Is a Lack of Data Holding Back Universal Basic Income Programs? (technologyreview.com) 497
An anonymous reader quotes MIT's Technology Review:
Silicon Valley loves the idea of universal basic income. Many in the tech elites tout it as the answer to job losses caused by automation, if only people would give it a chance.... Getting people on board with basic income requires data, which is what numerous tests have been trying to obtain. But this year, a number of experiments were cut short, delayed, or ended after a short time. That also means the possible data supply got cut off.
Back in June we declared, "Basic income could work -- if you do it Canada style." We talked to the people on the ground getting the checks in Ontario's 4,000-person test and saw how it was changing the community. Then, just two months later, it was announced that the program is ending in the new year rather than running for three years. The last checks will be delivered to participants in March 2019.
The article complains that in addition, Finland's test program ended this year after its initial trial period, while Y Combinator's experiment "has also faced more delays, pushing the experiment into 2019," saying these programs illustrate the three basic issues faced by basic income tests. First, there's political disagreements. ("The Ontario program was shut down by the province's newly installed Conservative government.") Then there's also concerns about funding -- "As you might imagine, giving away free money is expensive" -- and also fears about disrupting existing benefits "To avoid that, they've had to work with municipal and state agencies to get waivers for pilot recipients. But getting those waivers takes a lot of time and bureaucracy....
"The only way the idea can ever be embraced on any sort of large-scale, meaningful level is with more data and bigger tests. Without that, no matter how much support it gets from Silicon Valley, it seems unlikely that the public, at least in the US, will ever come around."
Back in June we declared, "Basic income could work -- if you do it Canada style." We talked to the people on the ground getting the checks in Ontario's 4,000-person test and saw how it was changing the community. Then, just two months later, it was announced that the program is ending in the new year rather than running for three years. The last checks will be delivered to participants in March 2019.
The article complains that in addition, Finland's test program ended this year after its initial trial period, while Y Combinator's experiment "has also faced more delays, pushing the experiment into 2019," saying these programs illustrate the three basic issues faced by basic income tests. First, there's political disagreements. ("The Ontario program was shut down by the province's newly installed Conservative government.") Then there's also concerns about funding -- "As you might imagine, giving away free money is expensive" -- and also fears about disrupting existing benefits "To avoid that, they've had to work with municipal and state agencies to get waivers for pilot recipients. But getting those waivers takes a lot of time and bureaucracy....
"The only way the idea can ever be embraced on any sort of large-scale, meaningful level is with more data and bigger tests. Without that, no matter how much support it gets from Silicon Valley, it seems unlikely that the public, at least in the US, will ever come around."
No, it's psychological (Score:5, Interesting)
They've been trying UBI since the 1960s in Canada. We have the technology and resources to enable a leisure society with guaranteed minimum living conditions for everyone.
We *choose* to not do it.
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No.
It's simply that the numbers do NOT add up! Where does the funding come from?
It simply isn't possible with our current economic model, to do UBI. Now, it MAY be possible with another model -- but what is that model? And how to get from the current model, without destroying the current economy and/or bankrupting the nation, to that supposed new model?
Every explanation of UBI? Every single one I've seen, comes no where close to showing the math, or how it will work, or where the money will come from.
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And what has Canada produced since the 1960's besides Justin Bieber? Canada is approximately the same size as the US with approximately the same resources and has ten times less people to feed; if you can't scale it in Canada, how will you scale ten-fold in the US?
Re: No, it's psychological (Score:5, Insightful)
You could take all the billionaires and millionaires and hand all their money to the rest of the population and still not even come close to funding universal basic income. You're going to also have to take about 75% of the wealth from the middle class.
UBI is just a buzzword for what used to be called communism or socialism, where everyone hands all their wealth to the government who them splits it up equally among the population.
Re: No, it's psychological (Score:4, Interesting)
You could take all the billionaires and millionaires and hand all their money to the rest of the population and still not even come close to funding universal basic income.
Which is why you wouldn't do that. Here, I'll use my libertarian influenced UBI scheme. Keep in mind that I don't have the resources to make more than a gross whack at it.
1. Amount is around $6k per person, per year. Yes, people will complain that this isn't enough for a single person to live on. Tough shit. It's the poverty line for a household of 4, so if you're solely dependent upon the UBI, you don't get to live alone.
2. Almost all other forms of non-medical welfare are eliminated. We'll still need some programs for orphans and such.
3. It worked out better before Trump's tax reforms, but eliminate the first two tax brackets, and increase the third by 1-2%. The system remains heavily progressive because of the UBI. People effectively end up not paying taxes until they're earning more than ~$24k. Equality with the old total tax burden within a few hundred was around $36k(this was where the UBI was completely taxed back and the recipient was paying the same amount they were before to the fed),These types are typically not paying significant federal income tax anyways.
4. Now, this sounds like we're giving a lot of money away, because we aren't making as much from those under $36k, but the funding for this comes from the elimination of all the other welfare programs, just more equitably distributed.
In any case, I'd need to get ahold of some relatively very detailed information, or perhaps some sort of modeling system, to figure out just how badly the tax system would need to be tweaked, who the general winners are(intact working families, I'd think), and who the general losers are(unemployed single people).
My UBI plan (Score:2)
Oh, forgot a couple points:
A: We are currently spending somewhere over $50k per family under the poverty line in welfare. We could literally eliminate poverty by just giving them the money we're already spending. The overhead is insane.
B: Current welfare schemes end up creating "welfare cliffs", where the family unit in question can be penalized, have lower total income, by earning more money. IE earn $1 more and lose $10k in benefits. A large part of my support for UBI is eliminating that.
C: I would
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In case you forgot what the second law of thermodynamics is about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] so I link it for you.
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Indeed. The problem is that the billionaires hate the idea of anyone getting "something for nothing" when they could put further millions in their own bank accounts.
Of course, it is not just the billionaires that hate it.
Common working people with affiliations political on the right and the left hate it because the poor give them something to feel better than, and that, is better than nothing for the still majority working class.
A working UBI may take depression-era hardship to ultimately take off.
Re:No, it's psychological (Score:5, Insightful)
Many entitlements were sold to the public as something that "the rich" would pay for, but it never works out that way.
Remember when Obama said the ACA would benefit "98% of all Americans and 99% of all plumbers"?
It didn't work out that way. About 40% benefited, and about 60% paid more. That may be reasonable, and there was likely no other way to make it work, but nonetheless, that was not the way it was sold.
Most proposals for UBI would fund it by dramatically reducing current entitlements. So someone getting a $1500 social security check, would see it reduced to the "universal" $500 or so. That chance of this being politically feasible: 0%.
If you take existing entitlements off the table, then there is no way to make UBI work.
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That's actually not true. Rates were doubling many times more than inflation pre-Obama care. The costs have gone down. The problem was shitty junk plans were scrapped and those angry folks blamed Obama.
Re:No, it's psychological (Score:5, Informative)
Rates were never doubling and only government plans (Medicare/Medicaid) were doing poorly.
Employer insurance costs were going up by ~$300/family/year between 1998 and 2010, with some bumps of $700 during the the recession. ACA kicked in and they jumped up $750 the first and $1500 the year after that (as ACA went fully into effect) and increased consistently at $700-something every year since.
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Most proposals for UBI would fund it by dramatically reducing current entitlements. So someone getting a $1500 social security check, would see it reduced to the "universal" $500 or so. That chance of this being politically feasible: 0%.
My UBI proposal [slashdot.org]
An interesting problem indeed. I'll note that as it is an earned entitlement, I don't consider social security to be "welfare". So my default thought is that those on social security would get both payments. Same with disability(though that should maybe be private insurance).
Now, given that SS is heading for insolvency anyways, it needs fixing. So here's my general thoughts, even if they're nasty.
1. Social security payments would need to be reduced. This is to maintain solvency. No mo
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Then it would not be working or would it?
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Guaranteeing income without requiring anything useful in return would definitely skew the system of values and decrease the motivation to do anything useful.
It would change the motivation. Whether it would decrease the motivation for enough people to damage the economy is another matter. It also depends on what you consider 'useful'. Is marketing useful? Or is it refuse collection? What if both can be automated?
most of the people who work for living would be forced to contribute to pay
A moment you were saying that motivation would be decreased. This implies doing something useful is optional, so if it is option then how are people being forced to contribute? I believe that people very much should contribute, but your statement doesn't
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Why would I work if there are other people who would work for me? ... idiot.
Because you have more money if you work
most of the people who work for living would be forced to contribute to pay for a class of parasites who would not have to work for living.
They are doing it already. Nothing would change, idiot.
Of course, that would require a significant extension of the government bureaucracy, because someone would have to supervise such a "UBI program".
Obviously not. As everyone gets UBI, who the funk is nee
Re:No, it's psychological (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to take your comment seriously when your signature is begging for monthly donations to the Ayn Rand Institute.
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Nice psychological problem you're illustrating there.
Re: No, it's psychological (Score:2)
Re: No, it's psychological (Score:5, Insightful)
1. You clearly and objectively did not understand your U.S. History classes. Dissent is an essential part of the American DNA; without it, we'd be Just Another Dictatorship. Since your understanding appears to be deficient, I'll give you the essential, relevant understanding for the context of this discussion: Unlike some country like Thailand, where criticizing or insulting the King is an offense that will get you jailed at best, exiled or executed at worst, or a country like China, where criticizing the god-emperor will get your family and friends threatened, and you thrown in jail and/or a mental institution and pumped full of drugs, here in the United States we have this little thing called 'Freedom of Speech'; not only are you allowed to criticize the POTUS (or any other elected official), you are more or less encouraged to do it, as part of the Democratic process.
2. You clearly and objectively are a Trump supporter; as such it's no big surprise to me that you not only don't understand that the POTUS is not a god-emperor-dictator-king, or that you don't seem to understand that the 1st Amendment and Freedom of Speech we have in this country is not a privilege, it is a RIGHT, and neither YOU nor Trump nor anyone ELSE can deny someone that right.
YOU seem to be the one verging on treason; get correct, Old Son. The Constitution ain't just a 'piece of paper' you can wipe your ass with.
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Unlike some country like Thailand, where criticizing or insulting the King is an offense that will get you jailed at best, exiled or executed at worst,
That is bollocks. The law exists, but is not really in use. The previous king, Rama IX, pardoned everyone who got convicted. Lets see how the current one is treating the issue.
As the King is not the government, free speech is not affected by it anyway. On the other hand, Thailand is at the moment ruled by the military. So you better are not to aggressive wit
Re: No, it's psychological (Score:5, Informative)
Give me a break. trump lead the "birther" movement that was the nastiest "protest" ever against a president, claiming that Obama wasn't even legitimate. Nothing anyone says about trump is remotely as bad as what the Republicans were saying, or for that matter the Republicans refusing to carry out their constitutional duty and hold hearings on a Supreme Court appointment.
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Trump is the President of the United States, voted in by the will of the United States Electoral College.
FTFY?
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Renouncing citizenship does not make one a deserter either, since desertion is only something that falls under the UCMJ, not civilian laws.
If the one renouncing citizenship is not currently in the military, then desertion is not possible.
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"Any my taxes won't pay your leisure while I have any say on it."
And yet they pay for any number of wasteful government programs. You're paying for the leisure of well-connected thieves.
Re:No, it's good sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed, friend. There are many, many wasteful government programs. I would love to see those removed and the money spent on them released back to the public in the form of lower taxes. However, wasteful government programs today don't justify, pay for, or make possible a basic work-free income for everyone. Someone has to pay for that. Someone has to do the work to get us there.
We are, I suspect, at least two generations away from having the level of automation that will make what you want actually possible. We can not only foresee the possibility (like we could in the 1950's) of automation at that level, we are now at the point where we can say, yes, you know what, it just might actually be possible. And now that we've come to that stage, there are people who want it now. Like a teenager, our reach is exceeding our grasp. We have the understanding to see it's possible, but some of us don't have the understanding to realize it can't be possible today. Unfortunately, we will, without major medical breakthroughs, likely never ourselves be the beneficiaries of the type of technology that will make possible the kind of leisure that you want. However, stopping now won't get us there. Leisure now will not get us there. And I'm not willing to just pay off those that don't want to work while those of us who realize we still need to shoulder the burden for them too.
To be honest, even when that technology has arrived, it will bring a new set of issues. I don't think we ever will get "there", where no one has to work. In fact, I hope we never do. That will be a troubling society. I hope we have to work less, I hope we get to work more intelligently, and I hope we all get the time we want with our families and loved ones. I hope we develop into a society where families work together, where schooling and working is integrated into a holistic entity where there is no fine line between the two. And I hope we, as a society, have a firm grasp on the need for working and striving and have good leisure addiction awareness and counseling.
That all being said, this is where we live, and today, we all need to work.
Nice (Score:2)
That was extremely well articulated.
Of course, I'm getting old, so...
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Everyone talks about wasteful government programs. What are these programs?
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Having the biggest / most expensive military of the world, e.g.?
What else than a mini UBI is that land army of the US?
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They repaired the Hubble telescope ... and I'm pretty sure there are plenty of other nice things they did, or why did they have 135 missions?
In hindsight it is always easy to dismiss something as to expensive or ineffective. Obviously during the planning stage they thought it was a good idea. Now we have SpaceX ... people believed it is "impossible" to land rockets again and reuse them.
Re:No, it's good sense (Score:5, Insightful)
It was tried in Dauphin, Manitoba with pretty good results. Most everyone kept working, the exceptions were young mothers spending more time raising their children and young people staying in school to get a better education rather then quitting to help support their family.
Funny enough, this seems like results that right wingers would like, more family friendly and people trying to lift themselves up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:No, it's good sense (Score:4, Insightful)
So you mean to say that, knowing the plan was temporary, participants didn't decide to ditch their money-rewarding incomes which would lead to unemployment the day after the program was closed? Count me surprised.
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I don't know ANYONE who will turn down free money.
In this case I'd turn it down without a single thought because I would not be party to such a nonsense idea that would destroy not only the U.S economy but also likely destroy the world economy in the process; I'd turn it down on principle.
The impediment (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty clearly the idea of the UBI is hated on the right. I don't think conservatives hate the idea because it's not conservative, or because someone else will get something for nothing. I think they hate it because they seriously believe that they will be the ones to pay for it, one way or another. Looking at the question financially, it is hard to say they are wrong. They may be, but that has never been demonstrated.
Conservatives always bitch about us liberals "running out of other people's money." Often it makes me shake my head in dismay. In this case, though, I think they're right to be cautious. When you think about the scale of a functional UBI program in the US, holy crap, that's a lot of money. This is why some of us would be very interested in seeing the data from a long term experiment.
A further problem is based in the ownership of the production increases supposedly requiring a UBI. All this extra production (you know, the production that kills all of the jobs) is due to the implementation of automation - think 'lots of robots'. Problematically, we have this extra production because of the money invested by business owners, and they deserve (I think) to reap the rewards of that investment. They took a risk to make it happen.
Additionally, what happens to small businesses during the transition to automation? It is not clear to me that the majority of them will survive once the unpleasant jobs have a better, free alternative. The scale of the potential economic dislocation is astonishing.
Maybe it could work, or maybe it would just cause inflation until people's buying power reached an equilibrium at or below their previous one. No way to know without data.
Disclaimer - Socially, I am radically liberal (I should be able to buy heroin and a hooker at the corner drug store. Legally, I mean. I already could get that, realistically.) Fiscally, I am more of a moderate conservative. I think UBI is a fascinating idea, but I'm not convinced the math works out right.
Re:The impediment (Score:5, Insightful)
UBI is hated by people that understand math. It will take around 10 TRILLION dollars to give everyone in the US (330 million) a basic wage of $30k annually.
The US GDP is about $20 Trillion.
Yeah, UBI makes sense.
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Re:The impediment (Score:4, Insightful)
The other thing you are not understanding is how it is distributed. E.g. if UBI is $10k, and you earn $200k, then all that $10k you are given is $10k you already paid in tax, so your own UBI has a net cost of $0. For someone otherwise earning $0, then it's a net $10k, except such a person probably already gets somewhere close to $10k now so the net cost might be $2k. So rather than your $10 trillion, the figure might be, net, $0.5 trillion, and then further net the current administration costs, so maybe $0.45 trillion. What the actual figure is depends on the value of UBI, tax rates, and people in each demographic, so not something I can work out immediately, but far lower than your figure.
You then have to look at how the economy works and the value created by the movement of money (i.e. velocity). If those who are less well off end up with an extra $2k that's fairly quickly spent then you may get an overall economic boost, and a relatively small amount of increased economy might them mean the net is $0.4 trillion given that additional activity. Also, if people are not penalised for working, i.e. don't lose welfare and then have to reapply, that might also have a positive effect.
But there are also potential negative effects too. If set at the wrong level if could increase inflation. It might reduce the willingness of some to seek work. If the tax rates are wrong it would be an issue. Mismanagement is possible, as are unintended consequences.
These things need a lot of modelling and trials, and a democratic mandate.
Re:The impediment (Score:5, Insightful)
UBI is hated by people that understand math. It will take around 10 TRILLION dollars to give everyone in the US (330 million) a basic wage of $30k annually. The US GDP is about $20 Trillion. Yeah, UBI makes sense.
What a garbage straw-man argument. $10k per year is a much more common suggested payout for UBI, and only for adults. That alone brings the figure to $2.5 trillion per year. Remove at least half of social security payments, since most of the payouts would now be covered by UBI, and it is reduced to $2 trillion. Remove 2/3 of all local, state, and federal welfare spending, and it comes down to about $1.5 trillion.
UBI would be paid by progressive taxes, like most of the federal budget, so at some level of household income the extra UBI payments would be wiped out by increased income taxes. If the cut-off is that half of the population pays more in extra taxes than they get from UBI, the total extra spending for UBI would likely be brought down to less than $500 billion. Then you could add plenty of savings from law enforcement, medicare, and plenty of other programs, but overall those savings probably wouldn't be in the range of hundreds of billions per year. Maybe $100 billion all added together.
So conservatively a UBI of $10k per year per adult would likely cost around $300-500 billion per year. Although the one type of stimulus spending which provides the highest boost to the economy is giving money to the poor and working class. So unlike tax cuts for billionaires, UBI would actually stimulate the economy. It would also primarily be stimulating local economies, especially the local economies of communities hit hard by the changing modern economy (since they will have more poor and working class individuals).
So ultimately a $10k UBI would probably require somewhere between $200-$400 billion in extra taxes after figuring in the boost to the GDP from stimulus spending. If that purely came from federal income taxes it would represent a 10-20% increase in total taxes. Households in the upper middle class would be closer to 10% more, or an extra $3k in taxes per year. Households in the 1% could easily have a 40-50% tax increase.
Obviously this is all just napkin math and the devil is in the details, but a 10-20% tax increase is a far different proposal than saying it will cost $10 trillion per year.
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I agree it's psychological... But what is the principal/impediment?
Intelligent people knowing the money to pay for it has to come somewhere which inevitably means their pocket through taxation.
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I could see it as an artist, being free to pursue your art and contribute it back to society. ... but then you shouldn't be able to OWN rights to your art afterward. It should be public domain.
The funny thing is, in one area of the USA, we already do that. It's called NASA (and other government programs). Go download some public domain space captures right now and use them for free in your YouTube channel, or video game.
There's a lot of this "feel good" progressive mentality now. I get you want to reduce pe
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I could see it as an artist, being free to pursue your art and contribute it back to society. ... but then you shouldn't be able to OWN rights to your art afterward. It should be public domain.
For that you need to pay an artist (or anyone else) more than UBI, or did you miss the B in the middle is standing for basic and not for "billions"?
Wish I could mod you funny (Score:2)
Well put. Insulting, but a well-phrased insult.
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"My ideology is everything that is good and the other is everything that is bad"
I know you probably "think" you are but you are very clearly not a person who thinks.
Most of what you've said is just claiming a mantel of virtues that is supposedly contrary to an issue that has never been truly tested with no supporting data. In other words, nice lame dick opinion.
Furthermore, UBI is not universally supported by Democrats. UBI is also supported by some conservatives as a means of getting rid of all other socia
Re: No, it's psychological (Score:5, Informative)
Stop lying corporations pay 40% of the taxes, and about 60% of the remaining income taxes are corporate profits passed through LlLCs and C corps, that are taxed higher than the corporate tax rate. You lie, but you were told that, and you wanted to believe the lie.
Citation needed. Quoting this document [cbpp.org]:
Oh Lord no (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, we have massive amounts of data that single payer healthcare would be infinitely superior. The latest studies (real ones done by Universities) show $5 trillion savings [justcareusa.org] every 10 years. We could pay off the national debt in my kid's lifetime with that and all our foreign held debt in _my_ lifetime. 70% of Americans support it. [cnbc.com]. Still no go.
Meanwhile several Democratic congressmen just exited Congress while imploring their party to abandon Medicare for All (funny that they all took big money from insurance & Phrama, I'm sure that was just them buying into their agenda [commondreams.org]).
America has a ruling class, but we like to pretend we don't [google.com]. Like most things in life pretending the real world doesn't exist is bad juju.
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The result will be the masses living at a universal level of poverty.
And after the last election we are on our way. Enjoy! Remember America is already belly up bankrupt, the government has just been able to hide that fact for the mos
Sure it will (Score:5, Interesting)
And no, UBI wouldn't be the masses living in poverty. We already have enough housing to end homelessness and enough food to feed everyone and enough medicine to care for everyone. Look it up. We owe most of that money to ourselves. Only about $6 trillion is owed overseas and most of that is basically tribute. It's people buying our bounds and in doing so making the US Dollar the defacto world currency. They're not doing that out of the goodness of their hearts or because we're just so competitive, they're doing that because we have 19 air carriers and China, our closest rival, has 2, both old Soviet retrofits.
And besides, did you even bother reading my post? We could pay off our national debt in 40 years with the money saved from Medicare for All. We could do the foreign debt in 6-8 years. But again, we don't want to. We _want_ to owe those folks money because it locks them into our currency.
The puritanical myth that people won't work unless they constantly fear death by starvation, the elements or lack of medicine is just that, a myth. One created by the ruling class' propaganda and indoctrination.
You're being manipulated by the ruling class. I really wish I could get people to see these patterns. It's not like the American ruling class is doing anything special. It's the same techniques since the bronze age: divide and conquer the working class along economic, religious and racial subdivisions. We see the pattern over and over again (the US Southern Strategy, India's caste system, Britain's classes, Hell, when the Japanese didn't have any racial or religious divides they just declared everyone in "unclean" professions low-caste and kept books of their names so they could oppress them.
It's called Kicking Down, and as a method of controlling a large population it's been almost completely effective. Every now and then cracks appear and are promptly spackle over. I just don't get why folks don't see it and get angry.
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I mean, we have massive amounts of data that single payer healthcare would be infinitely superior.
As a means to let every random government's official's nephews live a comfortable life, perhaps. Not for people who would have to suffer it, and have to pay a second time to actually go to doctor.
We do have single payer healthcare in Poland. A couple of years in June I had something bad with a foot, with pain so bad that pretty much prevented me from walking more than ~50 meters. Can't read the doc's handwriting but it was something something acute inflammation and swelling of tendons. The government-ru
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The problem isn't with single-payer healthcare, the problem is with the Polish implementation.
Here in Australia it works pretty good (even if the current government wants to ruin things) and according to people I know over there (including some in the medical profession) it seems to work pretty well in Canada too.
If the US wanted to implement single-payer, copying the Canadian system would seem to me to be a good place to start.
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We do have single payer healthcare in Poland. [sob story about a time it went bad]
A collection of anecdotes doesn't say much about the healthcare system: shitty thins happen in all healthcare systems, including America which spends 5.5x as much per captia on healthcare as you spend in Poland.
I'm in a single payer system too and have had vastly better experiences than you. What does that prove?
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You are crazy fucking stupid and ignorant of how math, economics, the market place and psychology works.
Because I have seen you posting g stupid shit for years and completely immune to logic and reason I will keep it short since you will not get it anyway:
Free Stuff For All does not work. Why? Because the costs are essentially infinite/maximized. Goods and services provided without cost to the consumer will be used to the maximum amount. Got a cold? Stubbed a toe? Elbow is itchy? See a doctor. Feeling like a girl today? Surgery. Feeling like a man tomorrow? Stitch it back on. Kids acting up? ADHD and special 1:1 classes and teachers. Feeling bad? Free pot. Cold? Free cl0thing. And so on.
If you want Stuff, go fucking earn money and pay for it. If you cannot afford it then work harder or do with put. No one has a god given so-called human right to live off the sweat of other peoples hard work.
Why should anyone try hard in school or work or bother doing anything than smoking out and playing fortnite if everything comes free? Answer: they wont.
And where does all this Free Stuff come from? Oh, wait, here it comes.... drum rolll... Tax The Rich TIL They Aint Rich No More! And then what, dumbass? Then who pays? Oh wait, yes, the so-called privileged middle classes! They were all racist anyway. And then when they are poor, who? No one. No one has anything BUT we do finally have your idiotic and irrational socialist utopia! Yay! Life equally sucks for everyone!
This has been figured out by humanity thousands of years ago. People who work, eat. People who slack, starve. Contribute in a meaningful way to society or fucking starve. No one owes you anything in life. And certainly rich people owe poor people nothing. They have zero moral or ethical obligation to share the fruit of their labor, education, luck. ability to network or anything else. Life is unfair. Deal with it.
Tl;dr: socialism is evil, has murdered more people and caused more suffering than any other single cause and will never work. Morons will keep trying though saying if only we tried harder or had more data or evil conservatives did not kill our program after being elected to office by citizens who wanted to put an end to socialist madness.
Though short is in the, errr, eye of the beholder, you're either a prevaricator and a man accustomed to misleading his wife what exactly equals 6 inches in length... or the most significant reason some web-poster came up with TLDR... jury is out, but your lawyer has called the office and told the secretary to deposit your checks.
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That is the goal of socialism, so obviously it works.
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Seriously. Every fucking time socialists take over a country the same thing happens. And yet you still argue that if they just did it right it will work out fine.
It won't. We are tribal monkeys. We work for ourselves and our families. If we don't get to keep the rewards we don't work. Every fucking time.
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Seriously. Every fucking time socialists take over a country the same thing happens. And yet you still argue that if they just did it right it will work out fine.
I doubt you have more than a hand full examples.
If we don't get to keep the rewards we don't work. ...
Strange, nearly everyone is working and pays his taxes
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Theory (actually: conjecture and hypothesis) yes. The scientific theory proves you wrong.
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Once the oil price goes too low AC then the nation fails totally.
UBI is a wealth transfer to the elites (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason why Silicon Valley billionaires like UBI is that they know technology is creating a growing underclass who cannot afford to buy food, let alone Netflix subscriptions. What do to? I know: get the taxpayers to pay for Netflix, Spotify, YouTube Red, ... subscriptions, iPhones, FitBits, etc.
Don't get me wrong: I like the idea of UBI. The empirical, non-ideologically driven research and evidence is clear that it's superior in every way to most, if not all, alternative forms of social welfare. All I'm
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The fact is, we already pay enough to bring everyone above the poverty line. That money gets plundered by politicians and bureaucrats before the dregs get handed out to the poor.
The fact that you believe this just goes to show that the real perpetrators have already won. The real perpetrators are the wealthy elite who plunder and pillage companies, amassing enormous wealth while exploiting their workforces. The politicians and bureaucrats you speak of so derisively are or last defence against those who would rob us blind.
No, some things you have to take the big leap (Score:5, Insightful)
Some decisions are just not data driven, or should I say. The only way to really get all the data would be to actually implement the program.
All these small tests really are pretty pointless and a waste of money.
If I were to ask you how would a society work if all drugs were decriminalized? Would drug use go up and people become druggies. You wouldn't know. There's a million what ifs. Only by actually trying it for a substantial amount of time could you get a clue. When Portugal decriminalized all drugs (not legalized), they just did it and took a gamble.
Similarly with this. How will the unemployed behave? Will those with jobs keep working? How will this change 1,2,3... generations down. No one has any damn clue. Any small experiment is not going to answer the big questions at all.
If only we could all just know the results of decisions before trying, our decisions would just be easy. But life is not that simple.
Well we better do something (Score:4, Interesting)
Face it, we're running out of the kind of work that 90% of the population can do. We can't all be surgeons. It doesn't matter how hard you want to work if you're hands aren't steady enough. Same with being a math wizard. Study all you want, you'll hit a wall somewhere. Most hit it long before Einstein (he famously joked about it and numbnuts misread it to think he was bad at math).
The world is full of billions of people not smart enough to live in the information economy. But they _are_ smart enough to hold a gun. If you abandon them, especially in a country like America where there are more guns than people, expect nasty things...
Yeah (Score:2)
I think that's the problem, right there.
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Still, we have record low unemployment rates. 86% of people didn't go out of a job, we would have chaos.
We have never had jobs for 90% of the population, hell, the army rejects the first 10% of the population outright for having too low of an IQ, they can't even be trained to do anything useful without losing them funding in the process. They then go on to only accepts 20% of its workforce for the next 21% of people because they can do simple things but having too much of them would be counterproductive. Bu
common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
No, common sense is.
Silicon Valley loves the idea of UBI? (Score:2)
That's rich! OP means they love the idea of UBI as long as they don't have to pay for it.
Google, Apple, Intel, Oracle, and hundreds of other tech companies set up headquarters in low-tax countries and divert billions of dollars there every year instead of paying the higher US tax rates which would benefit the US. I doubt they'll be so accommodating and willing to fit the bill to pay billions annually towards the 1M or more Californians that would gladly trade work for $15K for do nothing for $15K.
lack of automation (Score:3)
I can;t see a problem. (Score:2)
UBI is a solution for the wrong problem (Score:2)
The world suffers from lack of goods and services, not lack of money. If production is boosted, the goods will eventually find their way to the poor. Certainly, wordwide people are still starving to death, so it's premature to declare victory of the robots. Even say in US, lack of affordable healthcare has a lot to do with shortage of doctors, as well as overregulation of medicine. Without boosting supply, giving people money will just raise prices.
Make things cheaper (Score:4, Insightful)
The debate isn't about whether UBI would be a good idea or not. I think it would be, in that it would give people the freedom to do what they want to do, rather than they have to do. I also think that it would give families more time to spend together, leading to stronger relationships, better mental outcomes, and so on.
The debate really is about how to fund such a scheme... I doubt that the funds are available for this, and even they were, I believe that the political resistance to re-appropriating money from other sources would be so intense in many countries that the scheme would be a non-starter.
I think that the problem will really only be solved when technology enables things that people need (food, water, electricity, clothing, shelter) to be made so cheaply that the cost of funding such a program will be relatively trivial.
Till then, it's just a good subject for frequent Slashdot debates...
Universal? (Score:3)
Did a lack of data ... (Score:3)
... stop the adoption of trickle-down economic policies?
UBI = giving money to the rich when others need it (Score:2)
Targeted benefits are almost always better.
Or a properly-funded universal healthcare system.
Or making sure the ice shelves stopping Antarctica sliding into the sea remain intact.
"giving away free money is expensive" (Score:2)
What more do you need to say, where does all this magical money come from and what happens when it runs out?
Its serfdom V3.0, people dependent on the new feudal overlords, rent your computer power, you dont own the stuff you bought its licensed, you can't fix your stuff its restricted, rent your place to live, bend the knee to get your 'income', dont complain we are tracking everything you say online.
I still prefer the ladder we build ourselves over the rope they dangle down for you at their whim.
Re:"giving away free money is expensive" (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no NEW money.
Almost all the existing benefits are cancelled.
The ordinary worker and the rich will have the UBI taxed away again.
Some savings will be made in not having to employ lots of people to decide who deserves what benefits.
The people that it's intended to help are already receiving a bunch of benefits in one form or another with various strings attached. This just removes the strings and paperwork and just gives them a weekly amount to spend however they like.
People seem to be imagining that UBI will be enough to support a middle class lifestyle without working. It's not. It's enough to have a bed for the night, food and clothing. Enough that people aren't sleeping on the streets, starving or freezing to death, which is what any decent society would be trying to prevent in any case.
um (Score:2)
Back in June we declared, "Basic income could work -- if you do it Canada style." We talked to the people on the ground getting the checks in Ontario's 4,000-person test and saw how it was changing the community. Then, just two months later, it was announced that the program is ending in the new year rather than running for three years. The last checks will be delivered to participants in March 2019.
Oh. so I guess it can't work if you do it Canada style after all?
The article complains that in addition, Finland's test program ended this year after its initial trial period,
No! Not the nordic paradises too?!?! How could you?
Could it be that maybe, just maybe, there are some actual challenges here, beyond just those obstinate mean old right wingers? Or did obstinate mean old right wingers torpedo it in Canada and Finland, those noted hotbeds of obstinate mean old right wingers?
A lack of tax payers (Score:2)
Giving everyone free money including the tax payers will take too much money from all other services and gov sectors.
What money for citizens not working, not in education? Use means testing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Is the person a citizen? Not an illegal migrant?
Got a bank account? Photo ID?
Not working? Then they can a nice support payment.
Start education? Thats a bett
no matter how much support it gets from Silicon Va (Score:2)
I think we could calculate "how much" support it would cost to have UBI in the USA. I just don't think Sillicon Valley is willing to pay that much.
Jesus fuckin' Christ, this again? (Score:2)
Multiply a UBI which is just barely over the poverty level ($12,000) by the adult population of the US (300 million), and you get a price tag of $3.6 trillion per year. How much "data" do you need to collect before you figure out that this is a non-starter?
The problem is weâ(TM)re doing this wrong. (Score:3)
Go read Manna by Marshall Brian. I think they have the right idea. We should automate and create robots to do everything possible leaving people to be creative and collaborative or just chill on a beach somewhere. Our monetary system is holding us back in so many ways itâ(TM)s getting dangerous. Would we be having arguments about global warming if nobody had to spend more to solve it? The only reason we managed to tackle the ozone hole was the industry impacted was not big enough to fight it off like the oil industry was able to.
UBI seems unhealthy for society (Score:2)
A better idea than UBI or welfare would be providing a basic level of shelter, food, medical care, safety, and guidance with strict rules and structure. So if you are willing to follow the rules and contribute to the community then gov
Re: Only one question (Score:2)
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Re: oh boy (Score:2)
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sure we will, we have nice expensive firearms and the best ammo to put them down, and for those that survive a big prison system that makes them into cash cows
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The theory is that in the long term, the money should come from savings. UBI would remove the need for a bunch of expensive-to-administer welfare services, for example.
The United States has one of the least efficient social welfare systems in the world. The US famously spends something like 17% of GDP on health care in return for consistently worse outcomes than almost every other developed country that spends 9-12%.
That's the theory. As with all such reforms, even if UBI worked elsewhere it's unclear that
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Currently your wealth is either in real assets or in cash. As long as the latter is not used for consumption, both are used for capital investment into productivity either directly by carrying the risk yourself (stock market purchases) or indirectly by letting someone else care the risk for you (cash in a bank). Assets that are purchased on the secondary market (stock market) do not directly shift the funds into productivity
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At some point working people are going to have to work and pay taxes.
Taxes that support the "free" stuff for everyone not working.
Re "expensive-to-administer welfare services" are limited to people not working.
What happens when everyone gets a UBI and no more government services are offered?
Suddenly the poor and people with medical problems have to spend all their UBI on services they once got
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Here's a well known liberal rag (Score:3)
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Well, yes. The money people need to be able to live has indeed to come from somewhere. And when there is no jobs, an UBI is currently the only available solution. Nobody that really understands the idea thinks this is "funding leisure". What it is is an emergency measure designed to keep society functioning when a majority of all jobs vanish.
Do you have any better idea for that scenario? And do not give me "the jobs will not vanish". That is just a tired old lie.
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A better question would be: "if productivity increased immensely since 1970s, yet real wages have decreased, where has all that value gone to?".
Find a way to dislodge the value diverted to High Frequency Fraud, financial schemes, and other legally allowed graft, and you'll have not only money to fund UBI, but even a comfortable life for everyone.
Current proposals extract yet more money from the middle class. That's not going to work. They're only a scheme to placate plebs with a dole while diverting atten
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You have a point regarding the productivity increases. Where have they gone indeed.
However it is not the "plebs" who will need the UBI. It is mostly middle-class jobs that will vanish without replacement.
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Silicon Valley tech elites could bankroll a sizeable pilot, assuming it's successful, that could become permanent. If they wanted to. Take any proposed pilot area and fund an expansion.
It otherwise won't get funded because Republicans hate doing things that help other people.
If you're gonna argue that point, read some research on conservatives, fear, and empathy.
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Re: no, lack of money (Score:5, Insightful)
Money created without limit benefits 2 groups: the source of the money (who gets to buy with it without significant cost)
This. This is why the Big Finance fights so hard to have fractional reserve lending not only legal but even preferred. Money that's produced from thin air still works same as any other money.
and net debtors (who see their debt inflated into less real value.)
This has a significant effect only on long-term debt.
Whether money that comes from the government is printed or acquired by theft, makes very little difference in the amount of damage it causes.
Printing money works exactly same as a tax on holding any assets denominated as money -- only paperwork differs. If inflation is 5%, you just got taxed 5% on the whole value of all your savings.
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I'm a millennial and I agree with that - I'm not paying for it. I make what elitists would consider a meager six-figure salary, but I worked fucking hard to get it and I don't accept I got it because I'm white. Fuck that, I grew up below the poverty line and that was enough motivation to pay my dues, miss the parties and birthdays to study and work late.
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“When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”
- Benjamin Franklin
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An entirely made-up quote. You cannot cite a source for this because it does not exist.