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Get rid of welfare and just give every adult $870/mo

Dec 7, 2015#1

strawman

Finland may be testing an interesting idea, where they would eliminate unemployment insurance and other welfare programs and simply give every adult $870/mo regardless of employment status or need.

If they do this it would happen in another year or so. Apparently this has been tried in smaller scale tests in the US and Canada decades ago. The thinking is that being on welfare reduces the desire to work minimum wage jobs because once you get the job you lose the welfare, and even if you make a little more, if you're making enough now to survive on welfare, why also work 8 hours a day for little more?

Under this method you'd continue to get the payment, and anything you work additionally adds to your basic income. The cost of living for the average student is right about this level, and education is free, so it's not too little to live on, though if you've got children if may be harder since only adults get the payment. The article suggests it would replace all other welfare, but I'm guessing child welfare programs might not go away completely.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Glob...izens-rich-or-poor-a-monthly-payment?cmpid=FB

I've not thought through the economic implications, other than they have a very high income tax rate, so this is not much different than a forced redistribution of wealth.

My concerns would be how this affects the basic cost of living, but since those on the dole are already getting this income, my initial guess is that not much will change.

But if someone simply socked half of it away in an interest bearing account, and lived with roommates on the other half, you might not have to work at all, ever, and you can pay yourself a nice salary later on in life depending on interest rates.

In a series of controlled experiments that the US government conducted around the country to test a basic income program during that time, it was found that the payments didn’t seem to affect poverty levels, and that participants receiving payments, particularly black families, appeared to divorce at much higher rates than the control groups

Looks like one of the larger unintended consequences is that it reduces pressure to marry for support. Could be yet another reason people choose not to get married in the long run.

Dec 7, 2015#2

PatrThom

We currently feed a household of 4-1/2 people on about $600-$700/mo. I monitor this with great interest.

--Patrick

Dec 7, 2015#3

Eriol

Things like this have been talked about for a while, but it's definitely gaining steam in the last few years.

For more reading, there was experiment with this in a Canadian town in the 1970s for a few years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME

One thing I've never seen addressed with such proposals, but should be: what adjustments should be made for housing costs and/or cost of living? For example, Vancouver, BC, is one of the most expensive places to live in the world whereas much of rural Newfoundland is pretty cheap. For a USA example, think Manhattan versus... rural Montana or something. The basic income in both places should NOT be the same, but how would it be determined in a way to stave off politics as much as possible?

Dec 7, 2015#4

strawman

Or do we simply acknowledge that some places will be too expensive in the government income and people will have to work if they want a good life there, or move if they want a good life without working.

Dec 7, 2015#5

Denbrought

(Prior: I'm a big fan of the idea of guaranteed income as a way to overhaul welfare within current capitalist societies)

One market solution I've heard a lot, particularly within effective altruist society, regarding the cost of living variance: let companies compete over it. If mincome is set at $X/day, companies should (will!) spring up that promise to take care of your needs (first and foremost housing) for a % of your daily mincome. A variety of %-levels will appear, with companies competing for different demographic profiles (adults, families, ...) and different management needs ("we'll house, feed, AND clothe you!"). Anything you may not be able to afford up-front (such as moving to the mincome community from a remote area or vice-versa) can be loaned at a floor rate, with payout guaranteed by a small % of your future mincome for a set time. Loans based on future mincome should be heavily regulated in order to prevent abuse and misuse (for example limiting them to transportation, medicine, education and other "essential categories").

To counter the "people are idiots" concern: companies would predictably spring up to manage your assets/mincome for you in order to guarantee that you are housed, clothed, fed, and financially solvent, for a % fee. If people cannot manage their own mincome, and as a result become destitute or burdens, they could be judicially ordered to turn over their mincome to such a company (which should have a fiduciary duty to its clients) for a set period of time. In case of crime, a person's mincome can serve to help in victim restitution (though not to offset the cost of their prison stay, as this is a very obvious perverse incentive).

And so on so forth.

Dec 7, 2015#6

SpecialKO

I can't find it at the moment, but Switzerland was planning something pretty similar a couple years ago. It got voted down at the legislature level so nothing ever came of it, but they were envisioning a $30K payout to every citizen of working age as a living stipend.

The concern there was a little different, though. Because Switzerland is very physically small and benefits from Schengen despite not being part of the EU, people who were earning an income in Switzerland (whether Swiss or not), were living and spending their wages in other countries instead of paying back into the Swiss economy because it was much cheaper to do so. The thought was that if you supplemented everyone's income, the lower and middle classes would be much more willing to live near where they worked and spend their money within Switzerland.

Dec 7, 2015#7

AshburnerX

stienman said:
Or do we simply acknowledge that some places will be too expensive in the government income and people will have to work if they want a good life there, or move if they want a good life without working.

Many places are too expensive to live because the market CAN bear the price, not because it MUST bear the price. Manhattan is a good example; things are so expensive there because the place is full of rich people and places rich people want to go and see... so the economy sort of became skewed because sellers figured they could get more this way. Of course, that flooded the area with money and artificially inflated the price of everything. Things cost more because people want to get rich off of other rich people, not because things are harder to get. Real estate is basically the only thing of value in the city that has reason for why it costs so much: people want to live there, so you get insane offers for housing.

Compare that to say... Hawaii. It's in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of miles from land and most of it's land is unsuitable for grazing. As such, things that don't transport well (eggs, milk, etc) cost a fucking fortune because of a real supply and demand problem.

As to the idea of a guaranteed income... the way the world economy is set up and because of the changing economics of scale, transportation, and energy usage, we're probably going to eventually reach the point where there is simply no reason to employ the vast majority of available workers. The only way to deal with this problem peacefully is a guaranteed income coupled with subsidized housing (and probably mass sterilizations). But that's unlikely to happen in a world where there are people who can be FORCED to work at gunpoint. So... barring a massive change in geopolitics or the invention of a post-scarcity economy, this sort of thing can really only happen as an experiment.

Dec 7, 2015#8

Denbrought

AshburnerX said:
The only way to deal with this problem peacefully is a guaranteed income coupled with subsidized housing (and probably mass sterilizations). But that's unlikely to happen in a world where there are people who can be FORCED to work at gunpoint. So... barring a massive change in geopolitics or the invention of a post-scarcity economy, this sort of thing can really only happen as an experiment.

Mass sterilization? Are you assuming that idle humans would reproduce at unsustainably high rates? I find that unlikely, unless women's rights suffer a major setback, or birth control becomes some sort of lost technology.

Most mincome formulations at the country level are coupled with a 2-tier society of immigrants (who have to earn their right to mincome) and citizens, not unlike how the current U.S. immigration system functions (e.g. I'm effectively not eligible for any kind of state/federal aid for at least another 8 years).

I don't think I'm understand your concern about cheap/coerced labor elsewhere, could you clarify?

Dec 7, 2015#9

AshburnerX

Denbrought said:
Mass sterilization? Are you assuming that idle humans would reproduce at unsustainably high rates? I find that unlikely, unless women's rights suffer a major setback, or birth control becomes some sort of lost technology.

Most mincome formulations at the country level are coupled with a 2-tier society of immigrants (who have to earn their right to mincome) and citizens, not unlike how the current U.S. immigration system functions (e.g. I'm effectively not eligible for any kind of state/federal aid for at least another 8 years).

I don't think I'm understand your concern about cheap/coerced labor elsewhere, could you clarify?

Read the Isaac Asimov story The Last Question and think about that question: the issue isn't high rates of reproduction but an ever lengthening lifespan, the removal of most life threatening hazards, and a lack of space (unless you want to start seizing property too). Places get crowded and the entire point of having such a huge god damn population was to have them producing goods for others... when production is automated, you want less people because it's less idle hands to get into trouble. You have to reduce population just to keep order unless you want the proletariat, stuck with a basic income, to start revolting against those they perceive as (unfairly) having more.

As for my concern about cheap/coerced labor elsewhere... the whole point of the guaranteed income is to work as a social control in the face of a world that no longer has labor issues... but some regions (like North Korea) use forced labor as a means of controlling the population. They have no incentive of doing something like this; they want a beaten down population and the ability to force people to ether become the beaten or those who beat. As such, you won't see this kind of massive social change in places like that without a massive government shift (i.e. revolution).

Dec 7, 2015#10

Denbrought

AshburnerX said:
Read the Isaac Asimov story The Last Question and think about that question: the issue isn't high rates of reproduction but an ever lengthening lifespan, the removal of most life threatening hazards, and a lack of space (unless you want to start seizing property too). Places get crowded and the entire point of having such a huge god damn population was to have them producing goods for others... when production is automated, you want less people because it's less idle hands to get into trouble. You have to reduce population just to keep order unless you want the proletariat, stuck with a basic income, to start revolting against those they perceive as (unfairly) having more.

Already read it many times, and I +1 the recommendation.

Post-scarcity societies do not have unlimited supplies of innovation (science, art, philosophy, ...), I hardly see the point in enacting involuntary population control before unsustainability can be reasonably foreseen and calculated. You're thinking generations ahead of the level being discussed, no?

AshburnerX said:
As for my concern about cheap/coerced labor elsewhere... the whole point of the guaranteed income is to work as a social control in the face of a world that no longer has labor issues... but some regions (like North Korea) use forced labor as a means of controlling the population. They have no incentive of doing something like this; they want a beaten down population and the ability to force people to ether become the beaten or those who beat. As such, you won't see this kind of massive social change in places like that without a massive government shift (i.e. revolution).

Guaranteed income does not require a global scale, it requires an economy you can tinker with (the whole world is one, but so is every country not at the top-side of the Fragile States Index). Yes, the eventual idea is to raise the standard of living in the entire world, but jumping to North Korea not wanting in is like saying a church isn't worth building because there's an atheist in town.

Dec 7, 2015#11

AshburnerX

Denbrought said:
Already read it many times, and I +1 the recommendation.

Post-scarcity societies do not have unlimited supplies of innovation (science, art, philosophy, ...), I hardly see the point in enacting involuntary population control before unsustainability can be reasonably foreseen and calculated. You're thinking generations ahead of the level being discussed, no?

There is nothing wrong with being proactive and considering future issues before they occur.

Denbrought said:
Guaranteed income does not require a global scale, it requires an economy you can tinker with (the whole world is one, but so is every country not at the top-side of the Fragile States Index). Yes, the eventual idea is to raise the standard of living in the entire world, but jumping to North Korea not wanting in is like saying a church isn't worth building because there's an atheist in town.

It's actually more like a Utopian idea like guaranteed income seems less so when one of your neighbors isn't allowed to partake because of actions outside his own. I'm not saying that you couldn't still do a guaranteed income in places that would allow it, but the point of such a thing is to remove the toils of existence to allow ALL of humanity to flourish in peace. By ignoring the suffering of others, you (and I don't mean you specifically, @Denbrought, but rather all of humanity) are perpetuating the sort of world view that allows such horrors to continue. It's basically invoking The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: if paradise can exist while others suffer, is it paradise? If we can learn to live with that knowledge, do we deserve it?

Utopia is supposed to be for everyone, not just the ones you can save easily.

Dec 7, 2015#12

Denbrought

Being proactive and seeing population control as a necessity of post-scarcity are different, in my view.

I don't believe in achieving utopia, only in continuous improvement. I subscribe to a lot of effective altruist writings and ideas--paradise on earth is built one day at a time. Just because you can't call it paradise, it doesn't mean it's not better than yesterday's world.

I do absolutely believe in saving those you can save easily, though. If you can save a human life for $3,000-ish then do it. If you believe that saving human lives is the best possible use of charitable income dedicate your charitable income to the highest marginal lifesaving endeavors. You don't have to start at the expensive end of the list.

I don't understand all-or-nothing in the real world, only in fiction.

Dec 7, 2015#13

Gruebeard

With everyone on Welfare, the lines are gonna be so long at the liquor store. :trolol:

Dec 8, 2015#14

strawman

Denbrought said:
Being proactive and seeing population control as a necessity of post-scarcity are different, in my view.

This rings true. Sure, talk about it and do analysis, but don't implement plans and programs to remove or reduce rights until it's provably necessary.

In programming and many other disciplines the saying is, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil" indicating that what we think is a problem during design and development may not actually be the problem once everything is implemented, and focusing effort on it not only wastes resources, but may cause problems of its own. Wait until you can measure the problems before spending time fixing them. That doesn't mean there's no point in considering things in advance, but action can often wait until measurement is available.

Denbrought said:
I don't believe in achieving utopia, only in continuous improvement.

This is certainly true. "The grass is always greener" syndrome is simply part of the human condition. We are living an existence that I expect many of our forbears would consider utopia. As we experience it, though, and know little of the hardships they endured, we can only see the flaws and cracks that we don't like simply because we haven't experienced worse.

A simple trip up Maslow's Hierarchy of needs shows that now matter where we are at, there's always something more we desire. If we have our physiological needs met, as most in the US do, then we crave safety. If those needs are met, and still this is true for most in the US, then we crave belonging, love, friends and intimacy. If we have that, and again, most in the US are able to achieve that, then we seek respect from others, confidence, achievement.

This theoretical post-scarcity utopia can provide the lower levels of needs, and can enable the middle levels, but can't do much for the top level.

Thus, so far as I can tell, no matter what needs are met for "free" by society, people will still struggle with problems. Further, if there are no real problems, people will create conflict where there need be none - mostly in an effort to build their own self importance. I don't think society can create this artificially sufficiently to satisfy human desire - no matter how much one has, one wants more.

Dec 8, 2015#15

GasBandit

If this is where we're gonna kick around what-ifs and thought experiments, how about this one...

Instead of trying to build up the bottom, what if we set fire to the top.

At the end of the year, all personal liquid/property wealth above a certain level, call it, I don't know, 100 times average personal income (which right now would work out to be 5 million dollars) for individuals and 100 times average corporate profits for companies, is confiscated and destroyed. The government doesn't get it to spend, it isn't redistributed, it's gone. Note I said wealth is destroyed, not income (albeit the cap is based on average income x100). Liquid capital, property, buildings, planes, cars, whatever... if the total owned by a person or company is above the limit, those assets are destroyed, starting with the most expensive working down, until the total is back under the limit.

A closing income gap, but no more incentive to "rob from the rich" via redistribution. It becomes a race to get rid of money above the cap via whatever means necessary - charity, new companies, new hiring, whatever. And as average income goes up - so does the cap.

Dec 8, 2015#16

Gruebeard

Switzerland would just get all of Trump's gold, Gas.

(Vaguely Godwinning this thread)

Dec 8, 2015#17

GasBandit

Gruebeard said:
Switzerland would just get all of Trump's gold, Gas.

(Vaguely Godwinning this thread)

Heh, or slightly more realistically, the billionaires would move to monaco, I get it.

Dec 8, 2015#18

Gruebeard

But let me add that is indeed an interesting idea.

Dec 8, 2015#19

Denbrought

GasBandit said:
If this is where we're gonna kick around what-ifs and thought experiments, how about this one...

Instead of trying to build up the bottom, what if we set fire to the top.

At the end of the year, all personal liquid/property wealth above a certain level, call it, I don't know, 100 times average personal income (which right now would work out to be 5 million dollars) for individuals and 100 times average corporate profits for companies, is confiscated and destroyed. The government doesn't get it to spend, it isn't redistributed, it's gone. Note I said wealth is destroyed, not income (albeit the cap is based on average income x100). Liquid capital, property, buildings, planes, cars, whatever... if the total owned by a person or company is above the limit, those assets are destroyed, starting with the most expensive working down, until the total is back under the limit.

A closing income gap, but no more incentive to "rob from the rich" via redistribution. It becomes a race to get rid of money above the cap via whatever means necessary - charity, new companies, new hiring, whatever. And as average income goes up - so does the cap.

Meaningless in a post-scarcity world, and negligently wasteful in a world with limited resources. Confiscating wealth makes the controlling entity morally responsible for that wealth's use (kind of like how we hold the federal government responsible for its spending on military matters). Destroying it instead of, say, saving human lives with it (since the wealth is being destroyed, I think I get to choose a very positive alternative use) creates a very strong disgust response in me.

That being said, this would make for very interesting fiction in any setting where entropy isn't a concern (e.g. a perpetual motion engine exists, we're all dying in X years anyway, set during the industrial revolution era).

Dec 8, 2015#20

GasBandit

Maybe add in a financial Berlin Wall. Outlaw any wire transfers of money leaving the US, and any physical asset registered in the US (planes, cars etc) are subject to immediate destruction if the registration is attempted to be changed to another nation.

Dec 8, 2015#21

Denbrought

GasBandit said:
Maybe add in a financial Berlin Wall. Outlaw any wire transfers of money leaving the US, and any physical asset registered in the US (planes, cars etc) are subject to immediate destruction if the registration is attempted to be changed to another nation.

This is cryptocurrency fanatics' wet dream, innit?

Dec 8, 2015#22

AshburnerX

It would certain destroy inflation... but you also said personal wealth. All that would happen is the wealthy would dump that money into corporations and only corporations would have the resources to dictate policy. The wealthy would keep their toys by keeping them in the name of the corporation they own/serve, who would in turn lend these toys out as incentives for their boards to remain compliant. It would basically bring back Feudalism.

Dec 8, 2015#23

strawman

GasBandit said:
Maybe add in a financial Berlin Wall. Outlaw any wire transfers of money leaving the US, and any physical asset registered in the US (planes, cars etc) are subject to immediate destruction if the registration is attempted to be changed to another nation.

So no more international trade?

There are a million ways to game your system. For instance, I start a new company, once it starts getting more than 5 million a year, it splits in two, and I simply become board of directors with little over 50% stake in each. Of course most of my living expenses, travel, housing, etc are "business purposes" and rented (not owned!) by the businesses for my personal use. Thus I have few assets other than the part ownership in each company, but live like a king. Everything in the business is rented - computers, premises, etc, with few to no assets themselves, etc, etc. I pay the employees enough that the businesses never go above the 5 million mark, and if that can't be stopped I hire more people, rent more stuff, or start another business that also has no real assets.

Dec 8, 2015#24

AshburnerX

stienman said:
So no more international trade?

There are a million ways to game your system. For instance, I start a new company, once it starts getting more than 5 million a year, it splits in two, and I simply become board of directors with little over 50% stake in each. Of course most of my living expenses, travel, housing, etc are "business purposes" and rented (not owned!) by the businesses for my personal use. Thus I have few assets other than the part ownership in each company, but live like a king. Everything in the business is rented - computers, premises, etc, with few to no assets themselves, etc, etc. I pay the employees enough that the businesses never go above the 5 million mark, and if that can't be stopped I hire more people, rent more stuff, or start another business that also has no real assets.

And it ultimately means nothing when some of these businesses eventually fail because you'll be getting use out of so many that it won't actually matter. You'd be slightly inconvenienced at worst.

Is it AT ALL surprising that corporations are a problem in this imaginary system, when they were designed to abuse their original system?

Dec 8, 2015#25

GasBandit

stienman said:
So no more international trade?

What, we export? :awesome:

There are a million ways to game your system. For instance, I start a new company, once it starts getting more than 5 million a year, it splits in two, and I simply become board of directors with little over 50% stake in each. Of course most of my living expenses, travel, housing, etc are "business purposes" and rented (not owned!) by the businesses for my personal use. Thus I have few assets other than the part ownership in each company, but live like a king. Everything in the business is rented - computers, premises, etc, with few to no assets themselves, etc, etc. I pay the employees enough that the businesses never go above the 5 million mark, and if that can't be stopped I hire more people, rent more stuff, or start another business that also has no real assets.

That's another hole that would have to be plugged. Prohibit a single person from serving in any managerial capacity in more than one company. Otherwise they shall be considered the same company for the purposes of the cap. No more conglomerates. 9 companies can't own everything we eat any more.

Though, do note I applied two separate caps to personal and corporate entities, both based on x100 average.

As for other loopholes, we'll obviously need an inquisitorial department. If you are found guilty of gaming the system by the judgement of the inquisitors, you are subject to 100% asset destruction.

Dec 8, 2015#26

strawman

GasBandit said:
asset destruction.

So you side with those that favor fire...

Dec 8, 2015#27

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
What, we export?

That's another hole that would have to be plugged. Prohibit a single person from serving in any managerial capacity in more than one company. Otherwise they shall be considered the same company for the purposes of the cap. No more conglomerates. 9 companies can't own everything we eat any more.

Though, do note I applied two separate caps to personal and corporate entities, both based on x100 average.

As for other loopholes, we'll obviously need an inquisitorial department. If you are found guilty of gaming the system by the judgement of the inquisitors, you are subject to 100% asset destruction.

You would have to make it "no more than one corporation per immediate family within 3 generations" just to keep Old White Grandpa from using his wealth and connections to use his kids and grandkids as ways to store his assets. But even then you'd have rich guys essentially dictating the breeding of their lineage to game the system. "Oh no, my 10 year old great granddaughter just had her period and she's SUDDENLY PREGNANT. My 20 year old grandaughter will be distraught when she tells my 30 year old daughter the news. I'll just have to put this corporation in my great, great grandchild's name for the time being I suppose!"

Dec 8, 2015#28

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
A closing income gap, but no more incentive to "rob from the rich" via redistribution. It becomes a race to get rid of money above the cap via whatever means necessary - charity, new companies, new hiring, whatever. And as average income goes up - so does the cap.

Perhaps you would fancy a read of "The Midas Plague," a story written back in 1954 by Fredrick Pohl.
https://archive.org/stream/galaxymagazine-1954-04/Galaxy_1954_04#page/n7/mode/2up
It may resonate.

Also you now have an understanding of why I so dislike playing games with people who aren't interested in playing the game, they're interested in playing the game against itself in order to extract the greatest possible personal advantage.

--Patrick

Dec 8, 2015#29

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Perhaps you would fancy a read of "The Midas Plague," a story written back in 1954 by Fredrick Pohl.
https://archive.org/stream/galaxymagazine-1954-04/Galaxy_1954_04#page/n7/mode/2up
It may resonate.

--Patrick

I'll give it a look when I get home.

AshburnerX said:
You would have to make it "no more than one corporation per immediate family within 3 generations" just to keep Old White Grandpa from using his wealth and connections to use his kids and grandkids as ways to store his assets. But even then you'd have rich guys essentially dictating the breeding of their lineage to game the system. "Oh no, my 10 year old great granddaughter just had her period and she's SUDDENLY PREGNANT. My 20 year old grandaughter will be distraught when she tells my 30 year old daughter the news. I'll just have to put this corporation in my great, great grandchild's name for the time being I suppose!"

That's a good point, too. Would have to institute national anti-nepotism laws, and probably also a lower cap on wealth for minors, perhaps scaling exponentially from 0 at birth to 100% of the normal cap at 18.

It might also just be easier to eliminate the corporation as a legal entity and increase the personal cap more. Call it, 200 or perhaps 500x average personal income, but any company's assets are considered to be the personal assets of the owner of the company, and that ownership cannot be split among a board - for cap purposes, it is all calculated as being owned by the otherwise-already-wealthiest person in the company.

Dec 8, 2015#30

PatrThom

I'm all for the abolishment of Corporate Personhood, but I'm not sure what the best method would be to end the idea of corporate immortality.

--Patrick

Dec 8, 2015#31

drawn_inward

Well, what we should do is:

1. Use eugenics to eliminate all of those who have an unfair genetic advantage: height, intelligence, strength, constitution, etc.
2. Kill the 1%.
3. Eliminate all privately owned companies, and give power to a multinational committee (e.g. U.N.).
4. Redistribute wealth from steps 1 and 2.
5. Have governmental programs to pay for degrees in Xbox gaming and PS4 studies - eliminate STEM programs.
6. Have a pay to watch system which pays citizens based on hrs of entertainment consumed (internet/t.v./gaming).
7. Create a fastfood subsidy to help the less fortunate.
8. Utopia!!!

Dec 8, 2015#32

Necronic

Damn man, I wrote this like 2 page response to this and then right before I could submit my message my manager walked in so I quickly minimized it and while we were talking the IT guy came by to fix something on my computer and he closed the browser. Long story short, I am not a fan of universal income. It's unfeasibly expensive and/or doesn't actually provide enough income to help people in true need, and when you start tinkering with it to get it to a point where it works correctly you end up with something a lot like welfare. We are way better off just trying to fix welfare.

Dec 8, 2015#33

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
I'm all for the abolishment of Corporate Personhood, but I'm not sure what the best method would be to end the idea of corporate immortality.

--Patrick

Hah, made me think today, if a corporation is a "person," shouldn't it be illegal for a corporation to "own" another corporation?

Dec 8, 2015#34

blotsfan

GasBandit said:
Hah, made me think today, if a corporation is a "person," shouldn't it be illegal for a corporation to "own" another corporation?

My God I'd love to see that get used in court.

Dec 9, 2015#35

tegid

Let me first say that UBI is a very interesting proposal, with its own obvious and not-so-obvious drawbacks, that more people should be thinking about. Interestingly, it can allow for more social voluntary work (that has suddenly become paid) without a central organizer (i.e. government) deciding where that work is needed: the 'market' of perceived needs takes care of part of that. It is also important to consider as a solution to the coming age (if it's not here already) where there will not be enough manual jobs to give 40h jobs to the whole population.

There has been a counterproposal in Spain in recent months: 'Guaranteed Work', in which yes, you get the same minimum wage, but not 'for free'. The government provides a job for you. That has the obvious problems of the government deciding what work is worthy of being done or not and all the problems that come with a central organization. A communist solution using a communist perspective... in a capitalist world. I like UBI because it's a somewhat communist soultion that uses the strengths of capitalism.

stienman said:
Under this method you'd continue to get the payment, and anything you work additionally adds to your basic income. The cost of living for the average student is right about this level, and education is free, so it's not too little to live on, though if you've got children if may be harder since only adults get the payment. The article suggests it would replace all other welfare, but I'm guessing child welfare programs might not go away completely.

In many Universal Basic Income proposals you get an additional % per children in your care, say, 50% of what an adult would get.

Eriol said:
One thing I've never seen addressed with such proposals, but should be: what adjustments should be made for housing costs and/or cost of living? For example, Vancouver, BC, is one of the most expensive places to live in the world whereas much of rural Newfoundland is pretty cheap. For a USA example, think Manhattan versus... rural Montana or something. The basic income in both places should NOT be the same, but how would it be determined in a way to stave off politics as much as possible?

Should it not? If minimum income can be the same, UBI can too. I used to think like you, but lately I've been thinking that, well, if some cities are much more expensive to live in, it may simply be because it's better to live there. There's a price to pay if you want to live in the same place as everyone else: you become poorer. Conversely, if you want everything to be cheaper, you can go someplace else to live, but your price will be that the doctor is further away, or you won't get the same internet speed, and you certainly won't have a yoga place and a starbucks at the corner.

Dec 9, 2015#36

Eriol

tegid said:
Should it not? If minimum income can be the same, UBI can too. I used to think like you, but lately I've been thinking that, well, if some cities are much more expensive to live in, it may simply be because it's better to live there. There's a price to pay if you want to live in the same place as everyone else: you become poorer. Conversely, if you want everything to be cheaper, you can go someplace else to live, but your price will be that the doctor is further away, or you won't get the same internet speed, and you certainly won't have a yoga place and a starbucks at the corner.

No it shouldn't, as it leads to "rich cities" and "everywhere else". So it's an actual problem, not something that should be left IMO under any basic income proposal.

Dec 9, 2015#37

tegid

Eriol said:
No it shouldn't, as it leads to "rich cities" and "everywhere else". So it's an actual problem, not something that should be left IMO under any basic income proposal.

But if you raise the basic income in the city you're making it even richer, and at the same time you are encouraging depopulation of other cities and rural areas. (Aren't you?)

Dec 9, 2015#38

Bubble181

I find it funny that gasbandit is the one who comes up with a system that involves more government control, complete asset overview, government seizure of property as a matter of course, and eventually some sort of super-powerful judges who can semi-randomly destroy people's lives, all the while nearly eliminating personal freedom.

Dec 9, 2015#39

Eriol

tegid said:
But if you raise the basic income in the city you're making it even richer, and at the same time you are encouraging depopulation of other cities and rural areas. (Aren't you?)

Not if it deliberately scales away from living there.

So with totally made-up numbers that aren't realistic, let's say that you can "live off of" $500/month in the "cheap" place, and $1000/month in the "expensive" place. So make basic income in "cheap" $900/m, and $1200/m in the expensive one. Make it an incentive not to live where it's expensive. In "real life" this goes the other way somewhat in that you want people where there are jobs too, and it may be better to shove people into cities to make it "cheaper" to offer government services like transportation, but you get the general idea.

I'm really over-simplifying here, but hopefully that gets my point across? I'm not saying that any solution is completely simple, but that you can tweak it to cause incentives, while still remaining in the basic income idea.

Dec 9, 2015#40

Bubble181

Great! I'll be over here, renting mailboxes in Expensive City to people to put as their official residence, while they continue to live in Cheap Town.

I hate people who game the system, but people will game it, so any new system you think of should at least have some basic safe guards...

Dec 9, 2015#41

Eriol

Bubble181 said:
Great! I'll be over here, renting mailboxes in Expensive City to people to put as their official residence, while they continue to live in Cheap Town.

I hate people who game the system, but people will game it, so any new system you think of should at least have some basic safe guards...

You know the government RIGHT NOW tracks where people actually live right? For tax purposes? Methinks your "cheat" will be detected rather fast. Not to say somebody making lots of money can't have multiple residences, but I would think that their "basic income" would be from the LEAST place on that list, not the greatest.

But you raise a good point about laws: every law should have a public consultation period in which people can submit how they would game the system prior to it passing. Won't catch everything, but could be an interesting result there.

Dec 9, 2015#42

PatrThom

Eriol said:
But you raise a good point about laws: every law should have a public consultation period in which people can submit how they would game the system prior to it passing. Won't catch everything, but could be an interesting result there.

The idea of having an e-sports-ish simulated RPG version of society where people compete for prizes to see who can game the proposed changes for personal advantage is intriguing. Crowdsource your future!

--Patrick

Dec 9, 2015#43

Necronic

All of these systems are incredibly ripe for exploitation and corruption. UBI's that don't have any kind of oversight will see the lowest income receivers will be heavily targeted by exploitative company's. Doing stuff like letting people take payday loans on their UBI and whatnot. This is why food stamps are controlled in how they are used. Any system without that is going to have a lot of problems. Same goes with the idea of "Everyone Works". The government is frankly not good at managing large jobs programs anymore. Just look at the management of the occupation of Iraq. MASSIVE amounts of waste and corruption. Plus there's the issue that a lot of people's skill set doesn't really go beyond ditch digger, and there's only so many ditches that need digging.

Dec 9, 2015#44

strawman

Necronic said:
All of these systems are incredibly ripe for exploitation and corruption.

Moreso than the current systems? Of course, just like the current systems, some checks and limitations will necessarily be put in place, but are you suggesting that these systems are untenable simply because they can be exploited and corrupted? What system doesn't suffer from corruption and exploitation?

Dec 9, 2015#45

Necronic

The current systems already have problems with corruption and whatnot, and have a lot more regulations/restrictions on them than what I'm hearing tossed around here. Removing those regulations is just going to attract more predators that have spent years sharpening their talons on the current system.

Dec 9, 2015#46

strawman

Well sure, this is a high level discussion. I don't think anyone here is optimistic enough to suggest that such a plan could be implemented as-is without appropriate controls and oversight, but on the flip side there's little point in talking about the controls and oversight needed if the idea itself is bad.

So right now it's a high level discussion - is the plan itself fundamentally flawed, or is it reasonable and a discussion about the actual implementation, including controls and oversight, should commence.

Dec 9, 2015#47

GasBandit

Bubble181 said:
I find it funny that gasbandit is the one who comes up with a system that involves more government control, complete asset overview, government seizure of property as a matter of course, and eventually some sort of super-powerful judges who can semi-randomly destroy people's lives, all the while nearly eliminating personal freedom.

Hey, it's just a thought exercise. And really, no more destructive than communism/socialism

Dec 9, 2015#48

PatrThom

I can see employers trying to take advantage of it ("You get $870/mo UBI? That means we can cut your full-time wages by $5.44/hr*! Let the government pay 75%** of your salary!"), but I also see market pressures stabilizing things a bit. Businesses who try to lean too hard on UBI as a way to increase their profit margins will likely fail as their rank and file employees leave for more lucrative positions (barring collusion amongst employers). Also, I could see "minimum wage" being redefined so that it favorably interacts with UBI somehow.

--Patrick
*870 per mo/4 wks/40hrs=5.437
**5.44 would be 75% of the current 7.25 minimum wage

Dec 9, 2015#49

tegid

PatrThom said:
I can see employers trying to take advantage of it ("You get $870/mo UBI? That means we can cut your full-time wages by $5.44/hr*! Let the government pay 75%** of your salary!"), but I also see market pressures stabilizing things a bit. Businesses who try to lean too hard on UBI as a way to increase their profit margins will likely fail as their rank and file employees leave for more lucrative positions (barring collusion amongst employers). Also, I could see "minimum wage" being redefined so that it favorably interacts with UBI somehow.

--Patrick
*870 per mo/4 wks/40hrs=5.437
**5.44 would be 75% of the current 7.25 minimum wage

Salaries would obviously go down, in part because employers would be paying part of your previous 'wage' to the state as increased taxes. Minimum wage is not needed anymore in this context (in principle), in part because everyone is supposed to have enough money to get by and in part because, as you say, prospective employees have a very strong tool in negotiating their salaries (hey, I don't need this 100$/mo job, I already get 800! Pay me at least 300 or it's not worth it to me!).

Dec 9, 2015#50

Denbrought

tegid said:
Salaries would obviously go down, in part because employers would be paying part of your previous 'wage' to the state as increased taxes. Minimum wage is not needed anymore in this context (in principle), in part because everyone is supposed to have enough money to get by and in part because, as you say, prospective employees have a very strong tool in negotiating their salaries (hey, I don't need this 100$/mo job, I already get 800! Pay me at least 300 or it's not worth it to me!).

Yup, that's one of the things I like most about UBI--it gets both the socialist arguments in my brain and the eliminate-wage-controls arguments to at least sit down in the same table. For example, my SO really should be making less than minimum wage at most at one of her current jobs (they pay her to babysit a computer lab, a.k.a. do homework and browse the web 90% of the time). If her rent and food were guaranteed, she'd still want the job, even if it only paid a fraction of what it currently does.

Dec 9, 2015#51

AshburnerX

Denbrought said:
Yup, that's one of the things I like most about UBI--it gets both the socialist arguments in my brain and the eliminate-wage-controls arguments to at least sit down in the same table. For example, my SO really should be making less than minimum wage at most at one of her current jobs (they pay her to babysit a computer lab, a.k.a. do homework and browse the web 90% of the time). If her rent and food were guaranteed, she'd still want the job, even if it only paid a fraction of what it currently does.

At the same time, a UBI is only effective if it actually provides what it needs to EVERYWHERE. Regional inflation is it's undoing, which makes both the very poor and the very rich it's greatest enemies.

Dec 9, 2015#52

Necronic

Ok, high level argument fair enough. High level arguments are good up to a point. My problem with that is that when you actually start looking at the nitty gritty I think you end up with something fairly close to the current welfare system. I had all of this written out and I'm still pissed the IT guy closed the dang browser.

Look, the question isn't just what we gain out of the new system we are putting in, but why we're getting rid of the current system. What exactly is wrong with the current system? Here's a few of the big issues it has:

1) Cost - the plans you guys are describing would have costs astronomically higher than the current welfare system which costs something like 1.8k per capita or ~3k/adult. Compare that to the 10k per adult that the 800$/month would cost.

2) Does not encourage people to work - This is admittedly a problem with the current system. There was some pretty dramatic welfare reform in the 90s (Personal Responsibility and Work Oppurtunity Act) that addressed a lot of this. I am not well versed on this law.

One of the only way to alleviate 1) is to increase tax burdens, and we are talking about a MASSIVE increase in tax burdens. This would of course be partially offset by the increased income people saw in their UMI payments. The effective end result of that is that you have just increased the complexity of the tax code by an order of magnitude. Now we have EIC, Exemptions, Deductions, Marginal Tax rates, and UMI payments all at the dinner table. No bueno.

The other way to address the first problem, and to address the issue of expensive cities and whatnot is to create a sliding scale of benefits that are based on your income and where you live and all that stuff. Which...is basically how welfare works right now, except instead of being given controlled resources like food stamps now you're giving them highly liquid and exploitable cash.

And I'm not sure the second issue would actually be addressed by this. If it was a flat rate then the fact is that most people wouldn't actually have enough to live on on their own so they would have to work. Well what if they lived in an area (or time) where work simply wasn't an option, like Detroit? Do they get extra benefits? Because 800$ per month isn't actually enough to even live on. If, on the other hand, it's a sliding scale then you get back to the same issue we have currently with welfare where at some point increasing your personal income decreases your UMI which means that it becomes better to not work more.

I just don't see the benefits. Maybe there are other problems that I'm missing, but UMI seems like another name for welfare when you actually look at it.
X

Dec 9, 2015#53

strawman

I agree with both points, though not necessarily the rest of the analysis. There are many reasons it's possible in other (more socialist) countries, they already have a higher tax base and they already have so much of their population on welfare that the cost of welfare itself and the bureaucracy to run it cost more than the proposed UBI would, since it should be simpler to administer.

This wouldn't work out so well in the US where the tax base is significantly lower, a much lower percentage of our population is drawing welfare benefits, and they are drawing less per person (partially because cost of living in the US is lower than the country attempting UBI).

The does not encourage people to work is worse under the existing system, as the existing system actively discourages work. The reason the 90's reforms were made was to push people into a corner so they didn't have a choice, they lose their benefits unless certain conditions are met anyway, so they might as well work even though working causes them to lose their benefits.

Honestly, I don't know that this idea has benefits compared to our existing system, but it's interesting to discuss and consider, particularly since we're moving in that direction anyway with forced healthcare and other expanded social services.

Dec 9, 2015#54

tegid

One way to implement UBI, if we come down to it: a negative income tax for incomes below a threshold. It's relatively simple.
Independently of that, and regarding cost, the larger tax hike should be on the side of the employers. Here in Spain, employers pay taxes on behalf of each worker they have. Obviously that tax could increase a lot, because employers would be spending much less on wages. It also does not need to increase much the complexity of the system. AS a first order approximation (which is obviously naive), just apply a flat % increase to all taxes. In any case, when computing the real cost you should not count $800 per person, because many people, most people even, would not be getting richer with UBI.

Regarding 2), some proponents of UBI actually say that UBI is better than current systems regardin the disincentivation of work. Many countries do not have systems like food stamps and actually give monetary subsidies. It can often happen that if you work (or work more, or get a better job) you go over a threshold in income and lose your subsidies. In any system that's has at least some thought put into it, you will not get poorer due to that BUT it can happen that you see a ridiculous increase in your spending money. Then, why work? In a UBI system, wages would explicitly what you get 'beyond' welfare, everyone would know that, and these situations should disappear.

PS: When considering cost, also consider that UBI partially replaces other areas that may not be explicitly welfare: unemployment benefits, pensions, etc.

Dec 9, 2015#55

PatrThom

Regarding location, I don't think that UBI would have as much effect on people currently in the workforce as it would on people who are beginning to enter the workforce. Older folks are already located somewhere, have a home, family, social life, etc. and will be more fixed in location. No, it is the post-teens who this would really affect. Someone who lives in an expensive city would get a small boost from UBI, but little else. However, someone growing up in an expensive city would look at how far their pending UBI would go when they turn 18 next year (or whatever) and be like, "No way, Mom. San Francisco might be great and all, but soon as my UBI kicks in, I'm gonna move to Des Moines where I can get by on 870/mo until I set up a life for myself." Any city which is too expensive would quickly deflate as all the young adults run away to more fiscally fertile areas. A city's importance as the epicenter of trade is already being threatened by the Internet, once you lessen another of its advantages (the pooling of resources to survive), you'll no doubt see cities start to stagnate, a relic of "old, pre-UBI people."

--Patrick

Dec 9, 2015#56

Denbrought

AshburnerX said:
At the same time, a UBI is only effective if it actually provides what it needs to EVERYWHERE. Regional inflation is it's undoing, which makes both the very poor and the very rich it's greatest enemies.

I still don't understand why UBI needs to allow anyone to live anywhere within its territory of effect. I have not heard a good argument why UBI has a moral/economical responsibility to prevent any amount of gentrification.

PatrThom said:
Regarding location, I don't think that UBI would have as much effect on people currently in the workforce as it would on people who are beginning to enter the workforce. Older folks are already located somewhere, have a home, family, social life, etc. and will be more fixed in location. No, it is the post-teens who this would really affect. Someone who lives in an expensive city would get a small boost from UBI, but little else. However, someone growing up in an expensive city would look at how far their pending UBI would go when they turn 18 next year (or whatever) and be like, "No way, Mom. San Francisco might be great and all, but soon as my UBI kicks in, I'm gonna move to Des Moines where I can get by on 870/mo until I set up a life for myself." Any city which is too expensive would quickly deflate as all the young adults run away to more fiscally fertile areas. A city's importance as the epicenter of trade is already being threatened by the Internet, once you lessen another of its advantages (the pooling of resources to survive), you'll no doubt see cities start to stagnate, a relic of "old, pre-UBI people."

--Patrick

Alternatively, perhaps high COL cities would become places of status, a Veblen good, while the low COL places would be marked as UBIquitous

$50 lattes and lots of Silicon Valley-level masturbatory economics.

Dec 9, 2015#57

tegid

PatrThom said:
Regarding location, I don't think that UBI would have as much effect on people currently in the workforce as it would on people who are beginning to enter the workforce. Older folks are already located somewhere, have a home, family, social life, etc. and will be more fixed in location. No, it is the post-teens who this would really affect. Someone who lives in an expensive city would get a small boost from UBI, but little else. However, someone growing up in an expensive city would look at how far their pending UBI would go when they turn 18 next year (or whatever) and be like, "No way, Mom. San Francisco might be great and all, but soon as my UBI kicks in, I'm gonna move to Des Moines where I can get by on 870/mo until I set up a life for myself." Any city which is too expensive would quickly deflate as all the young adults run away to more fiscally fertile areas. A city's importance as the epicenter of trade is already being threatened by the Internet, once you lessen another of its advantages (the pooling of resources to survive), you'll no doubt see cities start to stagnate, a relic of "old, pre-UBI people."

--Patrick

I'm not so sure about that. It's already impossibly expensive to live in downtown SF, but people want to do it anyway. As a personal example, I've been getting paid by a state fellowship during my P.h.D. My 'salary' was more or less reasonable for Barcelona, but it's the same for everyone else, and in other places you can live quite comfortably (for instance, you could afford your own place as opposed to sharing, or a change in 'effecty' salary as large as 2x). Do people try and go to other, cheaper cities to live 'better' ? Nope! In fact people still come here from many places to get similar wages in a much more expensive environment.

Dec 9, 2015#58

PatrThom

And those that want to, will.
...but I'm betting that'll be the way to (conspicuously) show you've "proven yourself" rather than due to some actual economic need.

--Patrick

Dec 9, 2015#59

tegid

(BTW, I'm still not seeing how the effects of UBI and minimum wage are any different in this part of the discussion)

Enviado desde mi SM-N910F mediante Tapatalk

Dec 9, 2015#60

Necronic

Regarding negative income tax, if that's what I'm thinking of we already have that in the form of the earned income credit. Whether or not it's a large enough credit is a fair question, but that's what EIC does already.

Dec 9, 2015#61

Covar

I don't remember if it was talked about here, but I think that a UBI might be better for class relations than the current welfare system. At least in terms of the downward relation between middle and lower class. The way I figure it, worst case nothing changes ("Those bums getting paid to do nothing all day), but a better case is that you're less upset because you're also getting a check for nothing.

Dec 9, 2015#62

Necronic

It's a truly strange day when I realize I am the most conservative person on this board about a particular issue.

Dec 9, 2015#63

GasBandit

Necronic said:
It's a truly strange day when I realize I am the most conservative person on this board about a particular issue.

Hey, if we're just lyin' on the grass looking at the sky and talkin' what-if, I'm all over the place.

If we're talking about how things actually should be, that's another story.

Dec 9, 2015#64

Denbrought

Necronic said:
It's a truly strange day when I realize I am the most conservative person on this board about a particular issue.

I would think the person most diametrically opposed to this on the board would be Charlie, since UBI predicates on many capitalist principles, like a monetary system, individual wealth, and a peaceful overhaul of an existing regulatory system (instead of a bloody revolution).

Dec 9, 2015#65

PatrThom

tegid said:
(BTW, I'm still not seeing how the effects of UBI and minimum wage are any different in this part of the discussion)

Minimum wage: Government forces businesses to pay a minimum wage. See also: "Unfunded Mandate"
Basic Income: Government supplements incomes with money collected economy-wide.

--Patrick

Dec 9, 2015#66

redthirtyone

GasBandit said:
Hey, if we're just lyin' on the grass looking at the sky and talkin' what-if, I'm all over the place.

If we're talking about how things actually should be, that's another story.

What if C-A-T... actually spelled... DOG?

Dec 10, 2015#67

GasBandit

redthirtyone said:
What if C-A-T... actually spelled... DOG?

Dec 10, 2015#68

tegid

PatrThom said:
Minimum wage: Government forces businesses to pay a minimum wage. See also: "Unfunded Mandate"
Basic Income: Government supplements incomes with money collected economy-wide.

--Patrick

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant what difference does it make to the 'rich cities - poor cities' problem whether you have a ubi or a minimum wage.

Dec 10, 2015#69

PatrThom

Because in order to collect a minimum wage, you have to have hours at some place of employment generating that wage. For UBI, you just have to breathe (and presumably fill out paperwork). People receiving UBI are not tied to a physical location where they collect this money, it comes to them wherever they currently happen to be standing, which means there will be less incentive to remain in any specific location. Hence, population deflation.

--Patrick

Dec 19, 2015#70

Charlie Don't Surf

Being able to live without spending half of your waking hours doing stupid bullshit for other people would be great.

Dec 19, 2015#71

GasBandit

Charlie Don't Surf said:
Being able to live without spending half of your waking hours doing stupid bullshit for other people would be great.

And so would talking animals and chocolate air.

Dec 19, 2015#72

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
And so would talking animals and chocolate air.

To be fair, both of those are significantly less likely to occur.

--Patrick

Dec 19, 2015#73

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
To be fair, both of those are significantly less likely to occur.

--Patrick

Not without free limitless energy in at least fusion-level amounts plus matter replication technology. It's all about as equally farfetched.

Dec 19, 2015#74

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Not without free limitless energy in at least fusion-level amounts plus matter replication technology. It's all about as equally farfetched.

We have the capability for at least half of that right now.
The trouble is, no current generation has ever wanted to sacrifice their existence to make sure that all the following generations will have it easy because that's "not fair."
People just aren't willing to sacrifice themselves as individuals for the success of the entire species.

--Patrick

Dec 19, 2015#75

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
Not without free limitless energy in at least fusion-level amounts plus matter replication technology. It's all about as equally farfetched.

Energy production isn't even the issue anymore (in the US anyway)... it's energy transfer and storage. We can make cars and trucks that work with electrical energy just fine, but you still need to carry around a bazillion batteries that need to be replaced every ten years, and you still need to plug the thing in for hours at your home. Same with homes: you really can't effectively run a house on solar energy without a pretty hefty space commitment for batteries and that only works when you don't need to blow AC/Heat 24 hours a day.

We're not there quite yet, but we're almost.

Dec 19, 2015#76

GasBandit

The sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow, or sometimes it blows too hard. We're not close to limitless free energy, and yeah, batteries are a problem. Wake me when Doc is installing Mr Fusion on his delorean.

Dec 19, 2015#77

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
The sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow, or sometimes it blows too hard. We're not close to limitless free energy, and yeah, batteries are a problem. Wake me when Doc is installing Mr Fusion on his delorean.

Wasn't that 2015?

--Patrick

Dec 19, 2015#78

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
Wasn't that 2015?

--Patrick

Couple months ago, Gas is behind.

Dec 19, 2015#79

Eriol

AshburnerX said:
Energy production isn't even the issue anymore (in the US anyway)... it's energy transfer and storage. We can make cars and trucks that work with electrical energy just fine, but you still need to carry around a bazillion batteries that need to be replaced every ten years, and you still need to plug the thing in for hours at your home. Same with homes: you really can't effectively run a house on solar energy without a pretty hefty space commitment for batteries and that only works when you don't need to blow AC/Heat 24 hours a day.

We're not there quite yet, but we're almost.

If you think that domestic energy consumption even holds a CANDLE up against commercial and industrial usage, you are fooling yourself, and those around you. The real consumers are industry, quickly followed by any building bigger than a house. There are SINGLE MACHINES in the mining industry that consume the equivalent of more than 10,000 houses worth of energy (coal mining btw, I'm thinking of a large machine in Germany). And it's WORTH IT to use that on a net-gain of energy basis. You think you're doing awesome changing to CFLs/LEDs? HA! You are a drop in the bucket.

And that's not even addressing the production problem. When they start deploying mass nuclear (hopefully using LFTR reactors, as that's actually safe, and not a barely-controlled radioactive steam bomb waiting to go off) then call and say you've "solved" the energy problem.

Oct 18, 2016#80

strawman

Looks like Finland's experiment is going forward. It's a small test, and falls short of a typical basic income - it won't meet their needs for housing and food, for instance, covering housing for most, maybe, but not all their needs. It's also limited to 2,000 participants who are currently unemployed and will replace their current welfare programs, although they will still be eligible for "in kind" programs provided to all welfare recipients.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-31/finland-s-basic-income-experiment-is-too-timid
http://futurism.com/thousands-to-receive-basic-income-in-finland/

I'll be very interested to see how it pans out, but as a limited test of almost UBI, it'll pave the way for more discussion but won't prove much about UBI or the models that revolve around possible implementations.

However, for the US, Vox points out that we may find a UBI necessary sooner than later:

http://www.vox.com/conversations/20...ome-technology-artificial-intelligence-unions

Of course this is merely one perspective, but I think things are going to have to change because automation of work is accelerating faster than new job types and faster than we can educate workers to enter new fields. Many of the old unskilled labor fields will simply be automated over time - but that's going very quickly. Once trucks are automated it'll be a very quick transition - and poof, there go 5 million jobs. Once burger flipping and frying are automated it'll be a very quick transition and poof, 7% of americans will lose their jobs. I expect these transitions to take a decade or so once the tipping point (cost of automation < cost of worker) is hit for each transition, but that'll be too fast for whole industries of workers to move into new positions, and there simply won't be that many new jobs that use unskilled labor.

If anything it'll create more jobs at the minimum wage line, and more workers vying for such jobs, leaving employers no reason to go above minimum wage.

The only thing I'd like to make certain happens, though, is that it's done at the state level. States with higher cost of living should have a higher UBI, but they'll have the tax base to support it. Further, states will have different ways to tax people rather than just income (though I expect most will be income). Some will choose sales taxes, some tourist taxes, others sin taxes, etc. It's much more flexible and personalized to a given state's situation and population.

For that to work, the federal government would have to make it easy to implement, and would need to provide some small incentive, as well as all the funds the state's normally get for other welfare programs that would be replaced.

I suspect that UBI would end up creating and funding a static lower class in the US, though, but I'm not sure there's a way around that problematic aspect of it. There will simply be people who don't want to achieve anything greater, and many who, for a variety of reasons outside their control, will be unable to.

Of course, once we provide basic income as a human right, people will be expecting entertainment as a human right...

Oct 18, 2016#81

Tinwhistler

stienman said:
Of course this is merely one perspective, but I think things are going to have to change because automation of work is accelerating faster than new job types and faster than we can educate workers to enter new fields. Many of the old unskilled labor fields will simply be automated over time - but that's going very quickly.

It's not just unskilled labor. One of the ways I've made my career is by touting on my resume how I can reduce overhead by replacing semi-skilled labor (data entry, dispatch, etc) with automation. When I started this job 5 years ago, we had 64 dispatchers, for instance. Automation has let us drop that number down to 6. At a previous job, over the course of one weekend, I'd performed more web scraping/data entry than a team of 14 data entry people had done in the previous six months.

I command a really high salary, but I justify it in interviews that they'll not only make their money back in first year, but that I'll save them 3-5 times what they pay me.

Oct 18, 2016#82

Sara_2814

The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income

Gary Johnson is Open to Universal Basic Income and That's Not Bad

:awesome:

Oct 18, 2016#83

GasBandit

Sara_2814 said:
The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income

Gary Johnson is Open to Universal Basic Income and That's Not Bad

[DOUBLEPOST=1476805369,1476805052][/DOUBLEPOST]Ok, reading it, libertarians like it because it's not as bad as welfare. IE, the poor get the money, there's less bureaucracy, so government shrinks as does the burden on the taxpayer.

So I guess what that means is "baby steps."

Oct 18, 2016#84

PatrThom

GasBandit said:

This is what happens when you leave the scanner running at OfficeMax.

--Patrick

Nov 11, 2016#85

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
And so would talking animals and chocolate air.

No thanks, hearing "FEED ME!!!!" all the time would be even more annoying then the meowing. And no, choking to death isn't better when it's caused by chocolate.

Dec 20, 2016#86

TommiR

Free Cash in Finland. Must Be jobless.

Dec 20, 2016#87

PatrThom

TommiR said:
Free Cash in Finland. Must Be jobless.

The whole world is waiting to see the results.

--Patrick

Dec 20, 2016#88

Dave

I'd move there but I'd have to learn to speak Finnish.

Dec 20, 2016#89

TommiR

Finnish is easy, I picked it up when I was a small child.

Besides, you need to speak Finnish only if you want a good chance of finding a job. Now, you don't have to have one anymore.

Dec 20, 2016#90

GasBandit

TommiR said:
Free Cash in Finland. Must Be jobless.

Ok, but who furnishes me the parts for a small japanese car for me to slowly assemble over the course of a summer?

Dec 20, 2016#91

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Ok, but who furnishes me the parts for a small japanese car for me to slowly assemble over the course of a summer?

That depends on how much crap you wanna put up with.

--Patrick

Jan 11, 2017#92

Necronic

I have honestly never understood the whole automation therefore UBI argument.

Automation has been making leaps and bounds since the mid-19th century. Like MASSIVE stuff. Everyone seems to think that automation is just robots and computers. Automation has been eliminating jobs and increasing efficiency for generations. And yet there are still jobs for people to do.

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE WORK. Automation eliminates choke points in throughout. Which means that you need to speed up everything else to match it. For instance in my work we have this one reaction that used to take one person 1/4 of a day to do, so 4x per day. We bought a robotics system that allowed us to do 96 of these reactions a day and only needed 4 people to run it.

Was the answer to lay off everyone else? No, you moved them to the upstream and downstream sides of the process, because that now needed to move faster.

Automation is about increasing capacity for the same price, not about doing the same capacity at a reduced price, if that makes sense. So when we increase capacity there will be increased demand *somewhere* for non-automated employees.

This is why we've gone through nearly 2 centuries of continued revolutionary automation and yet people still work.

The only thing that has changed is the speed at which automation changes stuff. In the past this wasnt a big deal. The changes were slow enough and companies were innefficient enough for these jobs to be phased out generationally. Now it's fast enough that someone may train for some new position only to have it disappear in a decade. That's an actual problem that needs resolution and a lot of thought.

And UBI is a straight up nonsense garbage answer to it. It doesn't address the real problem and pretends that automation is some kind of absurd panacea, even though that has never really been shown to be the case.

As someone who works around a lot of automation the idea that it could ever lead us to a "workless" society just tells me people lack the imagination to figure out how to use that new time they were given. If I remove a tedious task from my workflow by automating it I don't just spend that newfound spare time dicking around (I mean I actually do this but I *shouldnt* and no company would consider that acceptable).

Jan 11, 2017#93

Tinwhistler

my whole career's been about designing and implementing automation.

As an example: When a cable company wants to dig in your yard, they have to call in a ticket. Then they have to check that ticket every day to see if it's cleared (all utilities marked). Once it's cleared, they can go out and dig.When I came on board 5 years ago, they did that manually--and that's pretty standard in the industry. Someone would sit at a desk all day, check dig tickets, and then call truck crews when tickets were clear. As more jobs were assigned to us as a contractor, we would have to hire more unskilled labor to perform that task, and it was a linear growth. Every X jobs always meant one more warm body to simply check tickets.

I wrote some software to do that job. Every half hour, a routine checks every open and pending ticket via the web. When the routine detects cleared tickets, it automatically assigns and notifies trucking crews. The two women who had that job got moved to more administrative duties that required more skills and more responsibilities.

Because of the automation, we were able to move from 50 or so technicians on the payroll to over 650 today with the same administrative overhead and less human error. I'd like to think that the processes I made helped create a shit ton of jobs, while also providing a better end result for the home-owner.

So yeah, those two specific jobs were eliminated from the payroll. But everyone (including the people who used to hold those jobs) benefited.

Jan 11, 2017#94

AshburnerX

Apply this logic to say... cooking food or taking orders for said food. It doesn't work the same way; those bodies are at those posts ONLY because you need someone to do the labor. A typical McDonalds employs something like 40-60 people over all it's shifts. You can't make them all managers, shift supervisors, etc...

Automation is a problem when you look at the service industry; many of those people aren't otherwise employable in other fields without massive retraining or expensive education. That's why UBI is an idea: there is a point where the underclass has no economic value except at buyers of product if you automate fully.

Jan 11, 2017#95

Eriol

AshburnerX said:
Automation is a problem when you look at the service industry; many of those people aren't otherwise employable in other fields without massive retraining or expensive education. That's why UBI is an idea: there is a point where the underclass has no economic value except at buyers of product if you automate fully.

Ya, there always has to be (quite a number of) jobs for the unskilled, because even if you skill everybody, a large number of those skills per year are made obsolete. Unless you pay for all the re-training, you STILL need unskilled jobs in an economy that people can live off of not just be destitute while working.

Jan 12, 2017#96

@Li3n

Tinwhistler said:
I wrote some software to do that job. Every half hour, a routine checks every open and pending ticket via the web. When the routine detects cleared tickets, it automatically assigns and notifies trucking crews. The two women who had that job got moved to more administrative duties that required more skills and more responsibilities.

Because of the automation, we were able to move from 50 or so technicians on the payroll to over 650 today with the same administrative overhead and less human error. I'd like to think that the processes I made helped create a shit ton of jobs, while also providing a better end result for the home-owner.

So yeah, those two specific jobs were eliminated from the payroll. But everyone (including the people who used to hold those jobs) benefited.

Dude, sorry, but that's a bad example.

It assumes that the jobs you increased can't be automated, and that there will always be other jobs you can assign those 2 people to.

Hell, for all we know the fact that your company was all of a sudden able to do 650/50=13 times more "hole digging"(?) might have put other similar businesses out of business.

Or it might have not because the demand for dem holes was at such a high level that it could not be physically met and everyone made out like gangbusters...

But if you keep increasing efficiency, at some point you will meet demand, and you will need to cut down on people to increase profits.

Necronic said:
So when we increase capacity there will be increased demand *somewhere* for non-automated employees.

Sure, just ask horses about the demand for them since Ford and his moving assembly line.

Automation is still relatively new in the scheme of human history, but eventually (though not as fast as some people think, just like with jet packs and living on the moon) we will end up at a point where we can automate so many things that there will be no more extra room to expand into for the humans (physical universes have that little issue that limits unlimited growth). And that's where the issues will arise. Once we get past that part, and robots do everything, things should fix themselves... or we get Terminator'd.[DOUBLEPOST=1484242986,1484242843][/DOUBLEPOST]

AshburnerX said:
Automation is a problem when you look at the service industry;

It's a problem there 1st because we're near a point where you can automate it almost fully. But it's eventually coming everywhere.

Jan 12, 2017#97

Bubble181

I don't think we'll get to the "no human labor necessary" point very soon - but we are quickly getting to "no unskilled human labor necessary". It's getting harder and harder to keep people with limited-to-no education usefully/gainfully employed. New jobs created tend to be for higher-skilled or more experienced workers, and/or more creative types, etc. Mind that I'm from a country where people bagging your groceries for you has never been a thing because that would not be considered a sensible job. Already local shops are making do with about 1/4 the amount of cashiers as 10 years ago for the same amount of clients (due to self scanning, auto scanning, automated tills, webshop-and-collecting,...). Office cleaning jobs are starting to diminish as well due to more automation (a regular Roomba may not be able to clean a normal office environment, but there are now Business Roomba's too. Of course they don't do everything, but...).
And sure, someone has to program drones and roomba's, and perhaps repair them and order them around - but that's skilled labor that can't be given to the same lady who used to vacuum the room.
Automation leads to productivity increases and moves people up or down the line - sure. But some *types* of jobs are more easily automated than others (though, to be fair, there's already a computer writing Bach pieces so good musical expers have trouble telling them apart), and that means some types of people have a harder and harder job of getting a job.

Jan 12, 2017#98

@Li3n

Bubble181 said:
though, to be fair, there's already a computer writing Bach pieces so good musical expers have trouble telling them apart

Sure, but Bach didn't get famous by writing music the experts couldn't tell apart from "insert previous famous composer".

Jan 12, 2017#99

Bubble181

@Li3n said:
Sure, but Bach didn't get famous by writing music the experts couldn't tell apart from "insert previous famous composer".

True. Computer still needs a base/structure to work from/with. Still, it's one step further than we were before. Plenty of work being done in procedurally generated content and making it look genuine/man-made. We'll see where we are in 10 years' time.

Jan 12, 2017#100

Tinwhistler

Bubble181 said:
I don't think we'll get to the "no human labor necessary" point very soon - but we are quickly getting to "no unskilled human labor necessary....and that means some types of people have a harder and harder job of getting a job.

I can agree with this. Unskilled repetitive labor is the first best place to look at for automation.

Jan 12, 2017#101

Bubble181

Tinwhistler said:
I can agree with this. Unskilled repetitive labor is the first best place to look at for automation.

And we, as a society, need to figure out what to do with people who are capable only of such. I don't mean this in a demeaning way, by the way - these people may have other skills/qualities/etc that mean they're great parents/neighbours/friends/etc, are the life of the party, and so on. But we have to face the reality that automation is creating (and will create) an unemployable class of people. Or at least, usefully employable. Either we're willing to pay people for non-jobs (though you run into problems of job satisfaction) or we have to support these people somehow while also letting them keep their "pride" for lack of a better term. Sense of self. Something.
Some people may be happy as a "kept" wife/husband, but most/many more don't. Even people with limited resources aren't, therefor, immune to such issues (my girlfriend works with people with mild mental handicaps - "may just about manage to do volunteer work stuffing chocolates in boxes if there's enough oversight" level. These people are incredibly proud that they have a job and can contribute to society, even if, in all honesty, their job is useless. Overseers cost as much/more as just having more self-sufficient people do it. Seeing some of her patients/wards deal with grief, depression, and so on is heartbreaking).
I'm not saying a UBI is the solution. It's a possible venue to explore. I haven't heard much other options - nobody seems to want to be the first to suggest eugenetics as a way of weeding these people out, yet.

Jan 12, 2017#102

GasBandit

$870/mo UBI would cost the US around 2-3 trillion a year, alone. That's not a thing that is gonna happen.[DOUBLEPOST=1484249180,1484249063][/DOUBLEPOST]

Bubble181 said:
And we, as a society, need to figure out what to do with people who are capable only of such.

Not to be a super cynical Sally, but war generally works in that regard.

Jan 12, 2017#103

Bubble181

GasBandit said:
$870/mo UBI would cost the US around 2-3 trillion a year, alone. That's not a thing that is gonna happen.

Really depends on how you treat it. Most version (partially) replace all other kinds of benefits/income from the government (welfare, disabilities, sick leave, pension, child support), and, since wages would likely drop, increase income tax in return. It'd definitely cost money, but - depending on what economist you want to listen to - the cost is more likely to be about a quarter of the actual pay-out.

Jan 12, 2017#104

Eriol

GasBandit said:
Not to be a super cynical Sally, but war generally works in that regard.

It really doesn't. Disease has played a much larger role historically that way. War actually doesn't kill nearly as many as you think. Sometimes the "consequences" of war are disease, but that's not always a "sure thing" for correlation. Spanish Flu post-WWI killed more than the war did, and that war (well, the PEACE actually) helped spread it worldwide via soldiers coming home, but it wasn't destruction of services via war that caused the flu to kill so many, it was just the disease itself that did the job.

Google it some more Gas. You might be surprised.

Jan 12, 2017#105

GasBandit

Eriol said:
It really doesn't. Disease has played a much larger role historically that way. War actually doesn't kill nearly as many as you think. Sometimes the "consequences" of war are disease, but that's not always a "sure thing" for correlation. Spanish Flu post-WWI killed more than the war did, and that war (well, the PEACE actually) helped spread it worldwide via soldiers coming home, but it wasn't destruction of services via war that caused the flu to kill so many, it was just the disease itself that did the job.

Google it some more Gas. You might be surprised.

We can't exactly institute a policy of disease, though.

WW2 did kill off ~60 million young men (mostly russians and germans), though. Granted, it's not exactly a pandemic, but if you're really looking to keep an underclass employed, war's hard to beat.

Of course, then you eggheads will probably go and automate that, too.

Jan 12, 2017#106

Eriol

GasBandit said:
We can't exactly institute a policy of disease, though.

WW2 did kill off ~60 million young men (mostly russians and germans), though. Granted, it's not exactly a pandemic, but if you're really looking to keep an underclass employed, war's hard to beat.

Of course, then you eggheads will probably go and automate that, too.

Ya but we need to worry about the pre-set kill limits on Killbots. Zap will find a way to take them out.

Jan 12, 2017#107

GasBandit

Eriol said:
Ya but we need to worry about the pre-set kill limits on Killbots. Zap will find a way to take them out.

BEEP BOOP WHY DO I FEEL PAIN

Jan 12, 2017#108

Ravenpoe

GasBandit said:
BEEP BOOP WHY DO I FEEL PAIN

Jan 12, 2017#109

sixpackshaker

GasBandit said:
Not to be a super cynical Sally, but war generally works in that regard.

But now unskilled labor is not capable of running the murder machines of the 21st century.

Jan 12, 2017#110

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Disease has played a much larger role historically that way

GasBandit said:
We can't exactly institute a policy of disease, though.

Well, we could potentially create that sort of environment if enough anti-vaxxers get appointed to the right places...
Problem...solved?

--Patrick

Jan 12, 2017#111

bhamv3

PatrThom said:
Well, we could potentially create that sort of environment if enough anti-vaxxers get appointed to the right places...
Problem...solved?

--Patrick

These are the kinds of things that make people believe in Illuminati conspiracies everywhere. Hell, I think I'm starting to believe it.

Jan 16, 2017#112

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
We can't exactly institute a policy of disease, though.

Jenny McCarthy managed it just fine while also being busy on MTV... don't sell yourself short.

Jan 16, 2017#113

Eriol

@Li3n said:
Jenny McCarthy managed it just fine while also being busy on MTV... don't sell yourself short.

Despite it probably having other horrific legal consequences, a large part of me wants her tried for every Measles, Mumps, and Rubella death from any unvaccinated child in the USA (and elsewhere, hopefully) since she said her stupidity. Put her right alongside that "doctor" that started it. He may have started it, but she made it "popular" to not vaccinate.

Jan 16, 2017#114

PatrThom

bhamv3 said:
These are the kinds of things that make people believe in Illuminati conspiracies everywhere. Hell, I think I'm starting to believe it.

Illuminati? Surely not.

--Patrick

Feb 10, 2017#115

Tinwhistler

Bubble181 said:
But we have to face the reality that automation is creating (and will create) an unemployable class of people.

Feb 10, 2017#116

Necronic

Ah sign spinning, the one job that could never be automated.

Feb 10, 2017#117

PatrThom

Someone needs to create an animated gallery of all the sorry automated attempts at sign spinning. Because there have been so many, and they are all so, so sad.

--Patrick

Feb 10, 2017#118

GasBandit

Necronic said:
Ah sign spinning, the one job that could never be automated.

Actually, there are places where it legally can't. The whole thing about sign spinning was that it was a way to get around ordinances against posting advertising - there was a loophole that a sign would be allowed so long as it was carried by a person. So then they tried to get fancy with it, and even places where it wasn't a legal requirement tried to ride the tide.. and some figured out they didn't need the human where they were.

Feb 10, 2017#119

sixpackshaker

Sign Spinning is to the Great Recession, what Sandwich Boards were to the Great Depression.

Feb 10, 2017#120

Necronic

Ok. So what if I create a Data-like android to spin signs? I feel like this is where we could have the whole important "do androids have rights" kind of legal battle.

Feb 10, 2017#121

PatrThom

Necronic said:
Ok. So what if I create a Data-like android to spin signs? I feel like this is where we could have the whole important "do androids have rights" kind of legal battle.

That only counts if you can construct an actual, independent android.
Good luck with that.

--Patrick

Feb 10, 2017#122

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
That only counts if you can construct an actual, independent android.
Good luck with that.

--Patrick

I'm not sure that's true... I think if you put a sign on a roomba and turned it loose, that might cover the bases (assuming the roomba doesn't get stuck or stolen) as far as the statutes are concerned.

Feb 10, 2017#123

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I'm not sure that's true... I think if you put a sign on a roomba and turned it loose, that might cover the bases (assuming the roomba doesn't get stuck or stolen) as far as the statutes are concerned.

Welllll, now we're just debating where exactly is the line between "construct" and "organism."

--Patrick

Feb 10, 2017#124

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Welllll, now we're just debating where exactly is the line between "construct" and "organism."

--Patrick

Well, the loophole isn't about someone's personhood, it's just about the sign being carried instead of posted. The same thing could be accomplished with an R/C car, and at this point, you could now just set waypoints and let it navigate alone.

Feb 10, 2017#125

Necronic

Why would you use a Roomba instead of a drone?

Feb 10, 2017#126

GasBandit

Necronic said:
Why would you use a Roomba instead of a drone?

Well, if you get right down to it, isn't a roomba a specialized drone?

Unless you meant flying drone, in which case, battery life.

Feb 10, 2017#127

Necronic

Well then just have it tethered to a human holding a really heavy battery. Seems like a win win.

Feb 10, 2017#128

PatrThom

Necronic said:
Well then just have it tethered to a human holding a really heavy battery. Seems like a win win.

Better yet, have it tethered to a human-powered generator bike. He pedals, sign animates.
But then you'd have to pay him.

--Patrick

Feb 10, 2017#129

Necronic

What if you used an android to pedal the bike?

Feb 10, 2017#130

PatrThom

Necronic said:
What if you used an android to pedal the bike?

Didn't someone already try that?

EDIT: I forgot to include the time stamp, and I'm not gonna go find it again. Even as a kid I wondered how he was supposed to generate enough power to power himself enough to generate enough power to power himself enough to generate...

--Patrick

Apr 24, 2017#131

Eriol

I figured this was the best thread for "economic equality" or any related topics.

This article was interesting. I was expecting a certain degree of bias here, but it's much more math-based than I expected in its core argument: The rich vs. poor myth - 80% of ‘wealth inequality’ in Canada is explained by one simple factor: Age

From the article, two sections that illustrate it best:

The fact the top 20% of households in Canada hold 67% of the personal wealth, while the bottom 20% hold no wealth at all seems, on the surface, to be a very inequitable and unfair situation.

...snip...

Imagine a perfectly “egalitarian” society where everyone is identical in every respect, except for age, and where a person’s income grows slowly as they take on more responsibility and leadership in their job. Everyone would have exactly the same lifetime income and wealth, but they would have different levels of wealth at different stages of life.

In such a society, if people saved 10% of their income in a fund for retirement, then at any point in time, the top 20% would have 50% of the wealth and the bottom 20% would have no wealth.

The rest of the article goes into some of the reasons why this isn't reflected right now, and how there IS injustice there (and some not so much injustice as just circumstance), but the core stats are interesting in and of themselves IMO. The gap of "ideal" versus current is not as dramatic as some people might want you to believe. This isn't a reason to lack vigilance on those with wealth and power, and how they exercise/abuse that to pervert rule of law and democracy, and everything else that wealth and power usually get you, but we're also not in a situation as a society of such panic-inducing inequality of wealth as it may seem.

Apr 24, 2017#132

Dave

Yeah, I'm really of two minds about this proposition. On the one hand, automation and computerization is going to be putting massive amounts of people out of work and that's unsustainable, but if everyone got a stipend then the prices would adjust accordingly and the poor would still be poor. It's like when they raise the minimum wage. I get why they do it, but it's not like the prices of goods and services are going to stay static when minimum wage increases. In fact, those who were above the new minimum wage already (but not rich) would find themselves depressed downward as the prices rise but THEIR wages don't.

Apr 24, 2017#133

Sara_2814

Eriol said:
I figured this was the best thread for "economic equality" or any related topics.

This article was interesting. I was expecting a certain degree of bias here, but it's much more math-based than I expected in its core argument: The rich vs. poor myth - 80% of ‘wealth inequality’ in Canada is explained by one simple factor: Age

From the article, two sections that illustrate it best:

The rest of the article goes into some of the reasons why this isn't reflected right now, and how there IS injustice there (and some not so much injustice as just circumstance), but the core stats are interesting in and of themselves IMO. The gap of "ideal" versus current is not as dramatic as some people might want you to believe. This isn't a reason to lack vigilance on those with wealth and power, and how they exercise/abuse that to pervert rule of law and democracy, and everything else that wealth and power usually get you, but we're also not in a situation as a society of such panic-inducing inequality of wealth as it may seem.

Low-income people are also often actively discouraged from saving money (at least in the US). Money in savings can count against getting assistance.

Apr 24, 2017#134

Dave

That and when every penny is going to pay bills, saving can be next to impossible.

Apr 24, 2017#135

TommiR

Sara_2814 said:
Low-income people are also often actively discouraged from saving money (at least in the US). Money in savings can count against getting assistance.

That may indeed pose a dilemma. On the one hand, you have people living paycheck-to-paycheck, not being able to save anything since everything goes to paying the normal bills plus the monthly installments. On the other hand, you have people who make just as little, but who didn't blow it all on that Playstation or that big-ass widescreen tv, and managed to put a little money aside.

So, on the one hand, you have people who squandered everything they received, and are now in dire straits partly because of their profligacy. On he other hand, you have people who made do with what little they received, and actually have some assets. With a limited budget for assistance, when there just isn't enough money to go around, who is the one who needs/deserves assistance the most? Will you support the ones who have nothing and need the money to survive? Or will you support the ones who are actually trying to help themselves, but can make do without assistance for at least a short period of time?

A bit of an extreme example, but I think not all who are without assets have done all that they could to avoid getting to that point.

Apr 24, 2017#136

Sara_2814

TommiR said:
That may indeed pose a dilemma. On the one hand, you have people living paycheck-to-paycheck, not being able to save anything since everything goes to paying the normal bills plus the monthly installments. On the other hand, you have people who make just as little, but who didn't blow it all on that Playstation or that big-ass widescreen tv, and managed to put a little money aside.

So, on the one hand, you have people who squandered everything they received, and are now in dire straits partly because of their profligacy. On he other hand, you have people who made do with what little they received, and actually have some assets. With a limited budget for assistance, when there just isn't enough money to go around, who is the one who needs/deserves assistance the most? Will you support the ones who have nothing and need the money to survive? Or will you support the ones who are actually trying to help themselves, but can make do without assistance for at least a short period of time?

A bit of an extreme example, but I think not all who are without assets have done all that they could to avoid getting to that point.

There are many things wrong with the horribly broken welfare system, but a poor family getting a Playstation is not one of them. Saving up $400 for a Playstation for Christmas, to bring a little joy to their family's life, isn't going to make much impact on their overall financial situation.

I know, I know, if you let them have a Playstation without judgement, the next thing you know they'll want a refrigerator...

Apr 24, 2017#137

TommiR

Sara_2814 said:
There are many things wrong with the horribly broken welfare system, but a poor family getting a Playstation is not one of them. Saving up $400 for a Playstation for Christmas, to bring a little joy to their family's life, isn't going to make much impact on their overall financial situation.

I know, I know, if you let them have a Playstation without judgement, the next thing you know they'll want a refrigerator...

… and that beach vacation, the second car, and a subprime mortgage...

The Playstation wasn't really the gist of my point, but I'll bite. Some families may prioritise having a Playstation, and rely on welfare to provide the rest. Others may prioritise having enough money in the bank to buy an extra month of food in case something should happen.

From what I gathered of you original post, you were criticizing that government welfare schemes penalize those who save money, in that savings cut on assistance received. What would follow is that the poor family might be better served by spending all their income instead of saving it, in order to maximize the support they receive from government assistance programs. I hope I understood your point correctly.

For the purposes of promoting discussion, I was attempting to examine why a government assistance scheme might have this effect. No government ever has the money to do everything they want. One may disagree with their spending priorities, but the money just isn't there for everything. This includes the welfare budget. So, where should they direct their assistance? To the people who can't survive without it (because they blew their money on that Playstation, or because of something else)? Or to the ones who have some little assets, and who can survive for a short while without assistance / with limited assistance? Is it fair to penalize the ones who, despite having limited means, are still trying to save up and take care of themselves? On the same token, is it fair to cause real hardship on the ones who can't make do without assistance as they have next to nothing, regardless of how they ended up in those circumstances?

Apr 24, 2017#138

SpecialKO

I think Sara is simply pointing out (if I'm wrong, Sara, my apologies!) that there is this pervasive belief, at least in the US, that people of low income aren't allowed to have any nice things at all until they're not low income anymore, and it gets trotted out every time a politician decides to cut low-income assistance programs (by both sides, in fact, just with a different emotional goal).

Whatever discussions need to be had about administrative waste or appropriate assistance by income level, scrutinizing household purchases when all it takes is a single hospital visit to bankrupt an American family (whether they have a PS4 or not) is a fairly useless point.

Apr 24, 2017#139

Necronic

Eriol said:
The rest of the article goes into some of the reasons why this isn't reflected right now

I'm a bit confused. The title of the article is 80% is caused by age. Then it explains why that is wrong? I took a peek at it and I must have missed that.

Also fwiw that's definitely wrong in the US. I have more money in savings than most people in their 50s, and I'm only 35 (and I don't have a LOT in savings). Older people have seriously screwed up their savings and are one of the largest liabilities our country is currently facing.

For real the idea of a universal basic income is kind of absurd when we've got the handout generation strolling across the finish line right now.

Apr 24, 2017#140

AshburnerX

SpecialKO said:
I think Sara is simply pointing out (if I'm wrong, Sara, my apologies!) that there is this pervasive belief, at least in the US, that people of low income aren't allowed to have any nice things at all until they're not low income anymore, and it gets trotted out every time a politician decides to cut low-income assistance programs (by both sides, in fact, just with a different emotional goal).

This is because many Americans (especially religious, conservative ones) equate financial success with good morality. I.E. Those people are poor and we aren't, therefore they must have done something wrong because God doesn't allow good people to suffer. Therefore we should be able to dictate the way they live their lives, which should be devoid of things we consider frivolous even though WE wouldn't want to be without them ether.

This is what happens when you fully integrate an economic system (capitalism) into a religion system (Protestantism in this case).

Apr 24, 2017#141

Sara_2814

TommiR said:
… and that beach vacation, the second car, and a subprime mortgage...

The Playstation wasn't really the gist of my point, but I'll bite. Some families may prioritise having a Playstation, and rely on welfare to provide the rest. Others may prioritise having enough money in the bank to buy food for one month in case something should happen.

From what I gathered of you original post, you were criticizing that government welfare schemes penalize those who save money, in that savings cut on assistance received. What would follow is that the poor family might be better served by spending all their income instead of saving it, in order to maximize the support they receive from government assistance programs. I hope I understood your point correctly.

For the purposes of promoting discussion, I was attempting to examine why a government assistance scheme might have this effect. No government ever has the money to do everything they want. One may disagree with their spending priorities, but the money just isn't there for everything. This includes the welfare budget. So, where should they direct their assistance? To the people who can't survive without it (because they blew their money on that Playstation, or because of something else)? Or to the ones who have some little assets, and who can survive for a short while without assistance / with limited assistance? Is it fair to penalize the ones who, despite having limited means, are still trying to save up and take care of themselves? On the same token, is it fair to cause real hardship on the ones who can't make do without assistance as they have next to nothing, regardless of how they ended up in those circumstances?

It was in response to the article Eriol linked, which was looking at the reasons why certain populations have more money--it's much harder for people starting out on a low-income, or ending up on welfare at some point, to have savings built up later in life. Our welfare system is not set up to help or encourage people to save money. (My opinion is that helping people on public assistance to also learn about savings/retirement plans and how to save money, and maybe help them get or maintain an IRA, is a better long-term strategy than making people deplete their savings before giving them food stamps while they're looking for a new job).

My comment about Playstations is becasue I'm really tired of the OMG POOR PEOPLE HAVE A LUXURY! panic. You don't know people's individual situations and why they have a Playstation or a nice car. A few may cheat, but a whole helluva lot of people get nice things through careful saving or a Christmas bonus from their job or with the assistance of relatives. Or maybe they owned the things before the economy tanked. Or maybe the family is just mentally exhausted from from their financial troubles, so they make (unseen to the outside world) sacrifices somewhere to afford a luxury.

Is there actually a widespread problem of people on welfare having tons of luxuries? Because a lot of welfare comes in the form of things like food stamps/cards, medical coverage, utilities assistance, and education assistance. As far as I know, most people are not getting cut huge checks every month that they can spend on going to Bermuda.

Though, I grew up on welfare and I fully admit we took beach vacations almost every summer...by walking from my grandma's house to Lake Michigan.

We also had six cars when I was a kid, if you count the three "for parts" that were up on blocks in the yard. (Second cars really aren't a luxury in some areas of the US).

Apr 24, 2017#142

TommiR

SpecialKO said:
I think Sara is simply pointing out (if I'm wrong, Sara, my apologies!) that there is this pervasive belief, at least in the US, that people of low income aren't allowed to have any nice things at all until they're not low income anymore, and it gets trotted out every time a politician decides to cut low-income assistance programs (by both sides, in fact, just with a different emotional goal).

Whatever discussions need to be had about administrative waste or appropriate assistance by income level, scrutinizing household purchases when all it takes is a single hospital visit to bankrupt an American family (whether they have a PS4 or not) is a fairly useless point.

Well, each person is, of course, permitted to the assistance their circumstances entitle them to, under the prevailing systems, and to spend what they earn as they wish.

While I'm not trying to down-play the role of medical bills, many personal poverty reduction strategies I've seen are very much focused on careful management of expenditure. So I'm not sure that examining spending patterns is useless at all for self-help.

Necronic said:
For real the idea of a universal basic income is kind of absurd when we've got the handout generation strolling across the finish line right now.

As I understand it, in the Finnish trial, part of the idea is to reduce expenditure by reducing the administrative overhead associated with managing the convoluted welfare system that we have over here. When and if the system gets adopted, a big portion of the real beneficiaries are on the dole already, and the rest will pay the money back in taxes.

We'll have to see how things go.

Apr 24, 2017#143

TommiR

Have to get to work so I'll make a better response later. But here goes:

Sara_2814 said:
Is there actually a widespread problem of people on welfare having tons of luxuries? Because a lot of welfare comes in the form of things like food stamps/cards, medical coverage, utilities assistance, and education assistance. As far as I know, most people are not getting cut huge checks every month that they can spend on going to Bermuda.

According to this article, most people on welfare have jobs, it's just that the jobs don't pay enough so they are also on welfare. So you could live on government welfare, and spend what you make from your job to go to Bermuda.

Apr 24, 2017#144

Sara_2814

TommiR said:
As I understand it, in the Finnish trial, part of the idea is to reduce expenditure by reducing the administrative overhead associated with managing the convoluted welfare system that we have over here. When and if the system gets adopted, a big portion of the real beneficiaries are on the dole already, and the rest will pay the money back in taxes.

We'll have to see how things go.

I had linked to some articles about Libertarian support for universal income back on page 3 of this discussion (it's easy to find, because GasBandit's head explodes in the next post

). They made the same argument, that UBI could be better because it gets rid of the beauracracy and waste of a complex welfare system. So, yeah, it will be interesting to see how these experiments turn out.

Apr 24, 2017#145

Sara_2814

TommiR said:
Have to get to work so I'll make a better response later. But here goes:

According to this article, most people on welfare have jobs, it's just that the jobs don't pay enough so they are also on welfare. So you could live on government welfare, and spend what you make from your job to go to Bermuda.

I can't get to the full article (paywall), but it's pretty common knowledge that most people on welfare in the US are "working poor" (well, common knowledge for people who don't demonize being poor). If someone has a job that they can afford a trip to Bermuda, I doubt they qualify for welfare (unless they did really careful planning and saving, in which case they deserve their trip to Bermuda). If they're able to save $400 to drive the family to the beach in Florida for a few days one summer, who cares? In either case, the trip money still isn't going to solve their low-paying-job problem that makes them "working poor".

Apr 24, 2017#146

PatrThom

Eriol said:
I figured this was the best thread for "economic equality" or any related topics.

You were most likely actually looking for the income inequality thread, but I suppose it's not totally out of place here.

--Patrick

Apr 25, 2017#147

Eriol

PatrThom said:
You were most likely actually looking for the income inequality thread, but I suppose it's not totally out of place here.

--Patrick

It wasn't on the first page so I missed it and forgot that it existed or I would have searched for it. I skimmed down the first page for something, and this was the best, though I'd be 100% OK with an admin moving all these posts over to that thread and to bump it, as you're right that it's the better thread.

Apr 25, 2017#148

SpecialKO

TommiR said:
While I'm not trying to down-play the role of medical bills, many personal poverty reduction strategies I've seen are very much focused on careful management of expenditure. So I'm not sure that examining spending patterns is useless at all for self-help.

Teaching people money management is a great social policy for poverty reduction. Using the lack of knowledge of it as a determination factor for who is worth helping is very much not so.

Apr 25, 2017#149

fade

I'm not reading 5 pages of posts, but my first thought is the whole "All Lives Matter" thing.

May 26, 2017#150

Eriol

Zuckerberg has come out in favor of this: Mark Zuckerberg Calls for Universal Basic Income in His Harvard Commencement Speech

No word on when he plans to use his Billions to support people on his own. You know, quite literally put his money where his mouth is? How many people could he, on his own, support? If it's the right thing to do, why isn't he just doing it? Why wait for government, start a "free money" charity and go from there.

Oh wait, he wants everybody ELSE to pay for it. Moving on...

May 26, 2017#151

AshburnerX

And Zuckerberg's plans to run for office in 2020 continue...

May 26, 2017#152

Krisken

Eriol said:
Zuckerberg has come out in favor of this: Mark Zuckerberg Calls for Universal Basic Income in His Harvard Commencement Speech

No word on when he plans to use his Billions to support people on his own. You know, quite literally put his money where his mouth is? How many people could he, on his own, support? If it's the right thing to do, why isn't he just doing it? Why wait for government, start a "free money" charity and go from there.

Oh wait, he wants EVERYBODY to pay for it. Moving on...

FTFY.

May 26, 2017#153

GasBandit

Nah, it was right the first time.

May 26, 2017#154

Krisken

GasBandit said:
Nah, it was right the first time.

Considering he pays taxes too, not really, no.

May 26, 2017#155

GasBandit

Krisken said:
Considering he pays taxes too, not really, no.

Nothing says he can't overpay as much as he wants.

How much you wanna bet he hires somebody to make sure he pays no more than will be required to keep him out of jail?

May 26, 2017#156

Krisken

GasBandit said:
Nothing says he can't overpay as much as he wants.

How much you wanna bet he hires somebody to make sure he pays no more than will be required to keep him out of jail?

None of that contradicts what I said, let alone being irrelevant.

May 26, 2017#157

GasBandit

Krisken said:
None of that contradicts what I said, let alone being irrelevant.

It shows that his "paying taxes" is not evidence of altruism. If he thinks paying more taxes is a good thing, there is absolutely nothing to stop him from leading by example.

May 26, 2017#158

Krisken

GasBandit said:
It shows that his "paying taxes" is not evidence of altruism. If he thinks paying more taxes is a good thing, there is absolutely nothing to stop him from leading by example.

Again, nothing to do with what was said and what I wrote for FTFY. But go on singing a Country song at an Opera if it makes you happy.

May 26, 2017#159

GasBandit

Krisken said:
Nuh Uh.

Ya huh.

/FTFY

May 26, 2017#160

Gruebeard

Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have enough money to make any impact by spreading it around equally to every American. What's everybody gonna get? Like 600 bucks? And that's by making himself broke. This is not a policy that philanthropy can accomplish.

I mean, sure the @stienman family would make millions, but for us single guys that's just gonna be squandered on a night with a couple hookers.

May 26, 2017#161

sixpackshaker

Gruebeard said:
...gonna be squandered on a night with a couple hookers.

I don't know if you know what squandered means...

May 26, 2017#162

GasBandit

Gruebeard said:
Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have enough money to make any impact by spreading it around equally to every American. What's everybody gonna get? Like 600 bucks? And that's by making himself broke. This is not a policy that philanthropy can accomplish.

I mean, sure the @stienman family would make millions, but for us single guys that's just gonna be squandered on a night with a couple hookers.

Fun fact - that problem doesn't get solved with broader application.

If you cranked the millionaire tax rate to 100%, it would fund the US government for about 4 months (and demolish the economy permanently).

So, no, the mean ol 1% can't carry everybody. Everybody still has to get a job.

May 26, 2017#163

Gruebeard

GasBandit said:
Fun fact - that problem doesn't get solved with broader application.

If you cranked the millionaire tax rate to 100%, it would fund the US government for about 4 months (and demolish the economy permanently).

So, no, the mean ol 1% can't carry everybody. Everybody still has to get a job.

Yeah, I think that's what I just implied.

(I was obliquely responding to the "he should put his money where his mouth is" comment)

May 26, 2017#164

GasBandit

Gruebeard said:
Yeah, I think that's what I just implied.

(I was obliquely responding to the "he should put his money where his mouth is" comment)

Said comment was meant to elicit your exact response, which could then be expanded with my response, thus showing universal income to be the impractical farce it is.

Bonus track would have been if someone had pointed out that if he paid more money now voluntarily in taxes, it wouldn't all go to the poor, but to other things they don't support/agree with, which would have triggered my "You mean you can't trust the government to spend money how you think it should be spent?" trap card.

May 26, 2017#165

tegid

But that's not how taxes work. I may be in favor of increased tax rates in my country, but that doesn't mean I'm a hypocryte if I pay just what society, through government, has supposedly agreed is the fair amount for me to pay (paying less thant what I'm supposed to pay WOULD make me a hypocryte).

May 26, 2017#166

GasBandit

tegid said:
But that's not how taxes work. I may be in favor of increased tax rates in my country, but that doesn't mean I'm a hypocryte if I pay just what society, through government, has supposedly agreed is the fair amount for me to pay (paying less thant what I'm supposed to pay WOULD make me a hypocryte).

You're also not a billionaire trying to shame everybody else into paying higher taxes.

May 26, 2017#167

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
"You mean you can't trust the government to spend money how you think it should be spent?"

This was where I thought you were going in the first place.
I mean, it's great that there's a place you can send money to bring down the national debt if you want, but just doing that doesn't guarantee the Government will spend more responsibly in the future.

--Patrick

May 26, 2017#168

Krisken

Gruebeard said:
Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have enough money to make any impact by spreading it around equally to every American. What's everybody gonna get? Like 600 bucks? And that's by making himself broke. This is not a policy that philanthropy can accomplish.

I mean, sure the @stienman family would make millions, but for us single guys that's just gonna be squandered on a night with a couple hookers.

Shh, don't tell him!

May 26, 2017#169

Eriol

Gruebeard said:
Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have enough money to make any impact by spreading it around equally to every American. What's everybody gonna get? Like 600 bucks? And that's by making himself broke. This is not a policy that philanthropy can accomplish.

I mean, sure the @stienman family would make millions, but for us single guys that's just gonna be squandered on a night with a couple hookers.

Gruebeard said:
(I was obliquely responding to the "he should put his money where his mouth is" comment)

GasBandit said:
Said comment was meant to elicit your exact response, which could then be expanded with my response, thus showing universal income to be the impractical farce it is.

@GasBandit actually it wasn't meant to get that response, considering I'm the one who said that up there.

And saying "he must give it all to everybody" is just a straw man. Food banks work by giving out first-come, first-serve until they run out, not by saying "nope, we need to give 5 peas to EVERYBODY in the city."

What I AM saying is that if Mark believes in this concept so much, where's his charity where he can concentrate what he gives so that it makes a difference? Fund it with $100M per year, at $10,000 per person, he could help maybe 10,000 people. Less for some administrative costs (7000 people? 8000? Still a lot of admin there), but still, if just giving out money to everybody is his thing to help poverty/other things, then let him show us how it can work, rather than saying that "everybody" should pay into this. So let Mark show his idea works on a small scale, with his own money making the difference. He doesn't need to bankrupt himself, but he should throw a significant (majority) fraction of his wealth at it before asking others less capable of shouldering the burden to do it.

If you're not doing it yourself voluntarily when you're more than capable (ie: all rich people by definition of financial status), why are you asking others to do it involuntarily via government?

May 26, 2017#170

GasBandit

Eriol said:
@GasBandit actually it wasn't meant to get that response, considering I'm the one who said that up there.

I said it, too!

If you're not doing it yourself voluntarily when you're more than capable (ie: all rich people by definition of financial status), why are you asking others to do it involuntarily via government?

I said that, too, too!

May 26, 2017#171

PatrThom

Eriol said:
If you're not doing it yourself voluntarily when you're more than capable (ie: all rich people by definition of financial status), why are you asking others to do it involuntarily via government?

The thing is, if you're one of those who need the help, then you by definition don't contribute voluntarily, and if you are "more than capable," then it's not the sort of thing you tend to think about. Government, in this scenario, is there to involuntarily compel/remind the more than capable folks of their responsibility. What the issue of contention really is, is one of whether or not the "haves" have any duty to improve the conditions of the "have nots." Less about "Communism," more like "Feudalism."

--Patrick

May 26, 2017#172

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Government, in this scenario, is there to involuntarily compel/remind the more than capable folks of their responsibility.

It most certainly is not (or rather, shouldn't be), and this is one of the more chilling sentences I've read on this board, coming from you.

May 26, 2017#173

Eriol

PatrThom said:
The thing is, if you're one of those who need the help, then you by definition don't contribute voluntarily, and if you are "more than capable," then it's not the sort of thing you tend to think about. Government, in this scenario, is there to involuntarily compel/remind the more than capable folks of their responsibility.

Uh, no, that'd be your local Church (or related).

PatrThom said:
What the issue of contention really is, is one of whether or not the "haves" have any duty to improve the conditions of the "have nots."

That's about as square as you can ask about a question of morality. You want to legislate that now? See above my mention of Churches. This is squarely a moral issue.

GasBandit said:
It most certainly is not (or rather, shouldn't be), and this is one of the more chilling sentences I've read on this board, coming from you.

Interesting. I didn't find it that surprising. Maybe it's about PatrThom specifically, because there's no shortage of others on this board in favor of compelling us to spend our money the way they want it to be spent (ie: government wealth redistribution).

May 26, 2017#174

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
It most certainly is not (or rather, shouldn't be), and this is one of the more chilling sentences I've read on this board, coming from you.

I more meant "in the above stated scenario," as in, with UBI (as portrayed by Zuckerberg), it is the Government's job to raise enough money (through taxation, presumably) to provide this minimum stipend for all. In my ideal world, the people who have all power aren't competing to see who can accumulate the most or who can get their last name on the most stuff, instead they realize they're more like custodians of influence, and they apply it where it'll do the most good. They realize they're part of the whole, and not above it.

Eriol said:
Uh, no, that'd be your local Church (or related).

I would argue that it's not the "job" of the Government nor of the Church to remind people of their responsibilities to others. I don't necessarily believe we need to legislate morality because I don't believe we (as a society) should have to. People are just supposed to know. But I get what you're going for.

As to my personal belief, it is (still and always has been) my opinion that government's sole raison d'être is to take over doing the things that absolutely have to get done but that nobody wants to do. I can't remember LeGuin's exact term for it..."The Kleggitch" or something like that? EDIT: yep, that's it.

--Patrick

May 27, 2017#175

Bubble181

Which all just goes to show how different societies are that are superficially alike.
I assure you the majority in Belgium does NOT think morality is anything for a church to take care of, and DOES think that wealth redistribution is one of the government's main/major tasks.

May 27, 2017#176

@Li3n

Eriol said:
Uh, no, that'd be your local Church (or related).

Yeah, and that's why atheists are never kind or generous...

May 27, 2017#177

Krisken

Yeah, have a hard time feeling the church being a 'force for good' vibe people are trying to push.

May 27, 2017#178

DarkAudit

Krisken said:
Yeah, have a hard time feeling the church being a 'force for good' vibe people are trying to push.

Westboro is a church. I doubt many would agree that they're a "force for good." :troll:

May 27, 2017#179

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
Westboro is a church. I doubt many would agree that they're a "force for good."

...anyone who's not a member, at least.

--Patrick

May 28, 2017#180

Eriol

@Li3n said:
Yeah, and that's why atheists are never kind or generous...

versus government. You want the government to be the arbiter of what's considered morally "good"? That's what I was refuting, not any other argument.

May 28, 2017#181

Bubble181

Eriol said:
versus government. You want the government to be the arbiter of what's considered morally "good"? That's what I was refuting, not any other argument.

No, but it's acceptable for the public to decide what is morally acceptable/good/desireable and for them to hand it to the government to work towards that goal. In theory (and oh I know this is purely theoretical) the government doesn't have an agenda beyond "doing what the people want", no need to make a profit, not beholdne to any special interest group, and so on.
Of course this theory fails on multiple levels, from lobbyists controlling what happens more than the people, over misinterpreting the signals sent by the people, over the people being a bunch of dickheads sending a million different signals and all the wrong way, to the forming of a governmental oligarchy by a small group of people who stay in power, and so on and so forth.

The idea of democracy is that We the People can sort of work out what most people want done, and the government can then go and do it. In one country, maybe people want more (religious) freedom, in another, more (social) security, whatever.

May 28, 2017#182

AshburnerX

Bubble181 said:
No, but it's acceptable for the public to decide what is morally acceptable/good/desireable and for them to hand it to the government to work towards that goal.

I would argue that the government is working at it's best when it does the exact opposite of this. If the general public was allowed to have it's way consistently, numerous individual rights would be violated in the name of the religion of the majority and the racial views of the majority. We have already seen what such bigotry has done to the minorities of the country in the past.

This is why the government does not and should not be acting as a moral agent, instead acting as the arbiter of rights. This way it can act against public opinion in order to protect the rights of the most vulnerable, even if it is against the will of the public because how the public views you should not have an impact on your rights.

May 28, 2017#183

@Li3n

Eriol said:
versus government. You want the government to be the arbiter of what's considered morally "good"? That's what I was refuting, not any other argument.

Funny, because governments at least have some history of not fucking it up in some of their incarnations, while i can't think of a church that hasn't done something horrible once it reached more then a few thousand people. I mean if even Buddhists ended up killing people...

Jul 24, 2017#184

Eriol

Related to employment (and underemployment) and such, so seemed the best thread we had for this kind of thing: Unemployment in the UK is now so low it's in danger of exposing the lie used to create the numbers

Jul 24, 2017#185

strawman

I've been annoyed by this for years. Didn't the way the US reports unemployment change under the Obama administration?

Jul 24, 2017#186

Denbrought

stienman said:
I've been annoyed by this for years. Didn't the way the US reports unemployment change under the Obama administration?

Sounds like an unfounded rumor, at least at a very cursory glance: https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/12314

Jul 24, 2017#187

sixpackshaker

stienman said:
I've been annoyed by this for years. Didn't the way the US reports unemployment change under the Obama administration?

As far I know, unemployment since the Great Depression has been measured as people actively seeking employment. So you don't count pensioners, the sick, and the wealthy as unemployed.

Jul 24, 2017#188

GasBandit

stienman said:
I've been annoyed by this for years. Didn't the way the US reports unemployment change under the Obama administration?

It didn't change, it was just the economic collapse caused a large number of people to be unemployed so long they stopped being counted as workforce, thus making the "unemployment" rate return to 6% (falsely being touted as a "recovery") when it really was twice that (if you compared it to the labor participation rate pre-crash), and of course underemployment was ignored entirely.

Jul 24, 2017#189

strawman

Ah, right.

Jul 24, 2017#190

DarkAudit

And the same people who said the numbers were a scam when there was positive news under Obama are now falling all over themselves to praise Trump when the same numbers are positive, but nowhere near the same gains.

Jul 24, 2017#191

GasBandit

DarkAudit said:
And the same people who said the numbers were a scam when there was positive news under Obama are now falling all over themselves to praise Trump when the same numbers are positive, but nowhere near the same gains.

As it ever was, and ever shall be. Before Obama, 5.5% unemployment was decried as evidence of a flagging economy under bush... when it was lauded as "full employment" under clinton.

The whole practice is a sham, and every politician attempts to abuse it to their own ends, because the numbers are all meaningless and easy to misrepresent.

Jul 24, 2017#192

Gruebeard

GasBandit said:
As it ever was, and ever shall be. Before Obama, 5.5% unemployment was decried as evidence of a flagging economy under bush... when it was lauded as "full employment" under clinton.

The whole practice is a sham, and every politician attempts to abuse it to their own ends, because the numbers are all meaningless and easy to misrepresent.

And now Trump just makes shit up

Nov 14, 2017#193

strawman

Relevant:

Nov 14, 2017#194

Eriol

stienman said:
Relevant:
(Deleted the media)

I liked how that video honestly tried to present both sides of it. There was a bias towards "don't panic" but it was honest both ways IMO.

Now for the heavy political side: The guy said it right at the end, remind me again if Globalization is Good or Bad, given Trump's anti-globalization stance?

Nov 14, 2017#195

PatrThom

Really what I think it's going to come down to is whether or not the people who make the machines will claim that everything the machines make/do therefore belongs to them, because the unhappiest guy on Earth will be that guy (or gal!) who spends their entire personal fortune ensuring that nobody else has to work ever again.

--Patrick

Nov 14, 2017#196

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
the unhappiest guy on Earth will be that guy (or gal!) who spends their entire personal fortune ensuring that nobody else has to work ever again.

--Patrick

The only way that happens is Doomsday. Because the only way to guarantee that happens is to remove humanity from the equation. Don't underestimate the ability of people to behave in stupid ways. Mind bogglingly stupid ways. Ways which no machine would ever be prepared to deal with. Which is why you have humans working the overnight shift, just in case a new branch of stupid appears. And it always will.

Dec 7, 2017#197

PatrThom

The maker of the video has what I consider to be an obvious bias, but it’s still informative.

—Patrick

Dec 8, 2017#198

Eriol

PatrThom said:
The maker of the video has what I consider to be an obvious bias, but it’s still informative.

—Patrick

I'd say that's worth watching, but I think they downplay FAR too much the 67% (according to the video) of people displeased with their jobs. MOST of them IMO will not work if they can. And if their lives aren't good enough, they'll vote in people who will give them more "free" money yet again.

Jan 4, 2018#199

Eriol

Probably the best thread for this: Minimum Wage Hikes. The reason I raise the issue is that Ontario (not where I live) raised its minimum wage to $14/hr, and there's been a few doom-and-gloom headlines like this: Shops cutting hours, upping prices after minimum wage hike. In contrast, this Globe article is actually fairly decent: Minimum wages can make for maximum consternation

The question I have to those opposed to something modest like this: If your business isn't viable without paying your workers below a living wage, aren't you horrifically unethical? We don't allow indentured servitude (well, debatable given consumer debt levels, but that's another topic), so why is employing people at levels where they'd have to work 60-80 hours a week to BARELY afford living considered OK?

So I'm actually in favor of a living wage being the minimum. If you work 40 hours a week at a job, you should be able to afford a home (definitions vary, but not a flophouse) and buy groceries, etc, and not be dependent on other anti-poverty programs at all. Basically the statement "The best social program is a job" only holds up IMO if the job itself REPLACES said programs. If it doesn't, it's just working somebody to death for no increase in their living conditions.

And just so you don't think I've gone left-wing here, most of this is caused IMO by the labour market being screwed up. If there wasn't a surplus of unskilled labour, the price of said labour would be higher, and you wouldn't need government to step in. The businesses themselves would be competing for the labour by raising pay. But infinite surplus? Go-go cheap labour! So the government has caused at least part of the problem, in that we have uncontrolled immigration of unskilled people. This caused the other problems that they're now "solving" through a minimum wage hike. It's the right solution IMO, but it shouldn't be necessary, since they put the country in this situation to begin with.

Jan 4, 2018#200

strawman

We’ve hashed and rehashed the same minimum wage arguments many times in the last decade.

Has something fundamentally changed that should force a re-evaluation?

Jan 4, 2018#201

blotsfan

Get rid of wages and create a communist utopia.

Jan 4, 2018#202

Covar

So my thoughts as a business owner who would like to hire an employee one day. I don't need a full time employee, I certainly don't need someone who needs the job as their primary income. Prices of comics are printed on the books so unlike some other business I couldn't just increase prices or rates to make up for it. That would have to be done at the publisher level (and in some ways the $3.99 price is reflective of the higher cost of living in the major cities). An employee would have to help me to bring in at least double their wage to begin to make fiscal sense. That doesn't mean just direct sales, but in time freed up to pursue other avenues of revenue.

Region also has more to do with it, another reason why its best not handled at the federal level. There are stores in bigger cities that would be out of business if they didn't do our annual revenue in a month. At that scale employment needs are completely different. I can't imagine other retail markets are much different in that regard.

There you go, didn't solve anything, but all I can say is that for my business if the minimum wage was to double it would at best double the time it would take to feel comfortable bringing in an employee. We would also need to adjust the current payout to the owner managing the place to avoid any effective pay cut. The same would happen if we hired an employee and were already paying them above the minimum wage. To not do so would feel unethical.

Jan 4, 2018#203

strawman

blotsfan said:
Get rid of wages and create a communist utopia.

My church’s version of this was called “the United order”:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Order

So I’d be all for that, but in this version no one would be forced to contribute, so I’m not sure it fits your definition.

Jan 4, 2018#204

Bubble181

stienman said:
My church’s version of this was called “the United order”:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Order

So I’d be all for that, but in this version no one would be forced to contribute, so I’m not sure it fits your definition.

"forced to contribute" is a misunderstanding of communism - in a theoretical communist Utopia, nobody contributes anything, voluntary or not, because nobody has anything. You work/produce/create/contribute for the Greater Good, and in turn you get anything you need and can profit from anything available.
I mean, you don't have to explain to me why it doesn't work with actual real life humans, but the concept of "communism Utopia is like today, except you're taxed at 100% and everyone gets some sort of equal wage" is false.

Jan 4, 2018#205

PatrThom

stienman said:
We’ve hashed and rehashed the same minimum wage arguments many times in the last decade. Has something fundamentally changed that should force a re-evaluation?

Well, MI did just increase the minimum wage 35 cents/hr as of Jan 1.

—Patrick

Jan 4, 2018#206

strawman

I’d be very interested in tying minimum wage increases to inflation and possibly cost of living, but not by going back many years.

Beyond that, I’d like unskilled labor to remain low cost. If you want to make a living wage and raise a family you should specialize in a skill or receive training and education for a career.

Jan 4, 2018#207

Dei

stienman said:
I’d be very interested in tying minimum wage increases to inflation and possibly cost of living, but not by going back many years.

Beyond that, I’d like unskilled labor to remain low cost. If you want to make a living wage and raise a family you should specialize in a skill or receive training and education for a career.

I mean, you can say that, but if we had no unskilled labor, a lot of businesses would cease to exist. They are still providing a necessary role.

Jan 4, 2018#208

Eriol

stienman said:
I’d be very interested in tying minimum wage increases to inflation and possibly cost of living, but not by going back many years.

Beyond that, I’d like unskilled labor to remain low cost. If you want to make a living wage and raise a family you should specialize in a skill or receive training and education for a career.

steinman we agree on a lot, but I disagree with you on this. The underlying problem is (essentially) infinite supply of unskilled labour. That leads to the abuses we see of such people, and the rock-bottom wages. When they need people, they pay them. If they can get 10 more off of the street, they will pay the minimum necessary by law.

And your suggestion doesn't work, because if minimum wage means you need to work 16 hour days, every day, JUST TO GET BY, it's impossible to become more skilled. There's literally not any more hours left in the day. So it's more of a false blame thing, than an actual path out of unskilled work, because it's held out as a "if you just worked harder via getting education as well, you wouldn't be in this situation." Because of no hours available (and NO MONEY to fund such an education) you're still just as trapped.

So the root problem is too much unskilled labour, and IMO you're not going to train enough people out of it to make a difference as long as you have infinite immigration (legal and otherwise). Given the unwillingness to pursue solutions to the root cause (supporting cutting immigration is the fastest way to get accused of being a racist/nazi/trump sub-human scum), the "next-best" is a decent living wage IMO. Part-time work is fine, but anything more than 40 hours should be unnecessary (except in very exceptional (those words have the same root for a reason) circumstances) and is harmful towards your other suggestions (education) for reducing the supply.

This is an easier problem in Canada given universal healthcare (it sucks, but it's universal). Your "employer insurance" problem throws a wrench into this, but the living wage itself still holds up as "a good idea" IMO for both of our countries (and others besides as well), and given that I started this current conversation talking about increases in Ontario, in Canada, your USA complications is your problem, not mine. My theory still holds up in this country.

Feb 7, 2018#209

Squidleybits

One of the main issues here in Canada that may also be a factor in the States, is that there are sometimes too many barriers in place for everyone to have access to the education and/or training required to make the transition from being considered unskilled labour. The cost of post secondary education continues to climb and student loans are not written to benefit students. They are there to earn money for the banks. That's not the only barrier, but it's the one that I find the most offensive.

(Sorry if this was already mentioned - first visit here)

Feb 8, 2018#210

PatrThom

People are starting to ask the right kinds of questions:

If we gave everyone a decent standard of living, could we sustain it?
(tl;dr: Not if we all continue to live the way we do now)

--Patrick

Feb 9, 2018#211

drawn_inward

I think I would be willing to have a sort of Universal Education system in the States, but it would have to be regulated like mad. I would also want tiers. We need to come up with a good way to assess intelligence and ability. It's a waste of time and money to send "everyone" to college. We should have skills-based/trades options too. My brother couldn't get through H.S. Algebra, but he's a hell of a welder. We would have to acknowledge that not everyone belongs in college.

Instead of money, is there a more tangible product that could be used by all? Non-perishable or shelf-stable foods?

Feb 9, 2018#212

SpecialKO

We do definitely need an apprenticing system, at least as an alternative. A lot of EU countries have apprenticing/trade school tracks that are part of the school system where students can go into technical/process-based fields based on their schoolwork and then if the career path is right, enter into university for a higher degree (who pays for it depends on the country, school, and degree). The counter-argument is that such a system definitely has an arresting effect on upward mobility at a societal level, but that's also less of an issue in countries with stronger social safety nets, and likely has a major effect on student debt, aggregate happiness, and social stability.

Feb 9, 2018#213

PatrThom

drawn_inward said:
Instead of money, is there a more tangible product that could be used by all? Non-perishable or shelf-stable foods?

Once you replace money with a different medium of trade, that new medium of trade de facto becomes “money.”

—Patrick

Feb 9, 2018#214

Eriol

drawn_inward said:
Instead of money, is there a more tangible product that could be used by all? Non-perishable or shelf-stable foods?

Nuka-cola caps?

In all seriousness, what @PatrThom said.

Feb 10, 2018#215

@Li3n

PatrThom said:
Once you replace money with a different medium of trade, that new medium of trade de facto becomes “money.”

—Patrick

Sure, but in his example, at least that's money you can eat...

May 8, 2019#216

PatrThom

More food for thought:

Universal Basic Income: A Union Perspective - A report/study put out by Public Services International.

Sixteen practical projects were reviewed that tested different ways of distributing regular cash payments to individuals. These included past, current and planned experiments across a range of poor, middle-income and rich countries. [...] [M]aking cash payments to individuals to increase their purchasing power in a market economy is not a viable route to solving problems caused by neoliberal market economics. [There is] no evidence that any version of UBI can be affordable, inclusive, sufficient and sustainable at the same time, [and campaigning for it threatens] to divert political energies - as well as funds - from more important causes.

tl;dr: "It's no silver bullet"

--Patrick

Apr 13, 2020#217

PatrThom

Still more food for thought:

What if jobs are not the solution, but the problem?

FUCK WORK
Economists believe in full employment. Americans think that work builds character. But what if jobs aren’t working anymore? [...] we’ve believed that, even if it sucks, a job gives meaning, purpose and structure to our everyday lives [...] as if having a job is self-evidently a good thing, no matter how dangerous, demanding or demeaning it is. [...]
[It's] time we asked even more practical questions. How do you make a living without a job – can you receive income without working for it? Is it possible, to begin with and then, the hard part, is it ethical? If you were raised to believe that work is the index of your value to society – as most of us were – would it feel like cheating to get something for nothing?

--Patrick

Apr 13, 2020#218

GasBandit

Until we've got a source of unlimited free energy and replicators, yes, work is still a requirement for civilization to continue.

Apr 14, 2020#219

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Until we've got a source of unlimited free energy and replicators, yes, work is still a requirement for civilization to continue.

Well we've pretty much got the first one, if only the majority wasn't so self-interested that they refuse to see it.

--Patrick

Apr 14, 2020#220

AshburnerX

Yeah... energy issues in the US could be more than met with the expansion of green energy and modern nuclear power plants, and most raw food production is already effectively out of the hand of Americans to begin with. We're well on our way to having the basic needs of most people being able to be met.

The first, real jump isn't going to be from Work -> No Work, it's going to be I Have To Work -> Don't have to work a job I hate just to survive, I can find something else. Most people WANT to work and contribute to society in some way, they'd just rather not have to be abused by their boss or be the victim of corporate mismanagement. THAT is an achievable goal in the now.

Apr 14, 2020#221

PatrThom

AshburnerX said:
Most people WANT to work and contribute to society in some way, they'd just rather not have to be abused by their boss or be the victim of corporate mismanagement. THAT is an achievable goal in the now.

To be fair, if there weren't so many bosses who become bosses primarily for the opportunity to boss other people around and get off on that power trip, being a subordinate wouldn't be so bad.

--Patrick

Apr 14, 2020#222

Dave

I think people are finding out right now that work is just as much as human interaction than it is money. We are doing okay and my wife is starting to freak out. She misses her job so much.

Apr 14, 2020#223

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
Until we've got a source of unlimited free energy and replicators, yes, work is still a requirement for civilization to continue.

Said the guy who argued multiple times that enough new wealth can be created so that having a few people hoard as much money as possible wouldn't actually hinder poor people....

Dave said:
I think people are finding out right now that work is just as much as human interaction than it is money. We are doing okay and my wife is starting to freak out. She misses her job so much.

'Member how before you got a job you where able to intersect with other humans outside school hours, even though they didn't even have mobile phones on them, and you actually had to interact with their parents to get them on a land line, or just walk around and bump into them at your usual hang out spots?

Apr 14, 2020#224

GasBandit

@Li3n said:
Said the guy who argued multiple times that enough new wealth can be created so that having a few people hoard as much money as possible wouldn't actually hinder poor people....

This is completely unrelated (and also a mischaracterization of what I've said).
Wealth is not a zero sum quanta.
For all the wishful thinking about unicorn farts, power, food, housing, and resources are.
That is why inflation is a thing.

Apr 14, 2020#225

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
Wealth is not a zero sum quanta.
For all the wishful thinking about unicorn farts, power, food, housing, and resources are.

It has been clear for many decades that producing enough food to feed the world (not staples, GOOD food) is not a problem, we can already do it. The issue is and always has been distribution networks and the sheer fact that many people in power inflict hunger on their own people ether to kill them, to control them, or because it's cheaper to throw food away than it is to give it to people in need (as is done in the US). Housing is in the same boat; we have more than enough housing to house all US residents and more than enough room to build additional housing if it was needed. We simply don't because we have a landed class that has a vested interest in keeping land prices up and keeping themselves from actually working.

It's funny how conservatives say everyone needs to work, but don't blink an eye when someone's "job" is "owning someone else's home and charging them for it's upkeep while keeping all the equity". That's not a job and they aren't working.

Apr 14, 2020#226

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
For all the wishful thinking about unicorn farts, power, food, housing, and resources are.
That is why inflation is a thing.

Ashburner has already said most of it, but I'm going to add that, while you are technically correct, as power, food, housing, and resources ARE indeed finite in quantity, we are not talking about their quantity, we are talking about their level of utilization. Total worldwide energy consumption, for instance, is significantly less than what we could generate with renewables even if you confined yourself to only solar and wind. Transmission might be an issue, yes, but you and I have already discussed that there will come a tipping point where renewable energy essentially becomes "free."

--Patrick

Apr 14, 2020#227

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
This is completely unrelated (and also a mischaracterization of what I've said).
Wealth is not a zero sum quanta.
For all the wishful thinking about unicorn farts, power, food, housing, and resources are.
That is why inflation is a thing.

So wealth isn't zero sum, but "power, food, housing, and resources are." ?

How again does that make sense to you?

What do you even define wealth as if it doesn't include "power, food, housing, and resources"?

....

As for inflation, the modern one is mostly based on monetary policy, and ever increasing demand beyond the Baloo necessities that any policy that encourages no longer being dependant on work would initially aim to cover. So it's not really that relevant at this point.

....

Plus, once machines actually become good at things like driving and working a cash register, work will no longer be an option for vast swats of people anyway. But what people tend to forget is that those workers are also consumers, and i think the current situation shows us what happens when the greatest of businesses find themselves without a large % of customers.

Apr 14, 2020#228

GasBandit

Ash and Pat:

Just because we conceivably might have the ability to outproduce demand in the areas of Power and food, that doesn't mean we have infinite, free, and effortless power and food. If we stop maintaining the power infrastructure, it falls apart and the power stops. If we stop growing the food, we stop eating. It still takes work to make these things. How do you propose to fairly decide who has to work to support those who don't? Good point about transport, though... I guess for this marvelous no-work utopia to come about, we need to add another thing to the list: Unlimited free energy, replicators, AND teleporters.

@Li3n:

Wealth can INCLUDE resources, but they aren't equivalent. Economics 101 - wealth is most certainly (and primarily) measured in money, and money is not finite, and can be generated without equivalent consumption. And we're about as far away from robots replacing all workers as we are away from replicators. And even if that were to come to pass, somebody will have to maintain the robots.

Apr 14, 2020#229

General Specific

GasBandit said:
somebody will have to maintain the robots.

Just build robots to maintain the other robots. Then robots to design new robots to fill any other needs.

What's the worst that could happen?

Oh, right.

Apr 14, 2020#230

Dave

Apr 14, 2020#231

AshburnerX

Funny how it has to be "Star Trek no-work utopia" or nothing, not "We could be doing less work now and have greater freedoms because of technological advances, but our landed class fear the worker class and use overwork to subjugate our political will. Maybe we should use technological advances in productivity to give people more free time to live their lives instead of using them to squeeze out more wealth for a few?"

It doesn't have to be fucking Star Trek. It could end up being just better than now, by several degrees. But no, it has to be Fully Automated Luxury Communism or we shouldn't even try, apparently. This isn't and shouldn't be a binary... it should be viewed as a system, with components to change and alter for preferable results.

Apr 14, 2020#232

Dei

But people still work in Star Trek.

Apr 14, 2020#233

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I guess for this marvelous no-work utopia to come about, we need to add another thing to the list: Unlimited free energy, replicators, AND teleporters.

I didn't mean transportation of goods and services, I meant transmission of power. Transportation of goods and services might as well just be a subset of energy production.
And we don't need "infinite" food/energy/etc, we just need enough. Humanity could easily supply enough right now to meet 100% of demand. We just don't. You're still thinking in terms of scarcity, and it's my conclusion and postulate that the current scarcity is artificial, allowed to continue existing by entities who deliberately discourage access or progress in order to prevent loss of the influence they now wield. Paying a farmer not to grow a crop? Lobbying a politician to stonewall broadband competition? Spreading rumors about windmill cancer or solar panels sucking up all the sunlight (yes, really)? All examples of this.

AshburnerX said:
We could be doing less work now and have greater freedoms because of technological advances, but our landed class fear the worker class and use overwork to subjugate our political will.

It sure is hard to foment any kind of progress when all your attention and time have to be devoted to your job/bills/debts or else you and/or your family will just... die.

AshburnerX said:
It doesn't have to be fucking Star Trek. It could end up being just better than now, by several degrees.

Yeah, that.

As to who will do the work, well I assume it would be done by those very people who want food, shelter, resources, and energy.

--Patrick

Apr 14, 2020#234

figmentPez

AshburnerX said:
The issue is and always has been distribution networks and the sheer fact that many people in power inflict hunger on their own people ether to kill them, to control them, or because it's cheaper to throw food away than it is to give it to people in need

Along these lines, don't forget that many jobs are intentionally inefficient because it's easier to keep control over workers when they're forced to feign 40 hours of busywork.

There are legitimate problems with jobs that no human wants to do, except out of desperation, but there's a lot of work out there that people would happily do. People like to work.

Apr 14, 2020#235

PatrThom

Dei said:
But people still work in Star Trek.

Yes. And more frequently doing things they enjoy/are good at.

--Patrick

Apr 14, 2020#236

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
Wealth can INCLUDE resources, but they aren't equivalent. Economics 101 - wealth is most certainly (and primarily) measured in money, and money is not finite, and can be generated without equivalent consumption.

And Gold is measured in kg, doesn't actually make kilograms worth anything financially by themselves.

The whole point of making new wealth is to produce new actual value through either goods or services.

You really should have gone on to Econ 102 and beyond.

GasBandit said:
And we're about as far away from robots replacing all workers as we are away from replicators.

That's the fun part, it doesn't have to be even half of workers... 20% unemployment is already a nightmare scenario when we're talking temporary shutdown due to a new virus. Imagine if it was permanent.

GasBandit said:
And even if that were to come to pass, somebody will have to maintain the robots.

Singularity aside, the people who are actually capable of learning that would make how much of the population?

Also, 'member when Hillary got booed for suggesting coal was dead and the miners should look for training programs? And then lost the election by a few well places 10 thousands of votes in coal country?

Apr 14, 2020#237

GasBandit

AshburnerX said:
But no, it has to be Fully Automated Luxury Communism or we shouldn't even try, apparently.

Anything less and we're picking who has to work and who gets to be a parasite.

If I roll my eyes at you guys any harder, I'm going to get a headache.

Let me know when you get around to stealing experimental powersuits and shaving your heads.

Apr 14, 2020#238

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Anything less and we're picking who has to work and who gets to be a parasite.

...

The entire point of the article was to stop classifying people who don't work as parasites, especially once we reach the point where they don't actually have to work in order to make ends meet. But no, according to you if they don't produce anything tangible, they might as well be a millstone around the neck of the rest of Society, good for nothing more than food or fertilizer.

--Patrick

Apr 14, 2020#239

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
...

The entire point of the article was to stop classifying people who don't work as parasites, especially once we reach the point where they don't actually have to work in order to make ends meet. But no, according to you if they don't produce anything tangible, they might as well be a millstone around the neck of the rest of Society, good for nothing more than food or fertilizer.

--Patrick

What would YOU call an entity that subsists entirely upon the efforts of others without contributing?

No. If *anybody* has to work, *everybody* should have to work.

Apr 14, 2020#240

MindDetective

GasBandit said:
What would YOU call an entity that subsists entirely upon the efforts of others without contributing?

No. If *anybody* has to work, *everybody* should have to work.

What if nobody has to work but anybody who wants to can work?

Apr 14, 2020#241

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
What would YOU call an entity that subsists entirely upon the efforts of others without contributing?

No. If *anybody* has to work, *everybody* should have to work.

A landlord. Even if they do repairs and maintenance, they are still subsisting off of the work of others and using their tenant's funds to do things like pay for the repairs and maintenance of the property, all the while using tenants to pay off THEIR mortgage and acquiring equity. It's an entirely parasitic relationship and one of the reasons the current rent strikes are ongoing.

This is one of MANY such relationships we put up with already. Who decided they didn't have to work? Shouldn't they be out tilling the fucking soil?

Apr 14, 2020#242

DarkAudit

AshburnerX said:
Even if they do repairs and maintenance

Me? Get MY hands dirty? Pshaw and harrumph! I'll hire another poor person to do that.

Apr 14, 2020#243

GasBandit

AshburnerX said:
A landlord. Even if they do repairs and maintenance, they are still subsisting off of the work of others and using their tenant's funds to do things like pay for the repairs and maintenance of the property, all the while using tenants to pay off THEIR mortgage and acquiring equity. It's an entirely parasitic relationship and one of the reasons the current rent strikes are ongoing.

This is one of MANY such relationships we put up with already. Who decided they didn't have to work? Shouldn't they be out tilling the fucking soil?

Anybody who thinks being a landlord isn't work obviously has never been one. This argument is mere wealth envy. It's basically that Futurama hippie yelling up at farnsworth "you can't OWN property, man!"

Now, ARE there bad landlords that act like parasites? Sure. You'll find that in lots of professions.

Apr 14, 2020#244

GasBandit

MindDetective said:
What if nobody has to work but anybody who wants to can work?

If it's in a situation where if everybody chooses not to work, it all comes crashing down, it's not really a case where nobody "has" to work. Somebody does.

Apr 14, 2020#245

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
Anybody who thinks being a landlord isn't work obviously has never been one. This argument is mere wealth envy. It's basically that Futurama hippie yelling up at farnsworth "you can't OWN property, man!"

Now, ARE there bad landlords that act like parasites? Sure. You'll find that in lots of professions.

When I hear about landlords with 25+ properties complaining that they don't know what do if their tenets strike because it's their only source of income, it's not wealthy envy. It's someone telling me that their "job" was collecting rent from somebody else. They didn't have to go to school for that. They didn't have to work hard for it. Being a landlord is so easy that you can literally become one overnight; it's the only "job" outside of being royalty you can inherit. It's better if a landlord has an actual job outside of collecting rent, but they are still complicit.

That's not wealth envy, it's utter contempt for an actual parasite on society.

The very fact that landlords aren't being all bootstrappy during the rent strikes simply shows that they only believed other people should have to work hard. But yes, let's have a charity ball for the poor landlords who can just sell these assets to get by. They are clearly deserving of sympathy during these rough times, not their tenets who can't work if they want and have to get by with a single $1200 check that's supposed to cover them until sometime between August and November. You know... if they qualify for them, because a lot of people don't.

Apr 14, 2020#246

MindDetective

GasBandit said:
If it's in a situation where if everybody chooses not to work, it all comes crashing down, it's not really a case where nobody "has" to work. Somebody does.

I'm not saying we are there yet. Just wondering about your thoughts on a situation where work was truly optional.

Apr 15, 2020#247

DarkAudit

AshburnerX said:
When I hear about landlords with 25+ properties complaining that they don't know what do if their tenets strike because it's their only source of income, it's not wealthy envy. It's someone telling me that their "job" was collecting rent from somebody else. They didn't have to go to school for that. They didn't have to work hard for it. Being a landlord is so easy that you can literally become one overnight; it's the only "job" outside of being royalty you can inherit. It's better if a landlord has an actual job outside of collecting rent, but they are still complicit.

Which explains how a certain orange thing got where they are.

Apr 15, 2020#248

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
What would YOU call an entity that subsists entirely upon the efforts of others without contributing?

...a child/infant?
...a pet?
...an invalid/Alzheimer’s/quadraplegic/coma patient?
...anyone on sick/vacation leave?
...a victim of kidnapping/domestic abuse?
..,a felon/prisoner?
...a corporation?
...a celebrity?
I mean, I could probably go on.

Additionally, you can’t say, “People who don’t work are worthless” when being unemployed is never their choice to begin with. A person can’t just walk into some random location and commence working, the choice of whether anyone ever gets a job resides with the employER, not the (prospective) employEE. So if no employer will have you, then you just don’t work, whatever the reason might be.

As for people who deliberately choose not to contribute, and instead decide to selfishly subsist their way through life? I expect the label that would be applied to them would be either “spinster” or “bachelor,” ensuring that such behavior eventually fades from the gene pool entirely.

GasBandit said:
If it's in a situation where if everybody chooses not to work, it all comes crashing down, it's not really a case where nobody "has" to work. Somebody does.

This may come as a shock to you, but I don’t believe it would be possible to put together any sizable group of people where everyone would choose not to work UNLESS the members of the group were preselected based on that specific criterion.

In fact, I doubt that even YOU would be able to sit at home and merely consume for weeks on end if your personal needs were otherwise met. Eventually you’d break down and mow the lawn or rearrange your rooms/furniture, all with no reward other than a feeling of accomplishment.

—Patrick

Apr 15, 2020#249

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
Anything less and we're picking who has to work and who gets to be a parasite.

An unemployment rate of more then 0% gets the same result (unless you're ok with letting them die of hunger, i guess). What's your cut off point?

And btw, obviously actually working would be more advantageous then not working. At least until we get to actual post scarcity.

GasBandit said:
What would YOU call an entity that subsists entirely upon the efforts of others without contributing?

45!

(Or, you know, an heir, if you want to be more inclusive!)

GasBandit said:
No. If *anybody* has to work, *everybody* should have to work.

Gods forbid we only let people who enjoy the work (since, you know, building robots is already a hobby for a lot of people) do it, and allow them to be truly well compensated, because then some of the less worthy people won't be getting their just punishment of having to do stuff they don't like for food.

Apr 15, 2020#250

tegid

GasBandit said:
Anybody who thinks being a landlord isn't work obviously has never been one. This argument is mere wealth envy. It's basically that Futurama hippie yelling up at farnsworth "you can't OWN property, man!"

Now, ARE there bad landlords that act like parasites? Sure. You'll find that in lots of professions.

I mean, it's not for nothing that most arguments in favor of landlords go the way of saying they already worked hard to be able to purchase their properties, rather than saying they are working hard right now.

Even if there is some work involved (which can be offloaded to someone else anyway) it certainly gets paid well above any other job, and with much flimsier meritocratic excuses than other absurdly well paying jobs. As a landlord you earn according to the wealth you have already accumulated (or received through inheritance), not according to any value you personally provide.

It can also be argued the landlord position is unfair because their are becoming richer from the work of others, while contributing little to that generation of wealth and while preventing those who're generating it from becoming richer. Thus parasites, in a very palpable sense (and in a different way from recipients of UBI or welfare).

Apr 15, 2020#251

Bubble181

"landlord" or "factory owner" or "plantation owner" are all basically the same function. You've somehow (and I'm not implying this is inherently wrong, illegal, immoral or anything else) gotten enough capital to invest in something that will allow you to benefit from other people's work.
Personally, I own a small apartment in Brussels that I let, so I *am* a (small time) landlord. And it does require some work and has some hidden costs and investment all that jazz. Still, it's a way to make money well outside of the normal effort/reward balance.
My sister-in-law owned about 15 properties at one time (I'm not entirely sure how many she owns now - some were in Hungary, some in the UK, some in South Africa, some in Belgium, and I know she's sold some, and she's letting her family stay in a number of them rent-free, and whatever). It was pretty much a full-time job managing all of those together...But that's mainly because she wanted to do it all herself. She was easily making enough off of them to hire someone to do the actual managing for her. At which point it'd have become a fully self-maintaining enterprise, and it essentially becomes free money for her.
I'm definitely not advocating for all-out communist or socialist repartitioning of the wealth to all workers...But there's a big difference between a) taking risks, starting up a business, and getting rich; b) having a rare or special talent and getting rich; c) having enough to invest in means and getting rich

Also, the whole "everyone has to work" line is pretty much bunk, anyway: there are already thousands of people being paid - and paid well - to sing, play music, kick a ball, etc etc. The definition of what is or is not a job is flexible. What is or is not essential for society is flexible.

Apr 15, 2020#252

tegid

(I do agree with your first line. But the wealth of people who start up companies, own factories or whatever is usually justified through risk, through innovation or sort of important decision-making. I don't really agree with that, but with landlords these apply even less.)

Apr 15, 2020#253

Bubble181

tegid said:
(I do agree with your first line. But the wealth of people who start up companies, own factories or whatever is usually justified through risk, through innovation or sort of important decision-making. I don't really agree with that, but with landlords these apply even less.)

Yes, and I do agree with wealth being gained through taking risk and working your ass off and all that - while I may think the degree of wealth gained by Bill Gates, I don't dispute that he was involved in a risky startup and worked really hard to make Microsoft/Windows/Office/etc into what they are today.
A lot of the greatest amassments of wealth are not based on anything other than "was already rich, became a lot richer through other people's work", though.
I know a lot of people don't agree, but inheritance should be taxed far more heavily than it is.

Apr 15, 2020#254

DarkAudit

@Li3n said:
45!

(Or, you know, an heir, if you want to be more inclusive!)

45 *was* the heir, then he lost Old Man Fred's gift 900 times over.

Apr 15, 2020#255

bhamv3

For what it's worth, if I lived in a post-scarcity Star Trek society, I would never work again. I might attempt some creative endeavors, but generally speaking the vast majority of my time would be spent in holodecks enjoying certain special programs.

Apr 15, 2020#256

DarkAudit

bhamv3 said:
For what it's worth, if I lived in a post-scarcity Star Trek society, I would never work again. I might attempt some creative endeavors, but generally speaking the vast majority of my time would be spent in holodecks enjoying certain special programs.

At this point, one would not have to worry about such BS as 'return on investment' to see what's out there/up there/down there/in there. Research could be done for the good of all existence, not to help the administration attract wealthy donors.

Apr 15, 2020#257

@Li3n

DarkAudit said:
45 *was* the heir, then he lost Old Man Fred's gift 900 times over.

Yeah, the "heir" thing was an expansion of it, not an aside.

Apr 15, 2020#258

DarkAudit

@Li3n said:
Yeah, the "heir" thing was an expansion of it, not an aside.

Wanted to take another shot at both cheeto and daddy Fred.

Apr 15, 2020#259

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
I doubt that even [GasBandit] would be able to sit at home and merely consume for weeks on end if your personal needs were otherwise met. Eventually you’d break down and mow the lawn or rearrange your rooms/furniture, all with no reward other than a feeling of accomplishment.

To kinda expand on this, while many people who would choose to work would be doing it for the reason you might most expect, that is: "I enjoy doing this so much that I'd do it even for little/no pay," there are also going to be those whose primary motivation would instead be, "Ugh, you're terrible at this. Step aside and let someone with more talent have a go," or "I feel duty-bound to do this thing, " or even "I enjoy the respect that doing this thing brings me (and/or my House)." What I'm saying is, Altruism is nowhere near the only motivation for working "for free."

--Patrick

Apr 15, 2020#260

DarkAudit

You bet your ass I'm Doing The Thing Again, @PatrThom!

Apr 15, 2020#261

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
You bet your ass I'm Doing The Thing Again, @PatrThom!

Hey getting a "Doing The Thing" rating from me is like some kind of award.

--Patrick

Apr 15, 2020#262

figmentPez

Are we just ignoring the fact that a basic income is just that, basic. Do you think that people aren't going to work for better stuff than they can afford on a baseline income?

Aren't people like Bill Gates an exact counter to that idea? "Here's enough money that you could live off of it for the rest of your life if you budget and live simply", but they choose to work to try for more.

But let's be honest here the work we're worried about not getting done is the stuff done out of desperation. Janitorial, housekeeping, and waste disposal; migrant farm work, washing dishes, industrial laundry, etc. The stuff we're worried won't be done with a smile if workers have the option to say "take this job and shove it", like waitstaff at restaurants, grocery checkers, and other customer service jobs.

There will be people will be willing to wait tables to earn enough money to travel, or get a faster computer, or some other luxury, but they're not as likely to accept being treated like shit while they do. There are people who will clean hotel rooms because it gives them a sense of accomplishment that is necessary to their mental health, but they won't do as many rooms an hour, and they won't clean bad messes with inadequate protective equipment, and they won't clean up some horrible stuff at all.

The work we're worried about not getting done, is the stuff that we're basically blackmailing people into doing. The stuff that really would be paid a lot more, if the system were fair and didn't exploit people. The stuff that would demand huge hazard pay bonuses, if the people working in the "free" market were really as free as we pretend they are.

What we're worried about is having to face the reality that cleaning a bathroom covered in shit, or putting up with verbal abuse while serving burgers with a smile, are jobs that should be getting paid a lot more money than they are now. You won't have to talk doctors into caring for people after UBI. You probably won't even have to talk teachers into teaching, though some much needed changes in class size and support might need to happen. You definitely won't have to talk lawyers into practicing law, and there will probably be just enough people willing to do accounting. But getting people to work on garbage trucks, or cleaning bathrooms... And that's not even getting into the complexities of jobs like construction, where people might be willing to do it, but not anywhere nearly as cheaply.

Oh, the horrors we'll face when all people will be free to say "no, I won't risk my life or my health for that job" because they're already guaranteed life without it.

Apr 15, 2020#263

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
cleaning a bathroom covered in shit, or putting up with verbal abuse while serving burgers with a smile, are jobs that should be getting paid a lot more money than they are now.

There's also the chance that a person who has to clean up a bathroom covered in shit from time to time will grow a little empathy and so be less likely himself to cover a bathroom in shit in a fit of pique.

--Patrick

Apr 15, 2020#264

@Li3n

figmentPez said:
Are we just ignoring the fact that a basic income is just that, basic. Do you think that people aren't going to work for better stuff than they can afford on a baseline income?

Well, i wasn't... did i not make that clear enough?

Apr 15, 2020#265

figmentPez

@Li3n said:
Well, i wasn't... did i not make that clear enough?

You have, some other posters most definitely have not.

Apr 15, 2020#266

Sara_2814

PatrThom said:
There's also the chance that a person who has to clean up a bathroom covered in shit from time to time will grow a little empathy and so be less likely himself to cover a bathroom in shit in a fit of pique.

--Patrick

Maybe you're onto something. In the 'post-work world', require everyone to take their turn at the 'dirty jobs', like the military service requirement in Starship Troopers. That will solve the "who will do those jobs" problem and maybe some people will learn a little empathy.

Apr 15, 2020#267

Dei

I always feel like people should have to work retail for a year before they are allowed to interact with service personnel.

Apr 15, 2020#268

PatrThom

Sara_2814 said:
Maybe you're onto something. In the 'post-work world', require everyone to take their turn at the 'dirty jobs', like the military service requirement in Starship Troopers.

I've already referenced LeGuin's "The Kleggitch" once earlier in this thread.

--Patrick

Apr 15, 2020#269

GasBandit

AshburnerX said:
That's not wealth envy, it's utter contempt for an actual parasite on society.

It's totally wealth envy. And also false equivalency, and anecdotal. So I feel content to rebut with something equally anecdotal. My grandfather is a landlord. While he was working, he bought a house here and there over the years and immediately rented them out. They continue to be his income now that he's retired. The thing a lot of people forget about being a landlord is that the landlord is on the hook for maintenance, not the tenant. Toilet breaks? Landlord. Sewer backs up? Landlord. Hot water heater dies? Landlord. AC? Landlord. Roof? Landlord.

@PatrThom There's a difference between can't work and won't work.

Also:

PatrThom said:
In fact, I doubt that even YOU would be able to sit at home and merely consume for weeks on end if your personal needs were otherwise met.

Ha ha ha oh buddy you do NOT know me

@Li3n said:
An unemployment rate of more then 0% gets the same result (unless you're ok with letting them die of hunger, i guess). What's your cut off point?

The difference is, now we have unemployment insurance, which means you put in WHILE you're working, and get the benefits when you're not - but within a time limit. Granted, it's state-administered so it isn't ideal, but it's definitely not a straight choice between starving in the street and living on the dole forever.

@Li3n said:
Gods forbid we only let people who enjoy the work (since, you know, building robots is already a hobby for a lot of people) do it

That's just it.. in my experience if you like something that much, chances are it's a hobby, not a job, and it's probably not one hiring a lot of people. Or we'd all be professional masturbators.

tegid said:
Even if there is some work involved (which can be offloaded to someone else anyway) it certainly gets paid well above any other job, and with much flimsier meritocratic excuses than other absurdly well paying jobs. As a landlord you earn according to the wealth you have already accumulated (or received through inheritance), not according to any value you personally provide.

And how is that any different from a savings account, or a treasury bond, or an IRA? And is providing and maintaining living space for people who can't yet afford to buy it not a service?

Bubble181 said:
Also, the whole "everyone has to work" line is pretty much bunk, anyway: there are already thousands of people being paid - and paid well - to sing, play music, kick a ball, etc etc. The definition of what is or is not a job is flexible. What is or is not essential for society is flexible.

Regardless of what you think of the product or service, if someone is willing to pay for that service, it's not paid laziness. And for every well paid musician, there are literally millions who had no chance of making it.

bhamv3 said:
For what it's worth, if I lived in a post-scarcity Star Trek society, I would never work again. I might attempt some creative endeavors, but generally speaking the vast majority of my time would be spent in holodecks enjoying certain special programs.

Heh, and I think more people are like you (and me) than would admit it, even to themselves. Scott Adams postulated that the holodeck will be humanity's last invention, and that we will die off within 2 generations of it becoming affordable to the common man.

Look, this thread is becoming too much "GasBandit has to reply to a half dozen people" already, so tell you what, I'll just leave you guys to your utopian fantasies where nobody has to mop up vomit or plunge a toilet if they don't have an orgasm at the thought of a plumber's snake.

Apr 15, 2020#270

Bubble181

GasBandit said:
It's totally wealth envy. And also false equivalency, and anecdotal. So I feel content to rebut with something equally anecdotal. My grandfather is a landlord. While he was working, he bought a house here and there over the years and immediately rented them out. They continue to be his income now that he's retired. The thing a lot of people forget about being a landlord is that the landlord is on the hook for maintenance, not the tenant. Toilet breaks? Landlord. Sewer backs up? Landlord. Hot water heater dies? Landlord. AC? Landlord. Roof? Landlord.

@PatrThom There's a difference between can't work and won't work.

Also:

Ha ha ha oh buddy you do NOT know me

The difference is, now we have unemployment insurance, which means you put in WHILE you're working, and get the benefits when you're not - but within a time limit. Granted, it's state-administered so it isn't ideal, but it's definitely not a straight choice between starving in the street and living on the dole forever.

That's just it.. in my experience if you like something that much, chances are it's a hobby, not a job, and it's probably not one hiring a lot of people. Or we'd all be professional masturbators.

And how is that any different from a savings account, or a treasury bond, or an IRA? And is providing and maintaining living space for people who can't yet afford to buy it not a service?

Regardless of what you think of the product or service, if someone is willing to pay for that service, it's not paid laziness. And for every well paid musician, there are literally millions who had no chance of making it.

Heh, and I think more people are like you (and me) than would admit it, even to themselves. Scott Adams postulated that the holodeck will be humanity's last invention, and that we will die off within 2 generations of it becoming affordable to the common man.

Look, this thread is becoming too much "GasBandit has to reply to a half dozen people" already, so tell you what, I'll just leave you guys to your utopian fantasies where nobody has to mop up vomit or plunge a toilet if they don't have an orgasm at the thought of a plumber's snake.

But I think you're mostly fighting a strawman.
To be clear, I personally don't think a UBI is the solution to all of society's ills, and a variation similar to what Belgium does now is better...but by some definitions, we already supply a UBI. Welfare/unemployment is unlimited in time, available for everyone. If you think you can live happily and successfully on about €650 a month, good luck to you.
Anyway, most in favor of UBI don't mean we should all get free iPhones and 70 inch tv's, and working would be just chilling and filling time.
However, if everyone has enough money as a basic to have a roof over their head, 2 or 3 basic meals per day, access to public transportation, access to life-saving medicine, and clothes on their back, without much more, than the balance for "minimum livable" changes. If you want somebody to bag you're groceries for you, well, that's going yup have to earn that person enough to make it worth his while. Maybe a lot of people would still willingly do a menial job for 1 day a week, so they can afford their WOW subscription. Maybe people'll do it two days a week so they can take a holiday to the sea once a year, or go skiing. Some people like puttering around in car engines, and doing that for 2 days a week will allow them to go skiing AND to the sea, AND have an iPhone 13 rather than a crappy iPhone 11 that doesn't even fold properly.
It'll mean people don't have to sell their body or leave kids in horrible conditions just to survive.
Some jobs might no longer get done for the wages people are willing to pay for it - like cleaning out toilets. Guess you'll either have to pay somebody more to do it, automate cleaning, or accept dirty public toilets.
I can imagine you'd still have shops where a guy fills your bags, and another rings up your stuff, and someone fills shelves. And it'll be a lot more expensive to shop there. You'll also have mire Belgian shops where there's one cashier for 12 self-check-out tills, and you'll have to get stuff out of boxes yourself. But it's cheaper.
I'm not saying that's a perfect society - again, I'm not in favor of a UBI - but it'd probably be more egalitarian and keep more people alive and happy.

Apr 15, 2020#271

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
@PatrThom There's a difference between can't work and won't work.

I address that very point, further down in my post.

GasBandit said:
Ha ha ha oh buddy you do NOT know me

Well, as a sort of thought exercise, I would like you to entertain the possibility that the world may not in fact be populated with 7+ billion GasBandits, intimating there may be a wiiiide range of what people consider "rewarding" and/or "fulfilling" beyond what you might select.

Bubble181 said:
a crappy iPhone 11 that doesn't even fold properly.

Oh, but you can fold them.
Once.

--Patrick

Apr 18, 2020#272

Ravenpoe

What I'm getting from this is that Gas wants to be a leech on society but can't, and so he projects that into everyone else in the world.

Which tracts for most libertarians/conservatives I know

Apr 18, 2020#273

PatrThom

Ravenpoe said:
Which tracts for most libertarians/conservatives I know

He's more of a Social Darwinist type, I think. Which is great while you can ensure that there are still those who are beneath you, but not so great once they run out.

--Patrick

May 7, 2020#274

Celt Z

So we've got an answer to the original question posed here: Finland reported their findings, and not only did it not decrease incentive to work, but it over-all resulted in better finances and mental health:

Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being

Finland’s two-year test of universal basic income has concluded that it doesn't seem to disincentivise working, and improves recipients’ mental and financial well-being

www.newscientist.com

Between November 2017 and October 2018, people on basic income worked an average of 78 days, which was six days more than those on unemployment benefits.

There was a greater increase in employment for people in families with children, as well as those whose first language wasn’t Finnish or Swedish – but the researchers aren’t yet sure why.

When surveyed, people who received universal basic income instead of regular unemployment benefits reported better financial well-being, mental health and cognitive functioning, as well as higher levels of confidence in the future.

May 7, 2020#275

PatrThom

Been watching that.

I can't help but think so much of this is immediately obvious to anyone who doesn't view UBI as "subsidized freeloading."

--Patrick

May 7, 2020#276

DarkAudit

"I can't get away with slave wages and working conditions that make the Black Hole of Calcutta look like the Ritz anymore! I'm against it!"

May 7, 2020#277

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
"I can't get away with slave wages and working conditions that make the Black Hole of Calcutta look like the Ritz anymore! I'm against it!"

My wife, everybody:
"How can we blame immigrants for stealing all the jobs when nobody actually HAS to work?"
and:
"Without the threat of losing their house looming over their head, the wage slaves with the shittiest jobs are just going to go on strike instead of coming to work!"
Oh, she's on fire tonight!

--Patrick

May 15, 2020#278

TommiR

Celt Z said:
So we've got an answer to the original question posed here: Finland reported their findings, and not only did it not decrease incentive to work, but it over-all resulted in better finances and mental health:

Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being

Finland’s two-year test of universal basic income has concluded that it doesn't seem to disincentivise working, and improves recipients’ mental and financial well-being

www.newscientist.com

Here is the link to the press release of the Finnish Social Insurance Institution regarding the UBI experiment.

In the press release, there is a link to the final report, but that is only in Finnish. However, it has a 3-page summary in English at the end in case someone is dying to know.

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