A guaranteed income for every American

[Omega10]

The working class doesn't have the skills that the market requires - too many people work unskilled jobs and too few people can work skilled jobs. So, you end up moving unskilled jobs overseas and importing people with skilled jobs form other countries, and you end up with a population that can't do anything useful.

What needs to happen is that all effort should be put in improving education so the skills of the working population are adequate for the market. This means a few things:

1. High school education should be relevant. Maybe reduce hours for things like philosophy and put an emphasis on math and technology.

2. College should be accessible. Maybe not the Ivy League private colleges, but public colleges should be good enough and affordable.

3. There should be programs to retrain people for jobs that are relevant for the market, with adaptable hours (for example, a college that you can visit in the evening, after you finish working your main job).

What is NOT going to work:

Dumping money on people. This doesn't provide an incentive to improve or acquire new skills. Over time more and more people will rely on this basic income and they will represent the needs of the market less and less, and this will cause and economic collapse.

What is also NOT going to work:

Forcing companies with legislation to pay more for unskilled work.

Everything is so globalized by now that most major companies have offices in all kinds of countries. Which means that they can fire all of their unskilled US employees and hire them in a different country with different laws. Google, for example, has an office in 20 European countries, 16 Asian countries, 6 countries in Latin America and 5 African countries. If you make laws harsh enough, they will mostly leave the US and you will lose billions of tax revenue.

A lot of people are as upset as you are at how much money poor, working class, and middle class Americans make. You made a very stirring defense of defunding these groups as much as possible. Of course, the people you are attacking the most are Trump supporters. Many Trump supporters are starting to understand just how persistent you are in trying to reduce their already meager standard of living.

[downnola]

meh. I'm naturally suspicious when my political and ideological opponents adopt a position I share. Murray is not in favor of UBI out of any progressive or charitable notions.

Sounds more like an ideological and/or a paranoia problem, rather than a legitimate reaction that anyone ought to have. That combination of cynicism and self-righteousness is exactly why I find the vast majority of ideologues so insufferable. It's more likely that your "ideological opponents" are breaking free of their quasi-religious chains and taking part in some honest critical thinking. It seems to me that kind of activity should be encouraged; not hand-waved away.

[Omega10]

This sounds like Socialism, and we don't need no Communist government telling us good people how to live our lives, and handing out charity to the lazy and the poor.

It IS a form of socialism, and more and more "lazy" will be anyone who is less efficient than the automated robots that industry produces. And you think handing out charity to the poor is evil??? Your last statement directly states that.

[Glorious Leader]

Sounds more like an ideological and/or a paranoia problem, rather than a legitimate reaction that anyone ought to have. That combination of cynicism and self-righteousness is exactly why I find the vast majority of ideologues so insufferable. It's more likely that your "ideological opponents" are breaking free of their quasi-religious chains and taking part in some honest critical thinking. It seems to me that kind of activity should be encouraged; not hand-waved away.

Really? You dont think theirs anything a tad suspicious about folks who are typically opposed to a welfare state suddenly in favor of a massive welfare program?

[downnola]

Really? You dont think theirs anything a tad suspicious about folks who are typically opposed to a welfare state suddenly in favor of a massive welfare program?

"suddenly"

[Glorious Leader]

I'm fine with cutting the other programs, provided the UBI amount is basically just whatever it costs to live. Medical care, housing, food, utilities, maybe a small transportation stipend, plus whatever else a person needs to just exist in a housing unit.

Which is fine. This is not what murray is proposing.

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"suddenly"

These are wholly different propositions. Furthetmore the negative income tax is not a means to provide a basic living income. Its just like murrays proposal. More trojan horse libertarianism

[Deletedaccount1]

Murray isnt suggesting this out of some love for people or the welfare state. Murrays proposal also eliminates other government programs in favor of giving the UBI. It ends up being alot less received. Its really just another way of shrinking the state cause my freedom.

UBI is great but not if UBI is a tool to undermine the social safety net. Thats also why the OP is in favor of it. Its a trojan horse to sneak in practically religious libertarian ideology. In the aggregate you shrink the government and people will be poorer for it.

Yeah everything is a big conspiracy. And no $10,000 plus $3000 for healthcare would not end up being a lot less received. Government should be unnecessarily big and bureaucratic for no reason, great logic.

I know exactly what your thoughts are on this though because of how intellectually uncharitable you are and your denial of how existing welfare programs are running out of money so I don't really need to hear it all again.

[Glorious Leader]

Yeah everything is a big conspiracy. And no $10,000 plus $3000 for healthcare would not end up being a lot less received. Government should be unnecessarily big and beuqacratic for no reason, great logic.

In murrays case its not a conspiracy hes quite explicit about it.

https://qz.com/789889/a-universal-ba...ping-the-rich/

Of course the incredible stupidity of wanting to drown government in a bath tub so you can be "free" never dawns on clown libertarians. They never saw a tax cut they didnt like and a government program they couldnt wait to annihilate just because.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Maybe on top of other programs but considering this racist white supremacist track record, if there is any idea he is apart of, I am far the fuck from supporting it, without scrutiny over ever single detail, and requirement he and other Racist, sexist homophobic idiots of the Conservative think AEI are nowhere near it.

[Deletedaccount1]

These are wholly different propositions. Furthetmore the negative income tax is not a means to provide a basic living income. Its just like murrays proposal. More trojan horse libertarianism

It's not a whole different proposition. The entire idea of a UBI that leftists parade around is a bastardization of Friedman's negative income tax.

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In murrays case its not a conspiracy hes quite explicit about it.

https://qz.com/789889/a-universal-ba...ping-the-rich/

Of course the incredible stupidity of wanting to drown government in a bath tub so you can be "free" never dawns on clown libertarians. They never saw a tax cut they didnt like and a government program they couldnt wait to annihilate just because.

Why is it stupid? Existing welfare programs never pass any audit or cost-benefit analysis, their costs grow every year relative to how much they help. Medicare and social security don't even come close to helping retired people as much as $10,000 + $3000 for health care every year.

I would also say the inverse applies to you, I don't think you've ever seen a tax increase or a government program you couldn't wait to create.

[Glorious Leader]

It's not a whole different proposition. The entire idea of a UBI that leftists parade around is a bastardization of Friedman's negative income tax.

It is a wholly different proposition as most leftists argue for a UBI as a means of offering basic living guarantee and not merely a more effecient rransfer payment. Of course god king milt suggested it, whereas as the entire host of socialist thinkers before him who argued for an even more expansive basic guarante cam be safely ignored.

[Deletedaccount1]

It is a wholly different proposition as most leftists argue for a UBI as a means of offering basic living guarantee and not merely a more effecient rransfer payment. Of course god king milt suggested it, whereas as the entire host of socialist thinkers before him who argued for an even more expansive basic guarante cam be safely ignored.

You said that it was strange that thinkers who have always been against the welfare state would support it now when someone else gave you an example of how that's not true. The predecessors who helped think of the UBI were More and Paine who were not socialists. I'm sure socialist thinkers play a role but that's not what that person called you out on, it was a critique of you being intellectually uncharitable for no reason.

[Tinykong]

Which is fine. This is not what murray is proposing.

No one said it was, another poster and I were discussing our opinions about UBI.

[nanook12]

UBI is an unrealistic falsity for naive childish minds.

[Fugus]

UBI is an unrealistic falsity for naive childish minds.

Reminds me of the old saying, "All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed, then it is violently opposed, then it is blatantly self evident".

Seems as though we are still at the first step here.

[Hiricine]

I think part of the premise of UBI is that you could just bundle up all the welfare programs and actually save money by not having to worry about actually having anyone work at these agencies, just mail a check to everyone and be done with it.

Of course the entire thing just reeks of redistribution, since if you have a billionaire paying 80 million in taxes every year and he gets 3000$ back in UBI, its not the same rebate someone making 5000$ each year and paying 0$ in taxes gets from that 3k. Ironically, the universality of it is part of the problem. Of course, as a compromise solution as someone who opposes welfare in its entirety, if it saves money it sounds like a good move to make.

[Mafic]

I like the idea of free healthcare and expansion of SNAP a lot more than UBI at the moment.

UBI would work only in a scenario where machines do the majority of the tasks and make literally everything so human work isn't needed.

[Kellhound]

I would only consider it if the recipient meet one of the following:
A: was a full time student working on a degree
B: was employed at least 20 hours a week at minimum wage or better
C: performed at least 20 hours of approved community service
D: provided full time care to a relative
E: was certified by a medical professional to be physically or mentally unfit to do any of the above
F: was over 65

[Elegiac]

I would only consider it if the recipient meet one of the following:
A: was a full time student working on a degree
B: was employed at least 20 hours a week at minimum wage or better
C: performed at least 20 hours of approved community service
D: provided full time care to a relative
E: was certified by a medical professional to be physically or mentally unfit to do any of the above
F: was over 65

How about we just give it to everyone and skip the bureaucratic mess of requirement enforcement.

This doesn't resolve the issue of people who are permanently unemployed.

[Stormdash]

As ever, the question becomes, why don't we just cut a billion dollar check to everyone now? Since ideas like this are in no way anchored to fiscal reality anyway, i.e. where the money to pay from it comes from. The lower middle class edge cases will have a serious, serious incentive to just move from working taxpayers to the teat, and that lowers the pool. Other People's Money is a finite resource that gets tighter and tighter the less motivation they have to keep generating it. Truly, hopefully, we have reached Peak Statism if this is the kind of batshit lunacy we spend time debating as public policy.