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Chicago Isn't Broke Enough? Universal Basic Income...

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  • #16
    Because liberals prefer an easy BS solution that fails to solve the problem or address the underlying causes so they can keep blaming various imagined hobgoblins and boogeymen to keep themselves in power. Ever since the birth of the left as we know it, they have only ever been about one thing: micromanaging the social and economic lives of every man, woman and child at the point of a gun. Everything up to and including multiple mass genocide is perfectly acceptable as long as furthers their insane views.
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    • #17
      Originally posted by Rational Gaze View Post
      Because liberals prefer an easy BS solution that fails to solve the problem or address the underlying causes so they can keep blaming various imagined hobgoblins and boogeymen to keep themselves in power. Ever since the birth of the left as we know it, they have only ever been about one thing: micromanaging the social and economic lives of every man, woman and child at the point of a gun. Everything up to and including multiple mass genocide is perfectly acceptable as long as furthers their insane views.
      Where do you get this insanity from? Have you considered checking yourself into a psychiatric facility?
      "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
      "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
      "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

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      • #18
        Originally posted by QuantaFille View Post
        The difference though, is who they depend on for that money. When the government gives people free money, they depend on the government. They are not independent.
        When an employer gives an employee money, they depend on the employer, they're not independent. I'm reminded of the proverb "no man is an island, entire of itself"... everyone lives in society with others, none of us are "independent" of everyone around us in a really deep sense.

        Eventually, people will decide to stop earning it if the government is just going to take it
        I have never, ever, heard of any person in the world who said "I've decided I'm not going to bother to earn money for myself because the government takes a small percentage of it". Economists have wildly speculated this might happen if taxes were in the 90%+ range, but as far as I am aware there is zero empirical data on people who have decided not to get rich because of taxes.

        You think that it's helping to give people cash indefinitely
        Yes, it makes them richer. There's also reasonably good empirical data that people do use the money responsibly and sensibly to improve their lives (e.g. pay for an education, use it to start a business etc).

        they aren't being given the means of creating that wealth for themselves.
        The money allows them the freedom to obtain the things they need for creating wealth - e.g. to pursue education, to have a roof over their head while they apply for jobs, to buy a suit to go to work in, to buy a vehicle to travel to work, the funds they need to start a business, etc.

        So you do know how it works.


        Let's say that donut shop owners wanted their community to have more money to spend. So, they find a few poor people and start giving them a paycheck, but not a job in their shop. These poor people are still technically unemployed, but at least they have money for donuts, right? Where does that money come from? It's an investment with no hope of return.
        ? Pretty much 100% of the money given to the poor people will be immediately spent on goods and services in the local community - that's what the phrase "living paycheck to paycheck" means, such people spend 100% of their income every week. So if the local community gives money to poor people it's an investment with 100% return within the week - those people will spend the money on local goods and services and do so immediately. So when you say "an investment with no hope of return" I don't understand what you are trying to say.

        But if the shop owner hires these poor people and teaches the employees how to make great donuts and how to run a donut shop most efficiently, and they all go out and start their own shops, they are earning that money themselves and it's absolutely sustainable.
        Donut shops would only hire more employees if there were higher demand for donuts. We could create higher demand for donuts by giving poor people more money... which would then lead to the donut shop employing more staff, etc.

        If the policy you are instead proposing is that the government could pay businesses to take on more staff than they need/want, thereby creating more jobs, sure, I'm mostly on board with that. Then you're kind of heading in the direction of a federal jobs guarantee of the kind that Bernie Sanders and some Democrats are currently talking about. You'd have to try and figure out exactly how to differentiate between a 'normal' employee that the business would have hired anyway, and an 'extra' employee whom the government is paying the business to hire unnecessarily, and try to prevent employers from scamming the system by claiming subsidies for employees they would have hired anyway and that gets complex, but imagining you could find a way to do that then the policy seems okay.

        So it doesn't enable companies to hire more people and bring down the unemployment rate? Interesting.
        Increasing the minimum wage tends to be mathematically neutral with regard to unemployment. A few employers can no longer afford all their staff and will lay off a worker or two, and a few employers will have increased demand for goods and services and so will hire a worker or two. But because the amounts being paid to employees and the amounts they are spending if they're living paycheck to paycheck (100% of wages) remain the same ratio (i.e. 1.0), there's no change to employment levels.

        The only ways it typically changes employment levels is if people who had previously been voluntarily unemployed decide it's now "worth working" at the new higher minimum wage levels and start applying for/getting jobs, or if the raise to the minimum wage is high enough that workers are now able to save some of their income and are no longer living paycheck to paycheck and thus not spending their entire pay increase which may then lower employment as businesses aren't seeing the same increase in revenue that they're spending in increased wages.

        Australia released a study on the subject showing minimum wage increases caused no job losses and maybe caused a few job gains, and they have one of the highest minimum wages in the world. Their minimum wage is currently $18.93 AUD per hour, which is somewhere in the vicinity of $14-$18 USD per hour depending on how the exchange rate is doing in any given year.

        "Hey Bob, I'm going to assume you're not capable of earning your own money, so I'm not even going to bother trying to help you get yourself out of this mess. I'm going to give you $500 every month, indefinitely." How is that NOT demeaning to the poor?!
        Because nobody except you says that sort of nasty thing.

        How about "life's hard and we're all in this together as a society and a country, have $500 to help yourself get back on your feet"?

        I'd rather be given job skills to get myself out instead of being made dependant on the government for my daily needs.
        Nothing's stopping you spending that money from the government to get job skills. In fact, the government would absolutely love for you to do that.

        I'm saying that it's unsustainable for only those with jobs to support everyone (including those without jobs) rather than everyone making their own money. This is basic economics.
        No.

        I'm not judging the poor people. I'm simply pointing out that there is no dignity in being dependant on the government when there are other ways.
        Human dignity is innate, it isn't a function of dependence on the government or lack of it.

        It's not the government's job to build roads,
        As a factual matter, with regard to Western countries in the present day, it is literally the government's job to build roads. Libertarian fantasies about ideal worlds in which people all have jet-packs and local businesses build the roads aren't factual.

        My point is, there are things that the government should provide for its citizens, and things it shouldn't.
        Probably, but that's a pretty vague statement.

        Would you want the government to wipe your butt for you every time you poop?
        I don't quite know how to interpret this. I'm reminded of Indian toilets, I think it is, that squirt water onto your behind rather than use toilet paper. So if you're suggesting that the government provided toilets in public spaces that it already provides should follow that model.... I dunno if I'd have a problem with that. But I don't think that's what you're trying to get at.

        But, wiping your butt is a basic necessity! Why shouldn't the government do it for you?
        To me it's all about efficiency, optimization, and outcomes. If the proposal is that the government should install all toilets and make them robotic/water squirting, then I would be happy to see the efficiency and cost-saving pros and cons of that. I would judge it based on whether it made society happier, more efficient, lower cost.

        But I wouldn't approach it with arbitrary philosophical declarations of "I think the government inherently should/shouldn't be in the business of toilets" and would regard anyone who did as silly.

        you want a government agent stationed at every toilet.
        That would be inefficient, so I would never want that. It would also breach basic personal privacy, so I would never want that.
        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

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        • #19
          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
          Bearing in mind that:
          40 percent of US adults couldn't afford a $400 emergency expense
          57 percent of US adults couldn't afford a $500 one-off expense
          Only 39% of Americans have enough savings to cover a $1,000 emergency

          I think an extra $500 a month would be absolutely life-changing for a lot of Americans.

          Bernie Sanders did what was apparently a pretty stunning CEOs vs Workers townhall this week, which I haven't watched yet, where several run-of-the-mill US workers shared their despair at not even being able to cover unexpected $20 expenses. If someone is really struggling to deal with bills in the $20 range, and you rock up to them and hand them an extra $500 a month no strings attached that is probably going to dramatically improve their quality of life and day-to-day stress levels.

          It's obviously not going to make them rich, and it's obviously not enough in and of itself to live on. But I do think this is probably the way forward for the Western world: Begin to add these universal basic income payments at low levels (independent of any existing welfare benefits) and if they prove to work well, gradually ramp them up over time and collect data on how well they're working each step of the way. I will be fascinated to see how this turns out if Chicago decides to go ahead with it.

          I would absolutely love to see my country introduce a ~0.1% per year tax on property and share assets (which is where ~99.99% of the wealth in the modern world lies) and to dish out that money to everyone in the form of a universal basic income and have a look at how that works, because existing data suggests it ought to work really well.

          It's possible this is intended by Chicago as at least partially an anti-crime measure. Presumably if you go to jail/prison you stop getting the money? Incarcerating people is really expensive, like really really expensive - it's cheaper to send someone to the best university in the country on a full scholarship for a year than put them in prison for a year. So if you can pay at-risk people to not commit crime it really is financially worth it. And pilot programs around the world have found that paying high-risk people to not commit crime really can work. If you think of the traditional idea of a carrot and a stick as the standard means of persuasion, it's a bit strange if you think about it that our societies have always used the stick (punishment / prison) to discourage crime, but never thought to use the carrot. Funnily enough, it turns out the carrot works too.
          While I could use $500 a month extra, I wonder where Chicago thinks this money will come from? They don't exactly have a debt-free city and merely raising taxes just takes money away from other people who might need it just as much. If this is a no questions asked, you know that everyone will want it, and nobody will want to pay for it.

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          • #20
            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
            Outside of this forum, my experiences with humans have been pretty positive.
            You should up your happiness quotient and not come here any more. Why make yourself miserable?
            Last edited by Sparko; 07-20-2018, 08:56 AM.

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            • #21
              Originally posted by Sparko View Post
              Outside of this forum, my experiences with humans have been pretty positive.
              You should make up your happiness quotient and not come here any more. Why make yourself miserable?
              "The unexamined life is not worth living."
              Gotta get outside my bubble of kind and sane people sometimes and talk to different people.
              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                What Chicago is doing sounds like a cheesy experiment to me. Its a small welfare bonus, or like Mountain Man suggests a bait-and-switch. I don't like it.

                The concept of a Universal Basic Income is interesting, but aside from experiments with it in various places I've only ever heard it seriously discussed as something that would inevitably occur in a post-scarcity economy.

                We don't live in a post-scarcity economy. There's significant competition for limited resourced. There's limited areable land, there's limited sources of clean water, there's limited amounts of oil. There's plenty of consumer goods and consumables that require large amounts of effort in terms of man hours to extract and process.

                I don't see the need for a universal basic income here. It would belong in an age that is inevitably coming where automation has made menial labor a thing of the past. This is inevitable. Like the peak oil, there's nothing we can do about the basic facts of the matter. Automation is getting better. Cars can drive themselves already, and this will soon become mainstream. Farming could become entirely automated requiring only a small number of overseers. At first this will open up new kinds of jobs for technitians, and system administrators. However there's no doubting that the jobs will require more and more technical knowledge to perform.

                When the robots become capable of repairing robots themselves, cleaning homes, doing the works of miners, of construction workers, ... A large force of people will exist without employment. There won't be jobs to give them. Companies could be incentivised to use humans when possible, but companies being companies will always go for the cheaper. Its inevitable. A large number of people will be left without jobs that could provide an income.

                You could teach a man to fish, but when he gets to the lake there's already twenty FisherBot2000 robots catching pretty much any fish in the lake to be had.

                In a society like that with a radically automated industry the price of all goods would drop exponentially. Since the industry requires few people it can scale itself up. Its really hard to know what effects this would have politically, or economically. But there's wide agreement that at that point simply granting all people a universal basic income would be the easiest way to deal with the dissatisfied populace.

                This wouldn't be a paltry 500$ a week. It'd be a living wage of something like 3000$ per month, at least. In other words if you don't want to work you don't have to. If there's no jobs for you then you'd still be able to live a good life, in a nice apartment, with all the luxuries of life.



                TLDR; To me its a science-fiction proposal for how to manage the economy in a humane way some 100 to 200 years from now.
                They have been saying all this since the early 20th century when automation became possible. Then again when computers came along. Yet instead of eliminating jobs for mass numbers of people, automation has created new jobs and changed the way people did old jobs. Those who could not keep up eventually retired. Some did lose their jobs. But that is the way society has always been. The automobile replaced buggy makers and horse farms. Automated looms replaced manual loomers, but opened up a ton of new jobs in the textile industry.

                I think no matter what, people will always have jobs. The jobs just shift to new areas.

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                  While I could use $500 a month extra, I wonder where Chicago thinks this money will come from? They don't exactly have a debt-free city and merely raising taxes just takes money away from other people who might need it just as much. If this is a no questions asked, you know that everyone will want it, and nobody will want to pay for it.
                  Chicago is slowly but surely experiencing a population drain as those who can afford to are leaving. It has seen a decline over the past three years being the only major U.S. city to lose population during that period.

                  I'm sure that yet another major tax-and-spend program is just what is needed to stem the flow.

                  I'm always still in trouble again

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                    "The unexamined life is not worth living."
                    Gotta get outside my bubble
                    Great. When are you going to do that?

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                      Chicago is slowly but surely experiencing a population drain as those who can afford to are leaving. It has seen a decline over the past three years being the only major U.S. city to lose population during that period.

                      I'm sure that yet another major tax-and-spend program is just what is needed to stem the flow.
                      Maybe Chicago could do things to lower the cost of living instead of handing out cash. Lower utilities, housing costs, tax breaks, less government waste and pork.

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                      • #26
                        More jobs...
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                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                          "The unexamined life is not worth living."
                          Gotta get outside my bubble of kind and sane people sometimes and talk to different people.


                          Same here! It really makes you appreciate one's rational, good natured friends. You know, normal people!
                          “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                            They have been saying all this since the early 20th century when automation became possible. Then again when computers came along. Yet instead of eliminating jobs for mass numbers of people, automation has created new jobs and changed the way people did old jobs. Those who could not keep up eventually retired. Some did lose their jobs. But that is the way society has always been. The automobile replaced buggy makers and horse farms. Automated looms replaced manual loomers, but opened up a ton of new jobs in the textile industry.

                            I think no matter what, people will always have jobs. The jobs just shift to new areas.
                            Maybe. But Jordan Peterson has made some disturbing observations about IQ and employability.
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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                              Chicago is slowly but surely experiencing a population drain as those who can afford to are leaving. It has seen a decline over the past three years being the only major U.S. city to lose population during that period.

                              I'm sure that yet another major tax-and-spend program is just what is needed to stem the flow.
                              One of my long-time online friends recently abandoned the sinking ship and moved to Kentucky.
                              Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

                              Beige Federalist.

                              Nationalist Christian.

                              "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

                              Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.

                              Proud member of the this space left blank community.

                              Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.

                              Justice for Ashli Babbitt!

                              Justice for Matthew Perna!

                              Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!

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                              • #30
                                Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                                They have been saying all this since the early 20th century when automation became possible. Then again when computers came along. Yet instead of eliminating jobs for mass numbers of people, automation has created new jobs and changed the way people did old jobs. Those who could not keep up eventually retired. Some did lose their jobs. But that is the way society has always been. The automobile replaced buggy makers and horse farms. Automated looms replaced manual loomers, but opened up a ton of new jobs in the textile industry.

                                I think no matter what, people will always have jobs. The jobs just shift to new areas.
                                Yes, but just because the exact moment in time when it would happen, doesn't mean that it won't happen. Precisely what I stated, that new jobs require greater skill, is basically what you're saying. Yes, new higher skilled jobs were created. And that has been and is a very positive development. The question is whether this can continue.

                                I admit its speculative, but I think we'll have a situation where the majority of the population wouldn't have the required skill to fill the relatively small amount of jobs available. If such a situation became the case, then I think universal basic income would happen. Either that or we'd transition to a money less society, since commodities could be produced so quickly that putting a price on them would be pointless.

                                Its the same with Peak Oil predictions. There's only a finite amount of oil in the ground. Its a non-replenishing resource. Ergo oil prices will inevitably rise as it becomes more scarce. When that occurs is hard to predict, but its inevitable.

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