fill any kind of void.
So you spend your 10, because that's all you can spend. I spend the 100, because I can afford it and there isn't really anything left to buy. Now I sit on 800 that ... well, what do I do with it? I want to invest it of course but what should I invest in? There's nothing to invest in because there is no viable business able to open, there wouldn't be anyone to sell to. I have what I want, and you have no money.
Let's spread the money differently. You and those other 9 people now each have 50, I have 500. Our total economy still has a purchasing power of 1000, but a lot more money now changes hands. You'll probably spend 20-30 of your 50, either because you want to retain some purchasing power "in case", or simply because there is no supply to match your demand anymore, because so far there was simply no demand. I still spend my 100, with 400 sitting here, ready to be invested in the businesses that now have a potential customer, i.e. you. And those other 9 people like you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The reason companies want someone's data is to sell to them. If you don't have any money to spend, your data is of little interest to them.
Any profit they derive from data is already taxed. Congress actually just reduced that tax massively because people realized that if you tax corporations too much, they move overseas, hide their profits, and/or just close down.
Same rule as with everything else: It's worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...than Welfare 2.0, plain and simple.
If you expect to tax the worlds richest corporations to fund UBI, then expect a funding result about as good as getting them to pay taxes today.
Offshore tax havens, tax loopholes, political contributions...I can think of a dozen ways corporations weasel out of paying their fair share. What money you might manage to get from them to feed to the unemployable masses in the future will be the bare minimum, and not a penny more.
Ironically, large corporations are fueled by the very individuals they intend to starve in order to hog their wealth. When the masses cannot afford to buy anything other than food, all that extra unnecessary shit vendors peddle becomes rather pointless. They won't be able to even sell the precious data they capture to anyone, because it will quickly become worthless from a marketing standpoint.
The problem with a universal basic income is that the sharks start circling immediately. Landlords see it as an opportunity to jack up the rent. Stores (especially in poor neighbourhoods) raise the price of semi-necessities like disposable diapers. "Hope taxes" like lotteries market their wares more aggressively.
Soon, everybody's doing better except the people a basic income was intended to help, who get picked cleaner than a squirrel carcass at a crow convention.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
So they do, in fact, produce something: "intangible goods".
The fire extinguisher in my kitchen has never been used; nevertheless, it has value to me which is why I paid for it. Insurance is usually never used, yet it has value and costs money. Risk, opportunity, and potential all translate directly into costs and values, even if they are never realized.
Nice straw man. The other poster said nothing of the sort.
What he said was, "Fundamentally, there is no difference between... a dictator, and a representative democracy." That's very much "of the sort."
Even if you're a well-dressed, well-fed slave in the Big House, you're still a slave.
Yes, yes, taxation is theft and we're all slaves... Why don't you move to that country that provides everything you need without charging anyone taxes and doesn't require anyone to work "for the Man." That's the only way we'll be "free" of this terrible American oppression.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
The US government can tax US corporations. That's the tool that's presently available. And the US government is responsible for US citizens; not others.
I'm dividing all US corporate profits by all US citizens, and the reason I did that was to show that it's not enough to fund UBI in the current economic model. It doesn't matter how they earn it; it's money that could, in an apocalyptic (and tooth-clenchingly naive) tax environment, be apportioned among the citizens. It's not a viable mechanism under the current economic model, no matter how they make that money, even if you could collect that money without destroying the entities that earn it, which I highly doubt.
If you restrict which profits somehow, that just makes the number per citizen smaller.
The whole idea of taxing FB (much as I dislike them, and I really dislike them) to "fund" UBI is absurd.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
better workers rights at least UBI can give people some to fail back on so they can tell there boss to shove it when being asked to put in a 80 hour week or deal with some of crap at low end fast food places.
Welfare, social assistance, etc already do all of this. But maybe those people should have picked a better job then majoring in the "comparative history of harry potter" or some weird-ass social major like "how blackness affect modern feminism and buffy the vampire slayer." And picked up a good trade. Oh I know, I can hear the whining already...all that hard work.
Om, nomnomnom...
I wouldn't say anarchy, it's rather got a lot in common with what a corporate state must look like. The elections are basically a joke, with two nearly indistinguishable parties (I affectionately call them The Party) fully entrenched to ensure that even if the odd third party or independent candidate should win once in a blue moon will have no impact on their politics. They have their rights explicitly enumerated (personally, I prefer our system of "what's not explicitly forbidden is ok"), those rights get removed one by one and nobody bothers to do more than shrug, but if someone as much as mentions pondering thinking about debating whether it might be considered to do as much as register guns you can see them go mental.
And if you mention it you have it justified with something along the lines of these guns protecting their freedoms, ignoring that their potential enemy in such a fight would be the largest military that ever existed, along with a propaganda machinery that would make old Joe Goebbels drool to convince those soldiers to gun down those domestic terrorists.
It's fascinating to watch. Kinda like a train wreck.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's voluntary until it isn't.
FAT CHANCE!
You cannot eliminate a program without people getting upset because they thought that the UBI was going to be on top of everything else they were getting. You'll never be able to eliminate anything. It's a pipe dream.
Mind telling me how you are accessing the internet. In most of the U.S your only viable choice for access is dealing with the Cable corporation operating in your area. Sure you can opt out of dealing with them by cutting off your own access but you could also opt out of government by moving to the Bush.
Pffft ....
If you get $800 UBI, you can buy wood for $400 and sell furniture for $1600 and have still $400 left for other things from your UBI. So with your eyes of the market example you created $1200 more value ...
I don't really get why people are stupid ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
> then expect a funding result about as good as getting them to pay taxes today
When you look at it, it's just another income distribution scheme. Somebody's losing wealth and having it given to someone else.
That's not necessarily evil, by the way. UBI solves some of the problems with traditional welfare systems - like being locked in because income quickly cuts your welfare to the point it's easier to not work. It removes some of the stress of poverty because you know you'll always be able to afford food and a warm bed. It saves money because there's less need to police the system for fraud.
In a society that is so productive that it doesn't need large portions of its population to work, UBI is probably the best way to prevent obscene concentration of wealth.
>...I can think of a dozen ways corporations weasel out of paying their fair share.
Yeah... our tax systems suck. I don't think corporations should pay taxes on income as a general rule - it all gets passed on to the consumer as a hike in price of items or services anyway. I do think they need to be taxed to internalize costs - a company that pollutes should be paying taxes to cover the cost society bears dealing with cleanup and health issues. A company that produces anything tangible should be taxed to cover recycling costs. And of course they should be taxed to cover land and municipal services to their offices, just like any other land owner.
Of course, you still have to find a way to tax the owners or they'll just keep everything in the company and control their wealth indirectly while avoiding their social tax obligations... and ultimately the required tax laws will have to apply to everyone else. It gets complicated quickly.
I don't know of anybody who claimed that the current system provides for an efficient allocation of resources. One huge inefficiency is the fact that 40% of our economy is government spending. But even free markets are far from the theoretical optimum: free markets are simply the best we can achieve.
Both of those are largely due to government regulations and restrictions.
That's actually better than it is historically, and the reason things have gotten better is because of free markets. But inequality per se shouldn't matter much anyway; what matters is how well the poorest are actually doing in absolute terms, and they are doing quite well compared to the past.
Looking at "worth" is also misleading because welfare states like the US take away money from individuals and "invest"/"save" it in government programs. For example, people who receive Social Security effectively have several hundred thousand dollars "saved", but that money doesn't show up in "net worth" statistics.
No need to read further. By removing the need to work to survive and be minimally comfortable, hundreds of millions of people worldwide would stop working. A UBI would cause unemployment on a scale almost unimaginable, followed by worldwide economic collapse.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Stock market at an all time high, unemployment lowest in years, new tax bill igniting the economy, deregulation across the board and a fine group of level headed honest folks in Washington. Who needs a UBI. In a couple years you'll all be tired of winning. Lucky bastards ;^)
The only reason for UBI is to pay useless people enough money that they can afford enough drugs to get so stoned that the don't bother going out to commit crimes...
You're a fucking idiot. Not all poor people are crack heads and criminals. Some work their asses off and spend the little money they have on things like food with little left over to "get so stoned that they don't commit crimes." You have an incredibly slanted view of the poor, which is common with people trying to rationalize letting them starve or freeze.
Even "useless" people have to eat. IMO, if you're willing to work to your fullest ability, the only reasonable thing for society to do is to ensure that you get food, shelter, and health care. It's not a "right," it's just the right thing to do.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
You can opt out of every government. Unless you're in North Korea or something like it. At the very least you can vote what government you prefer, and if that doesn't work out, move to a place where the government is more to your liking.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? Your last example provides a great illustration of my point. If I don't like Coca Cola, or Comcast or any other corporation, I don't have to move. I just don't give them my money. If I don't give the government my money, they will send men with guns to put me in a cage.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Taxation isn't theft. There are a lot of benefits I get from paying taxes:
1: I can drive on actual paved roads.
2: I can drive home without worry about getting waylaid by armed bandits.
3: I can walk from my work to my car and not get shot by a mugger.
4: I have phone and Internet service without the wires being torn off to be sold.
5: If I get sick, there is a hospital with first world medical treatment nearby. In fact multiple ones.
A lot of businesses forget that they couldn't exist without the government to keep the peace. I'm sure some guy saying they don't need the government would not be happy to do their own security and have to keep someone on 24/7 overwatch duty to keep their store from getting ransacked, or just someone coming in to shoot up everyone out of spite.
I'm happy to pay my fair share of taxes. It means I can do more than just survive.
Because they aren't socialist. In fact, many of them have more economic freedoms than the US and less per capita government spending, and that's today. Those countries actually became rich, like the US, while they were much more free market oriented than today and they are now squandering the wealth accumulated since WWII.
Those countries generally became rich with free market economics and limited government benefits. They are also vastly different from each other. Germany, for example, didn't use to have minimum wage at all, and now only has a limited form with exemptions, German labor unions are nothing like US labor unions (and socialist states usually don't have labor unions), and it has nothing like US Social Security or Medicare. Several of those countries are also in deep trouble.
Really, people, knock off this stupid "but European countries are socialist and rich" idea; it is utterly divorced from reality.
" so citizens can afford a home and basic necessities "
Even in the non-crazy housing areas, that's going to be one hell of a basic income to afford housing.
Even renting an apartment would easily exceed UBI numbers.
They're either going to have to crank up the amounts they plan to hand out, or address the fact that owning a home is no longer a reality for a vast number of people.
Show of hands, who here can afford a median home where they live on a single salary, maintain all of the bills that go with it, put enough away for retirement, and still have enough left over to actually have a life ?
If you can, you're doing far better than the majority.
This is very unproductive.
Look at the current administration. There is absolutely nothing there that would put something like the burden of universal basic income at the hands of the rich and powerful. Nothing.
In fact, it's practically the opposite. Corporations are being given more leeway to do whatever they want, more incentives and more power. We're going the exact opposite way.
If a government comes that even suggests something like this, it would be overthrown. I'm not even putting this at the political debate level - this isn't about dems vs reps.
It'd be way easier to come up with basic income via taxes, and that's saying a lot - because that's another thing that is pretty much impossible without something like a civil war.
Well, at least in some western countries.
Here's the thing: if we can't pass a tax reform that removes tax incentives for the extremely rich and the biggest corporations, forces US corporations to pay their taxes here, and reduce tax burdens on mid to low class citizens, thinking about a universal basic income system is pretty much a joke. It will never happen.
People think that experiments in some european countries happened so there should be a way for it to also happen here, they don't realize how different the culture or political/economical system is.
Or a liability depending on who you are. The value that money holds depends on the work required to acquire the money as well as the value which you realize when you part with it.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Yes, paper money is essentially debt owed to the holder of the money. You did something valuable, and someone gave you money to signify that you haven't been compensated for it yet. The money they gave you came from someone else signifying that they did something of value for someone else. You then exchange that debt of value you created for value created by others when you spend it on something you want. So, the company you work for buys a bunch of steel for $1000 and you work for them turning that into $1100 worth of parts that they sell to their customer (there's little markup on stamped parts). This took you 2 hours, and they pay you $20 an hour including your benefits, etc., so $40. That's your share of what the economy now owes you in terms of value for the value you created.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Ahh, the money stuffed under the mattress theory... What rich person do you know holds large amounts of cash and does nothing with it? At the very least, they put their 800 in the bank where it is available to loan to the other 9 people... But no, rich people obviously have large private vaults where they swim in gold coins right?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Do you think during the industrial revolution people foresaw that there would be a huge industry programming the machines to do largely pointless things? If I could predict the future of the economy with that clarity I wouldn't be telling you. I'd be becoming a billionaire.
The trick to a UBI is to provide just enough that people won't starve or die due to exposure or sickness, but not enough that they are comfortable and happy their whole lives. It sounds cruel to give people just enough to be miserable but alive, but they are free to work for additional to improve their lives. If they choose not to work for additional resources, they can live in misery.
The worst thing you can do (arguably what we do now) is convince a population that they have a right to success and happiness. If someone is denied what they are convinced they have a right to, they will likely become violent to obtain it.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Prostitution. At least for the time being.
So everyone is going to be a prostitute?
Bob pays Alice $20 for sex.
Alice then goes to Joe and pays Joe $20 for sex.
Joe pays Sally $20 for sex.
Sally pays Bob $20 for sex.
The circle of prostitution is complete. Everyone has been paid $20 to spend on the goods and services that automation provides.
This sounds a bit like a perpetual motion machine... only it's a different kind of motion. What jobs are people going to do when robot AI is better at prostitution?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
What "American individualism" are you talking about? The US ranks near the top in the world in terms of absolute per capita government spending and social welfare spending, it has an extensive social safety net, and it ranks in 11th place (behind many European nations) in terms of economic freedoms. The decline of the US is in large part linked to the growth of the US government.
For example, the US spends more public money per high school student than most other countries but only achieves mediocre results. That's not a failure of "American individualism", it's a failure of US government programs to deliver results. Ditto with our healthcare system: the US government alone spends more per American than most European systems, yet doesn't even cover 1/3 of Americans with that money.
On the other hand, if you give people money for doing nothing, and eventually everyone's doing nothing of value, then what is there of value left to buy?
You're misrepresenting or misunderstanding the point of UBI. The idea isn't that you give people so much money that they can buy anything they desire. The point is that you give them enough money that their most basic needs are met: food and shelter. Then, anybody who wants disposable income will need to work for it.
What's more, you are making the classic and completely wrong assumption that people work only for money. Linux and the entire ecosystem of open source software development disagrees with you. People work for social reasons, because of personal interest, because of a desire for fame or recognition, and some people work because they want to have more and better material goods. There's actually some fairly good evidence that in some types of work, people will work far longer and harder for a social good or an internal, intrinsic goal than they will for pay.
The UBI accomplishes a number of great things - it gets rid of the (correctly derided) disincentive that the welfare system creates towards gainful employment. It is also humane, in that it prevents people from starving to death or dying from the cold. It's fair, because it goes to everyone. It allows us to get rid of stupid duct-tape solutions like the minimum wage - a worker with UBI can't really be exploited into working, so companies can offer $1/hr or $10/hr and the market can work it out. UBI provides a safety net that would encourage more people to start businesses.
> then expect a funding result about as good as getting them to pay taxes today
When you look at it, it's just another income distribution scheme. Somebody's losing wealth and having it given to someone else.
That's not necessarily evil, by the way. UBI solves some of the problems with traditional welfare systems - like being locked in because income quickly cuts your welfare to the point it's easier to not work. It removes some of the stress of poverty because you know you'll always be able to afford food and a warm bed. It saves money because there's less need to police the system for fraud.
I agree that it could provide some benefit. However, reducing policing jobs will not be welcome. We've privatized prisons and worked hard to earn the dubious Incarcerated States of America moniker. Also, those with wealth will fight distribution as they always have fought it. The chasm between the 1% and the 99% continues to widen, as they distance themselves from giving a shit about the irrelevant masses.
In a society that is so productive that it doesn't need large portions of its population to work, UBI is probably the best way to prevent obscene concentration of wealth.
Greed N. Corruption is the CEO of America right now. Again, I fully expect any plan to attack or dissolve obscene behavior will be fought. And Greed will ultimately win, as it has for a very long time now. Greed maintains Control.
>...I can think of a dozen ways corporations weasel out of paying their fair share.
Yeah... our tax systems suck. I don't think corporations should pay taxes on income as a general rule - it all gets passed on to the consumer as a hike in price of items or services anyway. I do think they need to be taxed to internalize costs - a company that pollutes should be paying taxes to cover the cost society bears dealing with cleanup and health issues. A company that produces anything tangible should be taxed to cover recycling costs. And of course they should be taxed to cover land and municipal services to their offices, just like any other land owner.
It's a good concept due to the environmental impact, but I fail to see why you believe internal costs won't ultimately be passed on to the consumer. If business expenses go up, then the MSRP goes up. It's the only way to maintain a profitable business and ensure CEOs continue to earn obscene salaries and bonuses.
Of course, you still have to find a way to tax the owners or they'll just keep everything in the company and control their wealth indirectly while avoiding their social tax obligations... and ultimately the required tax laws will have to apply to everyone else. It gets complicated quickly.
Other than something extreme like a flat tax, corporate tax laws don't have to apply to "everyone else", because everyone else is not running a for-profit business. And it hardly has to get "complicated". Simplify the hell out of corporate taxation and close the damn loopholes. If corporations continue to avoid their obligations, then they can find themselves heavily fined, dismantled, or outright banned from doing business in the US.
Greed is often found to be very unethical and can cause massive damage and disruption, but it's hardly ever punished to prevent history from repeating itself. A good example of this is the financial meltdown of 2008. There's not a damn thing in place to really prevent that from happening again. If a corporation can make a billion dollars doing unethical and greedy shit and only get fined $50 million for it, then unethical behavior is proven to be profitable, and becomes the business mantra. Wells Fargo is a more recent example. Even with a $185 million dollar fine, they likely still profited from their cross-selling bullshit, and stock value was hardly affected at all. Sadly, over 5,000 "little" people were fired while the CEO was afforded a lavish retirement.
I think this assumption in the Bad category directly contradicts the point you made further up: With the UBI, I could get me a 100$ Chinesium smartphone, but if I went to McDonald's and worked a few hours, I could buy something from Lenovo.
If I worked some additional hours on top, it might even be Apple or Samsung.
Either we do reach for the shiny or we don't. People need to discuss where the cutoff point lies and how the population fits into those categories.
Mind telling me how you are accessing the internet. In most of the U.S your only viable choice for access is dealing with the Cable corporation operating in your area.
In my area, we have 6 different options for internet (AT&T, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Frontier, and a local cable provider). I could also just get internet via my cell phone. If I don't like what I'm getting, I can always change without too much of a problem. I had Comcast cable (no contract), and was able to drop television and phone to switch to PlayStation View, which saved me about $80 a month.
Sure you can opt out of dealing with them by cutting off your own access but you could also opt out of government by moving to the Bush.
Even if you live in "the bush", you're still going to have to pay income taxes & property taxes.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Doesn't matter. Isn't even in the ballpark.
No, I didn't say that. I said it was unworkable in the context of the current economic system - which is accurate. I also made it pretty clear that we're going to have to do something, once it becomes clear what that something is - which is not yet the case.
That is utter nonsense. The entire federal tax collection in 2016 was 3.46 trillion dollars. That'd be about $24k for 150 million people. Poverty, under the current system. Poverty accompanied by zero government services, no military, no federal law enforcement, etc.
That's not a basic income within the context of the current economic system. That's pocket change. You won't be raising children, owning a home and a vehicle, enjoying the network, consuming utilities, buying new clothing, receiving medical care, etc. on $24k. The economic system will have to be re-jiggered in a major way to make the available resources and services map to the number of people - and that's almost certainly what's going to happen when automation of most jobs comes along. Until then, the environment precludes a working model in other than over-funded, under-utilized small test groups. You can't just swap out the current social safety net and distribute it to everyone - it'll just fall on its face. In only works now (and it barely works, frankly) because the recipients are limited in number and in benefits.
Sure, we know that augmenting income will work when you have income. But when there's no income, and that is what we're going to be facing, augmentation is not a viable solution.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The only reason for UBI is to pay useless people enough money that they can afford enough drugs to get so stoned that the don't bother going out to commit crimes, because that's cheaper than a bigger police force.
I think your attitude is pretty representative of what people think of unemployed today, if you're not working there's something wrong with you. You have physical health problems, mental health problems, alcohol problems, drug problems, attitude problems or something that keeps you from holding a job. But the reality is that in a depression you don't have to be any of those, if you don't have a stellar resume or inside connections there's a thousand people trying get the same jobs and from society's point of view it's like a giant game of musical chairs, if there's a lot fewer jobs than workers somebody's going home empty-handed. Take something like Greece with >25% unemployment and >50% youth unemployment, you think one in two are just addicts looking to get stoned?
I'm not sure the automation doomsday scenarios are correct, we have an incredible creativity in creating new services. But that's roughly what they claim, that it'll be like a global, permanent depression for workers. Burger flipper? We have a burger flipping machine for that. Taxi driver? We have a self-driving car for that. There won't be enough chairs to go around and many will be like brain surgeons and rocket scientists, jobs that'll be totally out of reach for many people. So what do you do when you've looked everywhere, tried everything but nobody wants to hire you and you can't make rent? Live in the gutter? Let your kids live in the gutter? It's no wonder that even good people turn to crime and prostitution if they get really desperate.
I don't think living on just UBI would be pretty, unless you think playing WoW all day and eating Ramen noodles is what life is all about. Maybe for total slackers but they're probably the kind of employees every employer wants to get rid of anyway, it's more like a last resort so good people don't have to hit rock bottom. Who knows, maybe it'll help the hood rat problem too but that'd just be a bonus. I have seen some documentaries where it seems seems like a shitty life peddling drugs on a street corner or doing petty crime, but they don't really have any alternatives because they got shit education and shit work history and a criminal record and probably couldn't get a job at McDonald's if they tried. If they could simply stop, maybe some more actually would.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Big LOL, giving France as a good example is like giving Greece as example of easy living :)))).
France's economy is not super competitive (bar some fields ofc). Or do you mean those taxes that sent Depardieu to live in Russia ?
>It's a good concept due to the environmental impact, but I fail to see why you believe internal costs won't ultimately be passed on to the consumer.
You misunderstand me - I recognize they will be, I just want to ensure the full cost of the product's life is included in the cost to the consumer.
>Other than something extreme like a flat tax, corporate tax laws don't have to apply to "everyone else", because everyone else is not running a for-profit business
Again, you misunderstand. I was not referring in this case to corporate taxes, but personal taxes. Efforts to prevent business owners from sheltering their wealth within a corporation would require laws that would affect the personal taxes everyone else too. (Academic answer: "More study is required")
> If a corporation can make a billion dollars doing unethical and greedy shit and only get fined $50 million for it, then unethical behavior is proven to be profitable, and becomes the business mantra.
Agreed. A legal principle of not allowing an offence to be profitable should be standard. A fine that is insufficient to remove the incentive for the offense, that a corporation writes off as a cost of doing business, is not a fine but a tax.
> Sadly, over 5,000 "little" people were fired while the CEO was afforded a lavish retirement.
Another principle is required here... that the general is responsible for the conduct of the troops under their command. Because if you're excused from responsibility on the grounds you were unaware of the crime, you're not a very good general, are you?
Now, perhaps it's a bit extreme to say the CEO should be criminally liable for a VP's crimes... but they shouldn't be rewarded, either. A nice law limiting payouts to responsible individuals in the event a crime is committed by an underling wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Are you really equating feeding the hungry with tying their shoes for them? And equating being poor with being in kindergarten? You're a fucking idiot.
So, you thing the "country" should provide you with everything you need...
Yes. I "thing" that we as tax payers should ensure that every last person in America has food, shelter, and healthcare. Civilized societies shouldn't leave the weak to die.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
If you are a Republican you trust corporations more than government. If you are a Democrat you trust government more than corporations.
If you aren't an idiot you don't trust either of them. You realize the people who occupy the high positions in both are part of the same class. Nor do you trust those people who are partisan, as they are obviously deeply flawed and compromised in their ability to dispassionately observe reality.
The system that works best is when The People know the dangers of government and corporations getting in bed together, and understand the closer government and corporations get, the more closely the collective system resembles fascism. The historical kind of fascism mind you, not the hysterical kind of fascism.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Wherein fellow citizens are forced to provide a monthly stipend. There. Fixed that for ya...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
UBI is cheaper then jail / prison and there home people who go in and out of jail (say on cold nights or when they need a doctor) and the tax payers foot the bill for it.
Much too drastic and unnecessary. How about simple — and temporary — disenfranchising: whoever has received public charity in excess of $500 within the six months prior to a poll, shall not participate in it. (The figure and the amount subject to change.)
How about that? Those temporarily down on their luck will not care (probably, not even notice) — come next elections, they can vote again. On the other hand, those, who can't support themselves long-term, will not be allowed to govern the rest of us.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It's fascinating to watch. Kinda like a train wreck.
More like watching a passenger train and a cargo train colliding colliding. In slow motion. Guessing if the liquid tanks on the cargo train contain milk, explosive liquids or acid.
Well, that a gun mad country believes civilians can defend/overthrow their own army if the government runs afoul is absurd; or funny, depending on which side of the stage you sit.
The only way to win a revolution in our times is to have the army on your side, and then you don't need civilians with guns ... but who am I to judge :D
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
(Looks at comcast and loss of net neutrality)
You were saying?
Yes, it's a simple model, but that way it's easier to explain. The expenses you mention, that's all included in those 100. There is a limit to what you can spend sensibly on consumption, simply because there is a limit to your time. At some point you simply CANNOT spend the money anymore. And believe it or not, people have actually met this limit.
There is also a limit to what people want to spend, usually depending on the standard of living someone wants to achieve. And the lower someone's income is, the closer this limit is to his actually available money. The sweet spot is actually where people earn a tiny bit more than what their standard of living demands from them to spend. That's exactly how much someone should have to keep the economy going.
What cripples ours today is that there is simply one group that piles up way more money than they need for their standard of living while others would spend but don't have the money to.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, rich people want to invest that money. And they want revenue for it. But investment needs something worthwhile to invest in. And this is exactly the problem we're facing today.
Right now, you don't get any interest for your money. If you're unlucky enough, you'd actually have to pay to park your money somewhere. And STILL this is not less viable than investment. That alone should give you pause and make you think. One of the reasons Bitcoins are soaring like they are is simply that there is a LOT of money wanting to be invested and lacking any viable investment venues. Do you really think this is due to some geeks and financial adventurers that throw a few thousand bucks in and play roulette? Please. What you're looking at there is a lot of VERY rich people desperately looking for something, anything, to invest in that promises at least some ROI. Yes, the risk is insanely high. But it seems to be STILL more appealing than investing in some business that provides goods or services.
Still doesn't make you ponder why?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
According to reality, the "people" who make less than $200,000 a year "are" less than 10% of the government. The other 90% is made up of a comparatively few corporations, PACs, and people who work for those corporations and make over $200,000 a year. That's about how campaign money falls out. It costs around $11,000,000 to run for Senate, on average. Well over $100,000,000 to run for president. It costs a bit less than $2,000,000 to run for the House of Representatives. The oligarchs who own and manage (at a high level) the large, often multinational corporations that contribute tha vast bulk of this money have de facto veto power over who gets to run in the first place. By the time the "choice" is presented to the voters, it is reduced to the Whore of Babylon vs the Antichrist -- we the actual people are a loser either way, and no matter who wins, their soul will be owned by the people that bought and paid for their campaign an who they KNOW will have to continue their support for them to hold on to power.
That's the interesting thing. You see, the Constitution doesn't identify "the corporation" as a political entity at all. Unsurprisingly, as "corporations" in the modern sense almost didn't exist in America at the time and there wasn't that much by way of "old money" oligarchy in a country that had just thrown OFF the overseas monarch and his oligarchs that ran it immediately before. They also had no concept of the modern "political campaign" with its ever shifting base of paid advertisement, rumor, fake news, sly innuendo, attack ads, sound bites, billboards, and massively printed and distributed posters. They would have been shocked by the idea that someone running for president would target just a handful of "battleground" states for the bulk of their campaign activity and spending on the basis of pre-election "elections" by a tiny fraction of the people plus statistical extrapolations, neglecting to even show their face in dozens of other states full of the very people they would represent but that were supposedly "solidly" behind one candidate or the other.
Unless and until we muzzle the oligarchy that effectively controls the US electoral process from the ground up by the simple expedient of contributing money equally to BOTH candidates in many races -- if they avoid vocalizing things like the need to muzzle the non-constitutional oligarchy itself, if they both appear equally compliant and smart enough to understand what will happen if they ever vote to alter the situation -- we'll continue to have politicians effectively sell their votes on things like net neutrality for the contributions from the big telecoms and their executives. In North Carolina (where I live) for example, Burr got around $600,000 of his last election budget from households that make under $200,000. He got around $1,200,000 from communications companies and their top executives. Hmmm, you can talk about "votes" all you want, but money talks, bullshit walks, and telecommunications paid for almost 10% of his campaign, twice as much as he raised from the ordinary voters in the state combined.
Plutocracy, oligarchy, the recreation of a de facto feudal "nobility" in the form of the very rich (Koch Brothers, Bill Gates, etc) who control the jobs and livelihood of millions of voters with their billions of dollars -- they are not our forefather's democracy. Either we the people wake up and smell the shit in our Starbucks (metaphorically speaking) and alter from the ground up the way elections are funded and run -- banning outright ALL forms of corporate support for candidates, eliminating lobbying (all forms, the good, the bad, the ugly), eliminating PACs, maybe eliminating the need to obtain campaign contributions altogether -- something that is ENTIRELY within our capabilities in the Internet age -- or we will continue to yield complete control over who emerges as candidates to be voted on in the first place as well as the length and strength of the campaigns they run to the wealthy few at the expense of the ordinary American.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Define: "fair share."
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Why don't you move to that country that provides everything you need without charging anyone taxes
Where would that be? Somalia was tax free for a while, but the violence has subsided and things are improving there (or getting worse, depending on your perspective).
For years your retirement account earns interest, the government will seize that interest and give it to others. For years your retirement account loses value, that's on you.
Who wants to play?
Nothing of real value is easy. If it is easy, the value isn't there.
Find something that is hard using a resource that is rare, and that will provide you with the ability to make a good living. A Picasso painting is worth millions because it is rare, famous and highly desired. There are only a few. THAT is why it is worth a lot of money. Sweeping a sidewalk is hard work, but almost anyone can do it, from a complete moron to the smartest guy in the world. That is why it doesn't pay very well.
Pick up a skill(resource), that is rare and provides a service or product that is highly desired, and you'll be fine. Not everyone can do that, which is why there is Starbucks and McDonald's.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
But no, rich people obviously have large private vaults where they swim in gold coins right?
You do realise the GP was postulating a theory based on the idea of perfect economics. The reality is not that they put it in the bank available to others, but invest it to further enrich themselves. A petty few turn to philanthropy and spend it on the poor, but the vast majority isn't available to someone as lending power, as evident by the amount of efforts the government put into propping up the banks when it all went tits up 10 years ago.
The crime rate isn't that great in the larger cites but the UK, Italy, Germany, France, and Spain aren't in the top 100 lowest crime rates either.
As for guns they are still rated about the same as the flu and I don't know anyone that has been killed by either.
I'm not really sure what education situation you are talking about most places in the US complain the schools don't have enough money or teachers aren't paid enough like my home town where they recently raised a mil levy so they could build a new $21 million high school as apposed to remodeling the old school. That's a big school for a small town but there is a difference between complaining and a real situation.
It's just another instance where the loudest voices aren't necessarily a representation of the country. Most Americans look at the news and go what kind of crazy are they going on about now.
Until people realize that any kind of universal basic income scheme will never do what it's intended to do.
Reduce the cost of the social safety net? Simplify and cheapen for the taxpayer the dispensation of social assistance? How is that related to housing in SF?
The UBI is not about "ending poverty". It's about simplifying state aid to individuals. A ton of which is already paid out to people in every developed country, but very inefficiently.
UBI isn't Marxism per se. Under Marxism (or it's best known implementations) the government will find a job for you to do. It might be pushing a broom down your assigned section of sidewalk. It might be working in a mine in Siberia. But heaven help you if you don't do your job.
UBI is handing money to people who just don't want to or can't work. And since no distinction will be made, a lot of recipients will just say "Screw the street sweeping job. I'm going to sit at home and play video games."
Have gnu, will travel.
Well said, sir! No mod points today, though, sorry, as I'm already commenting and don't do the AC swaparoo to do both.
I always liked it as a sound bite "Taxes buy me civilization", much as the liberty I give up -- such as the freedom to kill my neighbor, steal his sheep, and rape his daughter if I'm stronger than he is and can get away with it -- buys me freedom from murdering, raping, sheep rustlers in turn who just happen to be stronger than I am or who have a few more friends.
It is surprising how quickly the religious principles of the rabid libertarian evaporate, though, when confronted with the plain old bad luck of life that nobody ever insures against. Having any sort of public health care system is an insult to democracy and the freedom to die a pauper if you actually get sick -- right up to the day they have a single "accident" and find out the hard way that the emergency room, surgery, and two weeks in the ICU plus two weeks on the wards of the neighborhood hospital has left them backrupt and -- if it were not for the corrupt bankruptcy laws and social support network -- would leave them living under an overpass somewhere and panhandling on corners. Then you have things like Ayn Rand, the poster child for libertarianism, using medicare/medicaid when (after a lifetime of smoking and NOT buying insurance or saving money) she gets cancer.
What it really comes down to is a mix of spite and the kind of world you want to live in. If you want to live in a world dominated by the wealthy, the strong, and the ambitious, where the poor, the weak, the sickly, and the stupid are left to struggle, starve, and die young, by all means, rant on about the evils of taxes and the virtue of selfishness. Just remember that the real Midas Mulligans of the world, when confronted with an upstart who tries to start a bank to compete, hire some unemployed layabouts and have them pitch bottles of gasoline in through your new bank's windows, kidnap your children, and leave you notes pinned to your gutted Alsatian suggesting that you might want to sell out at 10 cents on the dollar to Mr. Mulligan. Or, in the case of the energy oligarchs, lean on the government so that they send in the army to take by force the right of way of a long oil pipeline.
Taxes do indeed buy me civilization, but the real problem with our current system is that "democracy" has been completely undermined by the absurdly wealthy who own the very restaurant where the menu of "column A and column B" is presented to the voters. It doesn't matter. Vote for either side. They all belong to the rich and powerful either way, or they wouldn't be on the menu in the first place.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
http://jacksonville.com/opinio...
If you do three things, just three things in life, you will not be poor. Those three things, should be taught to every kid from Kindergarten to High School.
What if it was really that simple?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Your model doesn't recognize the effects of supply and demand. Those who are in more demand for sexual favors will command higher prices than those who are in lower demand. I think if that is factored in, we will still have "haves" and "have nots," but the distribution of wealth will be based on sexual desirability.
Everybody is the defacto government.
No, it's not and never can be. Only people have any real power to give.
Being the Top of the line "Premium" phones are around the $1000 range, they are actually rather popular.
Actually the best deal is about 1/2 that for a PREMIUM Smart phone. It might not do EVERYTHING the $1000 phone does, or have the same status symbol attached, but if you really really wanted a premium phone for 1/2 price, they are out there.
Think of it this way, you can buy a new phone twice as often.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Nice anecdote, doesn't actually change the options of the rest of the US, which is basically one cable company, one phone company, and roadblocks keeping the competition out.
Who's creating the roadblocks?
And you completely missed the point. by "the bush" he meant away from everything, no income so no taxes.
You have to earn a living. Even if you try to live by barter, the IRS can come after you.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
How about owning those big bad companies? Then, when they make a profit, you, the soon-to-be-obsolete human in this equation, profit, too, and you can be happy. Maybe you won't make as fat a profit as those evil CEOs and billionaires, but maybe, just maybe, you can earn enough on your investment to live. That was, as I understood it, the idea from the very beginning of the 20th century.
The good news is, we don't need to re-invent the whole financial system. This already exists! It's called investing, and it's what we were all supposed to be doing for like the past 150 years or so. So sorry if you didn't get the memo....
Might makes right irrelevant.
The crime rate isn't that great in the larger cites but the UK, Italy, Germany, France, and Spain aren't in the top 100 lowest crime rates either. ... most certainly not a gun)? It is December 6th now ... definitely not this year. And I can not remember a case last year.
Obviously I talk about violent crime. Not about shoplifting.
When was the last robbery in Germany that involved a weapon (knife or a stick
I'm not really sure what education situation you are talking
Weapon controls at the school entrance.
Low level education.
Long ways to school.
No way for kids to walk to school (because of laws that directly forbid it - or to long distances)
No free universities.
On top of that absurd "tenures" for universities. Or call it colleges.
And then "rules" like this: https://www.washingtonpost.com... Not sure if that is true, it sounds absurd or at least bizarre from an european point of view.
In basically all European countries education to the level where a pupil graduates and can go to an university: is free
Going to an university is free beyond a kind of $100 fee for re-registering every semester.
On top of that you can get a state given credit to pay your expenses (rent, energy etc.) in case your parents can not pay for you (in some countries, like scandinavia you get the credit regardless of your parents situation)
You are automatically in healthcare till age of 25 or 27 (or so), payed by your parents employer and your parents (and if they had no kids, they would pay the same price anyway).
Sure, if you prefer you can pay for private education in private schools and private universities. If you extend the typical study time of about 4 - 5 years it might be a fee of about $500 per semester is due (in public universities).
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Everything is immoral. Economics is the biggest crime in an infinite universe.
Dude, limit your total budget to 1500 bucks a month. See how much you have left at the end of the month. Then, look around for re-education opportunities. See if you can afford any of them.
Yep, funny that I could but you don't seem to be able to. You want to know what's really funny? I could drop my income to $1k/mo, still qualify for those programs, become a truck driver off those programs. Start making $60k-70k/year plus benefits in the first year, and put money away to further my education.
Yeah, it *is* hard work that's keeping a lot of people away. Especially younger kids who have zero sense of work ethic. Have you ever watched or listened to anything Mike Rowe has said on this? The guy is the poster child of apprenticeships and hard work, and the same poster child in pointing out that it *is* a hard work and work ethic problem that stops these people from going to find that work.
Om, nomnomnom...
The long-term solution is education, I agree.
What are you going to do about the people that need help *right now*, though? Remember, the psycopathic/sociopathic answer to this question is "tough luck."
There are more social and education programs out the ass to get you a better paying job then there were ~22 years ago when I lost my first job due to the heavy industry crash here in Canada. Hell there are more programs in the US for that then there are in Canada.
Om, nomnomnom...
No they don't, in fact quite often welfare makes it worse by requiring you to take crappy jobs at less then minimum wage (to get 'experience', 'learn work ethic', or various other excuses for what's essentially indentured servitude)
Welfare doesn't make take those crappy jobs. Many people take those crappy jobs in order to depress their hours worked in order to *not* lose benefits. There are a few people on welfare who've done everything right, but there's also systemic abuse by a lot of people who simply see it as an easy way out.
Om, nomnomnom...
Don't earn any income and don't own any land. Live on public land. Take a look at the money you want to claim as your own. Did you put any effort into the design of it? Render unto Ceasar. That's why the cryptocurrencies are becoming so popular.
Ever hear of too big to fail?
Pick up a skill(resource), that is rare and provides a service or product that is highly desired, and you'll be fine. Not everyone can do that, which is why there is Starbucks and McDonald's.
10m skilled tradesmen needed over the next 10 years, that's a lot of jobs. If you can read flow-charts you can do quite a few trades. If you're willing to stick with something, you can improve your ability in the few trades that are skill based(welding/machinist/etc). Go be a lineman lots of demand for them. Don't like electricity though and working around high voltage? Go become a truck driver, put up with the shitty work for a year and then go local. Despite the claims that truck driving will be automated in 4 years it's not going to happen. It probably won't happen in the next 20 years.
Om, nomnomnom...
A universal basic income (UBI), wherein government provides a monthly stipend so citizens can afford a home and basic necessities, is something experts believe would directly address the issue of unemployment and poverty, and possibly even eliminate hundreds of other welfare programs.
These are the same "experts" that brought us Chernobyl, obamacare, the Vietnam war, the destruction of both space shuttles, and other disasters. Government is never the solution to a problem, it is the problem. Here is something you never want to hear: "We're from the government and we're here to help." UBI is a fool's paradise.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
The only way a revolution can work out in our time is when army and population are on the same side. As Turkey has shown lately, just having the army isn't enough (though, whether the coup was real or just staged is debatable).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...can never exceed the revenue of the entire marketing industry. Because marketing is the entire reason that the data is valuable. The idea that we could fund UBI with it is ridiculous. Someone doesn't understand math.
COE
The "nothing to invest in" point is reached. What would you want to put your money into? Or rather, why do you think the likes of Bezos and Musk start ventures that border on insanity? There is simply nothing sane to invest your money in. The ROI of anything you could place your money on is insignificant anymore, what's left is high risk (ad)ventures that might pay off.
What they do looks absolutely insane and like they don't know what to do with their dough, and that's basically true: They simply have no venue to invest in left and are desperately looking for new ones.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Perhaps UBI could be funded by bitcoin. They both provide the same fundamental basic value.
Pro-tip: YOU CAN'T
Facebook, Google, and all other so-called 'social media' can fuck off and die, they're CANCEROUS.
I think it would help if we were to go back to having the Senators appointed by the State Legislators, rather than popular vote, and thus eliminate the huge about of $$$ that now influences senators.
If appointed once again by the state houses, then they would more carefully also represent the interests of their state rather than the external interests that give them money now to stay elected.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"You propose to establish a social order based on the following tenets: that you're incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others—that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler—that you're unable to earn your living by use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge, over the gigantic industries where you, by your own definition of capacity, would be unable successfully to fill the job of assistant greaser."
I have seen some documentaries where it seems seems like a shitty life peddling drugs on a street corner or doing petty crime, but they don't really have any alternatives because they got shit education and shit work history and a criminal record and probably couldn't get a job at McDonald's if they tried. If they could simply stop, maybe some more actually would.
And even if some did, that's better than where we are now. That might mean we could step back from some of our police state, saving more money. Perhaps routing that to better mental health and substance abuse programs further improving the situation.
And perhaps some would start their own business. Or just pick up a hobby that would benefit them and those around them.
My concern is if not enough people do this. And if we generationalize and stigmatize UBI-only families. It could be a huge step forward, but there needs to be a real cultural shift for that to happen.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
How does that help? The lobbyists already own the state representatives, they are MUCH cheaper than federal reps. Instead of being beholden to campaign contributors, the Senators would be beholden to state reps who are beholden to the campaign contributors. It just adds a middleman to the process, and from past experience I can say once a middleman is added he is never going to leave. To quote Rod Blagojevich, "I've got this thing [senate seat appointment] and it's fucking golden, and, uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for fuckin' nothing. I'm not gonna do it. "
Enigma
Homelessness is increasing everywhere in the country. If it were a transient problem in any sense other than involving transients, that would not be the case. And it's not just here, either...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Are you sure you can opt out? I picked DirecTV over ATT for cable, so ATT bought DirecTV.
There was a while when I had to keep changing banks because they kept being bought by the bank I chose against in the first place.
Then there's the dizzying world of rebranding. It can actually be surprisingly hard to vote with your wallet.
I can't remember the last time there was a robbery in my town that involved a gun or the last time someone got gunned down and I live in a state where it's legal to carry and conceal a fire arm. They aren't very common here but more populated states and cities sure.
Weapon controls at the school entrance.
Low level education.
Long ways to school.
No way for kids to walk to school (because of laws that directly forbid it - or to long distances)
This is not typical of all US schools it's mostly the larger inner city schools in high crime rate areas that have these type of problems.
There are no free universities in the US however there are many grants and scholarships that you can get based on finances and merit... I went to college for free.
It's mostly private schools that require students to live on campus and usually only their first year and they are very expensive and most Americans would probably agree that it's absurd.
When was the last robbery in Germany that involved a weapon (knife or a stick ... most certainly not a gun)? It is December 6th now ... definitely not this year.
Here's an armed (yes, with a gun) bank robbery from this year, as a bonus he got into a gunfight with police:
http://www.dw.com/en/german-po...
Here's an armed (yes with a gun) bank robbery from this year, this one took hostages:
https://www.express.co.uk/news...
Here's a group of armed (yes, with submachine guns) people who robbed several million euros from a bank this year:
https://www.thelocal.de/201702...
I think I have proven my point, just because you aren't aware of armed robberies happening in Germany doesn't mean they don't happen. Get over your self-righteous attitude.
Enigma
"We throw away enough food to feed entire countries, there are millions of properties that sit vacant,"
This is one of those fun quotes some people like to throw around but the problem is that most of the food that goes into that calculation is not food that you or any other citizen wants to eat. Much of it is food that has gone bad, food that is beyond harvestable, food that is not very nutritious for humans but makes good animal feed, food that has 'spots' on it that consumers don't want to eat because they're paying for it and food that the government simply will not allow to be used as human food.
I would estimate that the real food waste is more like 1% to 10% of the claimed food waste. I'm in the food industry so I have a background in this.
It's interesting. In the US, people generally trust corporations rather than their government. In Europe on the other hand, it's exactly the opposite, people rather trust their governments than corporations.
I don't trust either, but there's a distinct difference between the two. I can decide to opt out of dealing with any corporation. If I want to opt out of the government, eventually men with guns will come to force me to deal with the government.
I suppose you've not heard of the Pinkertons then? Hired by corporations to violently suppress labor strikes in early 1900s. Corporations world-wide have hired private security forces to impose their will on whoever opposes them, typically in countries with weaker central governments in Africa and South America, but it really happens everywhere. In the US they typically use armies of lawyers rather than military, because that works for them so far in our corporate two-party duopoly, but make no mistake how corporations would behave when deeply threatened, history tells us exactly what they do.
"Government" is too abstract a term. We're really talking about who holds the power. What you and the parent post both are concerned about is someone having power over others -- in other words, unequal power. Inequality comes from centralization, we empower one individual (or a small group) to have more power and authority than others, and any time that happens, there is the possibility that someone will take advantage and use it to coerce people.
The real key difference is democracy. The typical corporate structure is extremely top-down, centralized power in a CEO and board of directors that essentially act as dictators (maybe oligarchs is the better word) within the company. What they say goes, and even if middle management or workers or even customers disagree, the CEO is under no obligation to care at all. You don't have much recourse against a centralized authoritarian heirarchical power, what they say goes, and if fight too much they'll simply fire you or cut off service to you. At best you could quit and find a job somewhere else (or as a customer, "vote with your wallet" and go elsewhere), but that is only at best supporting one dictatorial corporation over another. Over time, capitalism encourages corporations to merge and become monopolies (to lower costs and maximize profit since there is no longer competition), which makes the top-down centralized power even worse.
To be fair, some governments evolve this way too. I absolutely hate the recent trend of "we need to run government like a business" because implicit in such statements is that top-down centralized corporate power. It breeds this attitude that the president and Congress are like CEO and board of directors, that what they say goes, and that's the end. That is the pathway to authoritarianism and government dictatorship, and we really need to reverse that trend.
But in principle, we value democractic governments. Why is democracy such a big deal? Because rather than centralizing power in a small group (or even just one person), democracy puts everyone on a level playing field. We ALL have a say so, we all have a vote, we all have the same legal power. There is little to no power inequality between individuals because every individual's concerns can be heard and address as the group deliberates and decides together. Recent history has made representative democracy (a slight oxymoron but we'll overlook it) more feasible because of the large amounts of people in each country (and the distance necessary to travel to Congress before cars and airplanes!), but I think modern technology and methods allow us to lean more towards pure direct democracy. Do you always get what you want in a democracy? No. But you are guaranteed a voice and a vote, which is more than you are guaranteed in today's authoritarian corporate structures.
What we really need are more democratic structures that protect individua
Google and Facebook combined had around 30 billion in profit last year. There are 125 million households in the US. So even if these two companies gave every penny of profit, you can still only give each household less than $250. People that suggest this 'basic income' fail at math. Every. Single. Time.
https://www.brookings.edu/rese...
That part of the article (the researched bits) eluded you, because it was labeled "opinion". Your response is also an opinion, and has no research to back it up. Guess what, you should dismiss your own opinion similarly.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
What is amazing to me is that a person whose life totally is totally defined by his use of American technology, subsists on the products of American innovation, and requires American military might to secure his county's freedom since he is to weak/lazy to handle it would have the gall to think that he is civilized instead of a mere pet.
Your post and ones like it can be summoned up by one awful truth: Europe spent over 400 years fucking up the world, and you are angry that it is taking America too long to clean up your shit. In that time, you have given the world the gifts of slavery, racism, and unfettered greed. You had robbed the resources of Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and many parts of the world are still reeling from your selfish abuse. Where you saw weakness, you stole. Where you saw culture, you pillaged. Where you saw unity, you created dissent. History judges you as some of the worst people ever. To call yourself civilized now or at any point is such a tragic misuse of the word, it defies all cognition.
So yes, you left us with the mess of slavery. You left us with a balkanized world. You left a swath of nations who you raped for centuries, trying to overcome your legacy of shame and poverty. The world you made is an absolute mess. The difference between YOU and the U.S. is that we try to fix it. We try to make a situation where a rising tide lifts all boats. As a result of these efforts, in the American century, we have seen world poverty begin to decline. By all measures, the difference between being civilized and and that of pathetic barbarism is exactly the gulf between us and you.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Unless you live in California or Texas or New York, your state rep probably lives in your neighborhood, goes to your local church, and would gladly talk to you in the entrance of the local grocery store just so she can be seen by other members of the community listening to citizen feedback. In those states with about 50,000 people per representative it doesn't cost much for a campaign (heck you could just go door-to-door yourself to dethrone the incumbent and get elected) so these state reps are far less likely to be beholden to campaign contributions, far more likely to be responsive to the will of the electorate, and less likely to accept contributions in the first place for fear that it will do more harm to their reputation in the local community than it would help.
Also, when local state reps DO take money for campaign contributions, it is usually from the local buisnesses e.g. local car dealerships, local restaurant chains, not exactly the Haliburtons or GoldmanSachs that we see with federal reps.
...how do we run a government without income taxes, I will educate you...
You declared that you would educate us on how to run a government without taxes but then trailed off. Please, educate me with an example of a government that runs without taxes. Even if it's not "income" specifically, the citizens are paying for the operation of their government in every case I can think of.
If you think that is fair or "democratic", I would suggest to you that you support slavery...
I don't think you have a clue what slavery is.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
No one wants to get rid of the government to the extent that the chaotic evil people in the world can get away with, as you say, 'kill my neighbor, steal his sheep, and rape his daughter' they want to get rid of the government to the extent that the lawful evil people in the world can't get away using an anonymous tip to have the DEA show up at 4AM for a no-knock raid that ends up in your accidental death by police shooting, buy the loan on your farm and force it into foreclosure to get the sheep and sell the land, which then forces your daughter to get a job at the Diner in the morning and strip club at night where Mr. Lawfull evil can buy a few hours of her time....
The biggest lie ever told to Americans is that Big corporations want free markets with minimal government spending. Corporations love big government because it means big subsidies and bureaucracies they can capture and control to exert more power over the market. Corporations cower in fear of the Free Market, its what killed blockbuster, its what killed Kodak, and it almost killed a GM and a huge portion of our corrupt investment banking industry but the government stepped in and saved them via TARP
This is why we need to switch from taxes to user fees. For example, instead of mostly paying for roads with sales and other general fund taxes, pay for them 100% from gas taxes and other user fees. So if you don't want to give the government your money, don't drive, or at least don't drive a gasoline powered vehicle. Legally avoiding the gas tax is much simpler than avoiding the sales tax!
Unfortunately, some well-intentioned citizens in California are collecting signatures to repeal the recent gas tax hike. It's so sad.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
But it's ok to give the same power to unelected corporations?
But stop trying to use force to make other people follow YOUR morals... or accept when they want to make you follow theirs by banning abortion, or requiring church attendance.
Yes, by banning abortion, or requiring church attendance, or by banning rape, or enforcing road laws. These things are all obviously the same... I don't know why I thought it was OK to make laws for the public good.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
You also need to grow all your own food, since presumably the local supermarket (if you happen to have one within walking distance) will be paying some form of road tax, either directly or indirectly, and which it passes on to you.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I think you could have stopped that one at "Big corporations want free markets".
Unless, of course, the grocery store gets its deliveries by electric truck!
Or if it's located along a rail siding, then all it needs is a forklift, no road travel necessary. Wonderful things happen when you don't insulate people from the financial consequences of their decisions!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
No arguments from me. As I said and continue to say, Big Corporations (with the capital letters) are currently in control of 3/4 of our four tier government (and have disproportionate influence in the fifth estate as well) by virtue of being the primary funders of all candidates in all elections of significance in the country. They have effective veto power both inside the parties and in the elections because nobody can afford to run for office without the 90% or so of the total cost of running that they contribute, directly and indirectly.
The "freedom" of the market is a secondary issue, and it will be impossible to even begin to untangle things until we pass and enforce legislation outlawing corporate contributions to politicians, PACs, parties, and other things beginning with "P". Outlaw lobbying while we are at it -- paying somebody to advocate for or against a law again introduces a factor into lawmaking not covered in the Constitution and gives disproportionate influence to those wealthy enough to hire a lobbyist (in addition to its demonstrated potential to corrupt politicians by silently lining their pockets or drowning out reasoned opposition) -- and I mean lobbying by the Sierra Foundation as much as lobbying by the Alt-Right. No lobbying at all. Outlaw or stringently limit the amount any private citizen can contribute to a political candidate, political party, or all political parties and candidates put together -- again anything beginning with "P". Level the field for "campaigning" so that it does NOT cost a significant fraction of a billion dollars to run for President and so that third, or even fourth party or no party candidates are not effectively prevented from being a serious political force. Do all of this and wait a decade to vote out all of the rascals who have been sucking on the Oligarchic Plutocratic Tit for decades. Then we'll see what (if anything) we need to do about, or with, the freedom of the market, once it really IS a market and not an extra-constitutional political force that has long since diluted the "republican democracy" intended by the founders to where it is a sick joke.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Worst. Idea. Ever. Roads are the very definition of a public good. Everyone benefits from better roads, whether they drive on them or not. They bring goods to your store, food to your market, customers to your business. Unless you live on an Amish compound and churn all your own butter, you need roads to get through your day - even if you don't own a car.
Live closer to the office? Your office just relocated 10 miles over, too bad for you. And when many people work in a central location downtown, few can afford those neighborhoods anyway.
Pay per use is horribly inefficient. You burden the poor and those with the greatest distances to travel. You penalize commuter cars who have next to no impact on road wear and tear, while semis chew up the pavement with orders of magnitude more damage. You waste more resources collecting the small fees than you spend on the roads themselves. Pay roads are just an awful system. I've lived enough places with both to see the difference.
Worst. Idea. EVER.
AT&t cellular internet has a datacap of 1Terabyte after which it gets very expensive. tethering via cell phone is even more expensive
DirecTv and Dish are Satellite and suffer from slow speeds and very high latency, not good for anything unless you live in the Bush
Frontier DSL is very slow.
that leaves Cable as the only real choice which is how you get your internet, as does most of the country.
Stop pretending you have real alternatives
I'm not sure it is a whole lot easier to opt out of dealing with some corporations.
Take Facebook or Google. Making sure you are not tracked by them is no easy task today. Everything on the internet has some script from some of the big internet companies.
Another difference is that there is a small chance the government actually has your best interest in mind. With a big corporation that chance is exactly zero, unless it happens to align with their own interests. With small businesses you have a better chance that it is run by someone who cares about you, but never with the gigantic global corporations.
Fundamentally, there is no difference between a warlord, a monarch, a dictator, and a representative democracy, etc.
So what you are saying is fnudementally every form of government is as bad as Hitler?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Do you use your "free" healthcare or come to the US
I receive medical treatment appropriate to my needs. "free" means free too, as I'm paying no income taxes at the moment.
Do you send your kids to a "free" university or to the US
Well, I sure as fuck wont send them to sexist Stanford or racist Harvard. I'll let them choose where to go, and support them in that choice - but the US don't have anything Oxbridge needs to be ashamed of anyway.
A congested road isn't a public good.
That's true. Streets (roads with driveways) benefit the property owner like you said, and so streets should be financed with a street frontage fee. Then the property owner can decide how much street he/she wants to pay for.
Non-street roads benefit the traveler and therefore should be billed to the traveler.
False. In fact, the poor love pay per use, because it gets them out of paying taxes. Nobody likes paying taxes. Except maybe you.
Yes, but what's the downside?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
There's an electric truck that can carry oranges from California to Idaho, and return full of 'taters?
In any case, they still run on roads. If the tax take on dead dinosaur juice falls they (that's to say him - The Man) will introduce some form of mileage tax sure as eggs is eggs.
Fair point, since 95% of them are and the other 5% have their own airport. Oh, wait...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Very true.
You go to the auction to buy groceries? I think the intuitive idea is that there is a fixed size pie. UBI gives some people a larger slice of that pie than no UBI.
This is not a problem with UBI. This is a problem with housing in SF. If I was an enterprising business man, to profit off UBI, I would create a community in an area with low property costs. I would bet that some of the people with no good place to live would relocate given that they had no job to tie them to a location.
Note: I'm not saying this community would turn out great. (It could be a nightmare.) This is why one needs to do real experiments with UBI instead of trying to apply naive economic theory to it.
Chris Mesterharm
Are you really so lazy that you can't copy/paste your 3 simple rules? Here they are for anyone who gives a shit what Michael's on about:
1. Graduating from high school.
2. Waiting to get married until after 21 and do not have children till after being married.
3. Having a full-time job.
Great. So the girl that had to drop out of high school because she got knocked up and married her baby-daddy we abandon. Good plan. Her poor planning obviously deserves a death sentence from her community. Or maybe you're expecting her to correct those decisions? Go back for a GED and kill her child? Also, has it occurred to you that some people without a full-time job would really like one? Your three rules are all fine ideas but expecting everyone to be able to follow them is ignorant and impractical.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
a. Reduce the cost of the product - selling more of them at the same profit margin causing revenue and profits to go up (more tax)
b. Improve gross margin on the product - selling the same amount of them, making the same revenue - with lower costs causing profits to go up (more tax)
c. Some combination of the above
So why do you need an additional confusing tax on automation?, do you draw the line on adding new automation - or do you calculate the tax based on how much it would take a man without any tools to do the job, and tax the labor reduction from there?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
From direct sales, yes. From re-investment in other corporations and bonds and so on, no. And in any case, corporations use resources: when a corporation moves in, should all the people pay the taxes for the fire support, the roads, the water mains, the traffic control, the sidewalks, the regulators... ??? Or should that be rolled into the product/service cost, and so only those who use the product or service pay for those product/service-related costs? Think about it.
Or, l can put it this way: under the present economic model, why should you have to pay the governance and service costs for my widget and fluffing?
But so what? Doesn't even move the goalposts. You still can't take all corporate profit under the current system, and it would take that, and more, to create any more than the most pitiful form of UBI for a broadly unemployed populace.
Either the system changes, or it crashes.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
326M * 12K = 3.9 trillion per year.
More than enough to cover the UBI and the overhead that it will need (Ok maybe I should make that 15K instead of 12K)
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Well yes, that's part of the current system - they won't let you do it, and they are most definitely in control at this point. But there are other reasons. Right now, businesses operate as enablers for people to advance. Corporations are microcosms of that very effect; if you break them - and if you take all their profit, you will break them - they will no longer be serve that function, and they will devolve into less effective entities. They will have no stock value; no one will invest; there will be no margins for raises, growth will be difficult (and financially pointless to the individuals who would cause that growth) etc., etc.
With broad automation, the human motive is sidelined, or perhaps even eradicated. You'll still have production.
But we aren't there, not even close. Until we are, you can't break the system in place.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The truck doesn't have to carry them all the way. It only has to travel between the railyard and the store.
They used to be, until we started subsidizing the roads!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Yea, I mean, it's not like the army is made up of civilians who know how to use guns...
Oh wait...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
When was the last robbery in Germany that involved a weapon (knife or a stick ... most certainly not a gun)? It is December 6th now ... definitely not this year.
From the first Google page of "Germany armed robbery:"
A 57-year-old man has been arrested on the suspicion of attempting to carry out an armed robbery at a bank in southwestern Germany. The perpetrator was reportedly injured after exchanging fire with police.Apr 21, 2017
Oct 9, 2017 - Armed robbers arrested in Italy and Germany. ... They are suspected of carrying out several heavily armed robberies in Italy, mostly against cash-in-transit (CIT) armoured vehicles or banks, and were also suspected of planning a major robbery in Germany
Nov 13, 2017 - German police on Monday published videos showing three former members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) militant group taking part in a 2016 armed robbery in northern Germany, and called for public help to track them down.
16th March 2017, 11:49 am. TWO terrified hostages have been freed after at least one ruthless armed robber took over a German bank. Cops in Duisburg have confirmed that the siege is now over after two men were arrested outside the Sparkasse bank. Armed cops have shut down several ...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
We'd have unicorns at the zoo and elves at the North Pole.
It isn't that the study is wrong, so much as that it conflates correlation with causation. Making those bad decisions in isolation doesn't cause people to become poor. In theory, someone can do all of those things and still not end up poor if he/she otherwise makes good decisions, but most people who do all three of those things also make bad decisions in other aspects of their lives, and would still do relatively poorly even if they didn't make those decisions.
For example, a girl who accidentally becomes pregnant in high school, but has a good relationship with her family can rely on them to help take care of the kid so that she can continue in school. Or she can give the kid up for adoption by a family member. Those choices have a more profound impact on eventual success than the actions leading to the pregnancy itself. Similarly, when it comes to dropping out of school, what matters is why. Someone who drops out of school to take care of a sick parent or younger siblings is likely to go back and get a GED and then go to college. Someone who made bad decisions and was already failing before dropping out probably won't.
The biggest flaw in modern education, IMO, is the lack of properly teaching kids how to make good decisions, and not making them fully aware of the consequences of bad decisions. For example, at no point in my education did anyone teach money management skills. I learned them from my parents. Other kids whose parents lacked those skills never learned them. And this is one of the big reasons why poverty runs in families.
What can parents do to better equip their kids for life? Say "no" more often. Teach kids to accept that sometimes they have to wait for the things that they want, and that buying things you can't afford on credit should be a rare exception for critical utilitarian things that will last you for many years (cars, houses), not just for things that you want (PlayStations, iPhones). And teach kids to exercise self-restraint. Instead of buying them expensive toys, give them an allowance and make them save up to buy the toys. When they blow it all on candy and ask for more, say, "No. You should have thought about what you really wanted and not spent your money on candy." And so on.
This is, of course, an overgeneralization. I know plenty of people who have bad money management skills, but who, through choosing a career that pays well, have managed to not be poor (though they probably will be when they retire). And there are presumably some people who have good money management skills but are still poor (though from what I've seen, people with good money management skills tend not to remain poor for an extended period of time unless there's some unusual factor at work, such as ongoing medical bills).
The point is that there are very important skills that kids are missing, which leads them to make other bad decisions arising from the same deficiencies in self-restraint, which leads to more bad decisions, and it snowballs. Fixing the problem has to happen in early childhood, by teaching kids to be less impulsive, think before they act, save money for the things they really want, and generally behave responsibly. Once kids get to that point, those three things on your list will take care of themselves.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If I were to run a "plan" economy country I'd steal a page from the market economy playbook and have them all do internal billing in Government Credits. You technically don't need private industry to have an internal market. And then you could watch prices and if steel got too expensive build more steelworks.
That's a great idea in theory. What happens in practice is, now that you've essentially politicized the economy, whom gets the credits (and how many credits are available to use) is now a political matter. Assuming this is a democratic affair, whichever political group promises the most credits to the most powerful industrial collective will get the votes. Again, you see this play out in other planned economies. In the Soviet Union, you saw a lot of resources allocated to the industrial and technology sectors. The farmers got screwed when it came to resource allocation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You have the same problems of capitalism that communism was supposed to fix, they've just been transferred to political organs instead of the market.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Staged, with lots involved who did not know, but suffered the consequences.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'm sitting in a well-taxed city. The roads are full of potholes (gravel or even dirt would be better). If you drive in most parts of this city you risk a drive-by shooting (thankfully their shooting is inaccurate). If you are so foolish as to walk to your car after dark you have a very good chance of getting mugged. I'll give you the phone/internet service....for now. Hospital? Well, if you can make it from the parking lot to the entrance with out getting high-velocity lead poisoning... CAN I GET MY TAXE$ REFUNDED, PLEASE?!
Get over your self-righteous attitude.
You sem to be an idiot.
So you found 3 armed robberies .. show me the others then.
Thank you.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
uh, if you attempt to opt-out-of-govt, you will get to meet the men with the guns. Where can you really opt-out, besides maybe Antartica or that little strip of land between Egypt and Sudan?
"best interest in mind" by govt is pretty much indistinguishable from that of Big Corporation (tm). Since both are run by people who desire wealth/power/both. The big difference is that those in power in a govt are more likely to use the Men with Guns (instead of just lawyers--not sure which is worse) to get their way.
So we had 3 in Germany and one in Italy which I missed. (in a whole year! how much di you have per week?) /.s fault! They do not post news about robberies in Germany!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Your statement implied that there were no armed robberies for the past 2 years ("When was the last robbery in Germany that involved a weapon (knife or a stick ... most certainly not a gun)? It is December 6th now ... definitely not this year. And I can not remember a case last year."), I clearly showed that there were armed robberies in the past year in Germany. I don't need "others" to prove my point.
Enigma
Why is it that random people or companies can't throw you in a cage?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Wow, this city of yours sounds like a real war-zone hell hole. Why don't you move?
Or, just name the city so we can look at the actual crime statistics and reach our own conclusions...
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
That's a remarkably Marxist argument.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
"Taxation isn't theft."
Well, yeah it is if it's INCOME tax. The tax collectors come and take something that doesn't belong to them, your money.
All income taxes should be abolished for being immoral. There are other things to tax - consumption is the best - and no, it doesn't have to be regressive if its designed right, like the Fair Tax is.
But we had all those mentioned features before 1913, when the 16th Amendment enabling the Federal income taxes was passed, and the 50 years or so preceding that were known as the "gilded age." Maybe it was because they didn't have an income tax then, since income taxes suppress prosperity.
Well, the best way to do that is to provide the opportunity to get a good job to as many people as humanly possible. We have around 94 million people out of the work force, if we could drop that to only the people that are retired or otherwise independently wealthy, then the few left over that cannot work for physical reasons, the rest of those who are working and enjoying prosperity could contribute "a little" in taxes and have mountains of money to take care of those who can't care for themselves due to the vast number of those contributing "a little" and the diminuitive number of those who require assistance.
Are governments really so inefficient ?
Or are you seeing the difference between "serving only those who want the service and can afford it" versus "serving everybody who wants the service".
The workload of a government service is in inevitably far higher than that of a private company doing the same service for profit - since the private company only deals with those who can pay what it charges (and all the many complicated things that go into determining an optimum price point and all the many factors that interfere with markets actually reaching optimum price points even when government isn't involved).
Lets take an example: you are selling a product X in a highly unequal society where some 10% of people who'd want it could easily afford to pay 1000 dollars for it, but the other 90 percent cannot possibly pay more than 10 dollars for it (unless they want to starve to get it). We'll assume the cost of production is 5 dollars. Is it better to sell a few 1000 dollar versions, or a lot of 10 dollar versions ? Well that depends entirely on the size of the population - in many instances it will actually be better to sell the 1000 dollar versions - you may sell fewer but since you're making fewer you also need to higher less people to make them - and the 10 dollar sales may not even add up to match the 1000 dollar version.
An even better ideal is if you can manage to buy up damn near all the competition, and even better, own the retail stores for the product, then you can take the exact same product - change the label and sell it at both 10 dollar and 1000 dollar version - and make sales on both. Sound unlikely ? It's exactly the situation that currently exists in the eye-glass market. One company (Luxotica) owns more than 80% of all eye-glass and sunglass brands as well as owning almost 100% of the eyeglass retail market. So whether you buy a 1000 dollar pair of glasses at a high-end store or a 10 dollar pair at sunglass hut - not only are you buying from the same company, you're buying the exact same product made in the exact same factory by the same people. It's literally only the label that differs and you only have an illusion of choice and competition.
And of course, a near monopoly on the retail side makes competition virtually impossible on the manufacturing side. Oakley's used to go for the low-end market, making cheap but decent glasses. Luxotica starting selling them very expensively in their stores. Oakley's complained saying they were losing sales due to Luxotica's overpricing.
So Luxotica completely dropped the brand from all their retail stores - Oakley's share price collapsed - and Luxotica bought them out for pennies on the dollar.
And this is not a market where there's much of any regulation, the only bit that exists is on prescription glasses and even that is quite limited (it's not like badly made prescription glasses are likely to kill you after all, nor do they have an addiction risk or any of the other things existing medical regulations are designed to curb). It's not a result of government action - it's just what the free market did, it doesn't always achieve optimum outcomes. A monopoly can survive perfectly well, unassailable by competition and all that's required is that it manages to maintain an illusion of choice so customers don't realize it's a monopoly.
Now on the other hand - a government service cannot choose whether to sell high or low, it cannot choose to turn customers away when serving them wouldn't be profitable. Does this make it cost more ? Sure. Does it equate to a reduced inefficiency ? Probably.
Is the loss worth it ? That's debateable - and very much context specific. In many cases it is entirely worth it and it's better to have a government service than not to have it. In many other cases it's not worth it at all and it's best to have the service provided by the free market only. Both have their flaws and their benefits - and whether the pros or the cons are bigger depends entirely on the specific circumstances of the specific service at
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I've never yet met a liberal who defended any of those things.
In fact, we tend to be MORE opposed to them than the right.
Exactly because we do NOT see government as an authority but as our servant, and actions like that are not what we WANT our servant doing. So we try to force it to stop and the righwingers constantly undermine us.
But then again I have never MET a statist. It's amazing how libertarians see them everywhere and I've never encountered a single one. What you seem to think I want you call statism but I sure as hell don't want the government ruling my life.
On the contrary- I want the government subject to MY control.
I don't care what SIZE it is, I want it to be whatever size it needs to be to perform the services I told it to perform - nothing more, nothing less.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
There has never in history been a time when private charity could achieve the full needs of all those who, through no fault of their own, need help (and that's without even counting things where "fault of their own" is up for debate - like addiction).
It has always and consistently fallen massively short - including long before welfare states existed.
And yet somehow, magically, you believe it would get big enough if we take the welfare state away ? Even though it has never, ever happened before- in history.
That's a massively extraordinary claim and it requires massively extraordinary evidence to convince me - your blind faith doesn't suffice.
Private charity tried to deal with the phossy jaw problem.
The market tried to address it through competition.
Unions tried to address it through collective bargaining.
Thousands of poor, desperate women kept dying every year in one of the most brutal deaths imaginable so matches could cost a little bit less for 4 decades.
Nothing worked to even reduce, let alone end, that atrocity until government regulation forced it's end in 1910.
You fear being a slave for the government. But having to take a job that will probably kill you in 2 years to avoid starving today. is a much more clearcut form of slavery - and it's what ACTUALLY happens when you don't have regulations and welfare. It's the doom of 99% of people when those things aren't there to constrain the 1% that were born lucky.
Every libertarian must either not know this (which means they've not read enough history - or been to blinkered in whose accounts they read and who they excluded), or they are convinced they will be part of the 1%.
Since libertarians make up about 10% of the US population - it means that even if the entire 1% were libertarians - 90% of you are still wrong.
There is a 90% chance that, in your utopia - you're (yes, talking to you personally) only choices would be "starve today or die a brutal, torturous death in 2 years".
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Get over your self-righteous attitude. You sem to be an idiot.
So you found 3 armed robberies .. show me the others then.
Thank you.
You said there were none. It only takes one to disprove the assertion.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Prostitution. At least for the time being.
If we have tech suitable to replace humans doing work, we have already gone past the barrier for sexbot. For working AI, the first job to be replaced will be that of prostitute. See how successful RealDolls(sp?) are and those are simply static mannequins. Imagine the market for a mostly autonomous RealDoll.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
You go to the auction to buy groceries?
No, but the price of all goods rise to what the market will bear. When everyone's money increases by the same amount "what the market will bear" goes up as well, hence the price rises.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Your poor are very stupid.
It's usually the poor that benefit from higher taxes because they also usually pay a WAY lower share. Depending on the tax of course, but in general, the higher the tax, the better for the poorer people.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Of course you wouldn't be used in your home town, you might actually know the alleged terrorist and refuse to shoot him because you know ol' Daddy Mikey and know that he would rather shoot himself than do anything against the beloved US of A.
You'd be serving in a completely other corner or the states where you're told that a terrorist group holds a town hostage and uses the women and children as human shields, and you're going in to liberate them and return peace and order to a town hijacked by terrorists.
In a nutshell, you'd get to hear the same bullshit you're fed before invading another country, just that this time around they'd have to make sure that you won't be used too close to home to see through the propaganda.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's funny the number of people who post every time UBI is discussed about "giving poor people more money won't help them" or some other criticism that is filed against more welfare in general. That's not what UBI is, at least not to me.
For me, UBI could not propose increasing welfare at all and I'd STILL be for it. To me it's about removing the complicated network of welfare and simplifying it. It's about removing the negative stigma. You can argue for higher, or lower UBI, and I'd STILL be happy that at least we've 1. simplified the system and 2. shown the U.S. that there are advantages to systems like these.
Do I think it'll work as pretty as it is in my head? No. But you can't tell me it's not worth trying to improve our current system, regardless of politics.
I didn't read your fucking article because you presented it click-bait style
So, you didn't read the material, and declared I didn't support it. Yeah, that is totally not supporting it.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Her poor planning obviously deserves a death sentence from her community.
Yeah, because that is totally what the article states. Nice hyperbole and strawman.
This is why reasonable people can't have reasonable discussions because people like you aren't reasonable.
Graduate High School, is that so fucking hard? Even people with kids manage to do it.
Waiting till your married and 21 to have kids, is that so fucking hard? Most people manage this.
Having a full time job, is that so fucking hard? Most people manage this.
What is so fucking hard about keeping dicks out of your vagina until you're married? Impossible?
What is so fucking hard about graduating high school? All you have to do is show up. Impossible?
What is so fucking hard about holding a full time job? Show up on time, and do the work. Impossible?
So the girl that had to drop out of high school because she got knocked up and married her baby-daddy we abandon.
She didn't have to drop out of high school. They have programs for girls like her. Stop making excuses for failure. Yeah, I'm sure life is hard for her. THAT is kind of the point. It didn't have to be that way, and we should be teaching kids this.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Drug addiction is also increasing everywhere in the country, and I submit the two problems are related.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
most of the "poor" are that way because they are really bad at making decisions.
This doesn't seem like an adequate root cause analysis. Adults don't just spring into existence at the age of 18 making bad decisions. An adult that is not provided with an adequate education, whose brain is all miswired to handle violence instead of civilized life, who has been developmentally hindered by exposure to heavy metals and malnutrition... "making good decisions" is not going to be something that a product of such an upbringing is likely to do very well. If you want to break the cycle of poverty you need to make sure kids born into a shitty situation still enjoy the benefits of an education and proper nutrition. You need to make sure they aren't living in a violent situation so that their brain is wired for a civil society instead of for constant violent conflict.
Anyway, in the context of UBI - I would love for it to work in the US, but I agree with you and think it will not. I do still think it has hope in places where "poor" means people living a subsistence lifestyle rather than eking by on a combination of menial job and government assistance. A subsistence farmer can use the extra income to buy some productivity equipment and move into a situation where they are producing extra goods to resell. They could buy a cheap solar light to increase the working day or for their kids to get an education after the hard work of the day is done. I think there is a possibility in the developing world for a "basic income" type charity to work, but I'm more skeptical about the prospects in the developed world.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Drug addiction is also increasing everywhere in the country, and I submit the two problems are related.
Yep. Science shows that people who feel they have nothing to lose are at increased vulnerability to drug addiction, and when you give addicts some semblance of a life, they are much more likely to be able to kick their habits.
Probably that's not the direction you were implying causation, but if I've got you wrong, congratulations, because that's the way it runs.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Probably that's not the direction you were implying causation
No, I agree with that analysis. Nevertheless, IMHO you aren't going to solve a drug-addicted person's homelessness by giving them $10,000 per year.
As I said, I'm not anti-UBI, and in fact wholeheartedly embrace pilot programs - even going so far as to help fund them. I'd be thrilled if the US government implemented a controlled experiment with UBI as an alternative to other safety net type programs. With that said, until some data comes in I remain skeptical that it can work all of the miracles that supporters claim. Homelessness in particular is a very stubborn problem even when funding is plentiful - witness recent attempts to extinguish the phenomenon of homeless veterans.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I believe I said 'basically none'.
And in a discussion like this it is obvious that I meant 'not the absurd amount' they have in the USA.
But if you think nitpicking makes you look smart then nitpick.
Point is: we have nearly no armed robeert here for many reasons and one is people can not simply buy a gun in a store for 100$ go to the next jewlery store and rob it.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
My appologize, I exagerated. As I don't watch TV I missed them.
Nevertheles the point is and stands uncorrected: we basically habe no armed robberies.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Why is a regressive tax good for poor people?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
You'll give them $10,000 more heroin. Or more like $7000, I guess, since UBI will drive up the price of street drugs.
You go visit any native reserve with no local industry and see how your community will look.
Touchy, touchy!
Point is, telling somebody what they should have done is a waste of time. Most people have already made the decision whether or not to have a child in high school. Somebody says, "I'm working as hard as I'm able, but I still can't keep food on the table." You solve their problem with, "Let me tell you where you went wrong."
Graduate High School, is that so fucking hard? Even people with kids manage to do it.
Did you complete high school while taking care of a baby? No? Then STFU. Having a kid as a kid often necessitates going to work full time on top of taking care of your child. Without family support it can be very difficult just to earn enough to survive without the added burden of full-time school. It's easy when you lose your virginity at 30, but for the rest of us there are temptations as teens that can lead to bad decisions. A bad decision as a teenager shouldn't doom you for life. Blaming their circumstance on their bad decision accomplishes nothing.
Waiting till your married and 21 to have kids, is that so fucking hard? Most people manage this.
Not useful advice to a 25 year old. Not useful advice for most people.
Having a full time job, is that so fucking hard? Most people manage this.
I realize I already said this, but are you aware that there are people who would very much like to have a full time job but can't get one? Those people are addicted to getting food every day just like you are.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
If I don't deal with one of a very short list of corporations, I don't get useful internet access. If I want to go to a park, and find it all polluted, it doesn't really matter if I bought the products of the company that caused the pollution. If a corporation usually produces good stuff, and spends lots of money lobbying for laws that I abhor, I find that voting with my wallet is far too blunt an instrument.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
To the already-addicted, sure that is plausible. But I think drinkypoo's point is that the extra money might prevent them from becoming despondent and turning to drugs in the first place. That's a reasonable opinion, and it could lead to reduced homelessness in the very long term.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I am all in favour of helping a few people with mental health problems find someplace to live. Maybe not downtown in the most expensive real estate in the country, but somewhere.
Of course, it's easy to come up with exceptions to your rule, but I don't think that's the point. I assume you are trying to give an intuitive argument for something. (I'm not sure what that is.)
My general point is that economic theory has been a big failure. It has very little predictive value. However, it is obviously important and worth studying. I just wish we could extract the value from the garbage.
Chris Mesterharm
Yes it could be bad, but I would like to see some reasonable experiments to see if it could be viable with decent regulation. At least it has the advantage that it's not too hard to go someplace else.
Chris Mesterharm
I believe I said 'basically none'.
You believe wrong. This is what you said:
Don't use the word "definitely" unless you intend to look foolish. It's a bold claim, and one that is easily disproven.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
If you actually think all those civilian guns are ineffective you can volunteer to lead a team going door to door seizing them.
Why? You don't mind enforcing your moral of "thou shalt not steal not matter what", I want to enforce my moral of "thou shalt not steal unless it is to make sure poor people can get to a hospital".
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
I find it funny to see someone speaking about a free market while in the same time having a signtuare saying that most people are dumb animals.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
If that something is creating smoke that reaches my house, then he stole my clean air, yes.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
Point is, telling somebody what they should have done is a waste of time.
That is not correct. Telling people what they should have done, is a way to correct future behavior. Unless learning from mistakes is frowned upon.
Further, I think I made the case elsewhere, we should be teaching kids this stuff from an early age.
It's too late to tell Charlie Sheen that sleeping with hookers will get him AIDS, but it isn't too late for people who have never slept with a hooker. And yes, you can sleep with hookers and never get AIDS, and you can also never sleep with hookers and get AIDS anyways. However, you cannot get AIDS from not sleeping with hookers.Risky behavior is risky, who knew?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You might want to look at the latest unemployment numbers. They are approaching historic lows.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That is not correct. Telling people what they should have done, is a way to correct future behavior. Unless learning from mistakes is frowned upon.
One of your rules is irreversible. One requires some time and effort to correct. The other some people find insurmountable. What are you trying to teach people? What future behavior are you trying to correct? In your three rules, what mistake are people supposed to learn from? "Next time you go to high school maybe you'll know not to get knocked up. Hope you learned your lesson. Why are you still complaining about not being able to feed your child? I told you what you did wrong."
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
If you take the "everybody needs a baseline" theory, which is not in itself wrong, and apply it to what an economy is really about, you get Universal Basic Employment (UBE).
This was what the New Deal programs did back in the 1930's. Nobody got hand-outs for very long, as it was seen as undignified and unfair. So instead of just handing out welfare money and inducing inflation into the economy with no overall gain for anyone, they instituted government make-work to build infrastructure and quality-of-life improvements (like all of those over-built stone signs and pavilions at national parks). The government paid a living wage for this, and slowly the economy began to improve as more people had a little cash to spend and more improvements were made to infrastructure that enabled more businesses to do more work within their means and provide goods and services that they weren't able to provide before.
That's completely a myth. The USA at points during the 1920's (without those government programs) seems to have had the lowest unemployment in the developed world - but after two terms of FDR (and Hoover before that) it didn't even make the top 10 list. Government policy took what should have been a relatively minor recession, and turned it into the Great Depression.
The New Deal policies were an unmitigated disaster. A lot of it had to do with taking money away from things that could actually improve the economy, and moving it to things that didn't. Keynesian economics (or arguably a misapplication of Keynes ideas) was also a huge part of the problem. The high tariffs were also a big part of the disaster.
Huge amounts of New Deal spending were not oriented towards fixing the problems, they instead were used to buy votes. Both access to jobs and the income one would get in those jobs was far higher in swing states (independent of cost of living). It certainly wasn't about a "living wage". Things were especially bad in the South, and the group most affected was African-Americans (who had the misfortune of voting Republican in those days, as that had been the party of Lincoln, and thus were last in line when it came to getting government funds under a government controlled by the Democrats of the day).
Also, New Deal programs caused a lot of private spending on charity to go away, especially local and state level spending.
FDR was charismatic and had the Roosevelt name, but he really didn't understand how business or an economy works. His personal finances throughout his lifetime had always been a disaster - his rich family bailed out his mistakes time after time, but nobody could bail him out when he kept repeating the same mistakes as President.
FDR had to relax a lot of his policies to make WW2 work, and after he died many of those his successors no longer had the political capital to reimplement them. This is the real reason the Great Depression finally ended - it had been caused by government, prolonged by government, and was finally ended by reducing the amount of government interference in the economy. This is NOT to say that regulation is always a bad thing - Adam Smith talks at length about the need for it in The Wealth of Nations (1776), it is a critical element to make capitalism work - but it needs to be right kind of regulation.
The Vedder and Gallaway economic history of unemployment in the USA in the 20th century is a good starting point for examining the evidence on this period.
Look, you said something patently false, and I provided the proof.
It's nothing to get butthurt over, unless you just have something against factual representation of reality.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Yea, I thought about that too... basically the Midwest is about the only area you couldn't pull that shit in, since that's where the majority of infantry originate from.
Personally I have hope, as most of the soldiers I know are far more intelligent than your run-of-the-mill, intentionally-low-IQ police officer.
'Course, hope in one hand, shit in the other, amirite?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I choosed my wording wrong, that is all.
Bottom line we have _no_ gun violence, armed robbery etc. in Europe.
The amount of _no_ may vary.
Next time I chose my words better and point out: in Germany with 80 million inhabitants we have less than 10 armed robberies per year, while gods own country has about 10 per day (with 400 million inhabitants).
Understand the relevance ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I don't live in the US.
I rather watch from the outside how you kill each other.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I forgot to mention:
I think a tank and modern anti house 'Panzerfausts' would do the trick easily and quickly.
And: you do know that an G3 or G36 or M16 shoots through most walls?
And perhaps you are just bad with words, but being 'point' and 'leading' is not the same thing.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I don't know. What I know is that it worked horribly well in the former East Bloc.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Missing the point entirely. You don't benefit from the street frontage. You benefit from the entire road network. Do all your groceries and domestic goods spring forth fully formed from your front lawn? Hmm, wonder how they got to the stores you visit. You buy online, you say? Has UPS perfected their hoverjet delivery service yet? Didn't think so.
The value is the network. Not your curbside.
Are you joking? One survey of unknown methodology proves absolutely nothing. Besides which, all the survey data in the world is irrelevant to my point. "Poor people love it" and "it burdens poor people" aren't remotely the same thing. Poor people vote against their economic self interest all the time. Whether they like something has nothing to do with whether it's a fair and equitable system.
Likewise comparing tolls to sales tax is asinine. Sales tax is the most regressive tax there is, since poor people have to spend a much greater proportion of their income. Saying tolls aren't as bad as sales tax is like saying losing a limb isn't as bad as decapitation.
Not to mention citing a paper by two urban planners in a policy journal is laughable. Economists do these analyses rigorously. If it were a serious study it'd be published in a peer-reviewed economics journal.
Please, don't waste my time with your nonsense.
WHY OH WHY did that stupid company end up with all those billions of dollars, for something we despise... ads?
One day, we could be without money. You never know. In any science fiction, when writers portray the future, there's no money. So deep down inside, it's what people want.