'Universal Basic Income' Isn't a Silver Bullet, Says Lead Researcher on Sam Altman's Study (yahoo.com) 152
Business Insider reports:
The lead researcher for Sam Altman's basic-income study says guaranteed no-strings payments are not a silver bullet for issues facing lower-income Americans. Elizabeth Rhodes, the research director for the Basic Income Project at Open Research, told Business Insider that while basic-income payments are "beneficial in many ways," the programs also have "clear limitations...."
Rhodes headed up one of the largest studies in the space, which focused specifically on those on low incomes rather than making universal payments to adults across all economic demographics. The three-year experiment, backed by OpenAI boss Altman, provided 1,000 low-income participants with $1,000 a month without any stipulations for how they could spend it.... The initial findings, released in July, found that recipients put the bulk of their extra spending toward basic needs such as rent, transportation, and food. They also worked less on average but remained engaged in the workforce and were more deliberate in their job searches compared with a control group. But Rhodes says the research reinforced how difficult it is to solve complex issues such as poverty or economic insecurity, and that there is "a lot more work to do."
The Altman-backed study is still reporting results. New findings released in December showed recipients valued work more after receiving the recurring monthly payments — a result that may challenge one of the main arguments against basic income payments. Participants also reported significant reductions in stress, mental distress, and food insecurity during the first year, though those effects faded by the second and third years of the program. "Poverty and economic insecurity are incredibly difficult problems to solve," Rhodes said. "The findings that we've had thus far are quite nuanced."
She added: "There's not a clear through line in terms of, this helps everyone, or this does that. It reinforced to me the idea that these are really difficult problems that, maybe, there isn't a singular solution."
In an earlier article coauthor David Broockman told Business Insider that the study's results might offer insights into how future programs could be successful — but said that the study's results didn't necessarily confirm the fears or hopes expressed by skeptics or supporters of a basic income.
Thanks to Slashdot reader jjslash for sharing the news.
Rhodes headed up one of the largest studies in the space, which focused specifically on those on low incomes rather than making universal payments to adults across all economic demographics. The three-year experiment, backed by OpenAI boss Altman, provided 1,000 low-income participants with $1,000 a month without any stipulations for how they could spend it.... The initial findings, released in July, found that recipients put the bulk of their extra spending toward basic needs such as rent, transportation, and food. They also worked less on average but remained engaged in the workforce and were more deliberate in their job searches compared with a control group. But Rhodes says the research reinforced how difficult it is to solve complex issues such as poverty or economic insecurity, and that there is "a lot more work to do."
The Altman-backed study is still reporting results. New findings released in December showed recipients valued work more after receiving the recurring monthly payments — a result that may challenge one of the main arguments against basic income payments. Participants also reported significant reductions in stress, mental distress, and food insecurity during the first year, though those effects faded by the second and third years of the program. "Poverty and economic insecurity are incredibly difficult problems to solve," Rhodes said. "The findings that we've had thus far are quite nuanced."
She added: "There's not a clear through line in terms of, this helps everyone, or this does that. It reinforced to me the idea that these are really difficult problems that, maybe, there isn't a singular solution."
In an earlier article coauthor David Broockman told Business Insider that the study's results might offer insights into how future programs could be successful — but said that the study's results didn't necessarily confirm the fears or hopes expressed by skeptics or supporters of a basic income.
Thanks to Slashdot reader jjslash for sharing the news.
Recipients valued work more (Score:2)
recipients valued work more after receiving the recurring monthly payments
How did they determine this, exactly? Did they just *ask* them if they valued their work more, or was there some kind of measurable evidence?
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The only way to answer this is to ask. Generally on a point scale, and you track the change in answers vs a change in answers of a control group. There's no measurable way to tell how someone "values" something other than asking, as it's a question about feelings not objective reality.
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You're probably right about how they got this result, and it's therefore meaningless, because each person's definition of "valuing work more" depends on their own interpretation.
There are, however, ways to measure such things. People behave in predictable ways when they value something. For example, people who value their job, will tend to work harder, and perhaps longer hours, and will be more reluctant to quit, than those who don't value their job. But wait, the study showed that people "worked less" than
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You're probably right about how they got this result, and it's therefore meaningless, because each person's definition of "valuing work more" depends on their own interpretation.
That does not follow. If you can use the result to make meaningful and reproducible predictions about the future then "asking people" can be a completely valid tactic. You just need to understand what it is you are actually doing and have calibrated against actual experimental results that tell you the true meaning of their answers. Lots of things are subjective, like pain. That does not mean that there is no scientific evidence that morphine works. It does mean that you need to watch the experimenters in t
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Pain is one thing. It's subjective, yes, but everybody knows what pain is. And there's no incentive to answer a pain question incorrectly, it is what it is. If the drug helped, you'll know it and probably tell the truth.
Not everybody knows what it means to "value" something. And there is a built-in motive to answer the question with "yes" when a recipient of money is asked whether they "value" work more than they did before. They would likely feel they _should_ answer yes, because answering _no_ would feel
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Sorry, you picked a bad example. When I was in hospital after cancer and a bit fed up I'd give the pain an 8 so I could have some opioid. Otherwise they would just give me Tylenol which didn't really do much.
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Ah, but you didn't lie about the effectiveness of the pain reduction of the drug, you lied to get the pain medicine you knew you needed. But you're right, you did find a reason to answer the question incorrectly. Still, with pain, there are ways to measure pain much more objectively than the "value" of work.
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Sounds like you agree with OP's thesis. You were more than willing to lie in order to receive or to continue to receive the reward you wanted. More opioids.
Very similar to incentives for the recipient of free cash to lie in order to continue receiving free cash.
Re: Recipients valued work more (Score:2)
I reject the assertion that valuing work implies you work harder or longer hours, and that working âoeharderâ is any easier to measure than directly measuring value for anything beyond physical endurance work.
The different definitions of value are exactly why you have a control group. Youâ(TM)d need that even with measuring hours, since how many hours is long hours can also be subjective.
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The fact that you and I disagree about the meaning of the value of work, is probably an indication of the confusion and disagreement between recipients of the money.
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If an abstract "valuing of work" correlates with people working less and putting in less effort, then how is it a useful metric?
TFA makes other dubious claims. For instance, it says people spent the extra money on necessities like food.
The implication is that they didn't buy food before they received the money.
That's unlikely.
So, how are they really spending the marginal increase in income, and why is TFA obfuscating it?
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Actual metrics are scarce, as are the claims made.
UBI is a "lift all boats" endeavor. Nothing will help 100%. So at what measurable, definable rate, do we assert success vs failure, especially when quality of life issues vary so vastly?
It's easy to be dismissive, but the needs are real: Food, housing, clothing, medical costs, and the day-to-day cost of meeting the minimums in the USA-- in differing areas.
One study at one location isn't going to be useful, even when these are defined. The coastal cities have
Re: Recipients valued work more (Score:2)
Food, housing, clothing, medical costs, and the day-to-day cost of meeting the minimums in the USA
The US is already the most affordable in the world as a percentage of disposable incomes in this regard. How much more do you want?
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Were it only true.
Were disposable income the question.....
Sure. Affordable.
Re: Recipients valued work more (Score:2)
Hard data wins over this shitty communist conjecture. Every. Single. Time.
https://worldpopulationreview.... [worldpopul...review.com]
Those numbers take into account government services, taxes, everything. That includes health care costs, food, housing, you name it.
You know what else we're among the best in? Purchasing power parity. In other words, how much your local money buys in your local economy.
https://worldpopulationreview.... [worldpopul...review.com]
So the original question remains.
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Giving free money will just cause inflation that cancels it out...
Many countries have welfare systems which give out free money to those who are unemployed. Many then spend the money on nonessential luxury items like alcohol and tobacco, while simultaneously complaining that they can't afford food and demanding more money. You also get those who are simply too lazy to work and make no effort to find a job, instead intending to just rely on the free money indefinitely.
If you want to provide the essentials -
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Many then spend the money on nonessential luxury items like alcohol and tobacco, while simultaneously complaining that they can't afford food and demanding more money.
This always drove me crazy. I knew a family with a teen son that barely scraped by. They didn't have any food in the house many times, but mom and dad never, and I mean never, spent a single day without smoking a pack or two of cigarettes each. The mom would visit her ex-bf, the son's biological daddy, about once a month to beg (or trade favors) for grocery money. Husband knew about it and looked the other way. Smokes were too important.
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Inflation from 2020 to 2022 where prices went up 40% for cars and housing are directly correlated to free money given for broke people to purchase limited scarce resources so sellers doubled their prices.
Even food went up 25%!
TARP payments + paying people not to work after COVID took their jobs away for 2 years + rental eviction bans caused businesses like McDonalds and the local grovery stores to pay $20/hr for $10/hr jobs. What happened? Rent went up lol.
The great resignation was not a cause of inflation
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UBI is a "lift all boats" endeavor.
No, it isn't.
For every dollar paid out, at least a dollar needs to be taxed in.
For every boat that is raised, another boat is lowered.
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More money on food could mean before they were unable to meet their nutritional needs or were depending on food banks and no longer are. Or it means they can afford more expensive but more nutritious food- fresh fruits and vegetables cost a lot more per calorie than potato chips. So that makes total sense. People who are desperately in need of money are going to spend most of their money on basics. This follows almost every study done on spending habbits of low income people given a windfall that has ev
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There was a tv program from the UK a few years back called "benefits street" which followed a street in the UK where the vast majority of residents were receiving welfare payments from the government.
Virtually all of the participants on that show were smoking and drinking alcohol, both things which are heavily taxed and thus very expensive in the UK. After spending their welfare money on these things, they had very little left for food.
They could have chosen to eat better and not do things which are both ex
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And where is the peer reviewed study of their results? Because TV shows are made for ratings and entertainment, not truth. They'll quite happily cut out anyone who doesn't follow into the bias they want to get views and attract eyeballs. And that's assuming they didn't have an agenda to begin with- TV stations frequently being owned by right wing shills (see Richard Murdoch- this wasn't on Sky by any chance was it?), I wouldn't trust a damn thing. What was it's methodology? What was it's sample size
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False on all of those thing. First off, there is no practical definition of "work harder". Secondly, just because you value work doesn't mean you want to do more of it. Or have the time/ability to do more of it. If you know any hourly workers, you'll know many of them who can't get hours because their employer isn't looking to add more labor. And pretty much all of these people were likely hourly workers. Nor does them valuing the concept of work mean anything about them wanting to quit their current j
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Yes, I am precisely arguing the utility of measuring "valuing work more." If it has no measurable effect, then the conclusion is meaningless and misleading.
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You have no clue, but decided that their results are meaningless?
What a waste of time you are. Fuck off.
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It's called an educated guess. There is no objective way to measure how much a person values work, so you just have to take their word for it. And there is incentive in the study, to answer in a positive manner, because someone who says they don't value work more, would seem ungrateful for the money they received.
Having a solid rationale is not the same as having "no clue."
If you have a better insight, please provide it, insults don't help your case.
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The other way to answer this is with an AI model.
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Any actual study on UBI is going to be expensive, there's no way to test it without doing it. I'm not even sure a true test on a scale less than a city is possible. And while there is no promise that people aren't lying, a large enough sample size and a control group help to minimize that. But yes, that's a problem with any study that tries to track human emotions and reactions
But your last comment shows you to be either an idiot or a troll. How the fuck would an AI model gain that kind of knowledge? A
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This is how physics works BTW, you can't just poll atoms and ask their feelings about UBI. You work out what you should see in theory, then do an experiment to confirm or deny the theory you worked out.
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Except for a few problems with your logic here:
1)The measurement we're arguing about is 100% feelings. So there's no way to make a model for that, you actually need to do it. There are other effects of UBI that may be modeled, but not this metric (you can argue whether this metric is valuable, that's another discussion).
2)Economic isn't physics. We have far less knowledge about economics than we do physics. We are not able to accurately model economics to the degree we can a physical system. Physics is
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I doubt giving people "free money" will make them want to work more. Take a look at generations of welfare people. 'Not enough money? Well, time to smash and grab or sell drugs.
Money for nothing is not a motivation to work.
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The research itself showed this, in that people who received the money worked *less*. This makes sense, they have less need to work.
There's no AGI yet (Score:2)
AI has almost no impact on the kind of shit jobs most people do and due to demographic collapse there's an avalanche of shit jobs coming to the working population. UBI makes people reluctant to do shit jobs.
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Ideally no one has to be forced to work just to have food and shelter, at that point such jobs are only filled by increasing the pay for those jobs vs the plush sit-on-your ass jobs.
It absolutely has impact (Score:4, Interesting)
Because we automated the production of most goods and drastically reduced the amount of labor left for actually making stuff we've needed to switch to a service sector economy to keep this entire pyramid scheme from collapsing.
But that pyramid scheme requires there to be a professional class that still makes good enough money to actually use the services in our service sector economy. And those jobs the professional class are doing are the first targets of AI because there's some of the few decent paying jobs left.
As those jobs get chipped away at we're going to lose the few people left to have money. That in turn is going to crash the service sector economy.
It's like telling people to go become a plumber or do HVAC. That's all well and good but if nobody can afford to hire a plumber or have a c then it doesn't really do you any good to pick up those skills.
And that's just assuming the most extreme scenario. The more likely scenario is AI is going to bite into the services sector jobs enough to force downward pressure on those wages so that you're $40 an hour plumber is going to plum it down to a 5 or $10 an hour plumber because they'll be too many people and too few people that can afford to pay them.
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We have also spend the last 30 years filling old folk homes and institutions for mentally ill (autism is off the charts and it's not due to diagnosis).
We need a massive shift of people from other jobs into care if we want to maintain our current levels of care.
Nobody cares about old people (Score:2)
Yes, but... (Score:3)
What's the alternative? Trickle-down economics was never more than a platitude; it's only resulted in the rich becoming much, much, much richer while the rest of us see living standards squeezed and the prospect of merely owning the roof above our heads becoming increasingly less likely.
When the likes of Amazon see revenue increase by 10% do wages also increase by the same amount? Do they shite. At some point in the near(ish) future there will be a tectonic shift in politics and "AI" is bringing that point ever closer. It will either take the form of a massive increase in co-ops* and the reining in of mega-corporations or something like UBI. The alternative is increasingly looking like riots, vigilanteism or straight up revolution. Just look at the Mangione business and how the public reaction ranged from indifference to outright celebration.
That story "Manna" is worth a read. It's not a brilliant novel but it does illustrate two of the different ways the future might go: corporations owning everything and normal people housed in conditions just good enough to keep them docile vs. the people all benefiting from cheap automation. I gather the author passed away recently.
*The business ownership model, not the housing kind.
Five interwoven economic alternatives (Score:3)
By me from 2011: "Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
"This video presents a simplified education model about socioeconomics and technological change. It discusses five interwoven economies (subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft) and how the balance will shift with cultural changes and technological changes. It suggests that things like a basic income, better planning, improved subsistence, and an expanded gift economy can com
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I don't think AI is going to do it. I think the incoming administration will be the ones doing it. From the incoming slate of officials, you can see they're massively tilting the scales at the rich to get richer on the backs of everyone else.
The assassination of that CEO, and the subsequent cheering of such has already put ripples in the ruling class who is trying to stifle it. But that should be the warning shot across the bow.
Of course, signs of the government being unstable are already showing - Elmo wit
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I don't think AI is going to do it. I think the incoming administration will be the ones doing it. From the incoming slate of officials, you can see they're massively tilting the scales at the rich to get richer on the backs of everyone else.
The assassination of that CEO, and the subsequent cheering of such has already put ripples in the ruling class who is trying to stifle it. But that should be the warning shot across the bow.
I say AI because it's going to cause the same sorts of problems that automation has caused in the past: human labour is replaced or augmented by technology but the consequent increases in productivity all go to the people at the top. I prefer not to talk about the US specifically because I'm not from there; the Mangione situation would obviously never arise in the UK.
Of course, signs of the government being unstable are already showing - Elmo with his "We need more cheap tech immigrants" has already started clashing with the MAGA crowd's "no more immigrants". The feud has been started with the MAGA crowd losing their "blue checks" on X/Twitter, making for some amusing talk about de-platforming.
But the whole removal of regulations "to make business competitive" is likely to raise a bunch of people who really will have nothing to lose, too many guns on hand, and other things.
Elon vs. Trump would make me get the popcorn out if I didn't hate the stuff, but it will be... interesting to watch, especially since the peop
over reliance on automation has led to airplane cr (Score:2)
over reliance on automation has led to airplane crashes when some automation was not working and the pilots lack the skills to take over when the system fails
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1. An absolute maximum wouldn't work. A ratio of lowest to highest paid is more equitable, e.g. the CEO can't be paid more than 50x what the janitor gets.
2. Again, no. This only works when all employees have a stake in the company. I strongly suggest you look at how companies like the Co-op group [wikipedia.org] and John Lewis [wikipedia.org] are structured. You get higher employee satisfaction and workers who actually have a stake in how well the company performs. If they don't you get problems like those the
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The funny thing is that in the US, we had a maximum wage for a period of time. This is why companies started offering benefits in addition to pay in the 50s and 60s.
just make the janitor some outsourced thing needs (Score:2)
just make the janitor some outsourced thing needs to be covered so company can get around it by having big part of the NON vp staff not working from them.
Marshall Brain's passing (Score:2)
"I gather the author passed away recently."
So sad to hear this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"Marshall David Brain II (May 17, 1961 â" November 20, 2024) was an American author, public speaker, futurist, businessman, and academic, who specialized in making complex topics easier to understand for the general public."
Did Slashdot have a memorial article for him?
I met Marshall in passing when I was around NC State in the late 1980s when he saw a demo I gave there of a simulation of self-replicating ro
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I don't think the downstream affects from raising the floor (could be UBI, but there are other means) for the underclass has been fully appreciated. The exact method matters less, except UBI has dramatic efficiency gains.
Mostly, the employer/employee dynamic changes dramatically when more people have greater freedom in choice (or even people having license to become entrepreneurs knowing they can still eat if it crashes and burns).
It gives people more participation in the wider economy instead of the comman
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There is no alternative. But the thing is while an UBI is necessary, it is not sufficient. Other measures are needed as well.
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Manna is a good read, either way.
The thing that is going to cause a major shift in how things are done is when supply lines can't be so long. Our entire business model is focused around JIT supply, and it doesn't take much to put major strain on it, like a ship stuck in a canal. With the possibility of war on the horizon and more rogue organizations trying to sink cargo ships, expecting cargo to make it from China to the US just isn't going to be an automatic assumption to take for granted.
Decentralizatio
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Trickle-down economics was never more than a platitude;
"Trickle-down economics" is just an insult, used for propaganda purposes. It's not a real economics policy [wikipedia.org].
I'm not for UBI either, but... (Score:3)
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Which would lead to civilization collapse if done in large enough numbers. As will probably happen in the next 10-20 years. Not a sane course of action.
How to fund it (Score:5, Interesting)
One objection to UBI is how to fund it.
Suppose you had $1 million in an index fund, and suppose that fund returns 7.5% over long periods.
Accounting 2% for inflation, 0.5% for management fees, that gives you a return of 5% in perpetuity. The S&P 500 long term return [investopedia.com] is 10.13%, and adjusted for inflation (the 2% mentioned) the return is 6%, so an index fund that returns 5% annually is not unreasonable.
So with $1 million in investment you could withdraw $50K annually forever. That would be enough to fund four UBI's, with a little left over.
To continue, the poverty rate in the US is around 11% [census.gov], call it 40 million people. To give everyone UBI in perpetuity using the method above would require $10 trillion, which is a lot.
For comparison, people in the US spend about $100 billion [fool.com] on lottery tickets each year.
The US could conceivably open up a UBI lottery and fund it like the lotteries are funded now, giving 50% of the revenues back as prize money and putting the other 50% into a fund to pay for UBI. Over the ensuing decades, the number of people receiving UBI would grow as the fund grows. Comparing with the existing lottery, our lottery has been running for about 40 years and the total revenue would have funded a quarter of the amount needed for UBI if that had been the intent.
Not a complete solution, but it would have made an enormous dent in the problem.
Perhaps we could convince a billionaire or two to contribute seed money to such a fund. Or maybe venture capitalists would be willing to chip in. There's about 800 billionaires in the US, many of which are trying to be philanthropic with their money. If it could be shown that UBI has overwhelming positive effects, we might be able to get $100 billion in initial investment to start the whole process off. If we can show that such an investment will show returns in, say, a more capable or more educated workforce, then it might be an easy sell to the high-end capitalists.
At any rate, just thought I'd get a post in to show how UBI might be made possible.
Before all the nay-sayers jump in and claim that it costs too much of everyone else's money.
Re: How to fund it (Score:2)
I'd imagine a lot of that money spent will end up being returned via taxes as people spend it.
If I make an extra $1000 a month, it's going to be spent/invested in some manner that is taxable. So really the government only spent say, $600 on me.
The real question that I never see answered is how on earth do you prevent inflation? For example, If everyone gets an extra $1000/month, then what's stopping landlords from raising rents by $1000/month?
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The real question that I never see answered is how on earth do you prevent inflation?
That is an answered and well modelled question. What you do is that you only moderately increase overall spending power.
Yes, that means much higher taxes. The second thing is that if that landlord does increase rent significantly, he gets taxed heavily on that as well, unless he can demonstrate proportionally increased cost.
An UBI does not mean just giving money to people. In order to work it also includes making it progressively harder to earn much more money than the average. As it should be. There is no
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No... the stock market is not a magical money machine that will always yield 7% real returns for however much capital is thrown at it. The only way to get any real returns
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There is a significant problem of scale to virtually every proposal on how to fund this. 50 grand fun for 4 people... ok. There are 330,000,000 Americans. I presume by the moniker "Universal" that it is meant to be paid out to everyone. 330MM times 12,500 per person is 4.125 Trillion dollars. If that is gleaned from investing in the S&P500 and was from a 5% annual return, that would require approximately 82.5 Trillion dollars in the fund. If you owned every share of every company in S&P's bundl
Industrial Society (Score:2)
Let's make society ever more complex so very few people can contribute effectively and fewer can handle the regulatory burden and then replace all those people's jobs with ClosedAI and Tesla Robots (made by guest workers apparently).
And then expect there will be no consequences.
Might as well just station the Goths and Visigoths on the Canadian border now. The other option is to go all THX1138.
Or we could calm the heck down and simplify. But "One Nation Under Gdp" says no.
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You may be on to something here.
My prediction for the future is an increase in "Precarious living".
1. Why is there the concept of medical debt in the United States?
2. Why do we have non-dischargeable student debt which can last for a lifetime without some form of expiration date?
3. Why are businesses allowed to lobby the US and state governments?
Who wants to live on UBI - (Score:2)
Without the feeling you're contributing to society in some form.
Giving money to live to people to improve their livelihood will help, but there are limits.
Who wants to be totally dependent on others for their existence? Isn't this like being in prison on some ways?
Who wants to live a life without some mild form of adversity to add some dynamics to living and keep it from being a static existence?
Can all people really find something to do with the large swaths of free time they'll have? Maybe the artists a
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For many people, it is actually pretty close to that, yes.
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Without the feeling you're contributing to society in some form.
Not many people, actually. Most work would still be done with an UBI that allows you t love decently off it. All scientifically sound studies on UBI show that it would _not_ create a serious labor shortage in the medium and long term. But crappy employers would go out of business and crappy jobs would not get done unless there are serious perks. That is as it should be.
The medical industry bankrupts people (Score:5, Insightful)
No mention of medical care.
The US doesn't have universal health care. Most other civilized countries have universal health care.
The largest cause of bankruptcy in the US is medical debt.
UBI is useless for covering medical care.
UBI plus universal health coverage would be a lot more successful.
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I was thinking along similar lines. A low UBI - not nearly enough to live on, but enough to fund hobbies other than robbing people - combined with direct provisioning of things which are human rights and necessary for life. (Housing and healthcare).
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And you would be doing it wrong. An UBI has to be high enough that you can live off it decently or it does not work. Obviously, medical must be covered as well.
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I know that's the conventional, purely capitalist conception of UBI. To still pay for all your needs with cash. But you put an asterisk behind it: "Except for healthcare". Why not add more asterisks?
The amount of cash you need to live varies quite a bit from place to place. Whose needs do you base the amount on? To me it makes more sense to guarantee a floor of resources needed for dignified living, cash-free, and have money be a thing you use to obtain luxuries, stuff we now call "consumer goods".
Housin
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Bankruptcy is not a death sentence.
Keeping the minimum levels of income and care humane is important. Giving rich people free healthcare, I don't see what's important about that.
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Do you have a problem giving poor people health care?
BTW, our greedy medical industry can easily generate hundreds of thousands in bills that would bankrupt most people.
UBI is not a full solution. (Score:3)
What it is when work runs out (as it may be about to in the next 10-20 years) is _necessary_. It is not _sufficient_.
Also, fanatical work-slaves, go away. You do not have the facts on your side and nobody respects you anyways.
It's not a Universal Middle Class Income. (Score:2)
It's a basic income. Think subsistence. And of course swelling the ranks of your most destitute but semi-functioning and possibly housed isn't a workable solution. Especially when the middle class is being squeezed out in favor of some new upper and a lot of new lower.
UBI is the idea you hold onto until you realize such a tweak isn't going to be enough.
If you just hand out money (Score:4, Insightful)
You really need to just take certain things off the table. Specifically food, shelter health care and education and transportation are basic necessities.
As long as depriving people of those things is on the table none of us is really free. Because the people at the top can always threaten you with homelessness and or starvation and then you're going to do what they tell you to do or else.
UBI doesn't solve that because it's too easy to put the money into you and suck it right back out with monopolies
add an CAP on OT / up the minimum salary level to (Score:2)
add an CAP on OT / up the minimum salary level to not be eligible for overtime pay
Re: UBI and socialism is what got us importing H-1 (Score:2)
Two questions:
1: what does UBI have to do with education?
2: how many of the immigrants got their training via subsidized post secondary education in their home country?
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Re: UBI and socialism is what got us importing H- (Score:2)
more trades track schools are needed and less fluf (Score:2)
more trades track schools are needed and less fluff in colleges are needed for people not on the ivy tower track. The push for college for + unlimited loans may college dumb down an bit while takeing on way more people then what they where intended to be for. out side the usa places with dual education system do better.
And trade schools should not of been pulled into the old college system.
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The problems of socialism, which started with FDR
Not socialism. But the most generally prosperous era in American history did start with FDR's New Deal. And it ended with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Some tech companies are laying off thousands of experienced workers while others are hiring H1B's. Is this a "shortage" of workers? I don't think so. I think these companies want to hire the "best" workers available anywhere in the world. Not surprisingly, some of those workers aren't Americans. Just as not all the best tennis players are. What is out of f
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Landlord here.
Better hope your competition all do the same.
Even if you and your competition create a cartel in your local area, your tenants could just decide move out of the area it is too expensive for them. (Maybe to an area with rent control)
Rents are typically raised when the landlords costs go up, or the vacancy rate nosedives.
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Better hope your competition all do the same.
We'll set our rents to whatever RealPage tells us to. Especially if we're outsourcing the management to another company.
(Maybe to an area with rent control)
Few of those exist. People tried to bring it back to California, but voters knocked out the Proposition. And punished the AIDS hospital that was backing the rent control.
Rents are typically raised when the landlords costs go up, or the vacancy rate nosedives.
In the last 10 years, the main driving factor is the algorithms. Our costs don't really go up, but we do price according to what the market will bear. Most of us want a bigger slice in order to better acquire more real est
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This is exactly what would happen.
UBI can only work in combination with rent/mortgage control measures, otherwise it's just a free gift to the landlord grift market.
Basically you have two things that need to exist before implementing an UBI scheme:
- defined at the city-level a maximum rent for residential and business (this could literately be defined as a $/sq ft rate. So any attempt to charge more than this results in taxation doubling
- empty/unproductive property tax. So property owners can't leave build
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Rather than government price controls, a more obvious solution to housing costs is for the government to stop obstructing housing construction.
Re: I hope UBI is enacted... (Score:2)
I think it would be better to somehow encourage cohabitation. Like a property tax break or something. And conversely, increase property taxes if it isn't the owner's primary residence.
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increase property taxes if it isn't the owner's primary residence.
How will higher taxes on rental units make housing more affordable?
Re: I hope UBI is enacted... (Score:2)
I don't know, hence I said "something like". It could, at least in the short term, discourage the idea of using homes as investment vehicles, which I think is part of the problem. The other is that we tend to put fewer people into homes than they were built to accommodate.
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Rented housing has more people per unit area than owner-occupied houses.
So, your goal of discouraging investment isn't consistent with your goal of putting more people into homes.
Perhaps, instead of a mishmash of contradictory policies, you should think about what you're trying to accomplish.
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Supply of housing very obviously isn't the problem. You know this. This has been explained to you multiple times.
The problem isn't too much regulation, it's too little.
Landlord grift (Score:2)
While I realise socialism has an attraction for the young in mind ( and experience), it seems odd that your desire to use my asset should be at a rate controlled by a third party.
I have a spare house. I don't rent it out. It's a nice house. Your security deposit would be of the order of 3 years rent (that is, worst case scenario renters can easily cause damage that will cost ~10% of the house's value to fix). Nice renters would get that back. Scumbags wouldn't. I have rented in 11 different houses or apart
Re: What a bunch of WEF paid faggots (also, rsilve (Score:2)
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LOL. You do understand that the employees of government contribute their salaries to the economy, right? And that governments themselves generally spend every penny they bring in on things that generally help you, right? Which in turn grows the economy?
The bigger problem is our government is already borrowing money against our descendants' earnings to fund their favorite hobbies and businesses. As for those "things that generally help you" I would refer you to the Rand Paul Festivus report on all those wonderful things that my children will be paying for in perpetuity.
I'm also not quite sure that the $148 billion dollars on the interest alone of the national debt this year was a wise expenditure choice in retrospect "that generally help you" rather tha
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There is tons of documentation online. You are asking in bad faith. Essentially you are lying.
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So you are such an honest actor you cite no proof of your assertion and then call the person a liar.
Get a life.