"People want a world where work is optional" is probably one of the goosiest interpretations of the proposed GBI.
It seems spot on to me. Two people living together under basic income have enough money to never work again unless you cut them off at some point, especially if we use the proposed 2k a month figure.
So what you're saying is if you received the proposed GBI you'd just stay home and not work?
I could be doing that now, but that's not the reason why I work.
Ah the meat and potatoes.
Why do you work?
Because it's what I've always done, even before it was an official job.
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
Even if you want to stay at home and not work a 8 hour a day desk job, that doesn't necessarily people want to do nothing. Even most people who took advantage of a BIG whether it's just enough to scrape by or enough to live at a low but comfortable level, would likely spend their time doing things which interest them but which don't necessarily constitute "work" in our society. Maybe they want to be an artist, or write a book, or spend time trying to invent something. There are a lot of ways people might contribute to our society and even eventually our economy without having a stable 9-5 job that most people think of as "work" and a BIG would help more people do that without worrying about being a literal starving artist or becoming homeless because they wanted to take some time off to work on something that mattered to them personally but which capitalist society isn't interested in paying you a wage to do.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Basic income is something I like very much like the idea of. From Wikipedia:
An unconditional basic income (also called basic income, basic income guarantee, universal basic income, universal demogrant, or citizen’s income) is a form of social security system in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, in addition to any income received from elsewhere.
This is something that's becoming more a more important to consider as our country develops. The reality is that many people don't need to work as much as they used to. Basic income seeks to ensure that people who aren't working or are only partially employed still get income to live off of. Ideally with no obligations to be met.
This is something I'd love to see implemented one day. We're one of the richest countries in the world so there's no reason anyone shouldn't have enough for the essentials and a bit more. And every time this concept has been tested it's only resulted in that area making more money.
"People want a world where work is optional" is probably one of the goosiest interpretations of the proposed GBI.
It seems spot on to me. Two people living together under basic income have enough money to never work again unless you cut them off at some point, especially if we use the proposed 2k a month figure.
So what you're saying is if you received the proposed GBI you'd just stay home and not work?
I could be doing that now, but that's not the reason why I work.
wait
you could be sitting at home playing video games while someone else guarantees your income
. . .do i smell a trust fund or
Not a trust fund, a company I was with had a decent exit a few years back and I got a good amount of money from it. If I took a 3% withdrawal rate from my investment portfolio each year I could live on what would basically be the equivalent of GBI for a long time as long as the average ROI stays consistent and outpaces inflation.
Luck is great isn't it?
My knees got fucked doing manual labor for UPS 15 years ago. Was I not a hard worker? Why do you get those investments?
I made my own luck, I didn't wait for it to happen. Technically there is no such thing as "luck".
It's too bad your knees got fucked, and you were probably a hard worker, but I don't see how it would stop you from doing most other things unless your goal was to become some kind of athlete.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
"People want a world where work is optional" is probably one of the goosiest interpretations of the proposed GBI.
It seems spot on to me. Two people living together under basic income have enough money to never work again unless you cut them off at some point, especially if we use the proposed 2k a month figure.
So what you're saying is if you received the proposed GBI you'd just stay home and not work?
I could be doing that now, but that's not the reason why I work.
wait
you could be sitting at home playing video games while someone else guarantees your income
. . .do i smell a trust fund or
Not a trust fund, a company I was with had a decent exit a few years back and I got a good amount of money from it. If I took a 3% withdrawal rate from my investment portfolio each year I could live on what would basically be the equivalent of GBI for a long time as long as the average ROI stays consistent and outpaces inflation.
Even if you want to stay at home and not work a 8 hour a day desk job, that doesn't necessarily people want to do nothing. Even most people who took advantage of a BIG whether it's just enough to scrape by or enough to live at a low but comfortable level, would likely spend their time doing things which interest them but which don't necessarily constitute "work" in our society. Maybe they want to be an artist, or write a book, or spend time trying to invent something. There are a lot of ways people might contribute to our society and even eventually our economy without having a stable 9-5 job that most people think of as "work" and a BIG would help more people do that without worrying about being a literal starving artist or becoming homeless because they wanted to take some time off to work on something that mattered to them personally but which capitalist society isn't interested in paying you a wage to do.
What if explaining how you would contribute to society was a prerequisite for receiving and being accepted for GBI?
I think it's a good idea as it gives some accountability.
I dunno I don't see the problem with someone not working and pursuing their interests beyond edge cases
my only objection to someone sitting around playing video games is a visceral gut reaction though, I know intellectually it will be a very very small chunk of the pie
anyway, for every person who takes their lavish $15k a year or whatever and sits around doing absolutely nothing, there will be 50 who will still have jobs and 10 who pursue their life's passion - something they always wanted to do but couldn't for fear of homelessness/starvation. Be that opening a restaurant or becoming a stand up comedian or making pottery, whatever
"People want a world where work is optional" is probably one of the goosiest interpretations of the proposed GBI.
It seems spot on to me. Two people living together under basic income have enough money to never work again unless you cut them off at some point, especially if we use the proposed 2k a month figure.
So what you're saying is if you received the proposed GBI you'd just stay home and not work?
I could be doing that now, but that's not the reason why I work.
wait
you could be sitting at home playing video games while someone else guarantees your income
. . .do i smell a trust fund or
Not a trust fund, a company I was with had a decent exit a few years back and I got a good amount of money from it. If I took a 3% withdrawal rate from my investment portfolio each year I could live on what would basically be the equivalent of GBI for a long time as long as the average ROI stays consistent and outpaces inflation.
Luck is great isn't it?
My knees got fucked doing manual labor for UPS 15 years ago. Was I not a hard worker? Why do you get those investments?
I made my own luck, I didn't wait for it to happen. Technically there is no such thing as "luck".
It's too bad your knees got fucked, and you were probably a hard worker, but I don't see how it would stop you from doing most other things unless your goal was to become some kind of athlete.
Luck is a funny word. Yes there is no such thing as "luck", but there is plenty of random chance and you just happened to have a series of events line up perfectly that you benefited from it.
I on the other hand had parents that couldn't afford much and I had to work my way through a lot of manual labor to even get to the opportunities I have today.
No one is lazy. It's all about which set of circumstances lined up for you. Tomorrow you could lose your job and your ROI could go tits up. Nothing about being hard working and making your own luck could fix that.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Even if you want to stay at home and not work a 8 hour a day desk job, that doesn't necessarily people want to do nothing. Even most people who took advantage of a BIG whether it's just enough to scrape by or enough to live at a low but comfortable level, would likely spend their time doing things which interest them but which don't necessarily constitute "work" in our society. Maybe they want to be an artist, or write a book, or spend time trying to invent something. There are a lot of ways people might contribute to our society and even eventually our economy without having a stable 9-5 job that most people think of as "work" and a BIG would help more people do that without worrying about being a literal starving artist or becoming homeless because they wanted to take some time off to work on something that mattered to them personally but which capitalist society isn't interested in paying you a wage to do.
What if explaining how you would contribute to society was a prerequisite for receiving and being accepted for GBI?
I think it's a good idea as it gives some accountability.
why? who gets to decide?
Why is it necessary in a single country that has as much wealth as europe?
Why is there no inherent value in a human life?
Explaining your usefulness to society is ridiculous. It's literally a Twilight Zone episode about fascism
"People want a world where work is optional" is probably one of the goosiest interpretations of the proposed GBI.
It seems spot on to me. Two people living together under basic income have enough money to never work again unless you cut them off at some point, especially if we use the proposed 2k a month figure.
So what you're saying is if you received the proposed GBI you'd just stay home and not work?
I could be doing that now, but that's not the reason why I work.
wait
you could be sitting at home playing video games while someone else guarantees your income
. . .do i smell a trust fund or
Not a trust fund, a company I was with had a decent exit a few years back and I got a good amount of money from it. If I took a 3% withdrawal rate from my investment portfolio each year I could live on what would basically be the equivalent of GBI for a long time as long as the average ROI stays consistent and outpaces inflation.
Luck is great isn't it?
My knees got fucked doing manual labor for UPS 15 years ago. Was I not a hard worker? Why do you get those investments?
I made my own luck, I didn't wait for it to happen. Technically there is no such thing as "luck".
Now here is a high horse statement that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Even if you want to stay at home and not work a 8 hour a day desk job, that doesn't necessarily people want to do nothing. Even most people who took advantage of a BIG whether it's just enough to scrape by or enough to live at a low but comfortable level, would likely spend their time doing things which interest them but which don't necessarily constitute "work" in our society. Maybe they want to be an artist, or write a book, or spend time trying to invent something. There are a lot of ways people might contribute to our society and even eventually our economy without having a stable 9-5 job that most people think of as "work" and a BIG would help more people do that without worrying about being a literal starving artist or becoming homeless because they wanted to take some time off to work on something that mattered to them personally but which capitalist society isn't interested in paying you a wage to do.
What if explaining how you would contribute to society was a prerequisite for receiving and being accepted GBI?
I think it's a good idea as it gives some accountability.
Hahaha no. Getting rid of such bullshit is why you make it universal without means testing.
Can you imagine the bureaucratic overhead of interviewing 300 million people, and then following up to make sure they're doing what they said they would?
Can you imagine how this could be used to screw specific minorities that the person in charge dislikes? In the past, African Americans were specifically screwed out of numerous social programs because of racism.
I don't think you thought this through. You want to make everyone's personal actions accountable to the state.
Jephery on
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I literally responded to this concern on page 3 of this thread, and reposted the same answer when you raised the SAME concern on page 6.
The fact that you say it as if it was a minor concern and not the central necessary analysis foreshadows how limited that response was.
Please, show me in the above quotation where I used the word minor. I have not trivialized your concerns in the way you are attempting to trivialize any arguments that disagree with your position.
So your solution is take as a given that basic income would be means tested and to cut social welfare programs that would be more targeted, proven and effective in order to provide a vaguer and more generalized welfare system. And you think that's "universal basic income" instead of a mid 20th century Dole that has fallen out of favor in every developed country because its inferior to the systems currently being used.
In order to pay for this you say
1) "we do things like taking away all the tax breaks you get for being rich." That's not a funding scheme, that's a political talking point.
1a) "No more capital gains taxes" would cut taxes but let's be generous and rephrase this to something like "Tax capital gains like we do regular income." Now there are huge downsides to this because saving and investment should generally be promoted for many reasons but whatever. The CBO says this could result in up to 161 billion dollars a year in taxes per year, so let's use that.
1b) "No more multi0million dollar offshore accounts" this is nonsensical. Its like a Republican saying he'll cut federal spending by reducing waste.
1) You are absolutely correct that it's a talking point, because getting into the details of the specific tax exemptions that can only be used when you're incredibly wealthy should be a discussion in a separate thread.
1a) You are correct, I want capital gains to be taxed in the same manner as any other source of income should be taxed.
1b) Why is this nonsensical? Why not charge an export tax on money transfers to outside of the country? This would prevent private citizens from using locations with lax tax laws to offshore and hide their income, as well as corporations.
Please don't be dismissive of my discussion points.
3) "We eliminate offshoring and tax holidays. In 2010, GE posted a profit of $14.2B globally, but actually received a tax benefit of $3.4B from the U.S. Goverment. Had they been taxed at 35% instead, we would have been able to $8.5B towards plans like the UBI or infrastructure development." Oh good actual numbers even if this is basically the same thing as 2). So +8 Billion, but no real explanation on how we'll force GE to report that profit in the US or how much total we'd gain
You make it so that for a corporation to spend money in the US, they have to have the money in the US. Combined with eliminating holidays and requiring proper taxation on funds brought into the US, you eliminate the incentives to offshore. Or, as suggested in 1b above, you tax them for foreign profits. Better auditing and import/export finance laws can also help combat this issue.
Please don't be dismissive of my discussion points.
4) "We place a small tax on trading stocks, like 0.1% of the stock value. If you read up on high speed trading, the people engaged in this activity are financial leeches who do nothing but game the way tech works in the market to gain an advantage, and force others to pay higher costs than needed." I'm sure the monitoring and collection of this would not in any way incur additional costs.... how much exactly do you think this would gain? Or are you just using this space to rail against Wall Street?
According to the CBO, a tax of 0.01% on derivatives alone would generate 180B in the next 8 years. From the New York Times, a 0.03% stock trading tax would generate 352B over 10 years.
I have not attacked Wall Street in general, I have targeted one very specific section that adds absolutely zero value to the stock market.
Please don't be dismissive of my discussion points.
Another way to look at things is that in 2014, the US GDP was $17,410B. So we're talking about using something like 6% of the GDP (or 3%, based on my original estimate) to fund this program.
Yes if we use your figures, which we've demonstrated you make up entirely, 1 trillion would be 6% of GDP. That's not a small amount This is basic fucking stuff but saying "Oh its just 6% of the largest economy in the world guys NBD" is the kind of stuff you should say sarcastically
You are correct, it is not a small amount. It is also not an impossible amount, as we spend a similar amount on our military budget every year. And it's certainly a figure I would be willing to give up out of my own paycheck for all of the benefits I see coming from it.
But really, it doesn't matter what I say. You're going to hand wave away everything that disagrees with you and continue on with your own opinion.
Well if we make 300 million people accountable for the state we can throw our hands up and say it's worse than free agency and bootstraps and point to how wasteful this program is at determining usefulness and make spreadsheets look really good.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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Nbspshe laughs, like Godher mind's like a diamondRegistered Userregular
Luck is a funny word. Yes there is no such thing as "luck", but there is plenty of random chance and you just happened to have a series of events line up perfectly that you benefited from it.
I on the other hand had parents that couldn't afford much and I had to work my way through a lot of manual labor to even get to the opportunities I have today.
No one is lazy. It's all about which set of circumstances lined up for you. Tomorrow you could lose your job and your ROI could go tits up. Nothing about being hard working and making your own luck could fix that.
Luck is just an intersection of preparedness and opportunity. Most people are either not prepared or don't know how to spot an opportunity, or both.
My parent's didn't have much to do with it either. My mom is a cashier, and my dad is a mechanic. Their support was as much as any average parent, maybe even less.
Yes, I could always lose my job, or lose a ton of money I invested (maybe even after Greece collapses), but I'm an optimist, and I believe that life finds a way. I'll find a way.
Nbsp on
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
Even if you want to stay at home and not work a 8 hour a day desk job, that doesn't necessarily people want to do nothing. Even most people who took advantage of a BIG whether it's just enough to scrape by or enough to live at a low but comfortable level, would likely spend their time doing things which interest them but which don't necessarily constitute "work" in our society. Maybe they want to be an artist, or write a book, or spend time trying to invent something. There are a lot of ways people might contribute to our society and even eventually our economy without having a stable 9-5 job that most people think of as "work" and a BIG would help more people do that without worrying about being a literal starving artist or becoming homeless because they wanted to take some time off to work on something that mattered to them personally but which capitalist society isn't interested in paying you a wage to do.
What if explaining how you would contribute to society was a prerequisite for receiving and being accepted for GBI?
I think it's a good idea as it gives some accountability.
No, it would be a shitty idea. It would add a lot of unnecessary overhead to fund and provide no useful utility except making some people feel better that someone wasn't mooching off of "their" tax money. Look, here's the thing. Ideally, on the BIG people would either use it to supplement other forms of income to help them live a more comfortable life, to have some safety net allowing them to argue for better treatment and wages for their work or find a new job if necessary, and allow them to pursue worthwhile and fulfilling but not necessarily well paid projects and interests (which would include things like becoming an artist or going back to college or trying to break into a low paying but useful line of work)
Will there be some people who use it to be lazy and do no work? Yes. Are there people like that on our current system? Yes. But the thing is that firstly, the number of those people is super low the vast majority of people would pursue at least some meaningful work even if it's just trying to become an actual pro gamer or youtube celebrity. Secondly, trying to weed out those people is far more costly for the system than just ignoring this minority of people and not burdening the majority with some sort of test to try and determine whether they're worthy and thirdly, if someone genuinely does not want to work, I don't think we should force them to especially since society is better of just giving them money than take the risk of them becoming homeless. The economy and society benefits more by having people who just take money and spend it, than risking those people or anyone else not being able to afford food. An economy is all about the flow of goods and money. Even someone who does no work whatsoever under this would still have a decent amount of money to spend on necessities and maybe a few luxuries, which in a capitalist economy, is itself useful. Would it be better if they did something with their lives? Sure. Is it worth trying to force them to, or trying to keep them from being a "leech"? No. it isn't.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Luck is a funny word. Yes there is no such thing as "luck", but there is plenty of random chance and you just happened to have a series of events line up perfectly that you benefited from it.
I on the other hand had parents that couldn't afford much and I had to work my way through a lot of manual labor to even get to the opportunities I have today.
No one is lazy. It's all about which set of circumstances lined up for you. Tomorrow you could lose your job and your ROI could go tits up. Nothing about being hard working and making your own luck could fix that.
Luck is just an intersection of preparedness and opportunity. Most people are either not prepared or don't know how to spot an opportunity, or both.
My parent's didn't have much to do with it either. My mom is a cashier, and my dad is a mechanic. Their support was as much as any average parent, maybe even less.
Yes, I could always lose my job, or lose a ton of money I invested (maybe even after Greece collapses), but I'm an optimist, and I believe that life finds a way. I'll find a way.
You know what poor people don't have? Opportunity.
You know what rich people have in abundance? Opportunity.
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Nbspshe laughs, like Godher mind's like a diamondRegistered Userregular
Even if you want to stay at home and not work a 8 hour a day desk job, that doesn't necessarily people want to do nothing. Even most people who took advantage of a BIG whether it's just enough to scrape by or enough to live at a low but comfortable level, would likely spend their time doing things which interest them but which don't necessarily constitute "work" in our society. Maybe they want to be an artist, or write a book, or spend time trying to invent something. There are a lot of ways people might contribute to our society and even eventually our economy without having a stable 9-5 job that most people think of as "work" and a BIG would help more people do that without worrying about being a literal starving artist or becoming homeless because they wanted to take some time off to work on something that mattered to them personally but which capitalist society isn't interested in paying you a wage to do.
What if explaining how you would contribute to society was a prerequisite for receiving and being accepted GBI?
I think it's a good idea as it gives some accountability.
Hahaha no. Getting rid of such bullshit is why you make it universal without means testing.
Can you imagine the bureaucratic overhead of interviewing 300 million people, and then following up to make sure they're doing what they said they would?
Can you imagine how this could be used to screw specific minorities that the person in charge dislikes? In the past, African Americans were specifically screwed out of numerous social programs because of racism.
I don't think you thought this through. You want to make everyone's personal actions accountable to the state.
Make people record what they will do in writing, and then do random audits every year.
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Nbspshe laughs, like Godher mind's like a diamondRegistered Userregular
Luck is a funny word. Yes there is no such thing as "luck", but there is plenty of random chance and you just happened to have a series of events line up perfectly that you benefited from it.
I on the other hand had parents that couldn't afford much and I had to work my way through a lot of manual labor to even get to the opportunities I have today.
No one is lazy. It's all about which set of circumstances lined up for you. Tomorrow you could lose your job and your ROI could go tits up. Nothing about being hard working and making your own luck could fix that.
Luck is just an intersection of preparedness and opportunity. Most people are either not prepared or don't know how to spot an opportunity, or both.
My parent's didn't have much to do with it either. My mom is a cashier, and my dad is a mechanic. Their support was as much as any average parent, maybe even less.
Yes, I could always lose my job, or lose a ton of money I invested (maybe even after Greece collapses), but I'm an optimist, and I believe that life finds a way. I'll find a way.
You know what poor people don't have? Opportunity.
You know what rich people have in abundance? Opportunity.
Wrong, everyone has opportunity. The rich are generally better at seeing it, which is often why they get rich.
Luck is a funny word. Yes there is no such thing as "luck", but there is plenty of random chance and you just happened to have a series of events line up perfectly that you benefited from it.
I on the other hand had parents that couldn't afford much and I had to work my way through a lot of manual labor to even get to the opportunities I have today.
No one is lazy. It's all about which set of circumstances lined up for you. Tomorrow you could lose your job and your ROI could go tits up. Nothing about being hard working and making your own luck could fix that.
Luck is just an intersection of preparedness and opportunity. Most people are either not prepared or don't know how to spot an opportunity, or both.
My parent's didn't have much to do with it either. My mom is a cashier, and my dad is a mechanic. Their support was as much as any average parent, maybe even less.
Yes, I could always lose my job, or lose a ton of money I invested (maybe even after Greece collapses), but I'm an optimist, and I believe that life finds a way. I'll find a way.
Life doesn't "find a way". Life is fucking terrible. The entirety of human existence is trying to make our miserable time here easier and more pleasant.
Tired of dying from animals, let's invent weapons.
Dying from food because you can't cook it, let's invent fire.
Tired from carrying stuff around, let's invent the wheel and tame horses.
Tired of looking for food, let's learn to plant crops and invent husbandry.
Tired of getting sick all the time, let's study germ theory.
Tired of taking months to travel by boat, fuck it let's figure out how to move so fast we can defy motherfucking gravity.
Tired of not being connected, let's connect to each other by vibrating electrons and sending light signals over metal and fiber optics.
Every single innovation is because we're tired of the grind our life has become.
You want something that says GBI is a good idea look no further than that. Now imagine hundreds of millions of people that are free to do whatever they want.
Study math, invent new things to make your life easier. Your life. Not their life, everyone's lives. Maybe tomorrow some dude invents teleportation. Have you ever wanted to go to the moon or across the earth in a second?
What are your dreams and aspirations? Is working 9-5 every day chasing money helping with those? Maybe you want to travel the world. But in today's society you need money to do that. A lot of it. But why should you? That's the ultimate end game if GBI.
But the first step is to stop capitalizing on slave labor and sweat equity because it's less painful than thinking of someone taking "your" $20,000 a year and jacking off into a sock all day every day.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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jmcdonaldI voted, did you?DC(ish)Registered Userregular
"People want a world where work is optional" is probably one of the goosiest interpretations of the proposed GBI.
It seems spot on to me. Two people living together under basic income have enough money to never work again unless you cut them off at some point, especially if we use the proposed 2k a month figure.
So what you're saying is if you received the proposed GBI you'd just stay home and not work?
I could be doing that now, but that's not the reason why I work.
Then why do you assume everyone else wouldn't work?
Even if you want to stay at home and not work a 8 hour a day desk job, that doesn't necessarily people want to do nothing. Even most people who took advantage of a BIG whether it's just enough to scrape by or enough to live at a low but comfortable level, would likely spend their time doing things which interest them but which don't necessarily constitute "work" in our society. Maybe they want to be an artist, or write a book, or spend time trying to invent something. There are a lot of ways people might contribute to our society and even eventually our economy without having a stable 9-5 job that most people think of as "work" and a BIG would help more people do that without worrying about being a literal starving artist or becoming homeless because they wanted to take some time off to work on something that mattered to them personally but which capitalist society isn't interested in paying you a wage to do.
What if explaining how you would contribute to society was a prerequisite for receiving and being accepted GBI?
I think it's a good idea as it gives some accountability.
Hahaha no. Getting rid of such bullshit is why you make it universal without means testing.
Can you imagine the bureaucratic overhead of interviewing 300 million people, and then following up to make sure they're doing what they said they would?
Can you imagine how this could be used to screw specific minorities that the person in charge dislikes? In the past, African Americans were specifically screwed out of numerous social programs because of racism.
I don't think you thought this through. You want to make everyone's personal actions accountable to the state.
Make people record what they will do in writing, and then do random audits every year.
Ah yes, let's stick people under extreme scrutiny and let a bureaucrat decide if someone's life is valuable or not
Even if you want to stay at home and not work a 8 hour a day desk job, that doesn't necessarily people want to do nothing. Even most people who took advantage of a BIG whether it's just enough to scrape by or enough to live at a low but comfortable level, would likely spend their time doing things which interest them but which don't necessarily constitute "work" in our society. Maybe they want to be an artist, or write a book, or spend time trying to invent something. There are a lot of ways people might contribute to our society and even eventually our economy without having a stable 9-5 job that most people think of as "work" and a BIG would help more people do that without worrying about being a literal starving artist or becoming homeless because they wanted to take some time off to work on something that mattered to them personally but which capitalist society isn't interested in paying you a wage to do.
What if explaining how you would contribute to society was a prerequisite for receiving and being accepted GBI?
I think it's a good idea as it gives some accountability.
Hahaha no. Getting rid of such bullshit is why you make it universal without means testing.
Can you imagine the bureaucratic overhead of interviewing 300 million people, and then following up to make sure they're doing what they said they would?
Can you imagine how this could be used to screw specific minorities that the person in charge dislikes? In the past, African Americans were specifically screwed out of numerous social programs because of racism.
I don't think you thought this through. You want to make everyone's personal actions accountable to the state.
Make people record what they will do in writing, and then do random audits every year.
This would still require a lot of unnecessary overhead to tackle a vanishingly rare problem that's not even really a problem in the first place. The only reason to do this is because of some moral panic about some people not wanting to work. Who gives a shit? If someone is willing and able to do nothing but take their stipend of government money and spend it without contributing anything meaningful besides posting on forums and playing video games, I say let them. Economically speaking, they're providing more to the economy and our society than having them be homeless would, and there's really no point in forcing someone to do a job they hate for no reason than because "work is good for you." Someone else will take whatever job they would have had to take to avoid being homeless and on the BIG, it will help them live much more comfortably, than they would otherwise be able to, which is a good enough incentive on their own.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
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Nbspshe laughs, like Godher mind's like a diamondRegistered Userregular
"People want a world where work is optional" is probably one of the goosiest interpretations of the proposed GBI.
It seems spot on to me. Two people living together under basic income have enough money to never work again unless you cut them off at some point, especially if we use the proposed 2k a month figure.
So what you're saying is if you received the proposed GBI you'd just stay home and not work?
I could be doing that now, but that's not the reason why I work.
Then why do you assume everyone else wouldn't work?
Sorry, didn't see your tiny post with all these titans of texts getting posted up.
A lot of people would be willing to work, but a lot of those people are also the kinds of people who don't need GBI.
If we only look at the people who require GBI, the ratio of people willing to work and people that wouldn't work is probably more skewed toward people that wouldn't work, but I don't pretend to know the hard numbers right now.
"People want a world where work is optional" is probably one of the goosiest interpretations of the proposed GBI.
It seems spot on to me. Two people living together under basic income have enough money to never work again unless you cut them off at some point, especially if we use the proposed 2k a month figure.
So what you're saying is if you received the proposed GBI you'd just stay home and not work?
I could be doing that now, but that's not the reason why I work.
Then why do you assume everyone else wouldn't work?
Sorry, didn't see your tiny post with all these titans of texts getting posted up.
A lot of people would be willing to work, but a lot of those people are also the kinds of people who don't need GBI.
If we only look at the people who require GBI, the ratio of people willing to work and people that wouldn't work is probably more skewed toward people that wouldn't work, but I don't pretend to know the hard numbers right now.
Truth be told, you don't know any numbers right now, and you're speaking from the gut.
So, why is your experience somehow special from the rest of those who "require" GBI.
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TLDR version: careful not to trip over those bootstraps
jmcdonald on
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Nbspshe laughs, like Godher mind's like a diamondRegistered Userregular
if GBI was a thing I'd probably go back to tutoring at the college for $8 an hour or whatever it is they're paying now since Walker cut the budget
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
That sort of "wealth makes right" mentality is what makes you entirely unqualified to assess poverty. Their support "as much as any parent" indicates some degree of support, which is something most of that 45 million I indicated before hand didn't have. You likely completed both high school and college, both of which are opportunities you didn't have to squander for survival due to your blue collar parents making enough on their own to feed and house you without you also needing to work. These are all luck-based items. You didn't control those, you were born into them.
Modest though such things may be, they are huge steps forward at the fundamental level compared to most of the working poor.
I started with every concievable luck-based advantage. I was born into a new-money household by hardworking (though psychotic) parents with multiple houses, cars, massive investment portfolios, full ride scholarships through high school and college, nepotism opportunities along the way to give me that little nudge to worm into slightly better positions than my peers. I know what luck is because I can identify all of those home-field advantages that come from being in the top 20% of income from day one.
I eventually left all that behind to work in education because I recognized that disparity, and my work these days is mostly in ensuring students without those opportunities have the means and support to get through them. I see daily both the real numbers at an institutional, state, and federal level that reflect these cases and in the horrifying realities that an overwhelming amount of people, even students with the base advantages you talk about "making" struggle to even find enough money for textbooks, tuition, rent, and food (with food usually getting sacrificed). About 8% of all college students nationwide qualify as having hunger conditions (being able to afford less than 700 calories a day). This isn't due to wasting their monthly allowance from home on money on ipods and caramel machiatto lattes, but because they literally have no money left after meeting their basic obligations for survival. We track the "wealthy hungry" populations as well, they end up being about .05% of our institutional food pantry clients which is noticable but relatively unimportant in the mission.
Sort of how your "i wouldn't work" assumption population numbers are relatively unimportant. There are loads of data on the percentages of welfare "cheats" out there and their percentage is always a tiny fraction of the good use of the whole (literally every time). With things like Basic Income those concerns are even less as the money going out serves as local economic stimulus on a theoretical level since that money can't be squirreled away into something relatively bad for the functional economy like a trust.
As a final note: given the info on this page your "ok give us BI if we cut all capital gains" is the most hilariously self-serving and entitled thing ever.
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
"People want a world where work is optional" is probably one of the goosiest interpretations of the proposed GBI.
It seems spot on to me. Two people living together under basic income have enough money to never work again unless you cut them off at some point, especially if we use the proposed 2k a month figure.
So what you're saying is if you received the proposed GBI you'd just stay home and not work?
I could be doing that now, but that's not the reason why I work.
Then why do you assume everyone else wouldn't work?
Sorry, didn't see your tiny post with all these titans of texts getting posted up.
A lot of people would be willing to work, but a lot of those people are also the kinds of people who don't need GBI.
If we only look at the people who require GBI, the ratio of people willing to work and people that wouldn't work is probably more skewed toward people that wouldn't work, but I don't pretend to know the hard numbers right now.
GBI helps everybody have more more opportunities, more leverage in looking for work and getting better treatment, and helps everyone make it through difficult times which almost everyone will experience at some point. GBI is something that would benefit everyone, and a lot of people would probably "require" it at some point in their lives
and I disagree that even among those you probably think "require" it most would prefer not to work. And even if they do, I think it's better they get a GBI than nothing. A protestant work ethic for its own sake is toxic and utterly without merit.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
if GBI was a thing I'd probably go back to tutoring at the college for $8 an hour or whatever it is they're paying now since Walker cut the budget
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
Why are you so concerned about someone who doesn't work getting money?
if GBI was a thing I'd probably go back to tutoring at the college for $8 an hour or whatever it is they're paying now since Walker cut the budget
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
Why not just cut a check to everyone and tax it away from people who ended up picking up a job?
Why create unnecessary overhead?
That government program requires employees.
It requires a building in each county.
It requires utilities.
It requires managers.
Imagine just taking all those costs and paying slightly more per person. Those people who would take those jobs are now freed up to do what they want rather than making rent this month.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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Nbspshe laughs, like Godher mind's like a diamondRegistered Userregular
if GBI was a thing I'd probably go back to tutoring at the college for $8 an hour or whatever it is they're paying now since Walker cut the budget
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
Why are you so concerned about someone who doesn't work getting money?
if GBI was a thing I'd probably go back to tutoring at the college for $8 an hour or whatever it is they're paying now since Walker cut the budget
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
Why are you so concerned about someone who doesn't work getting money?
It's a dangerous precedent.
Why?
Rich people who are born rich tend to get jobs or careers even though there's absolutely no reason for them to, and that's without the fact that a GBI wouldn't be a very good living if you didn't want to work
eg: buying a gaming console would be your big luxury purchase for the entire year
override367 on
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
if GBI was a thing I'd probably go back to tutoring at the college for $8 an hour or whatever it is they're paying now since Walker cut the budget
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
Why are you so concerned about someone who doesn't work getting money?
It's a dangerous precedent.
How so? How is the precedent "You shouldn't have to work to avoid starving and having no home and having nothing to make your life worth living" dangerous?
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
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Nbspshe laughs, like Godher mind's like a diamondRegistered Userregular
if GBI was a thing I'd probably go back to tutoring at the college for $8 an hour or whatever it is they're paying now since Walker cut the budget
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
Why not just cut a check to everyone and tax it away from people who ended up picking up a job?
Why create unnecessary overhead?
That government program requires employees.
It requires a building in each county.
It requires utilities.
It requires managers.
Imagine just taking all those costs and paying slightly more per person. Those people who would take those jobs are now freed up to do what they want rather than making rent this month.
I don't know, I'll come back later with more answers
Also I identify as a moderate, I am in no way a liberal.
I like policies that make sense. I don't like giving everyone a free ride because they deserve a free ride, I see the general benefits and economics behind such a policy. People who dislike GBI are also the same people who dislike minimum wage because they feel like it doesn't motivate you to be a better person. What they don't get is that there's just not an opportunity to be a better person. There never is.
My friends are basically working minimum wage jobs because there's no jobs for them to have. Some are teachers, some are mechanics, some are scientists. But they can't afford to work those high stress jobs for peanuts, and in some cases can't even get in without some huge barriers to entry.
So they work at walmart and live with their parents and hope an opportunity presents itself. They certainly don't have time to do it pulling in 32 hours a week of the most soul crushing labor possible and making $12,000 a year and barely able to make their student loan payments.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Luck is a funny word. Yes there is no such thing as "luck", but there is plenty of random chance and you just happened to have a series of events line up perfectly that you benefited from it.
I on the other hand had parents that couldn't afford much and I had to work my way through a lot of manual labor to even get to the opportunities I have today.
No one is lazy. It's all about which set of circumstances lined up for you. Tomorrow you could lose your job and your ROI could go tits up. Nothing about being hard working and making your own luck could fix that.
Luck is just an intersection of preparedness and opportunity. Most people are either not prepared or don't know how to spot an opportunity, or both.
My parent's didn't have much to do with it either. My mom is a cashier, and my dad is a mechanic. Their support was as much as any average parent, maybe even less.
Yes, I could always lose my job, or lose a ton of money I invested (maybe even after Greece collapses), but I'm an optimist, and I believe that life finds a way. I'll find a way.
You know what poor people don't have? Opportunity.
You know what rich people have in abundance? Opportunity.
Wrong, everyone has opportunity. The rich are generally better at seeing it, which is often why they get rich.
So the rich deserve to be rich based on merit? And not, say, for example luck of the draw by being born into a rich family?
Because I'm pretty sure that there is no amount of preparedness that gets you ready to be born rich or poor.
A Harvard Grad has the same opportunities as a high school drop out in Mississippi, but is just better at recognizing them?
Even if you want to stay at home and not work a 8 hour a day desk job, that doesn't necessarily people want to do nothing. Even most people who took advantage of a BIG whether it's just enough to scrape by or enough to live at a low but comfortable level, would likely spend their time doing things which interest them but which don't necessarily constitute "work" in our society. Maybe they want to be an artist, or write a book, or spend time trying to invent something. There are a lot of ways people might contribute to our society and even eventually our economy without having a stable 9-5 job that most people think of as "work" and a BIG would help more people do that without worrying about being a literal starving artist or becoming homeless because they wanted to take some time off to work on something that mattered to them personally but which capitalist society isn't interested in paying you a wage to do.
What if explaining how you would contribute to society was a prerequisite for receiving and being accepted GBI?
I think it's a good idea as it gives some accountability.
Hahaha no. Getting rid of such bullshit is why you make it universal without means testing.
Can you imagine the bureaucratic overhead of interviewing 300 million people, and then following up to make sure they're doing what they said they would?
Can you imagine how this could be used to screw specific minorities that the person in charge dislikes? In the past, African Americans were specifically screwed out of numerous social programs because of racism.
I don't think you thought this through. You want to make everyone's personal actions accountable to the state.
Make people record what they will do in writing, and then do random audits every year.
Politicians absolutely will not go for this.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
if GBI was a thing I'd probably go back to tutoring at the college for $8 an hour or whatever it is they're paying now since Walker cut the budget
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
Why are you so concerned about someone who doesn't work getting money?
See I'm pretty liberal, I have no problem with people who want to make lets play videos but only have 500 viewers living off GBI and doing what makes them happy
however, lets say that I was
From a pure utilitarian point of view, establishing a "fitness to receive money" bureaucracy to avoid people who don't want to work is problematic on a number of levels.
Who decides what is and isn't valid work? Let's say that letsplayer above makes $12,000 a year from it because he has more viewers. Does he qualify? Lets say he makes $100,000 a year, you're certainly going to tax him, does he qualify for the GBI or are you just taking more taxes from him and not giving?
If we say there is a social value in the one that makes 100,000, why do we not say the one that makes $12k or the one that makes $3k has a social value?
Even if we just use hard and fast measures of fitness (and just instantly exclude everyone from nebulous "new" industries from the system entirely), what's to stop a nefarious "employment" industry from popping up for the express purpose of rubber stamping you as being an employee of theirs to get you by the check? This would be trivially easy, they give you some BS makework and post their profits and pay you a "salary" but you have to pay them for the service.
We could establish a law against such a practice, great, and enforce it with a bureacracy. So it adjusts to meet the new terms of the law, and so on and so forth until we end up with the lines between "doesn't work" and "does work" being blurry. Then we need to decide what percentage of fraud is acceptable
So either we establish a larger and larger bureaucracy to catch fraud, crushing more and more people who are legitimately trying each time we tighten the net, and costing more and more taxpayer resources (to the point where the net savings is negative as is frequently the case with CURRENT welfare fraud schemes, EG Florida)
or we just establish that some people are going to not work and live with it, and pay everyone the money we were going to spend on that - as a utilitarian I know which I prefer
Or we can do what we currently do which is to attach a big ol expensive asterix to our social welfare programs to the point where millions and millions of people fall through the cracks (EG: I can't recieve food stamps because I am a student, which was a measure designed to stop wealthy students from getting food stamps. Except I'm not that!)
if GBI was a thing I'd probably go back to tutoring at the college for $8 an hour or whatever it is they're paying now since Walker cut the budget
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
Why are you so concerned about someone who doesn't work getting money?
It's a dangerous precedent.
Is it a dangerous precedent that if you're rich you don't have to work? Even if it's just from inherited wealth?
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Because it's what I've always done, even before it was an official job.
Does someone have a clearer rationale?
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I made my own luck, I didn't wait for it to happen. Technically there is no such thing as "luck".
It's too bad your knees got fucked, and you were probably a hard worker, but I don't see how it would stop you from doing most other things unless your goal was to become some kind of athlete.
https://db.tt/jomDp038
What if explaining how you would contribute to society was a prerequisite for receiving and being accepted for GBI?
I think it's a good idea as it gives some accountability.
my only objection to someone sitting around playing video games is a visceral gut reaction though, I know intellectually it will be a very very small chunk of the pie
anyway, for every person who takes their lavish $15k a year or whatever and sits around doing absolutely nothing, there will be 50 who will still have jobs and 10 who pursue their life's passion - something they always wanted to do but couldn't for fear of homelessness/starvation. Be that opening a restaurant or becoming a stand up comedian or making pottery, whatever
Luck is a funny word. Yes there is no such thing as "luck", but there is plenty of random chance and you just happened to have a series of events line up perfectly that you benefited from it.
I on the other hand had parents that couldn't afford much and I had to work my way through a lot of manual labor to even get to the opportunities I have today.
No one is lazy. It's all about which set of circumstances lined up for you. Tomorrow you could lose your job and your ROI could go tits up. Nothing about being hard working and making your own luck could fix that.
why? who gets to decide?
Why is it necessary in a single country that has as much wealth as europe?
Why is there no inherent value in a human life?
Explaining your usefulness to society is ridiculous. It's literally a Twilight Zone episode about fascism
Now here is a high horse statement that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Hahaha no. Getting rid of such bullshit is why you make it universal without means testing.
Can you imagine the bureaucratic overhead of interviewing 300 million people, and then following up to make sure they're doing what they said they would?
Can you imagine how this could be used to screw specific minorities that the person in charge dislikes? In the past, African Americans were specifically screwed out of numerous social programs because of racism.
I don't think you thought this through. You want to make everyone's personal actions accountable to the state.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Please, show me in the above quotation where I used the word minor. I have not trivialized your concerns in the way you are attempting to trivialize any arguments that disagree with your position.
1) You are absolutely correct that it's a talking point, because getting into the details of the specific tax exemptions that can only be used when you're incredibly wealthy should be a discussion in a separate thread.
1a) You are correct, I want capital gains to be taxed in the same manner as any other source of income should be taxed.
1b) Why is this nonsensical? Why not charge an export tax on money transfers to outside of the country? This would prevent private citizens from using locations with lax tax laws to offshore and hide their income, as well as corporations.
Please don't be dismissive of my discussion points.
You make it so that for a corporation to spend money in the US, they have to have the money in the US. Combined with eliminating holidays and requiring proper taxation on funds brought into the US, you eliminate the incentives to offshore. Or, as suggested in 1b above, you tax them for foreign profits. Better auditing and import/export finance laws can also help combat this issue.
Please don't be dismissive of my discussion points.
According to the CBO, a tax of 0.01% on derivatives alone would generate 180B in the next 8 years. From the New York Times, a 0.03% stock trading tax would generate 352B over 10 years.
I have not attacked Wall Street in general, I have targeted one very specific section that adds absolutely zero value to the stock market.
Please don't be dismissive of my discussion points.
No, you've only credited me for one of the several sources I stated could be used to fund what I also stated was a worst-case cost estimate.
To answer your question, most of it comes from eliminating and/or reducing corporate tax dodges, based on estimates from the CBO and other sources.
Please don't be dismissive of my discussion points or curse at me.
You are correct, it is not a small amount. It is also not an impossible amount, as we spend a similar amount on our military budget every year. And it's certainly a figure I would be willing to give up out of my own paycheck for all of the benefits I see coming from it.
But really, it doesn't matter what I say. You're going to hand wave away everything that disagrees with you and continue on with your own opinion.
Luck is just an intersection of preparedness and opportunity. Most people are either not prepared or don't know how to spot an opportunity, or both.
My parent's didn't have much to do with it either. My mom is a cashier, and my dad is a mechanic. Their support was as much as any average parent, maybe even less.
Yes, I could always lose my job, or lose a ton of money I invested (maybe even after Greece collapses), but I'm an optimist, and I believe that life finds a way. I'll find a way.
No, it would be a shitty idea. It would add a lot of unnecessary overhead to fund and provide no useful utility except making some people feel better that someone wasn't mooching off of "their" tax money. Look, here's the thing. Ideally, on the BIG people would either use it to supplement other forms of income to help them live a more comfortable life, to have some safety net allowing them to argue for better treatment and wages for their work or find a new job if necessary, and allow them to pursue worthwhile and fulfilling but not necessarily well paid projects and interests (which would include things like becoming an artist or going back to college or trying to break into a low paying but useful line of work)
Will there be some people who use it to be lazy and do no work? Yes. Are there people like that on our current system? Yes. But the thing is that firstly, the number of those people is super low the vast majority of people would pursue at least some meaningful work even if it's just trying to become an actual pro gamer or youtube celebrity. Secondly, trying to weed out those people is far more costly for the system than just ignoring this minority of people and not burdening the majority with some sort of test to try and determine whether they're worthy and thirdly, if someone genuinely does not want to work, I don't think we should force them to especially since society is better of just giving them money than take the risk of them becoming homeless. The economy and society benefits more by having people who just take money and spend it, than risking those people or anyone else not being able to afford food. An economy is all about the flow of goods and money. Even someone who does no work whatsoever under this would still have a decent amount of money to spend on necessities and maybe a few luxuries, which in a capitalist economy, is itself useful. Would it be better if they did something with their lives? Sure. Is it worth trying to force them to, or trying to keep them from being a "leech"? No. it isn't.
You know what poor people don't have? Opportunity.
You know what rich people have in abundance? Opportunity.
Make people record what they will do in writing, and then do random audits every year.
Wrong, everyone has opportunity. The rich are generally better at seeing it, which is often why they get rich.
Life doesn't "find a way". Life is fucking terrible. The entirety of human existence is trying to make our miserable time here easier and more pleasant.
Tired of dying from animals, let's invent weapons.
Dying from food because you can't cook it, let's invent fire.
Tired from carrying stuff around, let's invent the wheel and tame horses.
Tired of looking for food, let's learn to plant crops and invent husbandry.
Tired of getting sick all the time, let's study germ theory.
Tired of taking months to travel by boat, fuck it let's figure out how to move so fast we can defy motherfucking gravity.
Tired of not being connected, let's connect to each other by vibrating electrons and sending light signals over metal and fiber optics.
Every single innovation is because we're tired of the grind our life has become.
You want something that says GBI is a good idea look no further than that. Now imagine hundreds of millions of people that are free to do whatever they want.
Study math, invent new things to make your life easier. Your life. Not their life, everyone's lives. Maybe tomorrow some dude invents teleportation. Have you ever wanted to go to the moon or across the earth in a second?
What are your dreams and aspirations? Is working 9-5 every day chasing money helping with those? Maybe you want to travel the world. But in today's society you need money to do that. A lot of it. But why should you? That's the ultimate end game if GBI.
But the first step is to stop capitalizing on slave labor and sweat equity because it's less painful than thinking of someone taking "your" $20,000 a year and jacking off into a sock all day every day.
Hey @nbsp
How about replying to this?
Ah yes, let's stick people under extreme scrutiny and let a bureaucrat decide if someone's life is valuable or not
This would still require a lot of unnecessary overhead to tackle a vanishingly rare problem that's not even really a problem in the first place. The only reason to do this is because of some moral panic about some people not wanting to work. Who gives a shit? If someone is willing and able to do nothing but take their stipend of government money and spend it without contributing anything meaningful besides posting on forums and playing video games, I say let them. Economically speaking, they're providing more to the economy and our society than having them be homeless would, and there's really no point in forcing someone to do a job they hate for no reason than because "work is good for you." Someone else will take whatever job they would have had to take to avoid being homeless and on the BIG, it will help them live much more comfortably, than they would otherwise be able to, which is a good enough incentive on their own.
Sorry, didn't see your tiny post with all these titans of texts getting posted up.
A lot of people would be willing to work, but a lot of those people are also the kinds of people who don't need GBI.
If we only look at the people who require GBI, the ratio of people willing to work and people that wouldn't work is probably more skewed toward people that wouldn't work, but I don't pretend to know the hard numbers right now.
I'd rather live on a low paying job + a GBI and do something I get fulfillment out of than what is actually going to happen
eg: graduating and getting a job in an office somewhere and hating my life forever
Truth be told, you don't know any numbers right now, and you're speaking from the gut.
So, why is your experience somehow special from the rest of those who "require" GBI.
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TLDR version: careful not to trip over those bootstraps
So why don't we just have a government program instead where people can apply for basic income to supplement their income if they are working one of these low-paying but still important jobs?
Modest though such things may be, they are huge steps forward at the fundamental level compared to most of the working poor.
I started with every concievable luck-based advantage. I was born into a new-money household by hardworking (though psychotic) parents with multiple houses, cars, massive investment portfolios, full ride scholarships through high school and college, nepotism opportunities along the way to give me that little nudge to worm into slightly better positions than my peers. I know what luck is because I can identify all of those home-field advantages that come from being in the top 20% of income from day one.
I eventually left all that behind to work in education because I recognized that disparity, and my work these days is mostly in ensuring students without those opportunities have the means and support to get through them. I see daily both the real numbers at an institutional, state, and federal level that reflect these cases and in the horrifying realities that an overwhelming amount of people, even students with the base advantages you talk about "making" struggle to even find enough money for textbooks, tuition, rent, and food (with food usually getting sacrificed). About 8% of all college students nationwide qualify as having hunger conditions (being able to afford less than 700 calories a day). This isn't due to wasting their monthly allowance from home on money on ipods and caramel machiatto lattes, but because they literally have no money left after meeting their basic obligations for survival. We track the "wealthy hungry" populations as well, they end up being about .05% of our institutional food pantry clients which is noticable but relatively unimportant in the mission.
Sort of how your "i wouldn't work" assumption population numbers are relatively unimportant. There are loads of data on the percentages of welfare "cheats" out there and their percentage is always a tiny fraction of the good use of the whole (literally every time). With things like Basic Income those concerns are even less as the money going out serves as local economic stimulus on a theoretical level since that money can't be squirreled away into something relatively bad for the functional economy like a trust.
As a final note: given the info on this page your "ok give us BI if we cut all capital gains" is the most hilariously self-serving and entitled thing ever.
GBI helps everybody have more more opportunities, more leverage in looking for work and getting better treatment, and helps everyone make it through difficult times which almost everyone will experience at some point. GBI is something that would benefit everyone, and a lot of people would probably "require" it at some point in their lives
and I disagree that even among those you probably think "require" it most would prefer not to work. And even if they do, I think it's better they get a GBI than nothing. A protestant work ethic for its own sake is toxic and utterly without merit.
Why are you so concerned about someone who doesn't work getting money?
Why not just cut a check to everyone and tax it away from people who ended up picking up a job?
Why create unnecessary overhead?
That government program requires employees.
It requires a building in each county.
It requires utilities.
It requires managers.
Imagine just taking all those costs and paying slightly more per person. Those people who would take those jobs are now freed up to do what they want rather than making rent this month.
It's a dangerous precedent.
Why?
Rich people who are born rich tend to get jobs or careers even though there's absolutely no reason for them to, and that's without the fact that a GBI wouldn't be a very good living if you didn't want to work
eg: buying a gaming console would be your big luxury purchase for the entire year
How so? How is the precedent "You shouldn't have to work to avoid starving and having no home and having nothing to make your life worth living" dangerous?
I don't know, I'll come back later with more answers
I like policies that make sense. I don't like giving everyone a free ride because they deserve a free ride, I see the general benefits and economics behind such a policy. People who dislike GBI are also the same people who dislike minimum wage because they feel like it doesn't motivate you to be a better person. What they don't get is that there's just not an opportunity to be a better person. There never is.
My friends are basically working minimum wage jobs because there's no jobs for them to have. Some are teachers, some are mechanics, some are scientists. But they can't afford to work those high stress jobs for peanuts, and in some cases can't even get in without some huge barriers to entry.
So they work at walmart and live with their parents and hope an opportunity presents itself. They certainly don't have time to do it pulling in 32 hours a week of the most soul crushing labor possible and making $12,000 a year and barely able to make their student loan payments.
So the rich deserve to be rich based on merit? And not, say, for example luck of the draw by being born into a rich family?
Because I'm pretty sure that there is no amount of preparedness that gets you ready to be born rich or poor.
A Harvard Grad has the same opportunities as a high school drop out in Mississippi, but is just better at recognizing them?
Politicians absolutely will not go for this.
One you are currently living?
however, lets say that I was
From a pure utilitarian point of view, establishing a "fitness to receive money" bureaucracy to avoid people who don't want to work is problematic on a number of levels.
Who decides what is and isn't valid work? Let's say that letsplayer above makes $12,000 a year from it because he has more viewers. Does he qualify? Lets say he makes $100,000 a year, you're certainly going to tax him, does he qualify for the GBI or are you just taking more taxes from him and not giving?
If we say there is a social value in the one that makes 100,000, why do we not say the one that makes $12k or the one that makes $3k has a social value?
Even if we just use hard and fast measures of fitness (and just instantly exclude everyone from nebulous "new" industries from the system entirely), what's to stop a nefarious "employment" industry from popping up for the express purpose of rubber stamping you as being an employee of theirs to get you by the check? This would be trivially easy, they give you some BS makework and post their profits and pay you a "salary" but you have to pay them for the service.
We could establish a law against such a practice, great, and enforce it with a bureacracy. So it adjusts to meet the new terms of the law, and so on and so forth until we end up with the lines between "doesn't work" and "does work" being blurry. Then we need to decide what percentage of fraud is acceptable
So either we establish a larger and larger bureaucracy to catch fraud, crushing more and more people who are legitimately trying each time we tighten the net, and costing more and more taxpayer resources (to the point where the net savings is negative as is frequently the case with CURRENT welfare fraud schemes, EG Florida)
or we just establish that some people are going to not work and live with it, and pay everyone the money we were going to spend on that - as a utilitarian I know which I prefer
Or we can do what we currently do which is to attach a big ol expensive asterix to our social welfare programs to the point where millions and millions of people fall through the cracks (EG: I can't recieve food stamps because I am a student, which was a measure designed to stop wealthy students from getting food stamps. Except I'm not that!)
Is it a dangerous precedent that if you're rich you don't have to work? Even if it's just from inherited wealth?