Germany's 'Universal Basic Income' Experiment Proves It Doesn't Encourage Unmployment (cnn.com) 154
People "are likely to continue working full-time even if they receive no-strings-attached universal basic income payments," reports CNN, citing results from a recent experiment in Germany (discussed on Slashdot in 2020):
Mein Grundeinkommen (My Basic Income), the Berlin-based non-profit that ran the German study, followed 122 people for three years. From June 2021 to May 2024, this group received an unconditional sum of €1,200 ($1,365) per month. The study focused on people aged between 21 and 40 who lived alone and already earned between 1,100 euros (around $1,250) and 2,600 euros ($2,950) a month. They were free to use the extra money from the study on anything they wanted. Over the course of three years, the only condition was that they had to fill out a questionnaire every six months that asked about different areas of their lives, including their financial situation, work patterns, mental well-being and social engagement.
One concern voiced by critics is that receiving a basic income could make people less inclined to work. But the Grundeinkommen study suggests that may not be the case at all. It found that receiving a basic income was not a reason for people to quit their jobs. On average, study participants worked 40 hours a week and stayed in employment — identical to the study's control group, which received no payment. "We find no evidence that people love doing nothing," Susann Fiedler, a professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business who was involved with the study, said on the study's website.
Unlike the control group, those receiving a basic income were more likely to change jobs or enroll in further education. They reported greater satisfaction in their working life — and were "significantly" more satisfied with their income...
And can more money buy happiness? According to the study, the recipients of a basic income reported feeling that their lives were "more valuable and meaningful" and felt a clear improvement in their mental health.
One concern voiced by critics is that receiving a basic income could make people less inclined to work. But the Grundeinkommen study suggests that may not be the case at all. It found that receiving a basic income was not a reason for people to quit their jobs. On average, study participants worked 40 hours a week and stayed in employment — identical to the study's control group, which received no payment. "We find no evidence that people love doing nothing," Susann Fiedler, a professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business who was involved with the study, said on the study's website.
Unlike the control group, those receiving a basic income were more likely to change jobs or enroll in further education. They reported greater satisfaction in their working life — and were "significantly" more satisfied with their income...
And can more money buy happiness? According to the study, the recipients of a basic income reported feeling that their lives were "more valuable and meaningful" and felt a clear improvement in their mental health.
Unmployment (Score:2)
Oh, those efficient Germans, always leaving out letters.
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Yea but I thought they left out spaces, between words.
Well yeah... (Score:2)
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Do Social Security checks create inflation?
Re: Well yeah... (Score:3)
If they're paid for with tax revenue no. If they're paid for with borrowing or just the good old fashioned printing press then yes.
Next question.
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Ahh, so the method and implementation here does in fact matter, not "UBI causes inflation" as axiomatically true.
Bring on our inflation free UBI checks then, the right wing agrees.
Re: Well yeah... (Score:5, Informative)
Uh huh and how many of those billionaires were in the Biden cabinet? Also that is
Here I'll help you out, it was zero. Let's check the Trump cabinet, 16 of them.
Also all those donors add up to $77M so even there you have less then the $120 million (on the record) that the world's single richest man spent on Trump.
But hey, "both sides" amirite?
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Typical hypocrite lefty.
You seem confused. You're talking about billionaires donating to the left, and then you show a list of billionaires donating to the center-right Democratic party.
Do you have examples of huge billionaire-backed donations to actual left-wing US political parties, such as the Communist Party USA, the Green Party of the United States, the Socialist Alternative, the Socialist Party USA, the Vermont Progressive Party, and/or the Working Families Party, to name the six left-wing parties with public officeholders i
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Not necessarily. As stated in the summary, people on UBI were more willing to change jobs, or continue further education.
While this might lead to higher education prices, but not necessarily additional inflation overall. I expect those who changed jobs, may had chosen careers that may pay less where they have a more fulfilling career without the worry about meeting basic needs. Other options would they may have chosen higher risk and possibly higher reword type of work as well.
Speaking from my own person
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The first higher education is essentially free in Germany.
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inflation caused by all of the UBI checks.
They won't cause any inflation. The idea of UBI is to redistribute wealth more equitably, not create it out of nothing. It may change how money is spent, but not how much.
Re: Well yeah... (Score:2)
This is a deflation without evidence.
UBI that's dependant on someone's existing income isn't UBI either.
Few people will quit a job for a temporary income either. Studies like this are generally very skewed when looked at for the finer details.
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Wealthy people save money.
No they don't. They do buy different stuff. They buy stock for instance. Or bonds. Or real estate. And those investment create as much or more inflation as someone buying a house or a better car.
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Wealthy people save money.
That saved money doesn't stay put in a vault, it's lent to indivuals and corporations by banks, then goes into different uses, all of which are expenses.
That's a key distinction between Capitalism and Merchantilism. In Merchantilism (and, before that, Feudalism) accumulated money was guarded within vaults and didn't serve any purpose. The key insight of Capitalism was to take advantage of rich people's greedy "mine, mine, mine" by making sure that the more wealth they accumulated, the more that accumulated
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There wouldn't be any inflation, if the UBI isn't fed by money printing.
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Both economies are dealing with cost disease -- an economic phenomenon where discretionary purchases like enormous TVs and phones become cheap but non-discretionary purchases like housing, food, health care and education become expensive. This is particularly in the US, which is why Americans have more stuff than ever before, yet feel economically less secure than at any time since the Great Depression.
UBI would definitely make that iPhone 16 Pro Max more expensive, because demand for high end flagship phon
Re: Well yeah... (Score:4, Insightful)
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hyperinflation
Not a problem... Germans have dealt with that before.
Re: Well yeah... (Score:2)
Yeah... And the last time that happened, an amateur Austrian painter became chancellor for totally unrelated reasons.
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This wasn't a UBI (Score:4, Informative)
This in no way proved what it claims to prove. There isn't enough space on this site to cover all the reasons...
Re:This wasn't a UBI (Score:4, Informative)
There's no "universal" definition for UBI though. It was a study, it provides some information. You don't like it. That's what we learned.
But I guess what you're saying is that if only it was UBI then unemployment would be encouraged? Is that your definition of UBI?
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Universal Basic Income is in the title.
It was not a study because giving 122 people money for a few years in a society of millions does NOT reflect an outcome.
Money in itself has no value apart from the process to print it. The value of money comes from effort/work. If there is no effort to acquire money and there is effort to create something then money will not be able to acquire it because nobody will create it. If everybody could acquire money with no effort then they get nothing of value when they exch
Re: This wasn't a UBI (Score:4, Interesting)
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I see where you are going with the value of money is based on work. That may of been true at one point but it isn't nearly so rigid as your post would imply. If we covered UBI with taxes collected, it would just be redistributing the same amount of money around. This would not cause inflation since the same amount of dollars would be chasing the same amount of goods.
On the other hand, if you print money or put on the national credit card, now you are creating inflation because you are increasing the supply
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Only in aggregate. It's generally the case that the ultra-rich are not buying the goods and services that the lower classes are trying to buy. This means that if you suddenly shift a bunch of money (spending power) to the lower classes, there will very likely be an increase in prices for the goods those lower classes purchase because you
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On the other hand, if you print money or put on the national credit card
Why limit it to the "national" credit card. Isn't he same true if you put it on your own credit card. You have spent money without creating any value.
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I'm gonna guess there's only one reason you had in mind, because everyone who criticizes studies like these only ever HAVE one reason: "It's not really UNIVERSAL basic income because it didn't include wealthier people."
Well the thing is, nobody really gives a shit what people with a lot of money will do with some extra pocket change. There is zero point in wasting limited funds for a study of how extra money will change people's behaviors/lives, if the people in question already have enough money to do basi
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Re:This wasn't a UBI (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people have a very Aristotelian political view: that there are masters, and there are slaves, and the slaves are, by the nature, subordinate, and cannot be permitted independence, since they'd just muck it up anyways. UBI violates this by basically saying there are no masters and slaves, that people will receive a sufficient income by the mere fact that they *human beings*, and not based on any cultural metric that so many of a conservative bent mistake for intrinsic worth.
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There are people in this argument that don't realize that money is just paper. Fancy paper, printed paper or just numbers in a bank statement. The truth is that money represents valued work, effort, and giving fancy paper away without work or effort diminishes the value of what that paper represents. Mind you our society with it's laws has skewed the value. In some ways it's beneficial and others it's not but that is OK because the value adjusts because all human beings decide what this value is.
The problem
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money is neither the cause nor the solution to this problem.
I think you are wrong. It is the money. The concentration of wealth is what is allowing a small group of people to have control. They have replaced self-government with an oligarchy.
If we don't redistribute the wealth democratic self-government is dead.
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I honestly don't mind the idea of UBI but I also do not see how it could work with a capitalistic society. We would have to change our society in numerous ways before we could actually implement a UBI but I just don't see us ever doing it.
Also, if UBI works out like how welfare is working out, it's not really long term way to live unless you truly detest working. Welfare, you can't really work your way out, unless they've changed things the past twenty years. UBI sounds like it's just no strings attached an
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UBI would work fine - IF the government would do its fucking job for once.
I.E.: Making sure that there are checks and balances that ensure the following conditions are met within the UBI budget
There are enough rent capped basic living spaces, without everything being in a slumlord project housing
Caps on how much basic staple foods cost per month.
Caps on the (enforced to be fast enough to at least be useful ) base tier of entertainment / internet.
Anything above the base tier of rent / more or better food thi
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UBI will just encourage mass illegal migration and drugs. Also since its run by beaurocrats who collect the taxes (to pay for it) there will be corruption and theft of funds
Fraud in social security is low, the more we fund the IRS the more fraud they prevent, all of this can be run very well if it's simply funded. There's all kinds of reporting requirements to make sure we can find fraud when it occurs. Even the obviously permanently disabled have to make reports in response to random quality control reviews.
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I am with parent on this one but not because it doesn't include wealthy people, but because it's an experiment. The idea of UBI is that you're getting cash, no strings attached, stress free, for you to plan your life around.
These UBI experiments are much like the WFH experiments many companies did, where they said "We're gonna allow you guys to work from home and if productivity doesn't fall, we will keep this forever". There is an implicit suggestion to lie and to be on your best behavior in order to make
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> These UBI experiments are much like the WFH experiments many companies did
You understand this study is 1) Not the first of its kind, and 2) Had a very robust control group? (Roughly 10x the size of the test group)
There's no need to lie on the surveys in the hopes of keeping the experiment going or stay in the program. It's not like they'd get kicked out of the study if they reported sitting on their ass smoking weed for three years, unlike an employer might.
> Give a set amount to everyone
Again, nobo
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Well no, it wasn't universal. What it did was suggest that the unsupported claims about human psychology that people who received a basic income would work less were not true. In fact, the group of people who received the checks continued to work just as much as the group of people who didn't.
It also calls into question some basic assumptions about human beings that underlay the "science" of most economics.
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It wasn't UBI from an economic point of view, but it absolutely fitted UBI perfectly from an end user point of view, which is all that was needed for determining people behaviour.
It was Universal: Given without means testing or conditions.
It was Basic: Covering essential needs.
It was Income.
Now if you want to study the viability of UBI as an economic platform for a government the definition changes, it wasn't Universal since it didn't apply to everyone and thus couldn't take the place of many government ser
Re: This wasn't a UBI (Score:2)
No, it doesn't.
It's definitive in nature, it's a specific amount for a specific period of time. The funds weren't enough in the local economy to drive inflation, because the same size was too small to do so. It won't drive people to abandon work because after the term of the study they need to have decent jobs to keep living. The temporary nature also limits the increase in their standard of living spending, as upgrading their living situation would be a problem at the end of the term.
These would be differe
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Universal in UBI means to cover everyone not just those who need it. This is the definition of welfare.
Germans are probably "wired" differently (Score:3)
Re: Germans are probably "wired" differently (Score:3)
Am I the only one to remember how pot leagalization arguments were met with this response too, "it might work in the Netherlands but not in Washington state", and how that argument has been dismissed by trying it anyway?
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No, everyone who's not a bigot remembers along with you.
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Yes, you are the only one who had a dog in the race who remembers. Overwhelmingly the other enthusiasts have problems with memory. :)
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Most people don't want to live a basic life on the minimum needed to survive. When they give up it's usually because they see that the system is rigged against them, or they feel that there are no opportunities.
It's particularly bad in the US.
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There is also the issue where, if you make less than X amount of dollars a month, you get benefits and if you make above them, you lose them. There is the obvious benefit where just staying below the line is more advantageous than crossing it by a small margin.
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In the UK you lose about 60p for every 100p you earn. In fact the majority of people receiving benefits, if you exclude the state pension, are working, i.e. it's corporate welfare.
Anyway, because you lose less than you gain, it is worth working. There's a lower limit too below which you don't lose anything I think.
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Or they've been trained to believe that "the system" is rigged against them by their parents/other adults in their lives and haven't had any role models that could show them otherwise.
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trained to believe that "the system" is rigged against them by their parents/other adults in their lives
To the contrary, they have been trained by the system to believe its rigged because the role models they see largely contradict their parent's claims about opportunity if they just "put their nose to the grindstone." What they see is very hard working people struggling while there is a group of privileged people who are wealthy while hardly doing any real work at all.
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I never quite got this and where is the evidence of this lack of work ethic outside of personal anecdote, where is the data? UE is very low so American's are working. We don't have a very strong welfare system and much of it is tied to work so unless a person has money to live already or is disabled or old they have to work in the US.
Is this monthly EITC thing quantifiable in any data? We should have a data point of quits or firings during tax refund time I would imagine if this is true.
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So when they could afford to take a vacation, they took vacations. How is this an argument against a UBI?
Good thing for all those auto workers (Score:2)
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Should be interesting to see what they actually build . . .
Three years is not enough (Score:2)
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People always imagine they'd do things differently than they actually do them, and UBI is not a free ride. UBI should be considered a baseline guarantee and efficient safety net, not a way to solve personal motivation problems. Those are different things.
No one would buy a BMW or Mercedes... (Score:3)
UBI just ensures we have consumers to buy our goods and services. It reduces the pressure on lower income families to hustle hustle hustle and take a breather and take care of their kids. There are a lot of women, for example, who want to work part time or stay at home with their children, but can't...either because they can't make ends meet or they're worried that if something happens, they'll go bankrupt without a good nest egg. This reduces that pressure. This allows people to pursue less profitable occupations...both the stupid ones you're probably thinking of like artists and artisans, but also things like restaurants and retail.
There are many who want to make you food or sell you things, but simply can't make enough profit to pay their bills...few retailers or restaurants can these days. UBI could turn back the clock 20 years on main street...back when there were many stores and restaurants...that you could actually afford to eat at.
Today, in my area, all restaurants are EXPENSIVE. I have 2 kids. I can't even eat at McDonald's for less than $50. A real restaurant is typically $75-100....and even then, they're constantly closing and complaining about how much they're struggling. UBI could allow them to operate again...maybe even lower prices slightly.
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> There are many who want to make you food or sell you things, but simply can't make enough profit to pay their bills.
You can usually get better results by increasing the amount of money you can earn before you have to pay taxes. This encourages people to work and lets them earn more money when they work.
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UBI devalues money so we end up at the same place. It's the choices we make and the laws we enact that create the situation. Printing more money does not fix the problem.
Fundamentally flawed understanding of money (Score:2, Insightful)
UBI or similar schemes, while having populist appeal, misunderstand the nature of money. There is no such thing as "free money" from the government - it was either taken from someone else (via taxes, etc...), or was printed (creating inflation, and the attendant macro effects.)
UBI schemes, because they are paid by taxpayer dollars, are always a zero sum game. Society as a whole is never made better. Unlike free trade, in which both parties benefit from a transaction, in UBI schemes, there are only hos
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"Society as a whole is never made better."
False. Your problem is your definition of "better".
"Unlike free trade, in which both parties benefit from a transaction, ..."
False. Your problem is your definition of "benefit".
"...in UBI schemes, there are only hosts and parasites."
False, for obvious reasons.
"Instead of fostering a system in which everyone involved in trade can benefit, we have people today creating classes of haves and have-nots, where the haves and have-nots are decided not by merit or individu
Cost-cutting (Score:2)
Judging by the headline - "...Unmployment" - DOGE must have convinced someone that letters cost money and we need to slash how many vowels we use.
Re: Cost-cutting (Score:2)
A Jewish conspiracy if ever there was one...
The problem with UBI (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with UBI is not, that people don't want to work. The problem is, that you need to pay workers what the work is worth.
Let's say nobody has to work because of UBI, but people inherently want to work. What jobs suffer? The ones, that are both unpopular and underpaid. You will suddenly have to pay a lot more for the jobs that are unpopular. That's how it should be in capitalism, demand and supply, but the job market in most countries undermines that and allows to exploit people who can't get better jobs to do that stuff not because they want or it is paid appropriately, but because they have no other option.
Once we agree that some companies have to let go of their underpaid slaves and pay people for these things, we can introduce UBI. But, of course, these companies lobby against it and also make the poor people believe it would be about their disadvantage in the end ("The only result is a price increase on everything!")
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That is not true. If people want to work, they will work on those underpaid jobs also, because there is nothing else available.
But if you think money will make them demand better pay, how about UBS then? Lets give people food, house, healthcare and minimum stuff needed for life. Everything we give should be really the minimum that can be provided with cheapest possible price.
If you want a better house, better food, clothes that don't make you look poor or if you want to buy a game console. You need to get a
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Once we agree that some companies have to let go of their underpaid slaves and pay people for these things, we can introduce UBI.
This is an incorrect conclusion.
You will suddenly have to pay a lot more for the jobs that are unpopular. That's how it should be in capitalism, demand and supply
This is the correct conclusion. The fact that this is true doesn't mean UBI shouldn't not be implemented, it means that when it is implemented that companies will either adapt or they will be replaced by startups or companies that have adapted.
The fasted way to end a bad practice is cut off it's source of funding. Therefore, if you do not wish to have virtual slaves in a society then making the practice economically unsustainable is the solution.
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No, you don't have to pay workers "what the work is worth". There is no absolute value on anyone's time other than that set by minimum wage laws. If you can figure out how to get people to pay more for the same work, you're free to try. Many of the highest wage earners with unique skill sets and/or some other form of leverage can negotiate fat paychecks despite sometimes not doing very much at all.
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It wasn't uncommon for Catholics to have 20 kids in the early to mid 20th century.
1) There was, for all intents and purposes, no birth control.
2) Not all of your 20 kids would survive until adulthood.
3) The more adult children you had, the more people you'd have to support you in your old age.
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No, that definitely ain't happening. Existing financial incentives to encourage more kids do not work, because the key problem is housing. If you can not afford the housing to have more children, you do not have more children/are more careful.
Solve the housing crisis every major city has, by making the cities own all the family sized rentals, and you will have exactly the population growth you want.
There is no business model in having 20 kids, because 20 room houses do not exist to have 20 kids in. Every ca
One possible flaw... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is UBI still being paid to participants? If not, did the participants know this was a 3 year study? If so, it's unlikely someone would just pause their career for 3 years because of it. The real test would be how folks would behave knowing this would never end.
On the other side, it can be argued that welfare programs in the US have created a permanent underclass. I grew up poor and my mom relied on those programs to raise us. I can tell you there was an insane amount of people who did everything they could to abuse those programs. I was lucky/smart enough to stop doing stupid shit once I turned 18. But most of my childhood friends did not. The ones who are still alive and not in jail are mostly still stuck on that merry-go-round.
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No. These experiments are inevitably short-lived, and avoid the consequences of participants who are, indeed, unwilling or unable to fulfill their end of the paperwork and bureaucratic requirements.
UBI supports fundamental human rights? (Score:2)
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Well clearly we don't believe that or else there would be cafeteria's open to the public for free meals, regardless of status. Never heard of that, so clearly "food" isn't a right. Housing is also clearly not or have you noticed all the homeless? They are prevalent in San Diego. Ironic, since it's such a rich city in a state with a GPD that would make the top ten yet we can't fix our homeless issues.
Starting to get the feeling that politicians are just talking out their ass when they say food and shelter ar
Now do it ... (Score:3)
The study focused on people aged between 21 and 40 who lived alone and already earned between 1,100 euros (around $1,250) and 2,600 euros ($2,950) a month.
But did it cause rent inflation? (Score:2)
The real question is did it cause landlords to just increase rent to the same level of the UBI so that the net result was negative?
This is something that already happens with Welfare systems. What we want to know is how landlords didn't just go "I know you are getting X, so I want all of X"
122 pre-selected people for 3 years? (Score:2)
Proves nothing, except that if you give people a lot of extra attention and support and _observation_ they're less likely to slack off. Now, try it with the Now try it with the roughly 5 million Muslim refugees from Turkey who are overwhelming Germany's social services, and declaring Sharia law in their newly settled communities.
Answering questions that aren't relevant... (Score:2)
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How do you think the economy works right now? You do work and money magically appears in your bank account because you 'created' it by doing your job?
The government prints it (though it's mostly digital now), the value is affected by how much is available to move around and the perceived productivity of the economic region that government controls plus a few other factors.
Once it's in circulation, the question is where that money moves and what those movements represent. A government can force it to move
Cue the propaganda (Score:2)
- Everyone (except me) will turn into do-nothing drug-addicts. [Ignore the economic principle of unlimited wants.]
- This is a pay-rise [False]. Giving everyone a pay-rise is wrong.
- 'Bad' people don't deserve a place in society.
A generic 'bad' discrimination allows the slippery slope/Overton Window to cause a race to the 'bottom' of human rights. Where's the Elon Musk hospital, the Elon Musk school, the Elon Musk library? Has this billionaire spent a cent helping a
If we could find story combining UBI and DEI (Score:2)
Re: Not what it is about (Score:2)
If you legalized drugs would addicts even need state support? Did your morals cause a huge risk premium that meant you couldn't support your habit with miminum wage?
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Yes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Removing life penalties for people that make bad decisions is bad for society as a whole.
people who get where they are through bad life choices should be forced to be on the straight and narrow before they get one iota of support. i.e. drug use or anything like that that is still going on should make anyone ineligible for any type of support at all. And there are other things people that people did in their past that limit their upward mobility such drug or criminal records (past). Those things hurt your money making potential as well but those people should not get assistance either because of bad life choices.
This is how you create a permanent criminal underclass.
No social support because you are/were a criminal/druggie.
-have to commit crimes to survive / take drugs as an escape.
--repeat.
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This is how you create a permanent criminal underclass.
No social support because you are/were a criminal/druggie.
-have to commit crimes to survive / take drugs as an escape.
--repeat.
This is the fallacy that drives this type of thinking. Criminality is 90% a learned and justified behavior, not one of social status or the amount of money someone makes. Proof of this was the way society fell apart after Hurricane Katrina. Race really has nothing to do with this statement except that the "teaching" that it is OK to do this does somewhat follow racial boundaries. But after Katrina, the Mississippi side of the river that was equally affected as the Louisiana side, yet Mississippi had a fract
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But after Katrina, the Mississippi side of the river that was equally affected as the Louisiana side, yet Mississippi had a fraction of the looting and theft as the Louisiana side.
Look at a map. The Mississippi side of the river has a fraction of the population of the Louisiana side.
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And the statistics that came out of Katrina were adjusted to be per capita. The fact is that one side was taught that even when times are rough you don't steal from other people and the other side was taught to "take back from the man".
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Criminality is 90% a learned and justified behavior, not one of social status or the amount of money someone makes.
Criminality requires getting caught and that is certainly a question of social status and money. There are plenty of criminals out there who are suffering no penalty. Likely including you if someone decided they wanted to put you in jail. As a local prosecutor told me, most people are criminals they just don't know it. Or if they do that no one will prosecute "people like them."
Re:Not what it is about (Score:5, Insightful)
"I have no problem helping those people. But people who get where they are through bad life choices should be forced to be on the straight and narrow before they get one iota of support."
In other words, your "charity" entitles you to pick winners and losers. Empathy is conditional, cruelty is justifiable.
"...i.e. drug use or anything like that that is still going on should make anyone ineligible for any type of support at all."
Why? And what is "anything like that? Sounds more religious than anything.
"And there are other things people that people did in their past that limit their upward mobility such drug or criminal records (past)."
Because of biases like yours.
"There is a great life lesson that SO many people never learn."
It's not really a life lesson when it's permanent.
"There are bad decisions that you can make that take 20 seconds to make, that can (and should) affect you the entire rest of your life."
Sure, for others but not for you. Empathy is for help that you need, cruelty is for help others need.
"And once that decision is made, you pay for it your entire life in one way or another. You can still "make it" but it becomes vastly harder to make it."
Because the more guaranteed losers there are, the better the odds are you aren't one of them. You're just pulling up the ladders, you deserve all the flames you imagined you'd get.
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That's just 100% false. When you have a safety net you can take risks. When you don't have one, you take the least risky path. When you see what happens to people who fail and it's bad, you won't take risks. If you see people bounce back or at least survive, then you will take risks. Why do you think the rich get richer? Reference: https://fivethirtyeight.com/fe... [fivethirtyeight.com]
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Your claim is partially false also. Some people are more willing to take risks than others, no matter how much safety they have. For example I have enough safety to live for 16 years with the safety. But I still avoid risks. I would only take risks if I had never ending safety net and even then, only with the money that I can spare while keeping my safety net. Elon Musk on the other hand has taken huge risks with very little money putting majority of his money on the line. I could never do something like th
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Elon Musk has taken very little risk in his life. As in, he never took a risk wherein if it failed he'd be homeless, lose medical, and could starve. Someone with 100 million risking 80 million isn't really the same as someone who could lose their life savings and home if they were to fail at something.
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I'll be willing to try your idea but you will never get the politicians to pass that law. 1) How would "charities" eat up 90% of the money in administrative overhead with the rest going to the poor? 2) If we just passed money out, the administration of handing that money out would result in fewer jobs, so that won't work either.
As you see, we really have a corruption problem and I doubt there is a statehouse that isn't infected, regardless of party. I can find guilty examples from both ruling parties. Peopl
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There are bad decisions that you can make that take 20 seconds to make, that can (and should) affect you the entire rest of your life.
Why? No seriously why? And when you formulate your answer have a think about what it does to someone to put them in that situation. Do you think a person that you have locked out of being a productive member of society is a benefit or a hinderance to your society?
Next time you're robbed at knife point by someone with a criminal record who can't get a job or survive in any way other than crime, I hope you take a moment for a bit of introspection. And then I hope you get injured. But to be clear, I hope you d
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Why? No seriously why? And when you formulate your answer have a think about what it does to someone to put them in that situation. Do you think a person that you have locked out of being a productive member of society is a benefit or a hinderance to your society? Next time you're robbed at knife point by someone with a criminal record who can't get a job or survive in any way other than crime, I hope you take a moment for a bit of introspection. And then I hope you get injured. But to be clear, I hope you don't die or don't end up with your life crippled, because then and ONLY then can you learn something from it.
EVERYONE who is above board can survive without crime. And in a post above I talk about hurricane Katrina that proves your post wrong anyway. People can be in bad situations but still have been taught in childhood that stealing from someone is never an option while others, not so much. No one is 100% locked out, it just becomes much more difficult. Society should not be held hostage to other peoples failings. Also, I want to clarify that I am only talking about GOVERNMENT aid that doesn't stop when people
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people who get where they are through bad life choices should be forced to be on the straight and narrow before they get one iota of support. i.e. drug use or anything like that that is still going on should make anyone ineligible for any type of support at all.
So, if someone on drugs is hurt in a car accident and has no health insurance they should be left to die?
There are lots of people now, at least in the United States, who want to make other people behave. Its the reason we have become an authoritarian society. Of course everyone thinks they and people like them should be free to do what they choose. Its those other people who need to be made to behave.They don't all agree on the behavior or who "those" people are, but we are arguing mostly not over freedom v
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Trust fund babies can fail out just as hard as kids who grow up poor. See: Hunter Biden. Also what makes you think that subsidizing people with a known criminal history will magically make them into entrepreneurs?
If there is to be a UBI of some sort, the most powerful incentive to avoid criminal and/or self-destructive behavior is to demonstrate that honest, decent, law-abiding (relatively-speaking) people can get ahead while people who harm themselves and the people around them can't.
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There is a massive difference between forgiving someone of their sins versus letting them get away with criminality with no fallout from it. You absolutely can forgive someone but still expect them to live with the fallout of their decisions. I don't think permanent jail time is necessary when someone has a criminal record, but I do believe that everyone who employs someone with a permanent record deserves to know about it. I think that is the correct path, and it is simple fact that having that criminal re
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The only way UBI could work as a "baseline" is to fix the price of housing or some how always ensure an available room for everyone. Otherwise, if everyone is getting UBI, rents and housing will go up to eat that extra income up.