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California City Tries Universal Basic Income Programs -- Including One Targeting Potential Shooters (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Los Angeles Times:
Mayor Michael Tubbs, a Stockton native and Stanford graduate who is all of 27 years old, wants to give at least $500 a month to a select group of residents. They'll be able to spend it as they wish, for 18 months, in a pilot program to test the impact of what's called guaranteed basic income... Workers in Silicon Valley and the San Francisco-Oakland area, driven out of the cuckoo housing markets in those communities, have snapped up cheaper properties in Stockton, accepting the bargain of killer commutes... But Stockton still suffers the crushing burdens of poverty, crime and now the rising rents and home prices that come with gentrification. For those who don't have the education or training to work 60 miles away on tech's front lines, Stockton still struggles to develop jobs that pay a living wage...
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Space X's Elon Musk have both pitched the idea in terms of inevitability, given the growing income gap and the threat of massive job losses because of automation... As small as the program will be, it's not going to dramatically affect many Stockton residents, but the goal is to get a sense of whether such an infusion on a broader scale can significantly alter lives and boost the economy.
The program will be funded by private and nonprofit sources, according to the article. And while it may not start until early next year, Stockton is already launching a similar program where the benefits are more targeted. Stockton is about to award stipends of up to $1,000 a month to residents deemed most likely to shoot somebody... The idea is that a small number of people are responsible for a large percentage of violence, and offering them an alternative path -- with counseling and case management over an 18-month period, along with a stipend if they stay the course -- can be a good investment all around.
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Space X's Elon Musk have both pitched the idea in terms of inevitability, given the growing income gap and the threat of massive job losses because of automation... As small as the program will be, it's not going to dramatically affect many Stockton residents, but the goal is to get a sense of whether such an infusion on a broader scale can significantly alter lives and boost the economy.
The program will be funded by private and nonprofit sources, according to the article. And while it may not start until early next year, Stockton is already launching a similar program where the benefits are more targeted. Stockton is about to award stipends of up to $1,000 a month to residents deemed most likely to shoot somebody... The idea is that a small number of people are responsible for a large percentage of violence, and offering them an alternative path -- with counseling and case management over an 18-month period, along with a stipend if they stay the course -- can be a good investment all around.
"Universal"
"You keep on using that word. I do not think that word means what you think that word means.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
How is a "select group" "universal"?
Is that because it is too expensive to be "universal"? If there are income criteria attached, there is already a name for such a program.... it is called "welfare".
It's just a welfare program. If everyone doesn't get it, and if it's not an unconditional right, it's not "universal".
However I suspect this is what some (not all) proponents of UBI really want. A nice little cash handout for the selected and compliant. A lever of money to influence the behavior of the lumpen masses.
In the US, 90% of stupid posts are caused by trolls. Try getting a job that pays above minimum wage without going to university or vocational training. Meanwhile, training/education cost money. At the very least, giving a stipend to university or vocational students is a good idea.
Finland tried it and didn't expand it when they said they would, and instead ended it. There's probably a reason for that: it didn't work.
A guaranteed minimum income to raise everyone to the poverty level makes more sense to me. It'd cost far less, for one thing, and if the assessment is done frequently enough it'd (quickly) cover people who had a well-paying job but became unemployed.
Of course the poverty level is far too low, so it'd have to raise people to like 150% of the poverty level.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Not so crazy when you see NRA and so many others on the right repeatedly fight tooth and nail to ensure those who are likely to shoot someone are still able to conveniently buy military-grade assault weapons without any background checks.
Please provide just one link to any single thing the NRA has ever published that supports what you just said. Which you can't, because you're just plain lying. So the real question is, why are you lying? You know that what you're saying is child's play to fact check, and that it doesn't even begin to pass the smell test. So, you know you're lying, and you know that everyone else will know you're lying. So, really, is it just because you're a lazy troll?
I understand the aim is to increase firearm sales since, if and when they become the next school shooter, NRA's members share prices will spike.
Ah, I see. You're pretending that you're actually incapable of reading and learning things, or are hoping that everyone else is. But here's the thing: even the people who pretend to believe what you're saying know that the NRA's members are millions and millions of individuals. The vast majority of the funds that the NRA raises come from member fees and member donations (not corporate sponsors). And essentially ALL of the money they spend in political lobbying (which is handled by a completely separate legal entity with its own publicly viewable money trail) comes from small donations by millions of individuals. All of which you know, and you know that everyone else does, too. Which makes it so strange that you think you're fooling somebody with your absurd assertion. So, stop lying - you're not kidding anyone.
Statistically, most domestic terrorists have a right-wing ideology (e.g. smaller government, racial hatred, non-christian intolerance) and carry out their murderers usually for political reasons not because they don't have a livable income. They apparently had enough money to buy easily available firearms without respectable background checks, afterall.
This is incoherent, has no basis in fact, and is you - once again - spouting nonsense about something you know to be false, or about which you're so embarrassingly misinformed that it's a wonder you can even string together a meaningful sentence on the topic. Oh, right! You haven't actually done so.
I can understand their logic as more reasonable than I can relative to NRA's complicit encouragement in arming these unstable individuals to become the next mass killer headliners
Again, simply lying about it doesn't make it true. Your failure to show a single example of what you're lying about pretty much wraps it up. Though it is worth pointing out that the people who REALLY love mass killings are the liberals. Because it makes a great lever they can use to send out sock puppets like those kids from Florida, armed with money from people like Soros, to lie just like you, all in the name of regaining the political power the left has squandered for years. Please, keep it up! The more transparent BS-spouting you do, the more it helps people to understand why they should vote in exactly the opposite way you're trying to con them into in the first place. So, more, please! Every time people like you do, organizations like the NRA get record amounts of new members and individual donations. You're helping their cause when you lie. Thanks!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You're confused, we've had a war and poor people for many decades, not a war on poverty. And compared to what it was like 75 years ago, we're significantly better off. We don't have people starving to death any longer.
We are, however, giving up the progress that we had made because the lion's share of the government aid goes to corporations and people who have incredibly large amounts of wealth rather than being allowed to go to people who actually need it.
In the long term, the choice is a UBI or some sort of armed insurrection. We've already established that the rich and powerful won't allow the people to have a real say in policy and are too selfish to allow the workers to keep their fair share of what they produce. As more and more people fall into crushing poverty due to the incredible greed of the wealthiest, there will be less and less incentive to maintain a system that has left them behind. The French and Russian aristocracies may not have seen it coming, but the current crop of American aristocrats should.
Replace a million by 10,000 and it's a great idea. Of course, the rich will tell you horror stories about inflation and jerbs, but you know why they don't want that...
It makes no sense to take from someone who earns the money and give it to someone who has done nothing to earn the money.
Now show us some evidence that the people who are getting the most money in our society are actually earning any of it.
able to conveniently buy military-grade assault weapons without any background checks.
Number of people killed in America last year by military-grade assault weapons purchased without background checks: 0.
Number of people killed in America last year by handguns: 25,227
As long as we're on the topic, $500 is not basic income in any part of California. It can buy you a blanket and pillow, but the rent for the square of sidewalk you want to sleep on will exceed that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Socialism is about reducing the maximum number of people to dependence on the state.
So it kind of is - they are just quite specific about what 'equality' is, equality is total dependence on state control and funding - basically the reduction of everyone to the lowest point, so that no one will challenge those in control 'who are doing things for the good of everyone else'
Every socialist state so far has effectively proven this, without exception.
Socialism is a (one of many) Totalitarianist solution.
So "basic income" now means "subsidy"?
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
I don't think the people "most likely to shoot somebody" will stay home and be nice for $1000.
Much more likely they'll spend it all on drugs/hookers the first day the be angry for the rest of the month because they've got no money to go out partying.
No sig today...
No, to influence mentally unstable people to vote for the mayor who is giving them free money....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
ALL social programs are run by politicians. You can't just screech "no true Scottsman" and pretend that this nonsense will magically sort it out if only you appoint the right "enlightened dictator" to run things.
The problem with do-gooders is that they always refuse to acknowledge the obvious and forseeable challenges. Once these things arise, they never take responsibility for their inability to think shit through. They may not even admit there's even a problem. If they do, they will just go back to scapegoating and avoiding ALL personal responsibility for the policies they implemented.
Anything you think up has to survive Republicans and Tories. Even a reasonably bright pre-teen can grok this.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It just encourages more people to be threatening for the stipend. The counseling and case management will go away or become a joke and all the program will end up doing is bribing violent people not to be violent - which they will be anyway because it is their nature.
E Proelio Veritas.
Then we could reduce spending in the form of the DEA! AND on jails and prisons!
We'd need a good name for it, though. We could call it "freedom"?
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