pentagathus
Baron
Out of what?
2016 U.S. Presidential Elections: The Circus Is In Full Swing
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Baron
pentagathus
Baron
Was she one of the fairly mainstream ones? Should I just Google her?
She got some major headlines for a while for directly calling Biden out on some very, very questionable positions he had that directly impacted her when she was in school. I honestly hadn't figured she'd drop before the primary vote. I just hope Klobuchar gets voted off the island soon because she's unironically insane.
I like the guy that wants to give everyone $1000 dollars a month. That's totally going to help out the debt
Andrew Yang? Seems like a great idea to implement lots of inflation and **** everybody's savings. 
Roccoflipside said:
Captured Joe said:Andrew Yang? Seems like a great idea to implement lots of inflation and **** everybody's savings.
The money isn't just going to go down a black hole. The point of giving everyone a basic survival income is so that nobody is in poverty, and widespread poverty in a country is actually hugely expensive in the long run. By having unconditional basic income for adults you can also do away with the byzantine welfare eligibility bureaucracy by just making everyone eligible.
Also by preventing people from starving to death if they can't find a job (something that is almost comedic in a fully developed country), you turn the job market from an employer's playground to employee-centric, meaning that every job has to be a lot better than "starvation" (my current job is extremely detrimental to my mental health and pays absolute peanuts. If I had £1000 a month I would quit in a heartbeat and do volunteer work). Currently amazon, uber and other tech companies basically employ slave labour with horrible conditions because it is the bottom of the barrel for employment and if you leave you are probably going to become homeless.
The idea of basic income has been around for centuries, and in the late 1800s it was believed that this system was inevitable given how few man-hours are actually needed to keep a society running.
In the 21st century it really is ludicrous that we have massive unemployment as well as massive poverty, as if we have both an underproductive and an overproductive economy. We have an overabundance of both manpower and resources but our current economic systems are terrible at making use of them, which is what basic income tries to address.
I have a few issues of my own with basic income but those are basically nitpicks when compared to what we have now.
Flin Flon
@Jacob, maybe you'd like this paper. It's cited regularly in favor of UBI: https://www.nber.org/papers/w24337
https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/publications/467_The-Price-Effect-of-Cash-versus-In-kind-Transfers_July%202017.pdf
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/20/16256240/mexico-cash-transfer-inflation-basic-income
Price theory (our current economic system) is why we have an efficient allocation of resources (''abundance'') in the first place. But yes, inequality negatively affects aggregate demand that could be addressed with UBI.
I mean, that's not certain but still. Why do you think we incur debts?Roccoflipside said:
It won't.Captured Joe said:Andrew Yang? Seems like a great idea to implement lots of inflation and **** everybody's savings.
https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/publications/467_The-Price-Effect-of-Cash-versus-In-kind-Transfers_July%202017.pdf
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/20/16256240/mexico-cash-transfer-inflation-basic-income
pentagathus
Baron
Is $1000 a month enough to live on in most of the US?
If you're a really austere person who lives alone in a paid off home. But the concept of UBI in no way encourages trying to live off it. It just gives a baseline so you're not totally ****ed if you have emergency expenditures, and hopes to spur productivity in traditional jobs and promote a more widespread and inclusive cottage industry. Generally speaking based on trials and statistics, having a guaranteed baseline of $1000 a month does wonders for people even if they already have a steady job by allowing them to better perform it in a number of ways; you aren't so perpetually financially anxious and distracted, you can afford to take jobs better suited to you further afield if you don't have to blow half your paycheck on gas money, you don't render yourself used up and useless to your company if you get in a car wreck and break your legs but drag yourself to work two weeks later anyway because you can't afford to miss a full paycheck, etc. It genuinely appears to be an almost universally beneficial thing if handled and implemented properly.
pentagathus
Baron
Could you provide some links to these trials? I've only heard of one trial of minimum income in Canada back in the 80s(?) and one fairly inconclusive one in Finland recently.
I quite like the idea of minimum income or negative income taxes but universal basic income sounds inpractically expensive.
I quite like the idea of minimum income or negative income taxes but universal basic income sounds inpractically expensive.
There are a ton of different proposals for implementation. One of the most extreme (that I am not in favor of, but see the potential merits of) that has been proposed is literally just removing all welfare beyond UBI. Of course, that wouldn't really do much good here as we don't have nationalized healthcare and $1,000 isn't even enough to pay for the ambulance ride to the hospital, let alone the treatment, but in countries with an already established NHS or the like, it could be a huge game changer. Beyond that, like I mentioned above, most studies I've seen mentioned seem to heavily suggest that a reasonable UBI massively stimulates the economy rather than harms it. It's like 12 decent tax rebates a year.
Being a literal medical invalid, at the moment I am nearly completely useless to society. It's very hard for me to hold down a regular job because of my various diseases, but I can confidently tell you as a personal example that if I had a check for $1,000 at the start of each month I'd do a whole lot less sitting around with my thumb up my ass and a whole lot more working on my writing and other freelance work. As it is I'm just sort of morbidly resigned to the notion that even if I produce something of undeniably high quality, I don't have the capital to advertise, publish, or distribute it whatsoever. I only have a cursory knowledge of the concept, so I won't pretend to be an expert. I don't have any links offhand, but I'm sure next time someone smarter than me swings by they'll be happy to oblige you.
Being a literal medical invalid, at the moment I am nearly completely useless to society. It's very hard for me to hold down a regular job because of my various diseases, but I can confidently tell you as a personal example that if I had a check for $1,000 at the start of each month I'd do a whole lot less sitting around with my thumb up my ass and a whole lot more working on my writing and other freelance work. As it is I'm just sort of morbidly resigned to the notion that even if I produce something of undeniably high quality, I don't have the capital to advertise, publish, or distribute it whatsoever. I only have a cursory knowledge of the concept, so I won't pretend to be an expert. I don't have any links offhand, but I'm sure next time someone smarter than me swings by they'll be happy to oblige you.
UBI is a right wing idea. Right-wingers complain that the usual welfare payments punish getting a job and earning more because they are conditional on being extremely poor. So UBI is supposed to not have this effect.
Calradianın Bilgesi said:
What? The only right wing-ish thing about it is that it isn't targeted at minorities. Imagine the look on employer's faces when you tell them to **** off with ****ty job conditions because you aren't fully dependent on the wage. UBI is the obvious next step in a post-Trump world. I can't think of a reason why anyone would turn down free money, right or left.
You should keep in mind that many people(including Yang) who advocate for UBI also want the abolishment of most other types of welfare(unemployment benefits etc.)
I think it's just out of time atm. The further you get from the political center in whichever direction, the more likely you are to find people who love it, but there will still be people in that group who hate it passionately. Truly the contrarian idea du jour.
