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  1. #21
    The Undying
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vatrilian View Post
    These are failed rehashed ideas of the communist systems of old. They had universal income in the Soviet Union it failed miserably. This will fail miserably and is an idea when we didn't have historic unemployment and wages were not rising. People rather work for a living than get a hand out.
    No, it's not. No, it won't. I do love that you try and link a failed communist country with progressive socialist ideas. Super bad faith posting on your part. Congrats.

    UBI is the future, and it already works in the limited forms we currently have in place, but as I said it will take a lot more to get in solidly in place for an entire country. And politicians will be the biggest hurdle. Ones who lie, and claim, for instance, that since it didn't work in the USSR it can't work anywhere. We'll see lots of lies like that.

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Vatrilian View Post
    These are failed rehashed ideas of the communist systems of old. They had universal income in the Soviet Union it failed miserably. This will fail miserably and is an idea when we didn't have historic unemployment and wages were not rising. People rather work for a living than get a hand out.
    Communism, in theory, is the abolishment of the free market, private property and the elimination of social classes. None of which have anything to do with the concept of Universal Basic Income, which is the concept of giving people a basic living wage.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by cubby View Post
    And that's where it will remain until fully implemented WAY down the road. It's a great idea after most of our workforce has been put out of a job through automation and nano-tech printing. But we've a few HUGE milestones to get through first.
    Its definitely an idea that you have to fully commit to, if you don't it will, at best, not work very well.

    For what it is worth, I think UBI is the best people can hope for within the current paradigm (defining that pretty widely), I don't think the automation argument is relevent, but it may prompt us to re-examine what is considered to be valuable or worthwhile work which I think these days is a fucking huge problem.

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    Quote Originally Posted by kaid View Post
    I am dubious how well any results will be unless it is long term enough for people to feel like it is safe and something they can plan on to see the full repercussions of this change.
    There has been a number of studies and this starts to happen pretty quickly. A number of people have criticized it for exactly this reason though, saying that constant economic peril is the reason people get out of poverty (pro tip: it isnt.)

  4. #24
    The Insane Acidbaron's Avatar
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    Going to take quite some time to get this right, like most experiments on this level its rather complex considering all the factors that can't really be fully controlled.

    As those who oppose it, a simple question as every fool can shout they are against it. Provide an alternative solution that maintains a decent standard of living while automation will increasingly kill off low end jobs as each year passes.

    Most of those against this idea are also against any government spending in terms of re-education of the population most effected by it.

    So what's the alternative to all this?

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by zorkuus View Post
    No, but every greedy busineness is run by greedy rich people. They are the problem, they are the ones inflating prices skyhigh.
    Yeah. Regardless of whether or not greed is the cause, UBI enacted on a large scale is guaranteed to cause inflation, and I do not suspect that it will do what it's supposed to do in the long run for that reason. Small scale studies are useful but it's not reflective of what would happen if entire countries adopted UBI, especially large countries like the United States.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Acidbaron View Post
    Going to take quite some time to get this right, like most experiments on this level its rather complex considering all the factors that can't really be fully controlled.

    As those who oppose it, a simple question as every fool can shout they are against it. Provide an alternative solution that maintains a decent standard of living while automation will increasingly kill off low end jobs as each year passes.

    Most of those against this idea are also against any government spending in terms of re-education of the population most effected by it.

    So what's the alternative to all this?
    Higher income taxes for the wealthy, or corporate penalties if they do not pay employees a living wage.

    I'm not against UBI, humans are just exploitative and I don't think it will work due to that reason. UBI -> inflation -> cost of goods and services increases -> cost of living is now higher, rendering UBI essentially useless.

  6. #26
    The Insane Acidbaron's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celista View Post

    Higher income taxes for the wealthy, or corporate penalties if they do not pay employees a living wage.

    I'm not against UBI, humans are just exploitative and I don't think it will work due to that reason. UBI -> inflation -> cost of goods and services increases -> cost of living is now higher, rendering UBI essentially useless.
    Okay but certain jobs will simply disappear so while a better wage leads to more buying power what essentially is good, it still doesn't answer as an alternative to what to do with people who will become long term unemployed, we can re-school some but not all.

    Every program is open to corruption and exploitation, that doesn't mean we should not use it, that simply means the penalties for those abusing the system have to be higher, the whistle blowers have to be protected better so you create an atmosphere of others being more inclined to report others, while still having enough things in place that it doesn't turn into a "stazi" mentality.


    I don't think personally that UBI is the answer to this complicated question, but it is part of the answer. But in short you really didn't provide an alternative to jobs lost due to technological advancements that are starting to knock on our door.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Celista View Post
    Yeah. Regardless of whether or not greed is the cause, UBI enacted on a large scale is guaranteed to cause inflation, and I do not suspect that it will do what it's supposed to do in the long run for that reason. Small scale studies are useful but it's not reflective of what would happen if entire countries adopted UBI, especially large countries like the United States.
    I think it's important to remember that the operative word in UBI is "basic", not "income" - it's not meant as a replacement for income, it's meant to supply people with the means to live at a basic level, and that's it. Not freezing, not starving, not wallowing in filth.

    Everything else is going from there. That's why it's unlikely that UBI would just produce a society of slackers - most people actually want more from life than a roof and a meal each day. I think it's too simplistic to assume that people will only work so they don't starve to death, and not an inch more. ESPECIALLY since the same people making that argument also make the argument that you need to let people become super ridiculously rich because that's an incentive for people to try hard. You can't really have it both ways, can you.

    Quote Originally Posted by Celista View Post
    I'm not against UBI, humans are just exploitative and I don't think it will work due to that reason. UBI -> inflation -> cost of goods and services increases -> cost of living is now higher, rendering UBI essentially useless.
    That is an absolutely valid concern, I think. UBI needs a lot of work put in, and a slew of other changes to go alongside it in order to keep that very problem in check. It's a battle on many different fronts. But I think it's one we must face before long, because we really do need to change the way our economy works. How, though, that is the question. And it's a very, very difficult one to answer. I suspect UBI is part of it one way or another, but it's all about the details - and no one has those figured out yet. That's why experiments like the one in Finland are important.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Gorsameth View Post
    US medical costs are a result of lack of regulation. Nothing to do with tax avoidance or basic income.
    And since regulations are the work of communist devils its a problem that is unlikely to be solved in the forseeable future.
    As someone that works in the Healthcare regulatory industry, I'm going to have to throw a flag on that play (it is Superbowl Sunday).

    Here is what I could find quickly, but direct experience is even more telling. I work for one of the top regulatory reporting companies in the US.
    http://education.healthcaresource.co...mpliance-cost/

    Just the cost in annual HIPAA training for all employees that work in health care is ridiculous.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Celista View Post
    Yeah. Regardless of whether or not greed is the cause, UBI enacted on a large scale is guaranteed to cause inflation, and I do not suspect that it will do what it's supposed to do in the long run for that reason.
    I wasn't really talking about that. But anyways, here in Finland the reason behind UBI isn't to throw "free money" at people. The main goal is to reduce the ridiculous bureaucracy within the welfare system.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Celista View Post
    Higher income taxes for the wealthy, or corporate penalties if they do not pay employees a living wage.

    I'm not against UBI, humans are just exploitative and I don't think it will work due to that reason. UBI -> inflation -> cost of goods and services increases -> cost of living is now higher, rendering UBI essentially useless.
    That's all well and good, but this is largely seen as preparation for when large numbers of jobs disappear entirely. You cut the incentive to jack up prices if the UBI is tied to inflation. Especially if that amount is calculated frequently to prevent price surges. Once people are secure and know that their basics are taken care of, they'll spend money, and the corps will make that money. It's not quite Keynesian, but it's pretty damn close. At a certain point it won't matter that a small percent will just take that check and never work again because they'll be pumping money back into the economy through spending. Because humans want to spend. It's what we do. That money is what drives the economy. A slightly higher sales tax will go a long way to recuperating the negligible amount that a low income family contributes to income tax revenues anyway.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Vatrilian View Post
    These are failed rehashed ideas of the communist systems of old. They had universal income in the Soviet Union it failed miserably. This will fail miserably and is an idea when we didn't have historic unemployment and wages were not rising. People rather work for a living than get a hand out.
    If basic income is a concept so flawed it cannot work in any form, then the world is fucked, because "the robot apocalypse" is coming, and we need to regulate it.
    Mother pus bucket!

  12. #32
    €560 a month is really low to an unemployed person... welfare recipients here in Ireland get €200+ per week... o.O

  13. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Gorsameth View Post
    And why are you talking about tax evasion in a topic about UBI? The two are not related.

    US medical costs are a result of lack of regulation. Nothing to do with tax avoidance or basic income.
    And since regulations are the work of communist devils its a problem that is unlikely to be solved in the forseeable future.
    Biggest complaint about universal basic income is the cost....''we can't afford this''.

    Well you could tackle the cost of basic income if you knew that the money people spend on the basics ended back in the economy instead of taken out of the economy like it is now.

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    Quote Originally Posted by sam86 View Post
    and they never will unless pressured constantly... i'm surprised for being so informant, ur last lines don't show u know why that happens
    those big companies can and do manipulate media, they are willing to spend 5 million on media to manipulate ppl to avoid taxes than to pay 5.000001 million as taxes, most ppl are ignorant sheep who will just listen to the easiest media access to them (used to be tv, now social media etc), u just need to feed them false info, and the politicians will do what the big companies want since they also control the votes
    the most famous example is facebook ceo, who avoid taxes by paying for a charity organization that has the right to make 'some' profit that has a board of directors whose he is part of (or its leader, can't remember), he is literally paying taxes to himself to profit, yet almost no one gives a f8ck

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    us medical problem is out of control, there are lot of evidence it is overpriced for manipulation, it is so corrupted that u can smell it even here in egypt, and egypt was nicknamed capital of corruption 2 years ago (venzuella beat us easily now)
    in fact for a 1st world country, i'm surprised how corrupted it was (can't call myself expert about it, but did see 2 documentaries regarding it)
    Nope, that is your assumption. I don't feel obligated to explain everything.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by Thwart View Post
    As someone that works in the Healthcare regulatory industry, I'm going to have to throw a flag on that play (it is Superbowl Sunday).

    Here is what I could find quickly, but direct experience is even more telling. I work for one of the top regulatory reporting companies in the US.
    http://education.healthcaresource.co...mpliance-cost/

    Just the cost in annual HIPAA training for all employees that work in health care is ridiculous.
    Beat me to it, it's insanely regulated and insanely expensive to come out with new medical tech and drugs... we're talking billions to make one single drug. The entire process is regulated to the point where it'll take around 10-12 years for a drug to go from discovery to market, if the drug even makes it at all (most don't). There's some study floating around that claims it's much cheaper to make drugs, but it conveniently leaves out all the failed attempts that don't make it to market and have to go back to the drawing board to come out with a marketable product.

    Anyways, back to the main topic, there's a ton of facets when it comes to financing such universal incomes and social impact of such plans. Most of the arguments I've seen here are purely academic and contrary to how humans tend to act, and your best case scenario for basic income is if your country is small and rich. However, you eventually run out of someone else's money, as such experiments have been done before throughout history on various levels and end in failure when applied to a macro scale. If you tried applying something similar in the US on a large scale, you could tax the rich for 100% of what they make and still not make a dent in the cost of programs like this (similar to welfare/healthcare programs suggested by Sanders and Cortez recently, their prices are astronomically high and absurdly unrealistic).

    Someone mentioned automation and all that forcing the issue, however humans are pretty adaptable when it comes to such things. Throughout history, there has always been new tech where everyone though people would be unemployed on a massive scale and things would descend into chaos due to how this tech would revolutionize the world, but they never due because of how adaptable humans are. If it went to the extreme as some hypothesize, you'd likely cease to see money work like it does nowadays... however, there will always be some form of currency or bartering, I doubt that would ever go away. I personally am not overly concerned about such things, as the doom and gloom prophecies tend to leave out quite a bit of secondary and tertiary changes to society that would ultimately make things turn out alright for humans and keep things stable (too many to list, and that's another thread honestly).
    “Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.”
    “It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”
    ― Alexis de Tocqueville

  15. #35
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ati87 View Post
    Basic income experiments like this are faulty as long as the money people get and spend isn't being pumped back to the economy.
    That "spending" you mention? That's the money going back into the economy.

    Even if the results on a small scale work out the problem lies on a national scale. In the Netherlands we had our national railroad company avoid Dutch taxes by leasing there own wagons back from a Irish subsidiary. Ideally if I buy a train ticket or any product for that matter that money goes from me > company > workers > company > workers > company etc instead of me > company > ?????
    UBI programs don't replace worker salaries. Those workers are still getting paid by that company.

    Quote Originally Posted by endersblade View Post
    I've never understood this logic. Let's punish the people that worked their way up to the top to give money to the people at the bottom.
    Taxes aren't a "punishment", not unless said taxes are literally forcing you into poverty, which these proposed taxes cannot do by virtue of the existence of tax brackets.

    Throwing MORE taxes on the 'mega-rich' isn't going to solve much. So much of our current economic structure needs to change so that more people can live above the poverty line, but more taxes is not the answer.
    It's one of the only tools we have to change that economic structure. You make "being rich" a difficult proposition, where most of what you earn past a certain point will be taxed away, and that incentivizes business owners to re-invest in their company and staff rather than taking profits, in the hope that boosting your company can increase market presence and innovation and generate stronger profits down the line. A 90% tax (to make up a figure) means that you're choosing between taking home $1, or investing $10 into your company. And if you take the payout, the government gets to use that tax revenue to shore things up for people.

    And that's the other way it changes the economy. A proper UBI provides a comfortable lifestyle just above the poverty line. Choosing not to work is a valid option. So if a company offers you a wage or work conditions that you don't like, you just quit and stay home. Meaning companies have to offer people a wage that makes working for them worthwhile. Especially for crappy jobs that nobody wants to do. No one will be forced to take those jobs to feed their families.

    Even if you were super wealthy, would you want to deal with 65% of your income disappearing? Why? Because rent prices are fucking ridiculous, we pay outrageous prices for medical and education...things that the rich generally aren't responsible for. Not EVERY rich person is the CEO of a corp trying to leech all the money they can from you. But you want them to pay for it? How about we fix the problems first before creating more?
    Most of these issues exist because of the "rich oppress the poor" dynamic of the USA.

    Healthcare is for-profit because the US system cares more about shareholders than healing the sick; prices have no reason to drop because the concern is maintaining profits, not helping more people.

    Rent prices are as they are because construction companies keep residential availability scarce enough to maintain profits.

    Education prices are high because most universities are for-profit systems and are meant to be for the "elite" to begin with.

    The only way to fix those problems is to attack the wealth inequality and the systems that support it.


  16. #36
    From poor to mid class is BiS

  17. #37
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    UBI works pretty well.
    We essesntially have it for nearly a decade in Germany, if not longer.
    It is called "Hartz IV" now and was called "Sozialhilfe" back in the day.

    The main difference between Hartz IV and UBI would be twofold:
    - far less bureaucracy attached and no pressuring people with BS courses (really, I've done a few, you learn NOTHING of value there) in order to beef up unemployment statistics
    - calculation of when income gets substracted would be a little higher.

    The main obstacle of UBI is societal acceptance. Far too long have people defined themselves over their jobs and their income while looking down on the people less fortunate.

  18. #38
    UBI is for lazy people who want to stay at home and play video games and watch TV all day. No one with a good worth ethic thinks UBI is a good idea.

  19. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by zenkai View Post
    UBI is for lazy people who want to stay at home and play video games and watch TV all day. No one with a good worth ethic thinks UBI is a good idea.
    That's terrible criticism, because one can do that already under the current system. Yet, not many do.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by zenkai View Post
    UBI is for lazy people who want to stay at home and play video games and watch TV all day. No one with a good worth ethic thinks UBI is a good idea.
    Or the people who will be left without secure employment due to the automation of jobs.

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