The document you referenced doesn't prohibit a city from granting an exclusive monopoly on internet service over cable lines.
Of course it doesn't because the medium does not create the monopoly, it is whether you can buy equivalent service from someone else. Since there is NO government-granted monopoly on ISP service the field is open to anyone else who wants to play. They cannot do "Comcast cable internet", but "Comcast cable internet" is not the be-all and end-all of ISP service.
The fact is, there has never been a need for legislation prohibiting ISP monopolies because there has never been an ISP monopoly.
Also of course, the cable company has a complete monopoly on their services if you want to define "monopoly" as the rather meaningless "only one company can provide a service from that company". But monopolies implicitly refer to multiple companies -- the company that can provide a type of service and all others that cannot. Of what value is the term "monopoly" if you can say "Verizon Wireless has a monopoly on Verizon Wireless"? It's a tautology, and the law should not be dealing in tautologies.
We'll have to agree to disagree then. I can't define exclusive franchise agreements as anything other than a government sponsored monopoly that needs to end.
We don't disagree. Exclusive franchises are government-granted monopolies. But exclusive franchises are a THING OF THE PAST. They don't exist anymore, and they are illegal under federal law. You are complaining about government-granted monopolies that do not, today, exist. They have ALREADY ENDED. You WON THAT ARGUMENT 25 years ago and you don't even realize it.
My last comment was perhaps a bit of an ad hominem but I usually only see the semantic argument that exclusivity agreements aren't a government granted monopoly coming from people who have a vested interest in maintaining said monopoly.
Are you deliberately misinterpreting what I've said, or what? I've never said anything about EXCLUSIVE franchises except that THEY ARE ILLEGAL AND DO NOT EXIST ANYMORE.
Franchise requirements are part of the price cable companies agreed to in order to access public right of ways.
Yes, they are.
I'll gladly forgo those franchise requirements and start charging them rent for the pole in my yard.
They already pay rent for the pole you don't own in the part of your front yard that is part of the public right-of-way. It's called a "franchise fee".
The remainder of your comments do not support your claim of government-supported monopolies. Notice that I did not say that cable companies are not defacto monopolies, just that your claim that they are government-created ones is wrong.
(though I suspect your just defending your employer)
Now you are just reverting to ad hominem by claiming that I work for a cable company. I don't. I just know the current legal status and was involved in local cable regulatory authorities. And can read a franchise agreement.
47USC541(a)(1): A franchising authority may award, in accordance with the provisions of this subchapter, 1 or more franchises within its jurisdiction; except that a franchising authority may not grant an exclusive franchise and may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise. Any applicant whose application for a second franchise has been denied by a final decision of the franchising authority may appeal such final decision pursuant to the provisions of section 555 of this title for failure to comply with this subsection.
Before granting a new exclusive franchise, the city must hold a meeting.
That is not what the law says.
Didn't affect the existing franchises at all,
You are right. But it was enacted in 1992, which was 25 years ago. The standard franchise agreement at that time was 10 years. Any existing exclusive franchises will have long expired by now.
and nothing prohibits city and state politicians from granting new monopolies to their donors;
Except for this federal law.
Have a glance at the New York City franchise map on their web site sometime.
Can you provide a link to any exclusive franchise? You can't even provide a link the the NYC franchise map. Relax, I did it for you: here. Interesting how a "monopoly" has been granted to three different cable companies. Verizon's franchise is pretty limited: the entire city of New York. CableVision has separate Bronx and Brooklyn franchises, and TWC has four of the five boroughs (not the Bronx). Every one of the franchises is very specific in not being exclusive, and all appear to have been negotiated well after the federal law prohibited exclusive ones.
If there is just one provider at any specific address, it is not because the city has given a monopoly to anyone, it is because only one company chooses to serve that address. This reason is spelled out pretty clearly in the Verizon franchise as one of the whereas clauses: no one company has come forward to serve the entire city.
Most of them achieve a monopoly at the city or municipality level of government.
The cities cannot grant what the federal government has specifically outlawed.
They also make use of state and city laws/regulations to squash any potential competition.
They make use of the existing franchise regulations, which competitors don't want to follow. Competitors don't want to have to provide all the services the franchise requires, they want to cherry pick the profitable ones and leave the incumbent stuck with a legal requirement to provide the rest. This is where many proposed municipal systems fail, in addition to the direct competition of a non-profit tax-funded corporation with a licensed for-profit.
In a lot of the US it's still a state sponsored monopoly,
I've continually asked people to provide a link to any exclusive franchise, and nobody has yet been able to do so. "In a lot of the US" it is illegal to have an exclusive franchise, and you cannot have a state-sponsored monopoly without a legal means of creating one.
That's an issue, and has been ever since cities starting granting government-enforced monopolies.
Yes, that was a problem. Which ended a long time ago. Cities grant franchises, but they cannot be exclusive anymore, and haven't been so for a very long time.
Then the telcos were deregulated and the rate IMMEDIATELY dropped to 15 cents.
Not quite. The rates dropped when federal regulations required access to alternative long distance services. It wasn't de-regulation that accomplished this. It took regulation to force this to happen. And then we wound up with a world where you'd select "none of the above" as an LD provider, and sure enough, the company named "None Of The Above" charged you $1.25/min for using their long distance service. You'd call the telco who sent you the bill to complain, and they could quite legally tell you that it wasn't their problem, it was yours.
And today, under this wonderful de-regulated telco system, I'm paying several dollars a month for access to a long distance provider that went bankrupt ten years ago for a phone line I never make long distance calls on. Can I get rid of that charge? Of course not. I'd much rather that LD costs $1.25/minute on that phone line than $6.50/month for nothing.
Not only are cable companies operating as state sponsored monopolies
While they may be operating as a monopoly, they are not STATE SPONSORED monopolies. The federal regulations against exclusive franchises make this very clear.
but since the deregulation of the late 90's
Which included removing the government monopoly status.
Things like default passwords haven't been best-practice for a decade now.
Leaving the telnet port open has been a bad idea for a long time.
Be careful what you wish for. Attaching anything to the net without a firewall to protect it has been a bad idea for a long time, too. If you don't have a firewall blocking open telnet ports, who is liable?
No, it is actually at least two -- state and federal -- and some people pay three (city). In two counties in Oregon, you are also paying a COUNTY gas tax. When I said "one tax", I meant "one kind of tax".
We haven't increased the tax in proportion to increase in price, it was a fixed amount, and we used to up in every couple years, until 1993.
You know, it is pretty easy to google this stuff and see that you are wrong. Oregon, for one, increased their tax rate in 2011, and according to the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia: "While most fuel taxes were initially levied as a fixed number of cents per gallon, as of 2016, nineteen states and District of Columbia have fuel taxes with rates that vary alongside changes in the price of fuel, the inflation rate, vehicle fuel-economy, or other factors."
Portland added yet another hand to the pocket-dipping by creating their own gas tax that took effect on Jan 1 of this year. New Jersey increased their gas tax by 23 cents a gallon (not TO 23cpg, BY 23cpg) in 2016. No increases? Hmmmm....
And so we have crummy roads because few states have the ability to pay for them.
We have crummy roads because costs for road construction have skyrocketed and we have poor project management.
Rather than set fuel efficiency targets, tax a vehicle's registration based on its fuel consumption. Lets people have the freedom to drive an old, less-efficient vehicle if they wish, as long as they are willing to pay for it.
In the US this is already taking place. It's called a "gasoline tax", and both the feds and the states have their hands in the pockets of those who buy gas. Buy more gas, you pay more in taxes.
You just want another tax to do the same thing, as if one tax isn't enough.
As a counterexample, see alcohol, and the prices thereof.
Alcohol is just another sin taxed and regulated like tobacco. It is not a counter-example, it is another example. The fact is, legalizing things doesn't remove them from criminal activity, and it doesn't remove the profit from producing them illegally.
No, it changes the part where they are robbing a bank because they need the money to buy stuff.
It doesn't change the part where bank robbers do it for the money to buy things they think they are owed by society. UBI will just be another thing they are owed, along with the large screen TV and nice car and whatever else, and banks won't be able to fire all the security guards.
Sometimes it's drugs (lots of crack addicts wind up robbing banks)
Geeze, I hope the people who design UBI systems don't accept the concept that "buying crack" is a need that has to be covered by UBI.
Video games and the internet are way cheaper than a lot of basic amenities that an UBI would have to provide enough to cover.
If people have to give up basic amenities to pay for video games, then they cannot really afford the video games. And if they don't have to give up the basic amenities to pay for video games, then it isn't a BASIC income.
(Also, internet is basically a necessary utility in the modern age).
Not to people living on UBI, and not to a very large number of people today. You find it useful, I find it useful, but like is not need.
If you are demanding the equivalent of $18/hour after UBI, you will be replaced by someone who is currently unemployed and only demands $10-15/hour after UBI.
The employee doesn't care about "the equivalent of", he cares about incremental costs. He gets UBI no matter what, it isn't a consideration when he costs out his labor. If an employer is going to pay only $5/hr, why bother? Is YOUR time worth only $5/hr to YOU?
Yes, someone who is in critical need of money will work for that amount, but with UBI, who are these people in critical need of money? That's what UBI covers.
if you value any level of comfort then you will need some form of a job, even if just part time,
Even if just $5/hr? No, the fact is, there will be a lot fewer people who will value their time so little, which means there is NOT a larger labor pool for the employer, and thus UBI is NOT a good thing for employers. Sure, a few people will take that job, but not as many as would take a job at $10/hr.
but placing a heavier burden on the poor and lower-middle classes will be counter-productive.
You are the only one using the word "heavier". Someone has to pay the taxes, and that includes people who work -- to pay UBI to those who aren't.
The impacts you mention are temporary anyway.
Yes, I agree. As fewer people work and have money to pay for Starbucks or McD or lots of other optional things, there will be fewer jobs to produce those things, and thus employers will be hiring fewer people. But their profits go down permanently, and the pool of available labor goes does permanently, so where is this wonderful benefit to these employers?
If you have a supply chain that can go all the way from raw silica to installed solar panels with no labor costs, then energy is free.
"If wishes were horses then beggars would ride."
Even in your utopia, you're forgetting that labor is not the only cost in producing "installed solar panels". You're going to run into a wonderful wealth redistribution system called "carbon tax" or "cap and trade" and that is a cost, too. But "no labor costs" also ignores the maintenance people and others involved in the process.
Yes. Minimum wage does not remove potential workers from the labor pool, it increases the number.
Someone who makes $10/hour today but gets a UBI equivalent to say $8/hour would be better off just making $5/hour at work.
"I'm already providing for my family with UBI, why should I give up precious time with my children for just $5/hr?" Do you really think that nobody will consider the value of their time in making the decision to work or not? And hey, you're employed, so now you get to pay income taxes so other people can get UBI and not have to work.
And the company is paying less even as the employee comes out ahead.
Except the minimum wage is $10 so they're not paying less than that. Or they won't find anyone who wants to work for $5/hr and they'll wind up paying $10 anyway.
No, UBI is not the benefit to employers you seem to think.
Instead this project reduces that income at the rate of $1 for every $2 earned. Unlike the real deal this provides a reasonably strong motivation NOT to take low paying jobs since you only get a benefit of half the wage you earn. It also means that you now have to start means testing people to see how much they earn which requires bureaucracy and officials and incurs expense.
Sounds very much like how income tax disincentivizes working more, and how being paid $2 isn't actually keeping $2.
When a full-blown UBI is introduced, you're going to have to "means test" (i.e. have income tax forms which result in some or all of the UBI being taken back), and have bureaucracy and officials to mange that income tax system, as well as the UBI system.
The whole point of basic income is to cut the administration expense because everyone gets it
Nope. Can't be. Who is "everyone" and how do you keep track of them? Hint: if we were already keeping track of "everyone", there would be no need for a census.
while also preventing the disincentive to work of typical unemployment schemes
I think handing everyone enough money to live on is a huge disincentive to work already. I'm pretty much just waiting now to be handed enough money to live on so I can retire. A couple of years more and my SS check will be maxed out.
Apparently, being "at or just above the poverty line" is simply not enough for most people.
Or perhaps the words "three year experiment" are sufficient to suggest to people who would otherwise give up their jobs to live on the UBI that they ought to keep a job now to avoid having to find one again when the experiment is over and the free money stops coming in? Imagine if they are in a plight with a low paying job now, how much more trouble they will have finding a job in three years when other, younger people have snapped them up and businesses have downsized because the economy has shrunk.
I knew lots of drug dealers in prison that would never have been there if they had had UBI before they started selling drugs.
And everyone in prison is innocent, according to everyone in prison. All you have is what they say, and they're already convicted felons. What's lying compared to bank robbery?
UBI isn't going to get them anything but a basic income. Selling drugs and robbing banks will get them the things they see other people who work getting and think are theirs by birthright.
On the other hand, decriminalizing most drugs (which is one of the places that I see eye-to-eye with Libertarians) guts the profitability of drug dealing,
Really? I live in a state with legal recreational pot and the prices for the legal stuff are ridiculous -- with more taxes on the horizon as the government sees the profits the dispensaries are raking in.
It's interesting how we have legal tobacco, and yet it is profitable for criminals to forge tax stamps and sell illegal smokes.
but you'd be amazed how UBI would stop bank robbery.
UBI changes nothing about the one reason that people rob banks: because that's where the money is.
UBI is more pro-business than minimum wage because it relieves businesses to have more freedom in hiring.
Freedom in hiring who? The people who don't need or want to work anymore?
There will be less pressure on people to work, thus employers will need to pay more for lower skilled labor to hire them. And someone has to pay all the taxes that will go to the people who aren't working, so...
Do you really not see Musk, Ellison, Trump, Bezos, Gates, Ma, or any other name on the Forbes 500 not buying one of these?
I do not see any of those people buying a "flying car". They may buy "a big quadcopter that can carry a person" just for fun on their estate, but "flying car", no. First of all, they aren't going to want to have to waste their time parking this thing so it will have to be big enough to hold the driver. It will need to get them from A to B in/over congested areas. And it would need to have the range of a helicopter to be useful.
And in the long run, if they buy one and try to use it where it would be useful to them, they will become a marvelous target for lawsuits, either just for nuisance (noise, invasion of privacy, etc.) or when a mechanical failure brings them down on top of someone who hires a lawyer to help empty the owner's deep pockets.
When you decide to express your personal brilliance to the developer, take the time to word it in such a way that it doesn't come across as condescending or undermining.
He's not expressing it to the developer, he's expressing it in a posting to the Internet. I.e., to everyone. That's how people who aren't the developer are telling him it isn't a change they want.
True, meaningful censorship requires some official prohibition, not simply a limitation on what is said by the speaker or the owner of the medium being used to speak. Otherwise, "censorship" occurs every minute of every day in every medium, and the definition you are using is absolutely worthless for anything other than emotional impact. "Censorship bad" is a wonderful meme, but only if you limit the use of "censorship" to actually represent something bad.
I understand why you want to use the term that way, but when using your definition my only response to concerns that changing the ownership limits on broadcast media will create censorship opportunities is "so what"? The local TV station has no legal requirement to distribute your words, therefore they can already "censor" you, but only when you try to claim that every limitation on your speech in any medium is "censorship". Changing the ownership limits doesn't change anything. Censorship becomes bad when it is some official telling your local TV station that your ideas may not be broadcast at all.
Slashdot Mirror
The document you referenced doesn't prohibit a city from granting an exclusive monopoly on internet service over cable lines.
Of course it doesn't because the medium does not create the monopoly, it is whether you can buy equivalent service from someone else. Since there is NO government-granted monopoly on ISP service the field is open to anyone else who wants to play. They cannot do "Comcast cable internet", but "Comcast cable internet" is not the be-all and end-all of ISP service.
The fact is, there has never been a need for legislation prohibiting ISP monopolies because there has never been an ISP monopoly.
Also of course, the cable company has a complete monopoly on their services if you want to define "monopoly" as the rather meaningless "only one company can provide a service from that company". But monopolies implicitly refer to multiple companies -- the company that can provide a type of service and all others that cannot. Of what value is the term "monopoly" if you can say "Verizon Wireless has a monopoly on Verizon Wireless"? It's a tautology, and the law should not be dealing in tautologies.
We'll have to agree to disagree then. I can't define exclusive franchise agreements as anything other than a government sponsored monopoly that needs to end.
We don't disagree. Exclusive franchises are government-granted monopolies. But exclusive franchises are a THING OF THE PAST. They don't exist anymore, and they are illegal under federal law. You are complaining about government-granted monopolies that do not, today, exist. They have ALREADY ENDED. You WON THAT ARGUMENT 25 years ago and you don't even realize it.
My last comment was perhaps a bit of an ad hominem but I usually only see the semantic argument that exclusivity agreements aren't a government granted monopoly coming from people who have a vested interest in maintaining said monopoly.
Are you deliberately misinterpreting what I've said, or what? I've never said anything about EXCLUSIVE franchises except that THEY ARE ILLEGAL AND DO NOT EXIST ANYMORE.
Franchise requirements are part of the price cable companies agreed to in order to access public right of ways.
Yes, they are.
I'll gladly forgo those franchise requirements and start charging them rent for the pole in my yard.
They already pay rent for the pole you don't own in the part of your front yard that is part of the public right-of-way. It's called a "franchise fee".
The remainder of your comments do not support your claim of government-supported monopolies. Notice that I did not say that cable companies are not defacto monopolies, just that your claim that they are government-created ones is wrong.
(though I suspect your just defending your employer)
Now you are just reverting to ad hominem by claiming that I work for a cable company. I don't. I just know the current legal status and was involved in local cable regulatory authorities. And can read a franchise agreement.
Every so often somebody on Slashdot says that. But somebody lied. You can read the rule for yourself if you want to know the nitty-gritty details,
Yes, you can. Here it is. Very first paragraph:
Before granting a new exclusive franchise, the city must hold a meeting.
That is not what the law says.
Didn't affect the existing franchises at all,
You are right. But it was enacted in 1992, which was 25 years ago. The standard franchise agreement at that time was 10 years. Any existing exclusive franchises will have long expired by now.
and nothing prohibits city and state politicians from granting new monopolies to their donors;
Except for this federal law.
Have a glance at the New York City franchise map on their web site sometime.
Can you provide a link to any exclusive franchise? You can't even provide a link the the NYC franchise map. Relax, I did it for you: here. Interesting how a "monopoly" has been granted to three different cable companies. Verizon's franchise is pretty limited: the entire city of New York. CableVision has separate Bronx and Brooklyn franchises, and TWC has four of the five boroughs (not the Bronx). Every one of the franchises is very specific in not being exclusive, and all appear to have been negotiated well after the federal law prohibited exclusive ones.
If there is just one provider at any specific address, it is not because the city has given a monopoly to anyone, it is because only one company chooses to serve that address. This reason is spelled out pretty clearly in the Verizon franchise as one of the whereas clauses: no one company has come forward to serve the entire city.
Most of them achieve a monopoly at the city or municipality level of government.
The cities cannot grant what the federal government has specifically outlawed.
They also make use of state and city laws/regulations to squash any potential competition.
They make use of the existing franchise regulations, which competitors don't want to follow. Competitors don't want to have to provide all the services the franchise requires, they want to cherry pick the profitable ones and leave the incumbent stuck with a legal requirement to provide the rest. This is where many proposed municipal systems fail, in addition to the direct competition of a non-profit tax-funded corporation with a licensed for-profit.
In a lot of the US it's still a state sponsored monopoly,
I've continually asked people to provide a link to any exclusive franchise, and nobody has yet been able to do so. "In a lot of the US" it is illegal to have an exclusive franchise, and you cannot have a state-sponsored monopoly without a legal means of creating one.
That's an issue, and has been ever since cities starting granting government-enforced monopolies.
Yes, that was a problem. Which ended a long time ago. Cities grant franchises, but they cannot be exclusive anymore, and haven't been so for a very long time.
Then the telcos were deregulated and the rate IMMEDIATELY dropped to 15 cents.
Not quite. The rates dropped when federal regulations required access to alternative long distance services. It wasn't de-regulation that accomplished this. It took regulation to force this to happen. And then we wound up with a world where you'd select "none of the above" as an LD provider, and sure enough, the company named "None Of The Above" charged you $1.25/min for using their long distance service. You'd call the telco who sent you the bill to complain, and they could quite legally tell you that it wasn't their problem, it was yours.
And today, under this wonderful de-regulated telco system, I'm paying several dollars a month for access to a long distance provider that went bankrupt ten years ago for a phone line I never make long distance calls on. Can I get rid of that charge? Of course not. I'd much rather that LD costs $1.25/minute on that phone line than $6.50/month for nothing.
Not only are cable companies operating as state sponsored monopolies
While they may be operating as a monopoly, they are not STATE SPONSORED monopolies. The federal regulations against exclusive franchises make this very clear.
but since the deregulation of the late 90's
Which included removing the government monopoly status.
Things like default passwords haven't been best-practice for a decade now. Leaving the telnet port open has been a bad idea for a long time.
Be careful what you wish for. Attaching anything to the net without a firewall to protect it has been a bad idea for a long time, too. If you don't have a firewall blocking open telnet ports, who is liable?
The "one" you refer to is more like "one half".
No, it is actually at least two -- state and federal -- and some people pay three (city). In two counties in Oregon, you are also paying a COUNTY gas tax. When I said "one tax", I meant "one kind of tax".
We haven't increased the tax in proportion to increase in price, it was a fixed amount, and we used to up in every couple years, until 1993.
You know, it is pretty easy to google this stuff and see that you are wrong. Oregon, for one, increased their tax rate in 2011, and according to the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia: "While most fuel taxes were initially levied as a fixed number of cents per gallon, as of 2016, nineteen states and District of Columbia have fuel taxes with rates that vary alongside changes in the price of fuel, the inflation rate, vehicle fuel-economy, or other factors." Portland added yet another hand to the pocket-dipping by creating their own gas tax that took effect on Jan 1 of this year. New Jersey increased their gas tax by 23 cents a gallon (not TO 23cpg, BY 23cpg) in 2016. No increases? Hmmmm....
And so we have crummy roads because few states have the ability to pay for them.
We have crummy roads because costs for road construction have skyrocketed and we have poor project management.
Even if you don't believe in science,
Pure flamebait.
The best I've seen were the "smart" power strips with timers and motion sensors and whatnot they went around installing without permission.
When did this happen? I've not seen anyone in my house doing that, nor have I seen any different power strips there.
If you mean "at work", then I am positive that they had all the permission they needed to do this: the owner of the company.
Rather than set fuel efficiency targets, tax a vehicle's registration based on its fuel consumption. Lets people have the freedom to drive an old, less-efficient vehicle if they wish, as long as they are willing to pay for it.
In the US this is already taking place. It's called a "gasoline tax", and both the feds and the states have their hands in the pockets of those who buy gas. Buy more gas, you pay more in taxes.
You just want another tax to do the same thing, as if one tax isn't enough.
The corporations will make more profit if they don't have to sell energy-efficient appliances.
They already don't have to sell energy-efficient appliances. Energy Star is a voluntary program.
As a counterexample, see alcohol, and the prices thereof.
Alcohol is just another sin taxed and regulated like tobacco. It is not a counter-example, it is another example. The fact is, legalizing things doesn't remove them from criminal activity, and it doesn't remove the profit from producing them illegally.
No, it changes the part where they are robbing a bank because they need the money to buy stuff.
It doesn't change the part where bank robbers do it for the money to buy things they think they are owed by society. UBI will just be another thing they are owed, along with the large screen TV and nice car and whatever else, and banks won't be able to fire all the security guards.
Sometimes it's drugs (lots of crack addicts wind up robbing banks)
Geeze, I hope the people who design UBI systems don't accept the concept that "buying crack" is a need that has to be covered by UBI.
Video games and the internet are way cheaper than a lot of basic amenities that an UBI would have to provide enough to cover.
If people have to give up basic amenities to pay for video games, then they cannot really afford the video games. And if they don't have to give up the basic amenities to pay for video games, then it isn't a BASIC income.
(Also, internet is basically a necessary utility in the modern age).
Not to people living on UBI, and not to a very large number of people today. You find it useful, I find it useful, but like is not need.
If you are demanding the equivalent of $18/hour after UBI, you will be replaced by someone who is currently unemployed and only demands $10-15/hour after UBI.
The employee doesn't care about "the equivalent of", he cares about incremental costs. He gets UBI no matter what, it isn't a consideration when he costs out his labor. If an employer is going to pay only $5/hr, why bother? Is YOUR time worth only $5/hr to YOU?
Yes, someone who is in critical need of money will work for that amount, but with UBI, who are these people in critical need of money? That's what UBI covers.
if you value any level of comfort then you will need some form of a job, even if just part time,
Even if just $5/hr? No, the fact is, there will be a lot fewer people who will value their time so little, which means there is NOT a larger labor pool for the employer, and thus UBI is NOT a good thing for employers. Sure, a few people will take that job, but not as many as would take a job at $10/hr.
but placing a heavier burden on the poor and lower-middle classes will be counter-productive.
You are the only one using the word "heavier". Someone has to pay the taxes, and that includes people who work -- to pay UBI to those who aren't.
The impacts you mention are temporary anyway.
Yes, I agree. As fewer people work and have money to pay for Starbucks or McD or lots of other optional things, there will be fewer jobs to produce those things, and thus employers will be hiring fewer people. But their profits go down permanently, and the pool of available labor goes does permanently, so where is this wonderful benefit to these employers?
If you have a supply chain that can go all the way from raw silica to installed solar panels with no labor costs, then energy is free.
"If wishes were horses then beggars would ride."
Even in your utopia, you're forgetting that labor is not the only cost in producing "installed solar panels". You're going to run into a wonderful wealth redistribution system called "carbon tax" or "cap and trade" and that is a cost, too. But "no labor costs" also ignores the maintenance people and others involved in the process.
Compared with the minimum wage?
Yes. Minimum wage does not remove potential workers from the labor pool, it increases the number.
Someone who makes $10/hour today but gets a UBI equivalent to say $8/hour would be better off just making $5/hour at work.
"I'm already providing for my family with UBI, why should I give up precious time with my children for just $5/hr?" Do you really think that nobody will consider the value of their time in making the decision to work or not? And hey, you're employed, so now you get to pay income taxes so other people can get UBI and not have to work.
And the company is paying less even as the employee comes out ahead.
Except the minimum wage is $10 so they're not paying less than that. Or they won't find anyone who wants to work for $5/hr and they'll wind up paying $10 anyway.
No, UBI is not the benefit to employers you seem to think.
Instead this project reduces that income at the rate of $1 for every $2 earned. Unlike the real deal this provides a reasonably strong motivation NOT to take low paying jobs since you only get a benefit of half the wage you earn. It also means that you now have to start means testing people to see how much they earn which requires bureaucracy and officials and incurs expense.
Sounds very much like how income tax disincentivizes working more, and how being paid $2 isn't actually keeping $2.
When a full-blown UBI is introduced, you're going to have to "means test" (i.e. have income tax forms which result in some or all of the UBI being taken back), and have bureaucracy and officials to mange that income tax system, as well as the UBI system.
The whole point of basic income is to cut the administration expense because everyone gets it
Nope. Can't be. Who is "everyone" and how do you keep track of them? Hint: if we were already keeping track of "everyone", there would be no need for a census.
while also preventing the disincentive to work of typical unemployment schemes
I think handing everyone enough money to live on is a huge disincentive to work already. I'm pretty much just waiting now to be handed enough money to live on so I can retire. A couple of years more and my SS check will be maxed out.
Apparently, being "at or just above the poverty line" is simply not enough for most people.
Or perhaps the words "three year experiment" are sufficient to suggest to people who would otherwise give up their jobs to live on the UBI that they ought to keep a job now to avoid having to find one again when the experiment is over and the free money stops coming in? Imagine if they are in a plight with a low paying job now, how much more trouble they will have finding a job in three years when other, younger people have snapped them up and businesses have downsized because the economy has shrunk.
I knew lots of drug dealers in prison that would never have been there if they had had UBI before they started selling drugs.
And everyone in prison is innocent, according to everyone in prison. All you have is what they say, and they're already convicted felons. What's lying compared to bank robbery?
UBI isn't going to get them anything but a basic income. Selling drugs and robbing banks will get them the things they see other people who work getting and think are theirs by birthright.
On the other hand, decriminalizing most drugs (which is one of the places that I see eye-to-eye with Libertarians) guts the profitability of drug dealing,
Really? I live in a state with legal recreational pot and the prices for the legal stuff are ridiculous -- with more taxes on the horizon as the government sees the profits the dispensaries are raking in.
It's interesting how we have legal tobacco, and yet it is profitable for criminals to forge tax stamps and sell illegal smokes.
but you'd be amazed how UBI would stop bank robbery.
UBI changes nothing about the one reason that people rob banks: because that's where the money is.
They are getting an UBI. They can afford video games and internet
If they can afford video games and the Internet, then it isn't a UBI.
UBI is more pro-business than minimum wage because it relieves businesses to have more freedom in hiring.
Freedom in hiring who? The people who don't need or want to work anymore? There will be less pressure on people to work, thus employers will need to pay more for lower skilled labor to hire them. And someone has to pay all the taxes that will go to the people who aren't working, so ...
Do you really not see Musk, Ellison, Trump, Bezos, Gates, Ma, or any other name on the Forbes 500 not buying one of these?
I do not see any of those people buying a "flying car". They may buy "a big quadcopter that can carry a person" just for fun on their estate, but "flying car", no. First of all, they aren't going to want to have to waste their time parking this thing so it will have to be big enough to hold the driver. It will need to get them from A to B in/over congested areas. And it would need to have the range of a helicopter to be useful.
And in the long run, if they buy one and try to use it where it would be useful to them, they will become a marvelous target for lawsuits, either just for nuisance (noise, invasion of privacy, etc.) or when a mechanical failure brings them down on top of someone who hires a lawyer to help empty the owner's deep pockets.
When you decide to express your personal brilliance to the developer, take the time to word it in such a way that it doesn't come across as condescending or undermining.
He's not expressing it to the developer, he's expressing it in a posting to the Internet. I.e., to everyone. That's how people who aren't the developer are telling him it isn't a change they want.
Censorship is blocking speech.
True, meaningful censorship requires some official prohibition, not simply a limitation on what is said by the speaker or the owner of the medium being used to speak. Otherwise, "censorship" occurs every minute of every day in every medium, and the definition you are using is absolutely worthless for anything other than emotional impact. "Censorship bad" is a wonderful meme, but only if you limit the use of "censorship" to actually represent something bad.
I understand why you want to use the term that way, but when using your definition my only response to concerns that changing the ownership limits on broadcast media will create censorship opportunities is "so what"? The local TV station has no legal requirement to distribute your words, therefore they can already "censor" you, but only when you try to claim that every limitation on your speech in any medium is "censorship". Changing the ownership limits doesn't change anything. Censorship becomes bad when it is some official telling your local TV station that your ideas may not be broadcast at all.