My concern with the dollar stores doesn't relate to the food at all, seeing as I've never even looked at the food sections. These places are chock full of the most useless junk that is actually over priced when it comes to value. But the idea is to prey on customers that can't afford the time or money to get something of better quality and hence a better value. I remember seeing an article that discussed shampoo as a specific example. At a dollar store they'll sell you a weeks worth of shampoo for a buck or two, but if you go to a normal store you can spend less than ten dollars and get half a years supply. In my mind the whole situation is similar to pay day and car title loan shops. Sure they fill a niche in the market that some people obviously want and use, I'm just concerned about the long term affects on the communities they serve. I don't know that it warrants more than just discussing the issues involved with the affected communities though.
I know a bunch of Gov employees that had to work through the last shutdown. During the shutdown they were paid normally. Afterwards though they were forced to take one unpaid day off per pay period until they had missed the appropriate number of days, and corresponding pay.
There are literally thousands of government agencies and each has their own quirks of doing business which means they are affected differently during shutdowns.
Others have mentioned that distributing the glitter in such a fashion could cause physical harm and so he probably deliberately avoided it. That got me thinking about relatively safe things you could do to step it up a notch or three. The first thing I thought of would be to replace the glitter with a few hundred tiny roaches, you could probably buy them from a commercial pet food place. Instead of the fart can I'd go for popping open a can of Surstromming and letting it leak juices everywhere, if you don't want to be bothered spraying it around. The smell from the Surstromming could very well make a car unusable until the upholstery is replaced.
Although you could also just take a can of Surstromming and relabel it as caviar or something that you expect the thief might want to actually try out, and put it in a box.
I read through the list of you tubers involved and yeah I hardly recognized any of them, let alone had watched any of their stuff. That said Primitive Technology was apparently in there, and he's got a really good channel.
The loss of the marvel series sucks, but the rest of it isn't much of a loss that I can see. There just isn't that much mainstream Disney stuff on Netflix. Usually there is a Marvel movie or two and a couple of old movies. Disney runs their content like McD's does the McRib. They'll roll out a movie for a few years then lock it up for a decade before making some new release version of it on whatever the new form of media is. Of all the big IP companies though I think Disney has the best chance of making a go of it on their own, but it'll mean having to put a far larger portion of their stuff out at one time than they have traditionally done.
Good points. I might watch more Youtube than Netflix on any given day, but I'm not sending Youtube any money, and I sure as hell am not watching any of their ads. The fact that I watch more of Youtube doesn't benefit them in anyway.
I think it is important to do both. There are some curricula that everyone should be pushed through in the hope that we eventually end up with a better society. History, Math, Reading/Writing, Biology, Physics, and Government/Politics are all things that everyone should have a well grounded understanding of. Even with all those there should be room to include a few electives every day. And those electives should be as wildly varied as possible to expose the kids to stuff they might not have thought to try out on their own. When you get to the last couple years of High School start offering trade school and work release options.
The Public School system where I'm at now is atrocious. Even their Magnet system for the brighter kids is a setup for failure. The time when a kid stands the best chance of getting into the better schools is Kindergarten. And those Magnet schools each specialize in something and then have very high academic and behavior standards such that a bad grade for a single quarter can result in being kicked back to the normal schools. So basically you're supposed to pick a career path for your kid when they are half a year from entering Kindergarten, gotta register six months ahead of start date. And then keep them performing at the A/B level for the next 13 years with no slips or it's back to the plebe schools.
Are they making spark plugs now that don't wear down? I remember replacing some on my families van that had worn down almost past the sleeve before having a noticeable performance impact. Spark plug wires used to be a common failure point as well, the insulation would get cracked after cooking in the engine compartment for long enough. Then as dust worked it's way in you could get shorts jumping between the wires.
I think there probably is a lot of misplaced hype in brand names. I count Corollas as being exceptionally reliable. But I have a few friends that have owned 4runners and had lots of problems with them.
In part that is why I plan to get a Tesla in a decade or so. By then the Model S and 3 should be well established enough that they should be nearly bullet proof. That is of course provided that they don't completely revamp the designs multiple times between now and then.
I had to get a replacement daily driver in 2009 and found a 1990 Toyota Corolla with working A/C for $3,000. I drove it for around a year before replacing it with my Wife's 2004 model, she started driving a minivan. The only two things that I could find that didn't work or weren't quite right was the cassette deck that was jammed, and nobody had a battery with terminals of the same dimensions as the original, so I had to replace the clamps on the wiring. That was the first car I've ever owned that I bought the Hanes manual for, and then never ended up needing to open.
The 2004 Corolla I drive now, has been a joy to own. The Battery has been replaced a couple times now I think. And the transmission needed tightening up once early on. Otherwise it's been nothing but smooth sailing replacing worn out tires, wiper blades, and changing the oil. I don't take it to the track or anything, but I stomp the throttle a good bit. I expect that it'll last another 10 years or so, and at that point I'll hopefully replace it with a Tesla.
You can likely get a used corolla for $1000 or so that'll last another decade with minimal maintenance. Hell, even if you had to buy another one every six months you'd still be ahead on buying a new car. I can understand buying a lightly used vehicle if the payments won't burden you. But if you're stuck in poverty you're far better off to buy a junker with no AC or radio and use the savings to escape the poverty trap. If you're in poverty and you sign a contract for a car you are screwed out of that nice reliable car if you lose your job during the term of the loan.
Gambling is definitely not an illness of any sort, however Gambling Addiction most certainly is.
Stock Markets are not gambling, just like sports events are not gambling. There are certainly people who gamble on them, but that doesn't negate their actual purpose and function.
I agree that the regulation cropping up around loot boxes is extreme and provides a slippery slope, or lubes up an existing slope. That said the behavior of the gaming industry in so broadly implementing these bullshit systems is clearly a jackass move.
I think in large part this is driven by game companies deciding they don't want to produce a quality product and sell it for a healthy, sometimes absurd, profit. Instead they want to produce a mechanism that will continually milk the same kind of profit out of a customer for years on end, with minimal input from them. Blizzard got their first taste of such a business model with the success of WoW. Then they went on to put out Hearthstone, Diablo 3 with its RMT Auction House, Heros of the Storm, Overwatch, and next up is Diablo Immortal. I'm not interested in supporting that kind of business plan and so will likely not be buying or playing Blizzard/Activision games.
So far as the Casino vs. Loot Boxes topic goes, the only problem I really see is that Casinos are typically regulated in some fashion. There is usually some government agency responsible for policing the Casinos to ensure that the odds of the games really match what is published or advertised, and all kinds of other stuff. Whereas with the video game industry practically nothing is regulated, yet.
I don't know that lifting IRA contribution limits will have a noticeable affect for the country at large. I'm not opposed to raising or removing those limits, I just don't think that even half of the country would see a benefit from it. Most people absolutely suck at saving money for an emergency, let alone for retirement. Hell, I'm making enough to support a family of four on my one pay check, and I save more than 15% of that check for retirement, and I'm still not in danger of hitting those contribution limits.
It might be that you have unrealistically high expectations for a standard of living. If you currently live somewhere that the cost of living is very high, getting out of there upon retirement should be one of your first steps. I live somewhere that is already pretty cheap, and plan to be somewhere even less expensive when I retire. Even with living somewhere cheaper I plan to downsize my living space considerably by then. Provided you can prepare your own food and can minimize ongoing expenses it should be quite possible to get by on a minimal income. I support a family of four on my wages, and I've got friends that have combined earnings similar to mine that have larger families.
I don't know about your kids but mine always take longer to go use the restroom than it takes me to fill up the gas tank, take a leak, buy some snacks and a lotto ticket. Charging an EV a few times a year at a super charger would not increase my travel times appreciably.
The luggage question is very subjective. If I'm doing all the packing then I could probably pack enough for a week long vacation for a family of four into a couple large duffels, which would fit in most any trunk. If my wife is packing then I wouldn't be surprised to see the roof rack on a minivan getting used as well as every cubic inch inside the vehicle. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything. All that said The model S and 3 both have more storage space than traditional cars of their size because they have a frunk as well as a trunk. I don't see why a luggage rack couldn't be added, and a tow hitch is also possible, though of course mileage will suffer somewhat. Although you could recycle a good battery pack from a wrecked Tesla and use it to build a trailer with storage as well as mileage extending batteries.
I plan to keep nearly everything in the market even once I retire. I'll put 2 or 3 years worth of money in stable investments like treasuries. The rest of the money can stay in the market earning higher gains. Every month when I get my allowance from the stable account I'll replace it with money from the market portion, unless the market has crashed within the last year or two. If we have a crash the stable money should be relatively unaffected and provide for my needs while the market recovers. Depending on how large my 401k is when I retire, I might opt for more like 5 years worth of safe money.
The only reason I can see for people to put the majority of their investments into low earning low risk stuff as they near retirement is if their plans need them to have a huge wad of cash at retirement. Perhaps they want to purchase annuities or buy a small island.
Your claim was fraudulent votes, not illegally cast ones. In the end that same judge rejected the claims of fraud. I'm not 100% on what the difference there is, though I presume fraudulent votes would be deliberate illegal voting while a non-fraudulent vote would be someone voting at the wrong place or when they don't have the right to vote.
While the margin of victory there was incredibly tiny, so was the "fraudulent" voting. There were over 2.7 million votes cast and the republicans claimed less than 1,200 possibly fraudulent votes. Even among those 1200 votes some were proven to not be fraudulent, having been cast by felons who were still legal voters. The only mention I see of proven fraudulent votes were a couple cases where two people voted for a deceased spouse, and one of them voted for the republican candidate.
Also you need to brush up on your math, 139 is more than 10% of 1200, and that's being super generous as the 1200 was never actually proven.
Awhile back my place of employment held some special mandatory training to point out that harassing a trans person is unacceptable. They updated the wording in all the training materials and everyone had to attend in person training with HR to go over it. Admittedly the guidelines seemed a bit overboard, the topic and anything relating to it is essentially entirely out of bounds when around a trans person. But then again seeing how a large portion of the attendees reacted to the realization that a trans person was among them, I can't say the restrictions were completely unwarranted. I can't honestly say that I understand trans people, as I'm not one. But I can definitely understand the desire to just be accepted and allowed to be myself, and it always amazes me that some people don't seem to get that.
Military history has shown over and over again the problems with trying to fight a gorilla conflict with traditional forces.
The psychological affects of fighting those kinds of wars are also more well known today than ever before in history. If you doubt that it affects society just go ahead and start talking to combat vets and their families, it's not like there is a dearth of them today.
If you think that the armed forces and veterans are homogeneous in their political and moral thought you'd be sadly deluded. And again if you think that the military has their bases fortified, isolated, and self sufficient you would be greatly misinformed. The US Military for decades now has been configured to fight conflicts external to the USA, as it should since internal security is the realm of the civilian law enforcement agencies.
The PFD comes from exploiting a resource, in this case a natural one. The various proposals for a national UBI would be funded by the resources of the entire economy. A resource is a resource. The only reason it mattered significantly for the PFD is that it was obvious to everyone involved that the natural resource belonged to everyone via the state. When that resource is instead the productivity of the entire population it gets a bit fuzzier, but it is still at heart the same thing.
Whether or not a UBI affects the productivity of a population will obviously depend on how generous the UBI is. There is no reason to start a UBI at lap of luxury levels. If anything it should be started at a low level and slowly scaled up while the other welfare systems are phased out. Once the old systems are replaced you can keep adjusting the UBI higher or lower depending on the health of the economy and desired productivity levels in perpetuity.
The point of UBI is not to immediately ensconce each of us in a decadent lap of luxury lifestyle, and quite possibly never. The idea is the provide for a welfare system that is less prone to fraud, mismanagement, stress, and headaches for everyone as well as subsidize all employers rather than just the Walmarts, Amazons, and McD's.
That is all correct, however it isn't a negative. Currently we only subsidize employers that pay their workers at the lowest end of the payscale. With UBI everyone gets the same allotment and so all employers are subsidized to the same degree.
If we adopted a nationwide UBI I would expect a few things to go along with it. Although some of the changes would probably happen gradually until UBI was enough to cover all the expenses of maintaining some minimal standard of living. I would expect all social welfare programs to go away except the ones specifically aiding the disabled. Minimum wage rates would shrink and eventually disappear. Employers would likely cut wages where legally possible by whatever the UBI rate was.
I want a UBI, but not because some delusion it would mean more money for me. I want UBI so that those that don't have a well paying professional job can get some breathing room. I would expect UBI to improve the lives of the poor and eventually improve our country as a whole.
And that is a UBI. If Hawaii had a UBI it'd probably be based on taxing their tourism industry. UBI doesn't have to come from the same source everywhere. For much of the USA UBI would be funded, sometimes more directly than others, by the extraction or use of natural resources.
In the USA it might start as an insurgency vs the military but it would likely escalate into a regular civil war pretty quickly. The military is not some homogeneous force of like minded individuals. The civilian population also contains a large portion of veterans that would likely participate on both sides. The military equipment and supplies are spread out all over the country and basically impossible to defend properly. Military bases in the USA, even when named "Fort" something or other aren't really very fortified. The fortifications are usually just a few perimeter fences and earth berms/vehicle barriers at entrances and particularly important buildings. The military personnel also live off base for the most part and so they are vulnerable to gorilla tactics. Speaking of supply lines, military facilities are often entirely reliant on the infrastructure from the surrounding communities. Some parts of some facilities will have backup utilities like generators but those are almost entirely meant as short term solutions to get through outages caused by stuff like bad weather.
Afghanistan is actually a great example for how it could all go wrong. We've been there for how long now and still can't say we've won. Sure we control the important bits, but since the Taliban is still out there and just waiting to come back the military has to be actively on guard constantly. Just look at the condition of our forces when they've been fighting that kind of war for most of two decades. How long do you think it'd take the military to completely fall apart trying to hold much larger amounts of territory here in the USA without even having a safe place to go back to after a deployment.
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My concern with the dollar stores doesn't relate to the food at all, seeing as I've never even looked at the food sections. These places are chock full of the most useless junk that is actually over priced when it comes to value. But the idea is to prey on customers that can't afford the time or money to get something of better quality and hence a better value. I remember seeing an article that discussed shampoo as a specific example. At a dollar store they'll sell you a weeks worth of shampoo for a buck or two, but if you go to a normal store you can spend less than ten dollars and get half a years supply. In my mind the whole situation is similar to pay day and car title loan shops. Sure they fill a niche in the market that some people obviously want and use, I'm just concerned about the long term affects on the communities they serve. I don't know that it warrants more than just discussing the issues involved with the affected communities though.
I know a bunch of Gov employees that had to work through the last shutdown. During the shutdown they were paid normally. Afterwards though they were forced to take one unpaid day off per pay period until they had missed the appropriate number of days, and corresponding pay.
There are literally thousands of government agencies and each has their own quirks of doing business which means they are affected differently during shutdowns.
Others have mentioned that distributing the glitter in such a fashion could cause physical harm and so he probably deliberately avoided it. That got me thinking about relatively safe things you could do to step it up a notch or three. The first thing I thought of would be to replace the glitter with a few hundred tiny roaches, you could probably buy them from a commercial pet food place. Instead of the fart can I'd go for popping open a can of Surstromming and letting it leak juices everywhere, if you don't want to be bothered spraying it around. The smell from the Surstromming could very well make a car unusable until the upholstery is replaced.
Although you could also just take a can of Surstromming and relabel it as caviar or something that you expect the thief might want to actually try out, and put it in a box.
I read through the list of you tubers involved and yeah I hardly recognized any of them, let alone had watched any of their stuff. That said Primitive Technology was apparently in there, and he's got a really good channel.
The loss of the marvel series sucks, but the rest of it isn't much of a loss that I can see. There just isn't that much mainstream Disney stuff on Netflix. Usually there is a Marvel movie or two and a couple of old movies. Disney runs their content like McD's does the McRib. They'll roll out a movie for a few years then lock it up for a decade before making some new release version of it on whatever the new form of media is. Of all the big IP companies though I think Disney has the best chance of making a go of it on their own, but it'll mean having to put a far larger portion of their stuff out at one time than they have traditionally done.
Good points. I might watch more Youtube than Netflix on any given day, but I'm not sending Youtube any money, and I sure as hell am not watching any of their ads. The fact that I watch more of Youtube doesn't benefit them in anyway.
I think it is important to do both. There are some curricula that everyone should be pushed through in the hope that we eventually end up with a better society. History, Math, Reading/Writing, Biology, Physics, and Government/Politics are all things that everyone should have a well grounded understanding of. Even with all those there should be room to include a few electives every day. And those electives should be as wildly varied as possible to expose the kids to stuff they might not have thought to try out on their own. When you get to the last couple years of High School start offering trade school and work release options.
The Public School system where I'm at now is atrocious. Even their Magnet system for the brighter kids is a setup for failure. The time when a kid stands the best chance of getting into the better schools is Kindergarten. And those Magnet schools each specialize in something and then have very high academic and behavior standards such that a bad grade for a single quarter can result in being kicked back to the normal schools. So basically you're supposed to pick a career path for your kid when they are half a year from entering Kindergarten, gotta register six months ahead of start date. And then keep them performing at the A/B level for the next 13 years with no slips or it's back to the plebe schools.
Are they making spark plugs now that don't wear down? I remember replacing some on my families van that had worn down almost past the sleeve before having a noticeable performance impact. Spark plug wires used to be a common failure point as well, the insulation would get cracked after cooking in the engine compartment for long enough. Then as dust worked it's way in you could get shorts jumping between the wires.
I think there probably is a lot of misplaced hype in brand names. I count Corollas as being exceptionally reliable. But I have a few friends that have owned 4runners and had lots of problems with them.
In part that is why I plan to get a Tesla in a decade or so. By then the Model S and 3 should be well established enough that they should be nearly bullet proof. That is of course provided that they don't completely revamp the designs multiple times between now and then.
I had to get a replacement daily driver in 2009 and found a 1990 Toyota Corolla with working A/C for $3,000. I drove it for around a year before replacing it with my Wife's 2004 model, she started driving a minivan. The only two things that I could find that didn't work or weren't quite right was the cassette deck that was jammed, and nobody had a battery with terminals of the same dimensions as the original, so I had to replace the clamps on the wiring. That was the first car I've ever owned that I bought the Hanes manual for, and then never ended up needing to open.
The 2004 Corolla I drive now, has been a joy to own. The Battery has been replaced a couple times now I think. And the transmission needed tightening up once early on. Otherwise it's been nothing but smooth sailing replacing worn out tires, wiper blades, and changing the oil. I don't take it to the track or anything, but I stomp the throttle a good bit. I expect that it'll last another 10 years or so, and at that point I'll hopefully replace it with a Tesla.
You can likely get a used corolla for $1000 or so that'll last another decade with minimal maintenance. Hell, even if you had to buy another one every six months you'd still be ahead on buying a new car. I can understand buying a lightly used vehicle if the payments won't burden you. But if you're stuck in poverty you're far better off to buy a junker with no AC or radio and use the savings to escape the poverty trap. If you're in poverty and you sign a contract for a car you are screwed out of that nice reliable car if you lose your job during the term of the loan.
Gambling is definitely not an illness of any sort, however Gambling Addiction most certainly is.
Stock Markets are not gambling, just like sports events are not gambling. There are certainly people who gamble on them, but that doesn't negate their actual purpose and function.
I agree that the regulation cropping up around loot boxes is extreme and provides a slippery slope, or lubes up an existing slope. That said the behavior of the gaming industry in so broadly implementing these bullshit systems is clearly a jackass move.
I think in large part this is driven by game companies deciding they don't want to produce a quality product and sell it for a healthy, sometimes absurd, profit. Instead they want to produce a mechanism that will continually milk the same kind of profit out of a customer for years on end, with minimal input from them. Blizzard got their first taste of such a business model with the success of WoW. Then they went on to put out Hearthstone, Diablo 3 with its RMT Auction House, Heros of the Storm, Overwatch, and next up is Diablo Immortal. I'm not interested in supporting that kind of business plan and so will likely not be buying or playing Blizzard/Activision games.
So far as the Casino vs. Loot Boxes topic goes, the only problem I really see is that Casinos are typically regulated in some fashion. There is usually some government agency responsible for policing the Casinos to ensure that the odds of the games really match what is published or advertised, and all kinds of other stuff. Whereas with the video game industry practically nothing is regulated, yet.
I don't know that lifting IRA contribution limits will have a noticeable affect for the country at large. I'm not opposed to raising or removing those limits, I just don't think that even half of the country would see a benefit from it. Most people absolutely suck at saving money for an emergency, let alone for retirement. Hell, I'm making enough to support a family of four on my one pay check, and I save more than 15% of that check for retirement, and I'm still not in danger of hitting those contribution limits.
It might be that you have unrealistically high expectations for a standard of living. If you currently live somewhere that the cost of living is very high, getting out of there upon retirement should be one of your first steps. I live somewhere that is already pretty cheap, and plan to be somewhere even less expensive when I retire. Even with living somewhere cheaper I plan to downsize my living space considerably by then. Provided you can prepare your own food and can minimize ongoing expenses it should be quite possible to get by on a minimal income. I support a family of four on my wages, and I've got friends that have combined earnings similar to mine that have larger families.
I don't know about your kids but mine always take longer to go use the restroom than it takes me to fill up the gas tank, take a leak, buy some snacks and a lotto ticket. Charging an EV a few times a year at a super charger would not increase my travel times appreciably.
The luggage question is very subjective. If I'm doing all the packing then I could probably pack enough for a week long vacation for a family of four into a couple large duffels, which would fit in most any trunk. If my wife is packing then I wouldn't be surprised to see the roof rack on a minivan getting used as well as every cubic inch inside the vehicle. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything. All that said The model S and 3 both have more storage space than traditional cars of their size because they have a frunk as well as a trunk. I don't see why a luggage rack couldn't be added, and a tow hitch is also possible, though of course mileage will suffer somewhat. Although you could recycle a good battery pack from a wrecked Tesla and use it to build a trailer with storage as well as mileage extending batteries.
I plan to keep nearly everything in the market even once I retire. I'll put 2 or 3 years worth of money in stable investments like treasuries. The rest of the money can stay in the market earning higher gains. Every month when I get my allowance from the stable account I'll replace it with money from the market portion, unless the market has crashed within the last year or two. If we have a crash the stable money should be relatively unaffected and provide for my needs while the market recovers. Depending on how large my 401k is when I retire, I might opt for more like 5 years worth of safe money.
The only reason I can see for people to put the majority of their investments into low earning low risk stuff as they near retirement is if their plans need them to have a huge wad of cash at retirement. Perhaps they want to purchase annuities or buy a small island.
Your claim was fraudulent votes, not illegally cast ones. In the end that same judge rejected the claims of fraud. I'm not 100% on what the difference there is, though I presume fraudulent votes would be deliberate illegal voting while a non-fraudulent vote would be someone voting at the wrong place or when they don't have the right to vote.
While the margin of victory there was incredibly tiny, so was the "fraudulent" voting. There were over 2.7 million votes cast and the republicans claimed less than 1,200 possibly fraudulent votes. Even among those 1200 votes some were proven to not be fraudulent, having been cast by felons who were still legal voters. The only mention I see of proven fraudulent votes were a couple cases where two people voted for a deceased spouse, and one of them voted for the republican candidate.
Also you need to brush up on your math, 139 is more than 10% of 1200, and that's being super generous as the 1200 was never actually proven.
Awhile back my place of employment held some special mandatory training to point out that harassing a trans person is unacceptable. They updated the wording in all the training materials and everyone had to attend in person training with HR to go over it. Admittedly the guidelines seemed a bit overboard, the topic and anything relating to it is essentially entirely out of bounds when around a trans person. But then again seeing how a large portion of the attendees reacted to the realization that a trans person was among them, I can't say the restrictions were completely unwarranted. I can't honestly say that I understand trans people, as I'm not one. But I can definitely understand the desire to just be accepted and allowed to be myself, and it always amazes me that some people don't seem to get that.
Military history has shown over and over again the problems with trying to fight a gorilla conflict with traditional forces.
The psychological affects of fighting those kinds of wars are also more well known today than ever before in history. If you doubt that it affects society just go ahead and start talking to combat vets and their families, it's not like there is a dearth of them today.
If you think that the armed forces and veterans are homogeneous in their political and moral thought you'd be sadly deluded. And again if you think that the military has their bases fortified, isolated, and self sufficient you would be greatly misinformed. The US Military for decades now has been configured to fight conflicts external to the USA, as it should since internal security is the realm of the civilian law enforcement agencies.
The PFD comes from exploiting a resource, in this case a natural one. The various proposals for a national UBI would be funded by the resources of the entire economy. A resource is a resource. The only reason it mattered significantly for the PFD is that it was obvious to everyone involved that the natural resource belonged to everyone via the state. When that resource is instead the productivity of the entire population it gets a bit fuzzier, but it is still at heart the same thing.
Whether or not a UBI affects the productivity of a population will obviously depend on how generous the UBI is. There is no reason to start a UBI at lap of luxury levels. If anything it should be started at a low level and slowly scaled up while the other welfare systems are phased out. Once the old systems are replaced you can keep adjusting the UBI higher or lower depending on the health of the economy and desired productivity levels in perpetuity.
The point of UBI is not to immediately ensconce each of us in a decadent lap of luxury lifestyle, and quite possibly never. The idea is the provide for a welfare system that is less prone to fraud, mismanagement, stress, and headaches for everyone as well as subsidize all employers rather than just the Walmarts, Amazons, and McD's.
That is all correct, however it isn't a negative. Currently we only subsidize employers that pay their workers at the lowest end of the payscale. With UBI everyone gets the same allotment and so all employers are subsidized to the same degree.
If we adopted a nationwide UBI I would expect a few things to go along with it. Although some of the changes would probably happen gradually until UBI was enough to cover all the expenses of maintaining some minimal standard of living. I would expect all social welfare programs to go away except the ones specifically aiding the disabled. Minimum wage rates would shrink and eventually disappear. Employers would likely cut wages where legally possible by whatever the UBI rate was.
I want a UBI, but not because some delusion it would mean more money for me. I want UBI so that those that don't have a well paying professional job can get some breathing room. I would expect UBI to improve the lives of the poor and eventually improve our country as a whole.
Just because the UBI is administered as a single annual payment doesn't mean it isn't UBI.
And that is a UBI. If Hawaii had a UBI it'd probably be based on taxing their tourism industry. UBI doesn't have to come from the same source everywhere. For much of the USA UBI would be funded, sometimes more directly than others, by the extraction or use of natural resources.
In the USA it might start as an insurgency vs the military but it would likely escalate into a regular civil war pretty quickly. The military is not some homogeneous force of like minded individuals. The civilian population also contains a large portion of veterans that would likely participate on both sides. The military equipment and supplies are spread out all over the country and basically impossible to defend properly. Military bases in the USA, even when named "Fort" something or other aren't really very fortified. The fortifications are usually just a few perimeter fences and earth berms/vehicle barriers at entrances and particularly important buildings. The military personnel also live off base for the most part and so they are vulnerable to gorilla tactics. Speaking of supply lines, military facilities are often entirely reliant on the infrastructure from the surrounding communities. Some parts of some facilities will have backup utilities like generators but those are almost entirely meant as short term solutions to get through outages caused by stuff like bad weather.
Afghanistan is actually a great example for how it could all go wrong. We've been there for how long now and still can't say we've won. Sure we control the important bits, but since the Taliban is still out there and just waiting to come back the military has to be actively on guard constantly. Just look at the condition of our forces when they've been fighting that kind of war for most of two decades. How long do you think it'd take the military to completely fall apart trying to hold much larger amounts of territory here in the USA without even having a safe place to go back to after a deployment.