Interesting article regarding Unversal Basic Income

[Gameface]

Quick question - what would happen to the Education industry if high school kids know they can just graduate then live on handouts and not need to go to college and get a job? Why would they bother getting a student loan?


Kids nowadays all they want to do is sit in front of TV playing xbox, or snapchats, or hook up on facebook.


What would motivate them to go out and have a career?

Once again, you're holding up this idea that the purpose of human life is to go work for someone. What if that wasn't the standard of a life well spent?

 

[The Midnight]

Once again, you're holding up this idea that the purpose of human life is to go work for someone. What if that wasn't the standard of a life well spent?

So you'd rather somebody grow up playing xbox than finding a cure for cancer?

 

[Gameface]

So you'd rather somebody grow up playing xbox than finding a cure for cancer?

The two things are not mutually exclusive and neither really has anything to do with our current model of going through public education to get trained to provide labor for 40hrs/wk vs a world where much of our production will be automated and we will not need/want a labor force as is presently required.

So the question is, once robots are making our stuff far more cheaply than people in India, China, Mexico, and this stuff is available for pretty much everyone at extremely low prices, what do we do with all these people who no longer are required as labor? How will they earn a living if we don't need them to work?

There will be the owners of capital who will be doing MUCH better in that automated world than they are doing today.

Do we hold onto this idea that the point of human life is to wake up before dawn and drag yourself to your labor station and produce widgits for 8hrs a day if your a do the bare minimum type or for 60hrs/wk if you're a hard worker? Just tell all the unemployed people that it's their fault they can't find a good job, that they are lazy, even though reality is that there are 1/10th the jobs there used to be?

If your idea is to convert the labor force into a cure for cancer force let's hear how that will work. You think most people punching a clock today are working towards a cure for cancer?

 

[Beantown]

Once again, you're holding up this idea that the purpose of human life is to go work for someone. What if that wasn't the standard of a life well spent?

A society that is not based around hard work and solving problems sounds horrible.

 

[Gameface]

I should say, I'm not really any kind of expert, but I do have experience in the automated world.

In the Navy I worked on automated weapon systems. At IM Flash Technologies I worked on automated semiconductor fabrication equipment. Presently I work on automated food packaging lines. I actually think I'll have an easier and easier time finding work doing what I do, repairing automated systems when they break down, but I've seen enough to realize that even what I do, at some point, will also be automated.

 

[Gameface]

A society that is not based around hard work and solving problems sounds horrible.

You added the solving problems part, why?

 

[Beantown]

You added the solving problems part, why?

You can't solve problems without hard work and dedication.

 

[green]

Bro welfare can be dope. Section 8 housing. Food stamps plus you need to get on WIC for that bonus. Take a few college courses for that $6000 pell grant. Work very little to get like $5,000 in earned income credit plus a couple more grand for kids. Send your kids to free school breakfast an lunch then sell your food stamps to neighbors.

All you have to earn is like $5,000 a year an take a few recreational management classes like golfing an kayak.

Sounds like most of Utah County. You forgot to add in the under the table jobs your father in law gives you and the $28,000 a year your parents "gift" you every year.

That would be UC to a T.

 

[The Midnight]

The two things are not mutually exclusive and neither really has anything to do with our current model of going through public education to get trained to provide labor for 40hrs/wk vs a world where much of our production will be automated and we will not need/want a labor force as is presently required.

So the question is, once robots are making our stuff far more cheaply than people in India, China, Mexico, and this stuff is available for pretty much everyone at extremely low prices, what do we do with all these people who no longer are required as labor? How will they earn a living if we don't need them to work?

There will be the owners of capital who will be doing MUCH better in that automated world than they are doing today.

Do we hold onto this idea that the point of human life is to wake up before dawn and drag yourself to your labor station and produce widgits for 8hrs a day if your a do the bare minimum type or for 60hrs/wk if you're a hard worker? Just tell all the unemployed people that it's their fault they can't find a good job, that they are lazy, even though reality is that there are 1/10th the jobs there used to be?

If your idea is to convert the labor force into a cure for cancer force let's hear how that will work. You think most people punching a clock today are working towards a cure for cancer?

You're trying the envision the world where robots can do and make everything cheaper. The problem is we're not at that point yet so it's too difficult to visualize what life might be like at that time.


As we stand, robots aren't making everything cheaply and affordable, and we're still relying a lot on human's labour to make things. If you don't go to work today you starve, plain and simple. Once things change, make changes accordingly. But we're not there yet.


Therefore to me this 'handout' is premature.

 

[The Midnight]

Abstract question for [MENTION=26]Gameface[/MENTION]


Look at it this way. Let's say there's no rich nor poor. View the mankind as a whole as just 1 big group of people. Are we at the stage where we as a group don't have to go outside and physically grow and harvest food to survive? Are we at the point where everything is automated and 'doing nothing' is a viable option?



To me the answer is no. Yes, technology is improving, but it hasn't improved THAT much.

 

[fishonjazz]

Just tell all the unemployed people that it's their fault they can't find a good job, that they are lazy, even though reality is that there are 1/10th the jobs there used to be?

If your idea is to convert the labor force into a cure for cancer force let's hear how that will work. You think most people punching a clock today are working towards a cure for cancer?

I like these two parts of your post best.

 

[Miggs]

I'd like [MENTION=133]GVC[/MENTION] or other "economists" either by degree, job, trade, or some other manner, to chime in here.

 

[The Midnight]

I'd like [MENTION=133]GVC[/MENTION] or other "economists" either by degree, job, trade, or some other manner, to chime in here.

Here's an article from the Economist:

https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21699907-proponents-basic-income-underestimate-how-disruptive-it-would-be-basically-flawed

Basically flawed

Proponents of a basic income underestimate how disruptive it would be

WORK is one of society’s most important institutions. It is the main mechanism through which spending power is allocated. It provides people with meaning, structure and identity. Yet work is a less generous, and less certain, provider of these benefits than it once was. Since 2000 economic growth across the rich world has failed to generate decent pay increases for most workers. Now there is growing fear of a more fundamental threat to the world of work: the possibility that new technologies, from machine learning to driverless cars, will cause havoc to employment.

Such worries have revived interest in an old idea: the payment of a “universal basic income”, an unconditional government payment given to all citizens, as a supplement to or replacement for wages (see article). On June 5th Swiss citizens will decide in a referendum whether to require their government to adopt a basic income. Finland and the Netherlands are planning limited experiments in which some citizens are paid a monthly income of roughly €1,000 ($1,100). People from all points on the ideological spectrum, from trade unionists to libertarians, are supporters. It is an idea whose day may come. But not soon.

The basic income is an answer to a problem that has not yet materialised. Worries that technological advance would mean the end of employment have, thus far, always proved misguided; as jobs on the farm were destroyed, work in the factory was created. Today’s angst over robots and artificial intelligence may well turn out to be another in a long line of such scares. A much-quoted study suggesting that 47% of today’s jobs could be automated in the next two decades looks too gloomy, for example (see article). Machines may one day be a match for many workers at most tasks. But that is not a reason to rush to adopt a basic income immediately.

If the need for a basic income is unproven, the costs are certain. Its universality is designed to encourage citizens to think of the payment as a basic right. However, universality also means that the policy would be fantastically costly. An economy as rich as America’s could afford to pay citizens a basic income worth about $10,000 a year if it began collecting about as much tax as a share of GDP as Germany (35%, as opposed to the current 26%) and replaced all other welfare programmes (including Social Security, or pensions, but not including health care) with the basic-income payment.

Such a big jump in the size of the state should make anyone wary. Even if levied efficiently, on an immovable asset like land, tax rises on this scale would have unpredictable effects on growth and wealth creation. Yet an income of $10,000 is still extremely low: it would leave many poorer people, such as those who rely on the state pension, worse off than they are now—at the same time as billionaires started getting more money from the state.

A universal basic income would also destroy the conditionality on which modern welfare states are built. During an experiment with a basic-income-like programme in Manitoba, Canada, most people continued to work. But over time, the stigma against leaving the workforce would surely erode: large segments of society could drift into an alienated idleness. Tensions between those who continue to work and pay taxes and those opting out weaken the current system; under a basic income, they could rip the welfare state apart.

Lastly, a basic income would make it almost impossible for countries to have open borders. The right to an income would encourage rich-world governments either to shut the doors to immigrants, or to create second-class citizenries without access to state support.

Basic questions
Make no mistake: modern welfare states leave plenty to be desired. Disability benefits are for many people an unsatisfactory version of a basic income, providing those who will no longer work with enough to get by. But rather than upend society with radical welfare reforms premised on a job-killing technological revolution that has not yet happened, governments should make better use of the tools they already have.

Labour-market reforms—to crack down on occupational licensing, say—would boost employment growth. More generous wage subsidies, such as an earned-income tax credit, would help people stay out of poverty. Long-overdue public investment in infrastructure would foster demand. Relaxing planning restrictions would create jobs in construction, and homes for workers in places with robust economies.

A universal basic income might just make sense in a world of technological upheaval. But before governments begin planning for a world without work, they should strive to make today’s system function better.

 

[Boris]

Also, 100,000,000 households x $2,000 a month is $2,400,000,000,000 a year spent on this. That's 2.4 quadrillion provided annually here. Not billion. Not trillion. Quadrillion. The math just ain't gonna work. Obviously, welfare costs, unemployment costs, and such could be cut back, but still, there is no way in hell the country is saving that much money. It doesn't seem even close to fiscally possible or responsible. Could a better "economist" here spell out the math a bit better for me in a way that works?

The 2K a month is based off a figure Siro threw out there. If it's 2K a year as mentioned in the article, that's still 200,000,000,000 or 200 trillion a year.

So help me out here. Because I just don't see it working in any way, shape or form.

Math lesson time. It is 2.4 trillion yo. You are adding 4 zeroes an multiplying by 24 not adding 6 zeroes to one hundred million. One hundred million plus three zeroes is 100 billion. Add a nother ZERO an you are at trillion.

 

[Boris]

See you and boris come off like you think welfare is some lucrative situation to be in.

I have people in my life who I'm close to who are on welfare. Their lifestyle is far from lucrative. They are struggling.... bad. And they even have side hustles, that are not on the up and up, to try to add some income to get them by. They are barely making it. Don't have no gaming systems, fancy phones, or working vehicles. They take the bus when they need groceries, clothes so worn out and second hand. They are not happy. A lot of the reason they are in the situation they are is their own faults (convicted felons, and never getting an education are a few) but they were also dealt horrible hands in life (mom smoking Crack in front of us whenever I was at their house when I was a kid, father dead.... again, just to name a few)

Ya'll act like being poor and on welfare is a wonderful life..... like its easy street.

Head down to a slum/ghetto around you and check out the lavish lifestyle being lived by people on welfare. Hell, watch a few episodes of the TV show shameless.

Welfare aint no gravy train of money pouring in making life all cushy. At least not from what i have seen of my friends (and some of my in-law family members) lifestyles.

See you and boris come off like you think welfare is some lucrative situation to be in.

I have people in my life who I'm close to who are on welfare. Their lifestyle is far from lucrative. They are struggling.... bad. And they even have side hustles, that are not on the up and up, to try to add some income to get them by. They are barely making it. Don't have no gaming systems, fancy phones, or working vehicles. They take the bus when they need groceries, clothes so worn out and second hand. They are not happy. A lot of the reason they are in the situation they are is their own faults (convicted felons, and never getting an education are a few) but they were also dealt horrible hands in life (mom smoking Crack in front of us whenever I was at their house when I was a kid, father dead.... again, just to name a few)

Ya'll act like being poor and on welfare is a wonderful life..... like its easy street.

Head down to a slum/ghetto around you and check out the lavish lifestyle being lived by people on welfare. Hell, watch a few episodes of the TV show shameless.

Welfare aint no gravy train of money pouring in making life all cushy. At least not from what i have seen of my friends (and some of my in-law family members) lifestyles.

I ain't actin like nuthin bro I am telling you how dope it can be if you do it right. I live in a travel trailer on a half acre I have posted pictures ask one love. I am doing just fine an love my life. I do not even get section 8 or utility subsidies but I only pay like 100 bucks a year in property taxes. I hunt pheasant an fish in the creek that runs through my property an get some spare pumpkins an stuff from the farmers in the fall. I donate my time at a local church handing out meals to the poor once per week an they send me home with more groceries then 3 people could eat, all tax free for two hours per week. I help the farmers harvest an they pay me in cash. Sometimes I put in 4 hours per week sometimes 60 when they are in a bind an raise me from $8 to $12 per hour. In the winter this rich guy pays me to plow his snow on his 4 wheeler an shovel the walls his neighbors all rich bitches gave me work too an I act all poor an tell stories about starving dependants so they give me tons of stuff at Christmas time I give to my nieces an nephews. There parents pay me a lot for it I got like $1200 last year plus like $300 a day shoveling an plowing snow at 4 a.m. Plus free carhart coveralls that I sleep in an snow boots an gloves. I go to the laundry mat an they let me wash for free if I clean all the traps an make bank runs it is boring so why not? My neighbor farmer has a hose he lets me use so no water bill ever. That's like 1200 per year.

None of this is taxable income. I earn about 6,000 a year at Maverick an get like 5,000 in tax credits an a ton in food stamps free medical at the clinic an some sweet pell grant cash. I used that three years ago to buy solar panels an a Trojan deep cell battery bank for my trailer. 8 batteries an two 110 watt panels I got enough electricity to run a electric heater almost all night now it does not matter if it is cloudy or not. No electricity bill an sleeping in carharts is so comfy.

I cook on a fire so no electric no gas no water almost no property tax no groceries hell I have to give them away to the farmers an illegals no cable only wifi bill.

 

[Miggs]

Math lesson time. It is 2.4 trillion yo. You are adding 4 zeroes an multiplying by 24 not adding 6 zeroes to one hundred million. One hundred million plus three zeroes is 100 billion. Add a nother ZERO an you are at trillion.

Yeah that's what I originally wrote. Then I looked again at the figure and thought it was quadrillion. My bad.

 

[franklin]

Hold up a sec. [MENTION=40]Siro[/MENTION] worries about job losses to tech but he wants to replace are current base universal income programs with a straight up cash dump? The only benefit of that is getting rid of the myriad beaurocracies that oversee all these transfer payments. So Bernie Sanders solution to lack of living wage jobs is to eliminate like 3.5 million government living wage jobs?

If you weren't such a jackass people might take posts like this into consideration.

I'd like [MENTION=133]GVC[/MENTION] or other "economists" either by degree, job, trade, or some other manner, to chime in here.

I'm with Boris and One Love (I think). This is far from a new economic idea. Two of the most prominent 20th century economists weren't against the idea, and they weren't liberal bleeding hearts. Milton Friedman (almost staunchly market-based approaches) and Friedrich Hayek (Austrian/Chicago School) both stumbled through this idea, but they did it with a mind of cutting all the various government bureaucracies that administer funds. Despite what the Bernie Sanders of the world tell you, this is a small government based approach.

I disagree with it completely.

I prefer our much hated tax system that targets areas of need. Friedman later on was instrumental in implementing the EITC, another market-based approach to curing poverty. I personally feel this was one of the greatest poverty programs we've come up with. I am no fan of a one size fits all model and that is exactly what UBI is. It will have the same issues that social security currently does: it will benefit those who don't need a transfer payment while leaving those who do behind even further.