The Road Not Taken Is Guaranteed Minimum Income
blog.codinghorror.com
blog.codinghorror.com
> Why aren’t we giving everyone a fair chance at Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness by providing them the fundamentals they need to get there?
Because for a lot of Americans, relative order within the social hierarchy is more important than absolute level of prosperity: it's more important to have someone below us than it is to do well.
I've only heard objections within the context of people being worried that giving money will reduce productivity and raise prices.
> Because relative order within the social hierarchy is more important than absolute level of prosperity. It's more important to have someone below us than it is to do well.
This is the "inequality" discussion. It's true that a lot of people are worried about relative order, and I agree that absolute prosperity is far more important, but I doubt those people are against UBI.
So the key question is this: how do we go about CHANGING those attitudes?
The steps Jeff takes in this announcement seems like an excellent "lead by example" step toward doing that.
Evidence : untouchability is virtually gone in India (at least the urban part). I remember my great grand parents still had those mindsets when I was very young. It is an alien concept to our children.
If the rich getting richer drives up inflation then that does indeed mean that the poor get poorer.
Big if! (Inflation drives both price levels and wages.)
Also even if wages go up inflation still reduces the wealth owned by the middle class. Especially given that interest rates on savings hasn't kept pace with inflation for decades. So unless you own a house or a stock portfolio even the middle class gets poorer due to inflation.
Yes. That’s a pretty critical question.
High inflation drives inequality. (Moderate depends on the savings rate.) We have zero evidence inequality drives inflation.
That is not how the saying goes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_rich_get_richer_and_the_...
It’s said as a statement on policies that benefit the rich and hurt the poor, not on fixed money supply.
This scheme does not benefit me. It is not a goal I want to pursue. There are costs associated with it. This isn't for free.
>It's more important to have someone below us than it is to do well.
Well, that's the least generous interpretation. What if I'd rather starve as a deer, than be well-fed cattle? What if, no matter how hard I try, it's nearly impossible to imagine myself being so stupid or passive that I would prefer otherwise?
European countries that are unable to assimilate migrants are a living proof, for example Sweden Denmark, etc.
Counterpoint to your argument is El Salvador: by enforcing laws they are able to achieve high trust society, so what we actually need is maximimum law enforcement and isolation of people who dont want to maintain the high trust society.
China/Singapore is another example: they just execute drug dealers and solve the drug trafficking problem. It may be perceived as inhumane to drug traffickers, but it is very humane for the victims(current and possible) of drug addiction.
USA has a giant surplus of people with net negative contribution to the society and is unable to solve it in order to propel society forward
Not having moms working multiple zero hour jobs to try and barely survive would be a huge plus for high trust society. They would better socialize their children (which would reinforce a high trust society). They would better account for their children because they would be present (a plus to high trust). Under your current system they aren't home to instill high trust, when they are around they are too tired, and they have way less time/ability to engage in socializing activities with their children resulting in a non-parented, non-socialized society.
The majority of high trust societies are ones where peoples' basic needs are met. El Salvador has a very short history of some improvement from militarized policing but hardly enough data to start extrapolating from other than high enforcement police states are police states.
You have decided what I should want and what I should pursue, for me, against my wishes, and say "because I want these things, he should want them too". I don't want the same things as you. I'd try explaining, but I don't think you'd get it.
>where customers have money
I don't have anything I wish to sell you and you have nothing to trade that I want.
>and employees are educated.
I've seen the education system. I'm well past the "maybe if we just do the education a little more intensely, things will improve" phase.
That's just strawmanning the argument, no? Why not argue against the strongest position?
The way minimum guaranteed income would benefit you is twofold. One way is similar to how any other tax payments that don't benefit you directly provide a safety margin - I've never had a house fire, but I pay for services that cover my fire department because I know that if I'm ever in that situation, they will help me. I'm not in poverty, but my money subsidizes poverty benefits, and if I ever get in that situation, it will help me too.
The second way is much more important - subsidizing the poor lets them get out of the hellhole of poverty and contribute far more than they otherwise would. Being poor is insanely expensive, and once you have more liabilities than assets, they tend to explode and become completely unsustainable. Poor people can't relocate (or even live anywhere) for better opportunities; they can't get education and will often remain low-wage, unprofessional workers; they can't afford healthcare (in the US) and will leave illnesses untreated until they can barely do anything at all, or die. Fixing any of these three leads to more income for businesses and more tax money for the government.
For some reason, pro-hierarchy Americans love portraying any form of welfare as letting people live in luxury for nothing. Minimum income, as it is proposed, doesn't come anywhere close to being something you can live your whole life off of. It's a safety margin that lets you get back on your feet more easily - it's money you pay debts off, money to educate yourself, money to cure yourself - not what you live off. That's why it's so infuriating to hear people double down time and time again about how America's most hated class are all just lazy, bloated slobs, because in this hypothetical world, they have the audacity to receive a couple thousand dollars in benefits.
It is not. Not even a little. I'm pointing out that you and I have wildly different value systems, alien to each other in ways so profound that you could be forgiven for thinking I'm exaggerating. I get that your values are different than mine and that you want different things.
You don't even seem to be aware that I want different things. "But but but! How could you not want wonderful European-style welfare" I just don't. Saying "but you should want them because you're like me and I want them"... I'm not like you. I couldn't be like you if I tried, and I'm not inclined to try. You saying that I "benefit" from these things indicates you think I "receive good things" from them... but I don't receive any benefit or good thing, those are not things I want. Benefits aren't objective. They are subjective. Absolutely, undeniably subjective.
When you make it sound like they are objective, you are lying to yourself. Lying so badly to yourself that when you lose elections, you are confused and angry about it. "How are they brainwashed into going against their own self-interests?!?!?!" you oxymoron about. No, other people just have different interest than you. It's impossible to go against your own self-interests (short of coercion... even then, one might argue that you're still doing so, to avoid the blackmail/torture/whatever).
>The second way is much more important - subsidizing the poor lets them get out of the hellhole of poverty
I grew up on foodstamps. I would have preferred starving. I want nothing from you. Your charity, however well-intentioned you believe it to be, is toxic and demeaning, and you refuse the evidence of your own eyes when you see it fail to work as you believe it would. I do not wish to pay for anyone else's foodstamps... they're better off figuring out how to survive for themselves.
>For some reason, pro-hierarchy Americans love
It should at least occur to you that when someone like me can't explain things to you such that you're able to see our point of view, that other more regrettable (for both of us) futures await.
>It's a safety margin that lets you get back on your feet more easily
Safety is illusory. Chasing it is futile and even shameful.
>That's why it's so infuriating
The fury of people who want safety nets is pathetic. You should use the word "frustrating", you don't sound capable of true fury.
No, you weren't pointing that out. Disagreeing with a value system doesn't mean you're incapable of understanding or representing it fairly. If the best you took away from the discourse is that 'the ominous they are telling you it's good because that's what they're saying', you were never arguing in good faith. You never had to agree with the points I'm making, but if you want to make an argument against them, you have to make targeted attacks against those arguments, not indefensible caricatures.
The rest of your comment looks big, it looks content-rich, it looks like there's so much to say. In reality, you said basically nothing. You're not putting up arguments or logical reasoning, just a chain of assertions and accusations. The fact that you went down to argue semantics ("true fury") or trying to bring me personally into this while letting the direct, accusatory points I made fly right over shows that you never had the intention of arguing them. It's not just about value systems - these systems have to be defensible. They have to rely on fact. People can disagree in interpreting the facts, but objective reality comes first before subjective feelings. You don't have any of that, you just try to quickly dismiss it at the beginning as being just inherently irreconcilable and impossible to address, without saying why or even trying.
There's a side that can look at actual data of what happens to the wellbeing of people and communities, or the objective benefits and drawbacks of welfare, and make a conclusion out of it - right or wrong, but at least well-intentioned. And then there's a side that has already decided on what's right and will never yield, like in a religion. Where I live, the first side had set up a small-scale, limited UBI trial to conduct research and see if it's a worthy investment or a waste of money. Then, the other side got elected and shut it down immediately - they had already known which is the 'right' option from their ideology, they didn't need no pesky science or research to tell them what was right.
Suppose it'd be meaningless to quote my comment above, for the reasons I've outlined and for that matter, just because anyone else can scroll a few inches and see for themselves. You're oblivious.
>Disagreeing with a value system doesn't mean you're incapable of understanding or representing it fairly.
It means that I do not care. If my values are secondary to your own, then I no longer wish to participate, and I will vote with those who promise to stop this nonsense. And guess what? Those people are winning elections and your nonsense will never be implemented.
>There's a side that can look at actual data of what happens to the wellbeing of people
You're already functionally dead, your entire civilization. Your well-being is irrelevant.
>or the objective benefits
There is no such thing as "objective benefit". Either you want something, or you don't. I don't want this.
Please: show us the way. I'll be the first to congratulate you on a long-term sustainable UBI implementation.
It's closer to the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund than anything else
states can balance their budget, its not controversial, just ignore the person that suggests otherwise
Because this doesn't apply to countries, only states.
Internationally, capital and labour are also mobile. If the argument for UBI is basically North Korea, I’m not seeing it.
Put simply, if a UBI scheme doesn’t work at the state level, it won’t federally in the long run.
Some types of growth, yea that's the theory. But I don't think there's any theory of UBI with freedom of movement between borders where UBI isn't present. If every single person who doesn't want to work shows up to your state, you won't be able to keep UBI running.
> Internationally, capital and labour are also mobile.
Capital yes. Labor ... not really? Even historically immigrating to the US is kinda difficult. Immigrating into any developed country is hard.
> If the argument for UBI is basically North Korea, I’m not seeing it.
No it's not even NK. It's socialism but no central planning. NK (and really any prior long running example of socialism in US history) doesn't do free market do decide e.g. who picks up the trash.
So it could well be that UBI works, but a lot of grunge jobs just don't get done. Maybe people are happier and have more free time, but there's fewer janitors so things are dirtier, and a much higher percentage of money goes towards paying people to farm so good is way more expensive.
Things definitely wouldn't be the same as they are now, even if it did hypothetically work.
> Put simply, if a UBI scheme doesn’t work at the state level, it won’t federally in the long run.
There could easily be things that break it at the state level (especially, freedom of movement of people), that don't apply federally.
It might also fail at a federal level, but you can't claim there aren't major differences between a single state UBI and a federal UBI
Then you need to define categories of good and bad people. And explain why the former will stay (or continue to immigrate). In the long run, borders are porous. If it doesn’t work at the state level, and it doesn’t cause inflation, I’m deeply sceptical about the claim that it doesn’t require categorising by productivity.
If you want to say, "Of course UBI can't work if we allow whoever wants it to move here and receive it," I agree, but that's often not a qualifier made by proponents.
This is akin to why some problems in the EU - individual countries gave up monetary policy rights, which means they have to do what Germany wants w.r.t. the euro. They can't control interest rates like the US Fed can, can't expand or contract money supply, and have fewer tools to deal with problems that arise.
Imagine if NYC couldn't build buildings over 1 story because of a state law. That would complicate adding new residents. It might work for awhile and they could get creative, but eventually it would become untenable.
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This is not all to say that there aren't any problems with UBI specifically. We haven't really tested that level of socialism anywhere with still trying to also do free market and no planned economy.
It could well be that a lot of stuff wouldn't get done, or at least not done as much. There's a lot of shit jobs that are done for cheaper now because people gotta eat & put a roof over their head.
Unless you do a U"B"I solution which isn't actually covering the basics, but is lower than necessary.
This is basically saying you need inflation to make the scheme work.
Then you don’t need monetary policy. Saying it cannot happen at the state or local level is basically admitting it isn’t solvent or requires a population filter to keep the wasteful people out.
I don’t need to. The point is if free movement of people is a problem, there is clearly a category you need to keep out (or in).
Then why do you ask the question?!
If the argument is trivially refuted, it’s obviously not worth making.
First, North Korea is a bad example, because I'm certain that Kim Jong-Un and his key cogs are able to stash their cash in London, New York and Geneva like all good autocrats and oligarchs do. The average North Korean lives in poverty by western standards, why would they need capital mobility?
Second, the US had capital controls in place throughout the New Deal Era, surely you aren't comparing regulated capitalism with socialist qualities with a statist monarchy that impoverishes its' people?
Sure, if you say we need capital controls and exit visas to implement UBI, that is consistent with breaking continuity between state and local experiments and the federal proposal. But I’m not sure how much buy in there is for those policies.
> North Korea is a bad example, because I'm certain that Kim Jong-Un and his key cogs are able to stash their cash in London, New York and Geneva
And American oligarchs wouldn’t?
> You made an argument clear enough to respond to
Isn’t it presumptive to use one’s own ignorance as an argument?
This is lazy dismissal. “Everyone who disagrees with me is an idiot” isn’t an argument.
I believe in UBI. But writing off the arguments against it like this deserves inaction.
If a proposal requires changing human nature, it’s safe to dismiss. I’m saying that your argument for why UBI is dismissed is itself an argument for dismissing it.
Using that term without nuance is about as helpful as shouting "SuPpLy and DeManD!!" in every economic discussion because you saw an Econ 101 book one time in a library.
Another adjacent example is justice system and reform. American system is punitive and even barbaric in many ways, while most European countries have a system that's heavily centered around reform and reintegration. This is all cultural.
There's nothing unique about Americans who believe that those "others" (Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, LGBTQ, etc in the contemporary US case) are undeserving and who reject universally beneficial programs because they benefit the "other" equally.
-- Lyndon B. Johnson
The reason is because of the US’ individualistic attitudes. It’s been around since the formation of our country.
But at the low end, AI is never going to be the janitor or your garbage guy, or your barista (ordering kiosks aside) or your instacart dude. AI won't unclog your toilet or service your car or make your basement not smell funny. It won't tend the garden or cut the grass or install a new air conditioner or re-shingle a roof.
I think the prospect of a world where everyone has their basic needs covered and has to choose to work is scary to people who are used to looking down on certain professions and assuming that no one would do <thing> if they didn't absolutely have to.
There are labs training AI robots for these very tasks right now. There are robots that fold laundry and spread peanut butter, right now.
We're maximum 1-2 years away from a general all-around robot the way chatgpt is an all around digital assistant.
Ten years later, I don't think the state of the art in general purpose robotics is that much further along. Even top tier research robots would struggle to climb the stairs or navigate around my kids' messy bedrooms, much less complete the wide array of tasks that my amazing housekeeper cheerfully and proactively handles for a bit over minimum wage.
I'm aware of the 1x Neo, but that has a lot of unknowns— the videos are full of cuts and have significant evidence of teleoperation and no indication of things like lift strength or battery life. What they're purporting to show is simply not aligned with what the state of the art is in perception and manipulation/grasping. They're a long ways from having even the hardware solved, much less the software.
Have you seen the recent side-flipping robot? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29xLWhqME2Q
Combine that with Project Astra https://youtu.be/hIIlJt8JERI?t=39
and you are kind of close.
Pretty reductionist
That's humanity 101. And it's not something to be shunned: it means that the wealth that matters more is social not material.
I think the distinction between those who belive it and those who don't is much more important than the distinction between the left and the right.
That said – one thing that has made me change my mind recently, though, is that UBI might serve as a buffer against the profit motive taking over everything. Increasingly it seems like other value systems are being overtaken by the desire to earn money. By "other value systems" I mean a huge variety of things that aren't driven by money: living a non-materialistic lifestyle in line with numerous religions, mastering a centuries-old craft that doesn't have much market demand, being a philosopher/thinker not defined by participation in academia (or the market), and so on.
Part of the growth of the profit motive can be attributed to the general precarious economic situation, unpredictability of future jobs, etc. But it's also because there are fewer and fewer cultural institutions that make up the ecosystem, because no one wants to make that bet anymore. Everything seems to default back to monetary/professional success, whether that be the "creator economy" or getting a professorship at a top university.
So I do wonder if UBI would be a mechanism for encouraging people to say, "I can count on making a basic living, so I'm going to study XYZ art form and become great at it."
Money is just the simplest way to give assistance because it's fungible. Fewer rules to make, less administrative overhead, extremely flexible, responsive to changes in the market.
Note that I'm talking about orders of magnitude more of construction than current public housing projects.
If the government buys up all the contractors’ labour, that increases their prices for everyone else. At the same time, if the cash flow consumers once directed to housing is now freed for e.g. whoever is buying 10+ cartons of eggs at Wegman’s, that too drives inflation.
Good policies can be good without dismissing their drawbacks.
2. This would potentially lead to inflation in the construction market, not the housing market as a whole.
3. Even then, the increased amount of work would likely increase the labor pool.
4. And any of these effects would probably be temporary, as it's not like the housing units would need to be reconstructed yearly.
But honestly, this whole debate is entirely uninteresting to me and was only an offhand comment in my original comment. Shame that no one seems interested in the artistic part, only the drab economic one.
You’re still bidding up massive amounts of labour and materials suitable for construction.
> would potentially lead to inflation in the construction market, not the housing market as a whole
Yes.
> any of these effects would probably be temporary
Temporary inflation is still inflation. It will be unpopular if not acknowledged.
> Shame that no one seems interested in the artistic part, only the drab economic one
So basically a sham argument?
2. UBI does not exclude the ability of people to work for money. If workers wanted to earn money on top of the UBI, presumably they would do so.
3. The number of workers required to build housing is also a tiny fraction of the number of people that can be housed in said building.
4. Furthermore, the question here is between UBI and giving "basic resources." So presumably if the government is going to spend money on UBI, they could spend that money on just directly building stuff. (Which makes more sense to me.)
Various demand-side subsidies seem roughly as likely to raise prices, whether that's giving money to consumers or buying the goods on their behalf.
Prices for some things may rise, but it seems unlikely that they'd rise in a way that consumes everyone's UBI. Lots of people wouldn't have any more money. Many would have a bit more money. Some would have a lot more money. Any price rise would correspond to the change somewhere in the middle of that, so people who earn less than that point would still be able to buy more. Concretely, if UBI is $1,000/month, and someone is currently struggling on $1,000/month, they're going to have more purchasing power, because that level of UBI won't double prices.
We really need a state or small country to trial this before writing this off on a hunch.
These are assumptions. I’m sceptical of both, but think an experiment at the state or small-country level is worth a try.
Then it works at the state or local level. My point is in interrogating the reason state and local experiments don’t scale to a national example.
1. Prevent low-wage, low-skill workers from being exploited. If the manager at a fast food restaurant is a creep or a jerk, desperate people feel they have to stay and put up with it so they can make rent that month. If they instead had a safety net and were able to quit without being put out on the street, then they'd be less likely to tolerate being taken advantage of.
2. Like you mentioned, art. Many people work to survive so they can pursue their real passion. Musicians, artists, anyone you see at a booth in the farmers market with handmade trinkets, and so on. UBI would allow them to focus on their art, and more people to participate and experiment, and I think the world would be better for it.
Fix the housing mess, fix the insurance mess by dismantling cartels, etc.
A huge part of fixing housing is fixing regulations, not spending more money (though I'd love to see state funding and capacity to build counter-cyclically), so the solutions don't even compete for funds.
Western housing shortages do not just prevent many from ever affording their own home. They also drive inequality, climate change, low productivity growth, obesity, and even falling fertility rates.
<https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...>
That might be somewhat overstated. But not by much.
Incidentally, much of the housing situation devolves from transport, and specifically the automobile, which reshaped both urban and rural landscapes far beyond patterns which had existed for millennia, based on the limits of pedestrian (and occasionally equestrian) mobility.
The fundamental problem with housing in economically strong areas is that there is nowhere near enough of it. That is creating a brutal competition already.
Once everyone is able to fork out +X thousand monthly from their UBI, how much of that X will be captured by landlords?
The question is really just whether the political will to do so exists. If that’s what you’re referring to as fanciful, I guess I can see where you’re coming from.
I just don't really see how people think UBI is realistic in the current budgetary structure.
In these areas, if you happen to secure a job that makes in the 30k's, you are several standard deviations above the baseline and you are probably taking care of your entire extended family.
These areas are, by and large, completely ignored and abandoned by our country. They are things we don't want to look at, because it hurts our sense of national pride and national identity. It hurts our narrative of the "American Dream", because the American Dream does not exist or apply here.
This is not to say that the people here are not hard working and industrious, as much as they can be. But the lack of economic mobility in these areas is intense.
It's hard to understand the difference an unconditional 500 dollars per month would be here.
Perhaps you think most people would waste the money. Even if you are right, some would not -- and the some who would not are now not responsible for those who choose not to, and those bright stars can possibly break free of the situation they are in.
Huge kudos to the author for beating all the odds and still remembering where he came from.
If you have it in you, I would invite you to visit Charleston, WV sometime. Get a car and drive around. It is beautiful country, the area could use the tourism revenue, and it will certainly not be an experience you will forget.
Could we make it easier for people to migrate from WV?
We should care about the people, not the institutions.
Actually the evidence is that a vast majority would not. For studies, look to the article's recommendation, GiveDirectly, which has worked with academics to study this question.
I mean... if i was given a livable amount of money for no work for a year or two, my quality of life would go up, but I wouldn't quit my job and move somewhere cheaper (where I could get more for that amount of money).
But if i was guaranteed livable amount of money for the rest of my life, that would be a whole different story.
To repeat the point you're replying to - a UBI study that examines human behavior from a set of people who are only guaranteed to be given some livable amount of income for a short period, and not for their entire lives, is completely useless. It isn't actually studying UBI. It's studying "what do people do if I give them $20k or so over a few installments?".
Very boring thing to study. Honestly a waste of time and resources to even bother conducting such a study, the results can be put directly in the rubbish bin.
Texas, notably, recently:
"The Texas Lottery Is Accused Of Fraud, With Calls For It To Be Shut Down"
The Texas Lottery is under fire once again, after Lt. Governor Dan Patrick paid a visit to a store in Austin, where an $83 million dollar winning ticket was sold. Upon arrival, Patrick discovered a warehouse of lottery ticket printing machines, run by a ticket reseller....
<https://ktrh.iheart.com/featured/houston-texas-news/content/...>
Lotteries also manifestly fail in their often-posited goal of funding beneficial services such as education. In reality they shift tax burden from the wealthy (who know better than to play) to the poor (who are desperate even against very poor odds), and cut overall educational funding. See:
"The Big Lie: Gambling and Education Funding" (2012)
“Don’t insult me with those ridiculous claims like “the money is for education!” Money is fungible, and education is already a high-priority budget item. Money raised from slot machines and earmarked for education is simply money that would otherwise have been diverted from some other budget item. The disingenuousness of this claim is jaw-dropping, and it’s even more appalling to me how many people fall for and parrot it.”
<https://www.thinkingpoker.net/2012/10/the-big-lie-gambling-a...>
Perhaps, though, with UBI, that desperation factor would be reduced.
What I do with my 1 EUR has value to me, and might be a waste to you. You might be spending that 1 EUR on a keychain that looks good to you. Personally, that's a waste of money, but not to you.
Are you making this point because you believe that UBI/GMI is not earned, and therefore someone else had to dictate how to be use? Like food stamps?
The end result is not anywhere close to similar. UBI will never provide more than the basics. Food & rent and that's about it. If you want more than that, you'll have to work.
I assume your main problem is that you're in a high cost of life area. A national UBI would almost certainly be set at a level appropriate for a median area. If you want to not work and maintain your standard of living you'd likely have to move to a low COL area.
with what money? we already do a lot of that with de facto negative tax rates for the lowest earners.
You bring up a great option though, I have been working to move to a lower COL(see rural) area already. Part of this plan is a draw down on my participation in the labor market, basically a necessity unless I want to commute multiple hours each way. We have gotten by on much less than I do currently, my QOL was very similar, but I was doing more work for myself and my family, rather than my employer or society.
Which is why I picked your comment to reply to. People have this inclination that UBI is going to provide a reasonable amount of money. But if you do the math you'll find that about $1500 a month is about the limit that's feasible. You want to increase the tax rate by an amount that has the average adult paying the same amount in extra taxes as they receive via the UBI. $1500 a month gets to European level taxation rates which I figure is about the limit of acceptable.
A couple can live on $3000 a month in some areas of the country, and perhaps a single person can live on $1500 a month in West Virginia.
*So my original question still stands, what incentive do I have to participate?
As it currently stands ~40% of the profits from my labor is taken by my federal and state government and they are both running at a deficit. That's before accounting for state sales, property, and utilities taxes. It doesn't seem like a small amount currently, and the government's books are not even balanced at current entitlement levels. I have a really tough time coming to the conclusion that the governments would get better with more liabilities, especially when the largest UBI study showed less workforce participation, not more.
You are also conflating my position with that of one who thinks the current corporate protections are a good thing.
And you benefit either way - lifting whole community and reducing homelessness and risky behaviour is good for everyone around, not just that one person. The burden of social issues has always been and will always be on the working people. Ubi doesn't change that part.
There's been a large amount of social conditioning over the past few generations in America that says that if even a tiny slice of the population would abuse a program, that program is worse than the problem itself.
Anyone who's volunteered at something like a food bank will have seen the person in the nice car and nice clothes show up and take food and it requires an unfortunately rare level of benevolence to just move on and remember that you're there for the far larger number of people who really need it.
This problem is sort of caused by how hard Americans work. If you’re working two jobs to make ends meet, it is insulting to see someone lazing on the perceived fruits of your labour.
reminds me a lot of Innuendo Studios "Always a bigger fish" video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs
If the people doing the work have to spend taxes so people who don’t work can stay at home, yes, the former get a say in how the latter live.
If it isn’t funding subsistence it isn’t basic income. Whether we flourish that as welfare or bootstraps is rhetorical dressing.
What is needed is that work pays more so that it's fairer and more attractive and that's it. Instead of wasting time with an UBI that would have terrible problems down the line, just make laws so that wage inequality is reduced to a minimum. And laws to take everything of the ultra-rich beyond a certain point.
The problem isn't that there is not enough money (or ressources) to go around, the problem is that they are not fairly distributed, trying to fix it in a roundabout way will have more secondary issues than actually fixing anything.
Because that's what it is? If it were UBI then it would be labeled UBI instead.
> after taxes are considered there's not any difference between UBI and GMI.
Mathematically that is true, but there is still a significant human difference. Consider a case where you have a loss of income. With UBI, the money will just show up at the usual interval to keep you going. With GMI, money will not show up until you go through the arduous process of notifying authorities that you are now eligible. And if you've ever dealt with people who manage these kinds of things before, you know they don't operate on an instant basis, so you could be going quite some time before the support finally shows up.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-22/ubi-study...
> After three years of distributing $1,000 monthly to beneficiaries in Illinois and Texas, the organization has released a trio of research papers on its findings. Like many of the other studies released before it, OpenResearch finds that recipients spend more to meet their basic needs and assist others, and don't drop out of the workforce — although they work slightly fewer hours. But the researchers’ biggest takeaway is that cash provides flexibility.
I might be in a web search bubble so if you have any conclusive info that UBI doesn’t “work”, please do share.
> During the pandemic, the nonprofit found its $1,000 payments to nearly 200,000 households barely made a dent in the lives of U.S. recipients. There was no measurable difference between the households that received the cash grants and those that did not, GiveDirectly declared in a blog post based on academic studies from the University of Michigan. One reason, according to the study, was that most cash grant recipients also received government assistance, which made it harder to discern the impact of the GiveDirectly money alone.
...
> GiveDirectly has vowed to learn from its mistake. So far, that has meant targeting populations such as pregnant mothers, infants, and families experiencing homelessness for whom regular, modest cash impacts have proven to be life altering.
So, maybe leaving out the "universal" would make sense, since they're not giving money to everyone anymore? GiveDirectly describes what they do as "unconditional cash transfers."
[1] https://www.philanthropy.com/article/can-givedirectly-show-t... https://archive.is/WTypU
For one it would amount to rapid inflation that would erode much of the purported benefits. This is hard to argue with after we watched pandemic stimulus do exactly this. It made wealth inequality substantially worse. The average person is in the red. The wealthy scored.
Assuming you find some way to address that, the next problem is it doesn’t work with a democracy. People will vote for whoever offers to raise the income, and politicians will pander to it. Also hard to argue with after politicians on all sides promised tax cuts and increased spending despite running wartime level deficits.
UBI is nice in theory. In practice, I don’t see how you fix those issues.
Maybe because a country is collection of individuals. It’s not that people have to sign up to the dream so they can be held accountable. It’s a romantic vision inspired 250 years ago, maybe it’s time to move on. It’s clearly out of touch with the reality of the people.
Side rant: I don't think many people in this country grasp how expensive, time-consuming and anxiety-inducing moving is nowadays - especially longer distances or across states.
Local service jobs don’t make for much of an economy unless you have tourism.
We're already in the situation where everything that actually matters (food, shelter, healthcare, transportation) is rapidly increasing in price. I don't see how giving everyone UBI wouldn't just exacerbate that.
This is probably naive, but I feel like if we deem something a necessity or "human right" then we should just give people these things free of charge. Like food, housing, healthcare should all have a free but basic government option. And maybe people who don't want the government version can get a tax credit towards their groceries, health insurance, or mortgage so that it benefits everyone and not just the poor. I guess that describes some kind of "Socialism" and has a whole host of issues and caveats, but it seems like a better system than UBI.
Why? Seriously. I used to believe this. But it’s increasingly apparent that a lot of people are idiots. Why is inequality in wealth fundamentally bad if the poorest are taken care of? (They’re not, in America. But I’m framing a hypothetical.)
If a UBI proposal requires dismissing the concept of waste, it’s probably a stupid one.
Instead they invest their fortunes into private equity and other capital like homes that, after driving the cost upwards, will now rent to the people who are, economically speaking, incomprehensibly far beneath them. They will acquire hospitals, doctor's practices, homes, drug rehab facilities, banking institutions, water utilities and electrical companies to fuel their own wealth. They squeeze out the stakeholder in preference for shareholders who will demand stock buybacks to provide additional returns on investment.
The result is that the people who are on the losing end of wealth inequality will have no voice in how the resources are deployed, the cost of the utility provided, or the capital to compete in the market. It drives the cost of inelastic supply upwards as its utility is no longer a home but an investment vehicle. Generational wealth like farms become corporations which pay their profits to someone other than their local community. National banks squeeze out local institutions with stake in their local economies, they will burn cash to buy the market out from local economies and the profits of life vanish from the people who live it. When there is nothing left to buy, they'll buy the government.
UBI, GMI are bandages for gaping wounds.
This isn't obvious, at all. In fact, it's the main point of contention in many studies talking about income and taxes.
If taxes on income were rated by wealth, we could consistently tax billionaires 95% tax and they would still be pocketing millions for safe investment returns
We need to be careful of this notion that social ills caused by prioritizing "growth" over people are intractable problems that require us to throw technology at them. It's often a convenient smokescreen from those that don't want the problems addressed at all. And we do their work for them if we play along.