the case for UBI (Universal Basic Income), something apparently not on Biden or even Bernie's agenda

[dblack]

If you have half the country dependent on government for their basic income, you can wage one hell of a war!

 

[Mac-7]

doctors can fix your eyes' blindness with a laser, yet the local mall close to your house just closed. these are revolutionary times, my friends, and we will either undertake it or undergo it. society will have to react to these changes in our economy with automation either before or after they happen...i chose before

Universal basic income could improve the nation’s mental health

Mental health experts have called for universal basic income as far back as 1969.

theconversation.com

I cant speak for scotland, but the main cause of poverty in America is humans making bad choices with their lives

 

[basquebromance]

automation doesn't affect only affect blue collar jobs, but white collar jobs like journalism and medicine

it's serious. it's a serious problem, my friends.

 

[Mac-7]

starting in the 2000s, there were high levels of automation in Missouri, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania...the same swing states that led Trump to victory in 2016, that's no coincidence, folks

American industry did not convert to robots so much as it closed up and moved to china

 

[basquebromance]

i asked a doctor friend of mine at MIT how much of doctoring can be automated

"80 percent, there's not much creativity involved", he bellowed

EIGHTY FUCKING PERCEEEEEENT

even music, painting, and therapy for mental patients can be automated

 

[basquebromance]

"oh you hate your job? why didn't you say so! there's a support group for that! it's called everybody, and they meet at the bar" - Drew Carey

 

[basquebromance]

"work is the last refuge of folks with nothing better to do" - Oscar Wilde

in a 2015 survey, 30 percent of Americans said they were happy in their job. the number drops to 10 percent worldwide

if being a cashier was considered a video game instead of a job, sophisticated people would say it contributes nothing to society

 

[basquebromance]

 

[basquebromance]

Dems thought giving voters cash was the key to success. So what happened?

The benefits were handed out. But they don’t seem to be translating politically. In some cases, voters don’t even credit Biden for them.

www.politico.com

"Nine months later, whatever political benefits were supposed to accrue from that package have seemingly faded. The public’s support for the direct payments has been overtaken by its concerns about the lingering pandemic. The federal unemployment insurance benefits ended in September with no apparent appetite by the feds or state governments to extend them. And while Democrats are seeking to extend the expanded child tax credit past its expiration date this December, recent polling data suggests that they are getting little credit for it.

A POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released last week showed that 61 percent of respondents said they’d received the credit — a $300 payment per month for every child under the age of 7 and a $250-per-month payment for every child under the age of 17. But only 39 percent of respondents said that the payment had a major impact on their lives. And while 47 percent of respondents credited Democrats for passing the expanded child tax credit, just 38 percent credited President Joe Biden.

Those numbers are causing agita on Capitol Hill, where there is growing concern that in a rush to continue legislative momentum around infrastructure and Biden’s Build Back Better social spending plan, the party has failed to hammer home the benefits of their first big bill: the American Rescue Plan.

“It’s great to deliver and do things, but you have to actually go out and tell the f---ing world about it,” conceded one top Senate Democratic aide who worked on getting the child tax credit passed. “That’s not a two-month project. It has to keep going.”

It’s also compelling officials in the party to revisit the calculation they made in January. Giving people money may not be the dispositive political winner that they imagined.

“I believe we should do popular things and use our power while we have it,” said Adam Jentleson, a party operative who now finds himself among the more vocal progressive activists in D.C. “But you should do them because they’re the right thing to do but not with the expectation that there would be a big political payoff.”

As Jentleson and others noted, the moral case for passing the child tax credit remains quite profound. Researchers at Columbia University found that 59.3 million children nationwide received payments in July 2021. That month alone, they wrote, the program “kept 3 million children from poverty.” Extended through its duration, the program could “reduce monthly child poverty by up to 40 percent.” Combined with all Covid-related relief, “it could contribute to a 52 percent reduction in monthly child poverty.”

Democrats negotiating the Build Back Better legislative package have pushed to extend the program expansion until 2025. And Biden himself has leaned into that policy specifically as a way to sell the larger reconciliation package

Ethan Winter, a senior analyst at Data for Progress, does polling for Fighting Chance for Families, a group that is working to extend the child tax credit. The data he has shows wide support for the expanded tax credit among Democrats and independents. But the more interesting number, he argued, was found in the crosstabs.

Republican parents who have gotten the benefits, he said, support Biden at a higher rate than their non-parent Republican peers. And that, Winter added, is a decent thread of optimism for Democrats who thought the policy would serve them well both morally and politically.

“I think there was a triumphalist narrative that if we provide this benefit, we will remake American politics,” Winter said. “But I think this misreads the literature on policy feedback slightly. The place where this works is at the margins. That’s where the struggle is waged.”

He went on from there.

“It’s really hard to remake the electorate, but if you can provide clear benefits to Republican parents, then you can pick off maybe not the module Republican parent, but the marginal one. And if you can pick up the marginal ones, then you can maybe win the next election and that solidifies it even further.”

 

[basquebromance]

human freedom is best realized through the market, which is more suited to remedy social problems than the state

the same market forces that create those problems can also fix them

 

[basquebromance]

Andrew Yang’s philosophical approach to UBI mirrors Milton Friedman’s thinking: individuals are better suited to fund their personal needs than the government.

Let's make capitalism work for the 70 million normal people who will lose their jobs to automation in the next ten years.

 

[basquebromance]

UBI for all: As president that’s the first EO I’m signing

 

[MinTrut]

doctors can fix your eyes' blindness with a laser, yet the local mall close to your house just closed. these are revolutionary times, my friends, and we will either undertake it or undergo it. society will have to react to these changes in our economy with automation either before or after they happen...i chose before

Universal basic income could improve the nation’s mental health

Mental health experts have called for universal basic income as far back as 1969.

theconversation.com

The only problem is...

How do you prevent inflation from swallowing it up within a year?

 

[MinTrut]

What happens when humanity is forced into slavery to serve the government? UBI can be held over our heads so they can make us do whatever they want. It's a slippery slope.

^ Another problem to be sure...

 

[basquebromance]

my friends, the UBI should start with those at the top and let it trickle down

for example, a POTUS should make 4 million dollars as a salary instead of 400 thousand dollars

 

[dblack]

automation doesn't affect only affect blue collar jobs, but white collar jobs like journalism and medicine

it's serious. it's a serious problem, my friends.

Trolls don't have friends.

 

[Confederate Soldier]

my friends, the UBI should start with those at the top and let it trickle down

for example, a POTUS should make 4 million dollars as a salary instead of 400 thousand dollars

Why on earth would we want to pay a POTUS $4,000,000???

 

[Kondor3]

I could see a permanent Basic Income for the disabled and elderly poor with no equivalent resources...

I could see a temporary Basic Income as a substitute for Unemployment Insurance until they can re-train and re-employ ( a reformed UI approach )...

I could see a periodically reviewed and adjusted Basic Income subsidy for low-earners who at least make an effort to earn a living and need help...

But I do NOT support a UBI for able-bodied folk who just won't work or who have given-up the fight...

And... for whatever modest BI program that might ever be considered, I'd want to know where the money's coming from to pay for it.