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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.
$500 UBI a month for a select group of individuals, and $1000 a month for an even more select group of individuals.
Hmmm
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
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".
My country has a basic welfare allowance which I admire. A good proportion of recipients spend their money on drugs then demand food subsidies. While I don't want bureaucratic money-management, there needs to be some disincentives for avoiding self-sufficiency.
This is so fucking stupid. We've had the War on Poverty for 75 years and there's more people on government aid then ever before. If you create a special fund that only gives money to violent criminals, guess what you're going to get a lot more of?
So those terrorist virgins who hate women and the men who date them would now be getting universal basic income? The $1000 a month would not fix their problem, which is that they desperately want sex with the same women they hate. And no, ordering up hookers is a proposal they have already rejected. They need a mental fix.
Who the stipend would actually help are scammers who falsely claim to be terrorist virgins.
I could just threaten to shoot myself. Surely thatâ(TM)s worth $200.
Instead of PreCrime sending you to jail, it sends you a check? I'm cool with that.
One day we'll accept that it's cheaper and better to send some people a kilo of weed and a $500 PSN giftcard than to deal with the consequences of what they're doing when they're NOT high and staying home being entertained.
It's unlikely many people will attempt to game the neural net by intentionally acting like a destitute person, if they're able to avoid it; and the neural net can distinguish those cases from those who really need it, anyhow.
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.
Please stop using the term universal to describe a program that targets a relative handful of people.
Worth $200 to prevent or carry out?
Not necessarily, they just cancelled early because of politics.
Table-ized A.I.
Or did i just read that they are gonna give a $1000 per month allowance to potential shooters for ammo and body armor? Novel.
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
Given they are trying to send a bunch of money to people they think are going to shoot up someplace, I have the perfect name for the program...
"Ammo for Assholes"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
Calm down kiddo.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
The AC Hot Take, second only in quality to the new owners crap political postings. I love Slashdot 5.0 or wherever we are now.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
If I'm a peaceful guy not getting $1000, but the violent guy next door does, then I'm bound to become suddenly violent as well. Now hand me my $1000, bee!
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
Between its numerous welfare programs, the US already effectively has a "UBI":
Earth has always had a solution for one group of animals failing to thrive. Natural selection. If you cannot function in modern society, why should the rest of the productive citizenry pick up your slack? Its dead easy to get a job in the USA now with unemployment so low. That is, unless you are lazy or dumb. Let the critically violent and unemployed just die out, to be replaced with the offspring of the successful. Eventually (as has happened for billions of years) the entire population will just be the offspring of the successful, and we will probably be better off overall as a species. Giving handouts just encourages welfare dependency and dysgenics (lookup the work of Richard Lynn).
Are they also going to identify which kids are the bullies in school so they can pay them lunch money every day?
I have a novel idea! Why not pay people to work? Surely there are places in that backwards city that need to be cleaned up, grass to be cut, trees to be trimmed, cars to be washed, you get the idea.
By definition, I have, in some way, earned any money that someone else voluntarily gives me. I have, in some way, provided value that justifies the cash.
You may not see the value, but the person giving me that money certainly does, or the money would not be forthcoming.
Note, I said *voluntarily*. Government takings (taxes) and redistributions (welfare) do not constitute "voluntary". And those monies are not earned. So yeah, a lot of money changing hands in our society is not earned. Nothing of value is provided in exchange for it.
(In all these debates about "income inequality", why do I never hear a debate about "output inequality"?)
It wouldn't count toward overtime. And it would probably only be a fraction of an equivalent hourly wage. This will encentivize large and affluent businesses to help develope and subsidize nice and affordable nearby housing or a train system to get to the housing quickly. More than an hour commute each way is rediculous.
If I'm not violent enough for $1000/month payment, I'll work real hard on my rage skill to improve my violence. ARRRRRRRGGGGGHH!
but don't support the Universal part then you don't support UBI. By the same token if you claim to be Conservative but support sweeping government & societal changes then you're not Conservative. Words have meaning. It's time we start calling people on it when they misuse words, especially when it's for the express purpose of deceit.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I know from a personal experience that it is extremely difficult to get sufficient care for someone who is severely mentally disturbed, especially if he or she is intelligent enough to fake sanity once in a while. In many cases a shooter's family was concerned about the person prior to the incident, and even attempted to seek help, but it isn't easy to just have someone committed (example: Jared Lee Loughner). So before we give people money to buy guns, how about we find a way to provide psychiatric care for such people who really need it?
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
So no cop has earned any money? No fireman? How voluntary does it have to be? Does the CEO of a hospital earn any money in your estimation? After all, very few CHOOSE to go to the hospital, but when they need one, they;re over a barrel (literally agree or die).
Does it count when a group of CEOs sit on each other's boards and grant each other huge raises (paid with other people's money)?
How about the money a professional grifter brings in? Does it matter if the grifter is Goldman Sachs?
If you used the term "assault weapon" in the actual military, you would likely get your entire platoon punished.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Obama didn't legislate. He issued an executive order that included ZERO due process. It was so bad that even the ACLU objected to it.
You're just mindlessly repeating stupid propaganda.
You can't even get this simple set of facts right.
The measure in question only applied to old geezers on social security. It had no real standard for determining "mental illness".
It takes real talent to create an "anti-gun" measure that even the ACLU doesn't like.
It's not what you're trying to pretend it was.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The shooter in Las Vegas had more than "hand guns".
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That is actually my entire response to the second part of this story. Thanks.
Australian here.
No it didn't. That's not to say that the increase in gun control wasn't a good thing, but please, if you are going to use us as an example then get your facts right.
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.
He also didn't have a military-grade assault weapon.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Unless I'm mistaken, the whole reason folks are blaming / going after the guns instead of the person behind it is due to the difficulty of predicting who is going to snap and go on a rampage.
Did California just magically fix that little problem and can now identify " potential shooters " ?
I also don't see where bribing folks to behave is going to end well. This is one of those things where throwing money at it isn't going to work.
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"?
I robbed banks specifically because I couldn't escape poverty. I'm not saying I'm the best guy ever to live, but let's not pretend that poverty doesn't cause crime.
You guys make me literally laugh out loud every time you say "assault weapon". It's a joke on people who don't know anything at all about firearms.
The term does have a definition, defined by federal law. You can look it up if you want to. If you don't know what any of the words mean, what a "receiver" or "magazine" is, or "semiautomatic", here's a summary for you:
An assault weapon is one that looks scary.
It could be a plinker, a .22 like kids used to use to shoot cans in the backyard, if it's shaped like an AK and it's black than it's an assault weapon.
>"Number of people killed in America last year by handguns: 25,227"
Number of defensive gun uses that either stopped or prevented crime in America by non-police, with and without any shots fired: up to 3,000,000
UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME.
I know it's a pilot, but come on, this doesn't take a lot of braincells to figure out. The entire concept hinges on UNIVERSAL. You don't have to have any special need, in fact, the way it's supposed to work in theory, you can even have a job.
Bottom line, this pilot isn't going to tell you jack about how this is going to work cuz you're not doing it right. It's UNIVERSAL, everyone needs to get it, or your test is null and void.
I'd even go as far to say, your pilot is folly, you're going to create resentments in the community cuz someone is getting a free lunch and someone else isn't. That's not how this idea works. For it to work, EVERYONE gets a free lunch, if they want.
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The fact that he modified his cache of weapons to go above and beyond stock performance does not diminish that
Military-grade assault weapons don't need after-market "bump stocks".
This can't possibly work, because of a Supreme Court decision back around the 1970's. Up until then local social support had been able to be limited to residents of the area, but the Supreme Court decided that this was forbidden. This instituted a race to the bottom, because any locale that decided to be generous to it's unfortunate residents had to be generous to the entire country.
So this, likewise, can't work. And for the same reason. You don't need to go into details of the plan, if it's more than averagely generous, and it gets in the news, the plan will be swamped.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Have gnu, will travel.
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The mentally ill shooters are a small blip in total gun crime compared to the criminals, both petty and organized, who are responsible for the majority of gun homicides. Considering the stipend is contingent on involvement of social workers and things like addition treatment, it should be pretty clear that this isn't a bribe but rather an effort to provide a pathway off the street for people who live dangerous and desperate lives. In some communities on the margins, it's not uncommon for male teenagers to grow up in an environment where it's practically inevitable that their first and only job will involve selling drugs. Fighting this dynamic solely with force of law obviously doesn't work, because the problem isn't really getting any better. If I remember correctly, homicides are about the same year over year and the only thing we're seeing more of now are reports of police abusing and overzealously persecuting minorities. Some politicians with big hearts are starting to propose social programs aimed at giving people who were raised in environments of crime and desperation a pathway out into a healthier place in society.
Now show us some evidence that the people who are getting the most money in our society are actually earning any of it.
That is a fair point; however, show us the absurdly wealthy who are incapable of shirking their tax burdens. This money will be taken from people who are working and earning their money. If we want UBI, it should start by removing direct taxes from citizens.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Let's see, bribe psychopaths and criminals to not be evil... How has that worked out for the US historically, in say places like Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Afghanistan, etc... Not so well I think. So why should we expect that kind of failed policy to work in society at large? How about we just teach people skills, that allow them to employ themselves, and not rely on the government or corporations?
It doesn't scale up; all you need is a four-banger calculator to figure that out. Enough already.
I'm sorry, but as a veteran, and gun owner for over four decades, I'm not sure what exactly a "military-grade assault weapon" is. I don't know any other gun owners who care about increased firearm sales either, or what shares you're thinking of in that miniscule thing between your ears. Oh, and I'm even in favor of studying UBI, so take that and shove it.
Just another day in Paradise
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The reason our tax code is so complex is exactly to let the very wealthy weasel out of their taxes. The same forces that will eventually cause UBI can as well remove the dozens of loopholes in the tax code.
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Actually, I have seen good data backup numbers anywhere from what you said UP TO 3,000,000 (which I agree, is probably very unrealistic, hence my "up to" remark before the number). 1,000,000 seems to be the mostly supported number that I could come up with that seems reasonable. 80K is probably just as overly extreme on the low side as 3,000,000 on the low side. The 60-80K absolutely ignores a huge amount that we KNOW exists, but is nearly impossible to compute because not enough data is collected or can be proven.
Regardless, there are a huge number of actual and potential crimes that are stopped or averted due to "regular", "good" citizens who are *legally* armed. Pretty much everyone, including those who have seen only a little of the evidence with even a modicum of impartiality, agrees. While the number of violent crimes committed by people *legally* armed is so small as to be almost just noise in the statistics.
mass shooters are provably 99% right winger
So what you're saying is that you're really, really terrible at math.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.