CDZ Why not have a 'Universal Basic Income' to replace welfare?

[JimBowie1958]

My mistake; I momentarily forgot you're just obsessed with yourself, hardly ever answer anything anybody actually said, and then make it all about your inability to respond without making it all about how you can't really read and need to cover for that with even more verbose excuses.

Dude that is hugely over the top.

Why dont you go get yourself some stress toys or something?

 

[JimBowie1958]

I'm now beginning to have a conclusion about UBI: there's no way the U.S. can afford to do it.

Now that I have some idea of the nature of what UBI-ers want -- universality of the UBI payments and something greater in sum by a large amount than Alaska's payout -- I don't have to think too hard to know we haven't anything close to the kind of money it'd take to do that.

Come on now....The U.S. population is ~318M people . That means whatever sum is envisioned must be multiplied by 318M.

• 2014 Federal Tax revenue (all forms): ~$3T
• 2104 State Tax revenue: ~$0.85T
• 2014 SSI collections: ~$0.88T
• Total income based collected tax revenue (not including excise taxes): ~$4.65T (~$14.6K per person)

So, do the math and tell me:

• What share of our total tax collections are you willing to allocate to UBI?
• What strikes you as a reasonable tax rate increase in order to fund the UBI?
• How much strikes you as a reasonable initial UBI to provide to each person?

I'm not even opposed to a hike in my tax rates to fund a UBI. That said, I'm not about to accept going from ~40% to ~80% either. In fact, I won't find acceptable any total tax burden greater than or equal to 49% of my income. I'm sorry, but if I work, I damn sure had better get to keep (not pay to the government) more than half of what I earn.

I dont think that the revenue side is the appropriate way of looking at this, as the government has long spent itself into debt regardless. To say we cant do something because of current shortfalls of similar programs we are already incurring is somewhat lame. All those other programs have mandated growth as well, so by shifting to a UBI that is only inflation adjusted and a set amount per person, we can decouple our welfare and entitlements from explosive growth that is scheduled over the next couple of decades.

IF we look at the expenditure side of the coin, then it is mostly affordable by shifting current program funds to it from obsolete welfare programs and entitlements.

Post 55 and 56 looked at some of the numbers and ways of doing it.

 

[320 Years of History]

Post 55 and 56 looked at some of the numbers and ways of doing it.

I'll take a look. I certainly wasn't paying much attention to the thread posts after the OP and the one that contains the reading list.

 

[saveliberty]

Universal Basic Income versus welfare? Because you just gave something a new term? Universal Basic Income seems to infer people have some economic value without any type of production or services rendered. Simply a lie wrapped up neatly in a PC term. Welfare is undeserved funds distributed by the government.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Universal Basic Income versus welfare? Because you just gave something a new term? Universal Basic Income seems to infer people have some economic value without any type of production or services rendered. Simply a lie wrapped up neatly in a PC term. Welfare is undeserved funds distributed by the government.

No, it is much more than that.

Why not actually read the posts in the thread? It isnt that long.

 

[320 Years of History]

Universal Basic Income versus welfare? Because you just gave something a new term? Universal Basic Income seems to infer people have some economic value without any type of production or services rendered. Simply a lie wrapped up neatly in a PC term.

Well, it makes sense that you'd see that as a lie because neither of those is in fact what UBI is:

• Nobody here gave anything a new term.
• UBI is not welfare under a new name.

Sure, for convenience's sake, one can casually consider UBI welfare's equal, but the actuality is that the two are different. Check out this document, you'll discover the differences between welfare and UBI. Those differences are quite significant.

 

[Slyhunter]

Universal Basic Income versus welfare? Because you just gave something a new term? Universal Basic Income seems to infer people have some economic value without any type of production or services rendered. Simply a lie wrapped up neatly in a PC term. Welfare is undeserved funds distributed by the government.

What do we do when all the jobs are done by machine and there is nothing left for our poor to do but starve?

 

[BuckToothMoron]

This idea has a lot to commend it economically as well as socially. Young Republicans may be surprised to learn that the idea was seriously proposed by President Richard Nixon. He called the plan a negative income tax. Of course, that was before the GOP was hijacked by anarchists and religious fanatics.

The problem is the programs it proposes to eliminate will never go away. Some people will squander their money, and then the typical progressive call for programs to help them will start all over again.

A base income and no safety net would require some harsh choices to be made, and progressives simply don't have the stomach for it.

He's right, they will always want more.....

 

[BuckToothMoron]

If you want a Universal Basic Income do some universal basic work.

 

[Never3ndr]

The new tech today is virtually independent of human effort to make it, maintain it and install it.

I'm just going to highlight this because it highlights your misunderstanding of tech. Let me be clear. This statement I've isolated is 100% false. It takes A TON of effort to create working programs

I can set up a relational database with a GUI front end that can handle basic records in one day by myself. It wont have a lot of bells and whistles, but it will let you do data entry into a database and do basic verification. Cant speak for every other application type out there, but I've heard from other programmers using JAVA code sharing,etc, that similar results can come about for them as well. I do know Oracle relational databases and GUI's. I've done it for 20+ years. I am now unemployed for the past two years.

Your assertion is false.

Yes, because building a simple database application encompasses what I was referring to when I used a broad term like "working programs." You cannot take a specific case of simple application development and even pretend it applies in a broader sense. You made the same mistake here you made with your previous assertions. You are taking some specific instance, in a vacuum, and generalizing it broadly.

 

[320 Years of History]

Universal Basic Income versus welfare? Because you just gave something a new term? Universal Basic Income seems to infer people have some economic value without any type of production or services rendered. Simply a lie wrapped up neatly in a PC term.

Well, it makes sense that you'd see that as a lie because neither of those is in fact what UBI is:

• Nobody here gave anything a new term.
• UBI is not welfare under a new name.

Sure, for convenience's sake, one can casually consider UBI welfare's equal, but the actuality is that the two are different. Check out this document, you'll discover the differences between welfare and UBI. Those differences are quite significant.

What do we do when all the jobs are done by machine and there is nothing left for our poor to do but starve?

Red:
Your question is an appropriate one to ask. It too is answered in the document to which I pointed the other member, or at least the document's authors posit ideas that can rationally be extrapolated to one or several plausible answers. At least one other document noted earlier in the thread does as well.

 

[Toro]

I like this idea as it will smooth out the transition from a wage based economy to a new technologically based barter economy that will arrive within 30 years if not much sooner.

Now before you start yelling 'But the lazy dindus wont work!' well, the way technology is advancing in such a way that very few people will work no matter how hard they try to find a job; there simply wont be enough jobs to employ more than about 15% of the population, if passed slave economies are any valid comparison economically. Just as there were some jobs one could not train a slave to do well, or a slave was too expensive to have them do those jobs, so too there will be jobs that an android wont do because of the same reasons. Of course the economy has changed quite a bit since 1860, but I think morphologically the analogy is valid.

Besides, what else do we have to guess with?

But this concept of a Universal Basic Income is the kind of thing we will need to salve the insecure who have alwayus thought of employment = financial security. In the coming technological Utopia we will have far deeper challenges, like finding a purpose to our lives when employment is not a realistic option..

Zoltan Istvan: 'Half of Americans Will Probably Have a Robot in Their House' Within 5 Years - Breitbart

We’ve followed two seemingly disparate lines of thought, so let’s take them to their logical conclusion: Let’s say that we do that. Let’s say that we accomplish sort of “science-industrial complex,” that we can win this battle against mortality itself. At the same time, we’re developing these technologies with increasing automation, and we’re making human workers literally redundant. What happens when those two concepts meet? It seems to me that we would have a more and more long-lived population, with fewer and fewer occupations available for them. How can those conclusions co-exist without becoming hopelessly entangled?

Oh yeah, no. Indeed it will be tangled. But, you know, this is where I think that in my own campaign and the Transhumanist party, we support, very deeply, a Universal Basic Income. Now when you hear the words “Universal Basic Income,” it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s some kind of socialist perspective. There’s also ways to create a universal basic income through Libertarian means and our Libertarian ideas and stuff like that.

One of our ideas is that with a Universal Basic Income, with the automation coming that’s going to replace so many workers, is going to be a huge amount of prosperity for the companies who are replacing the human workers with machines. That prosperity can go towards creating Universal Basic Income, so that we don’t create a society even moreso of the “haves” and the “have-nots.”

And, I think more prosperity is going to mean more money in the system. Let’s spend more taking care of those Americans who have lost their jobs. In fact, it’s not just those Americans who have lost their jobs. I’m not just interested in only those Americans who have lost their jobs. I’m actually interested in every single American.

The reason I’ve always liked the Universal Basic Income is because it allows for every single person to get a certain amount of money — enough to feed and clothe themselves, and house themselves — and on top of that, they can create whatever kind of world they want. They can build empires. But nobody is left out of that system.

And a Universal Basic Income can do a lot of other things too. It would wipe — it would essentially replace — welfare. ....

This or something very much like it is coming, and we need to evaluate our options and take responsible action to alleviate the most disruptive technology driven change that mankind has ever seen occur in one generation.

That's pretty socialist of you.

The left in many countries has made this argument for decades.

But you may be correct about technology and automation. If you are, this may be a solution.

 

[JimBowie1958]

If you want a Universal Basic Income do some universal basic work.

OK who is providing that work? I dont see it. I see fake job ads by companies campaigning to get more H1-Bs, but no real job offers.

 

[JimBowie1958]

That's pretty socialist of you.

The left in many countries has made this argument for decades.

But you may be correct about technology and automation. If you are, this may be a solution.

UBI has absolutely ZERO to do with Socialism.

Socialism is about the control of production, and UBI has zip to do with that.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Yes, because building a simple database application encompasses what I was referring to when I used a broad term like "working programs." You cannot take a specific case of simple application development and even pretend it applies in a broader sense. You made the same mistake here you made with your previous assertions. You are taking some specific instance, in a vacuum, and generalizing it broadly.

I gave a specific example of how you are wrong about this. Analogy; you claimed that X does not proceed from Y, and I then showed you a case of Y coming out of X.

*poof* you're argument is disproven.

And what have you presented to support your claims that jobs are not going to become scarce?

Nothing more than speculation based on an antiquated data set.

 

[Mac1958]

That's pretty socialist of you.

The left in many countries has made this argument for decades.

But you may be correct about technology and automation. If you are, this may be a solution.

UBI has absolutely ZERO to do with Socialism.

Socialism is about the control of production, and UBI has zip to do with that.

I suspected this would be a lively thread.

The country is not addressing what technology & productivity are doing to much of our work force, and we may not be ready to, yet.

This train is coming down the tracks quickly, and we're just not ready.
.

 

[rdean]

I like this idea as it will smooth out the transition from a wage based economy to a new technologically based barter economy that will arrive within 30 years if not much sooner.

Now before you start yelling 'But the lazy dindus wont work!' well, the way technology is advancing in such a way that very few people will work no matter how hard they try to find a job; there simply wont be enough jobs to employ more than about 15% of the population, if passed slave economies are any valid comparison economically. Just as there were some jobs one could not train a slave to do well, or a slave was too expensive to have them do those jobs, so too there will be jobs that an android wont do because of the same reasons. Of course the economy has changed quite a bit since 1860, but I think morphologically the analogy is valid.

Besides, what else do we have to guess with?

But this concept of a Universal Basic Income is the kind of thing we will need to salve the insecure who have alwayus thought of employment = financial security. In the coming technological Utopia we will have far deeper challenges, like finding a purpose to our lives when employment is not a realistic option..

Zoltan Istvan: 'Half of Americans Will Probably Have a Robot in Their House' Within 5 Years - Breitbart

We’ve followed two seemingly disparate lines of thought, so let’s take them to their logical conclusion: Let’s say that we do that. Let’s say that we accomplish sort of “science-industrial complex,” that we can win this battle against mortality itself. At the same time, we’re developing these technologies with increasing automation, and we’re making human workers literally redundant. What happens when those two concepts meet? It seems to me that we would have a more and more long-lived population, with fewer and fewer occupations available for them. How can those conclusions co-exist without becoming hopelessly entangled?

Oh yeah, no. Indeed it will be tangled. But, you know, this is where I think that in my own campaign and the Transhumanist party, we support, very deeply, a Universal Basic Income. Now when you hear the words “Universal Basic Income,” it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s some kind of socialist perspective. There’s also ways to create a universal basic income through Libertarian means and our Libertarian ideas and stuff like that.

One of our ideas is that with a Universal Basic Income, with the automation coming that’s going to replace so many workers, is going to be a huge amount of prosperity for the companies who are replacing the human workers with machines. That prosperity can go towards creating Universal Basic Income, so that we don’t create a society even moreso of the “haves” and the “have-nots.”

And, I think more prosperity is going to mean more money in the system. Let’s spend more taking care of those Americans who have lost their jobs. In fact, it’s not just those Americans who have lost their jobs. I’m not just interested in only those Americans who have lost their jobs. I’m actually interested in every single American.

The reason I’ve always liked the Universal Basic Income is because it allows for every single person to get a certain amount of money — enough to feed and clothe themselves, and house themselves — and on top of that, they can create whatever kind of world they want. They can build empires. But nobody is left out of that system.

And a Universal Basic Income can do a lot of other things too. It would wipe — it would essentially replace — welfare. ....

This or something very much like it is coming, and we need to evaluate our options and take responsible action to alleviate the most disruptive technology driven change that mankind has ever seen occur in one generation.

We can't just pay people to exist. They need motivation.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I suspected this would be a lively thread.

The country is not addressing what technology & productivity are doing to much of our work force, and we may not be ready to, yet.

This train is coming down the tracks quickly, and we're just not ready.
.

And if we dont stop it with the knee jerk responses we wont be ready at all.

I've read, but cannot yet find, where some have predicted above 70% unemployment in real numbers, not government data, by 2040. That is as good as predicting the slaughter of about half the population and the USA sliding into Third World status.

 

[JimBowie1958]

We can't just pay people to exist. They need motivation.

Most people really dont need motivation to exist; they just do.

 

[Mac1958]

I suspected this would be a lively thread. The country is not addressing what technology & productivity are doing to much of our work force, and we may not be ready to, yet. This train is coming down the tracks quickly, and we're just not ready..

And if we dont stop it with the knee jerk responses we wont be ready at all.

Bingo, and this is a great example of why I'm so maniacally against the behaviors of hardcore partisan ideologues. If they don't agree with an idea to any degree they'll dismiss the whole thing out of hand.

Addressing complicated issues requires an open mind, fundamental curiosity, intellectual elasticity, a measure of humility and the willingness to take one step at a time. But no, not in today's America.

Start with an idea like yours and work your way through it. See where it goes.
.