Universal Basic Income

[sanantone]

He's a dbag too, doesn't hurt my feelings.


But that witch became a millionaire while she was supposed to be serving the people .

Most presidents' families come out of office wealthy just by writing books and getting paid to speak.

[ndelco]

That reminds me of someone saying how amazing it is the Clinton's have made so much money from writing multiple books about their time in office, yet under oath, they said, "I don't remember" hundreds of times. I chuckled quite a bit when I read that. I think if we're being honest, without getting too political, we can all agree the Clinton's didn't make their millions from writing books and giving speeches.

[jsd]

While I've never been a fan of Clinton, writing a book about the things you remember and not about the things you don't seems pretty... typical.

[ndelco]

LOL, seems unlikely to remember things from years before but to forget things from months before. It's all good. This is where I bow out because I do not enjoy political debates.

[dfrecore]

UBI - sounds good in theory, and Finland is trying it out for 2 years. BUT, one of the reasons they think it will work is culture, and homogeneity. They have very strong cultural pressures there to work hard and make a decent living. We do NOT have either of those things (that kind of culture or homogeneity) here in the US, so it would probably not work well.

Also, when I heard someone talking about it here, it was in PLACE of welfare. So, take away all kinds of welfare from people, and give them all a wage (it was something like $10k a year). I think most people on welfare actually get more than $10k/yr, so they're not going to vote for that. The one good thing it did though, was take away the disincentives for men and women to get married. The war on poverty, which has been disastrous for black families especially, made women basically kick men out in order to qualify for benefits. This instead will encourage them to stay together - 2 adults making $20k a year is a lot better off than 1 adult making $10k. The welfare system also provides disincentives for working - taking away benefits the more money you make. This plan would give the money to you whether you worked or not. The other thing the welfare system does in incentivize having more children. This money would be for adults only, meaning no incentives to have children. The more kids you have, the more you have to spend. The fewer children you have, the less you need to spend.

The other interesting thing is that the person I heard talking about it was saying that it provided disincentives for people to make excuses for themselves. If we both get our monthly check of $833, and after rent, you spend it all on cigarettes and Xbox games and a bunch of other crap that you don't need, and I spend it on groceries and still have some money left over at the end of the month, if you think I'm going to feel sorry for you when you complain about not having any money, you've got another think coming. Everyone will start to see who is wasteful and who is being smart with their money.

I really don't think it will work - it would turn into $10k a year PLUS welfare at some point, when people realized that $10k was not enough for those who weren't earning enough, and too much for those making a good salary. I just don't see it making a difference.

Plus, it's a crazy amount of money. I'm roughly estimating that there are 208million adults in the US. That's $2 trillion dollars a year in payouts. Yikes. We currently spend $1 trillion now, so doubling that would be hard.

One last thing - Mike Rowe is constantly talking about how many jobs go unfilled in the US all the time. Something like 5 million jobs. For skilled labor, no degree required. So it's not like we don't have jobs here. What we do have is a culture that is constantly trying to make everyone go to college (and get a little student loan debt as a bonus), and talking about blue collar work like it's the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone. We need to change that mindset, so that 5 million more people have good jobs doing what is actually needed, rather than those same people going to college for jobs that don't exist. Yeah, it may not be a "good" job sitting behind a desk in A/C for 8 hours a day, but the jobs exist, people just look down their noses at them. Change your definition of a "good" job and you just might solve the unemployment problem, and not need a Basic Universal Income in the first place.

[icampy]

How dare you! hilarious

One would have to be pretty ignorant to believe that. Or more likely, purposefully ignore it. It's not even debatable.


Kickbacks from hostile countries, leaders, and dictators pays well. Whether it's uranium or policies the traitor gives them.

It's not just having money from "writing books" I'm talking about(stop kidding yourself, people...ignore party lines for a minute and open your damn eyes)..... it's money gained from kickbacks and every other dishonest way. From the local mayor up to the highest offices, both parties. At some point it crosses a line. That hag needs a traitors punishment for how she sold out...and to whom.

[sanantone]

That reminds me of someone saying how amazing it is the Clinton's have made so much money from writing multiple books about their time in office, yet under oath, they said, "I don't remember" hundreds of times. I chuckled quite a bit when I read that. I think if we're being honest, without getting too political, we can all agree the Clinton's didn't make their millions from writing books and giving speeches.

Why not? If you're getting paid hundreds of thousands for speeches and investing, then how could you not become a millionaire? You would be quite dumb to not be able to turn hundreds of thousands into millions. Rick Perry hasn't had a private sector job in...I'm not sure if he's ever had a private sector job, but he somehow became a millionaire while in office by investing in real estate. Some people say that he used his position to make deals, but I don't know until I see evidence. The salary for Texas governor is not nearly as high as the $400k a year a president gets paid. You all do remember that presidents get nearly a half a million a year, right?

[sanantone]

UBI - sounds good in theory, and Finland is trying it out for 2 years. BUT, one of the reasons they think it will work is culture, and homogeneity. They have very strong cultural pressures there to work hard and make a decent living. We do NOT have either of those things (that kind of culture or homogeneity) here in the US, so it would probably not work well.

Also, when I heard someone talking about it here, it was in PLACE of welfare. So, take away all kinds of welfare from people, and give them all a wage (it was something like $10k a year). I think most people on welfare actually get more than $10k/yr, so they're not going to vote for that. The one good thing it did though, was take away the disincentives for men and women to get married. The war on poverty, which has been disastrous for black families especially, made women basically kick men out in order to qualify for benefits. This instead will encourage them to stay together - 2 adults making $20k a year is a lot better off than 1 adult making $10k. The welfare system also provides disincentives for working - taking away benefits the more money you make. This plan would give the money to you whether you worked or not. The other thing the welfare system does in incentivize having more children. This money would be for adults only, meaning no incentives to have children. The more kids you have, the more you have to spend. The fewer children you have, the less you need to spend.

The other interesting thing is that the person I heard talking about it was saying that it provided disincentives for people to make excuses for themselves. If we both get our monthly check of $833, and after rent, you spend it all on cigarettes and Xbox games and a bunch of other crap that you don't need, and I spend it on groceries and still have some money left over at the end of the month, if you think I'm going to feel sorry for you when you complain about not having any money, you've got another think coming. Everyone will start to see who is wasteful and who is being smart with their money.

I really don't think it will work - it would turn into $10k a year PLUS welfare at some point, when people realized that $10k was not enough for those who weren't earning enough, and too much for those making a good salary. I just don't see it making a difference.

Plus, it's a crazy amount of money. I'm roughly estimating that there are 208million adults in the US. That's $2 trillion dollars a year in payouts. Yikes. We currently spend $1 trillion now, so doubling that would be hard.

One last thing - Mike Rowe is constantly talking about how many jobs go unfilled in the US all the time. Something like 5 million jobs. For skilled labor, no degree required. So it's not like we don't have jobs here. What we do have is a culture that is constantly trying to make everyone go to college (and get a little student loan debt as a bonus), and talking about blue collar work like it's the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone. We need to change that mindset, so that 5 million more people have good jobs doing what is actually needed, rather than those same people going to college for jobs that don't exist. Yeah, it may not be a "good" job sitting behind a desk in A/C for 8 hours a day, but the jobs exist, people just look down their noses at them. Change your definition of a "good" job and you just might solve the unemployment problem, and not need a Basic Universal Income in the first place.

This is not true. Black women are not kicking men out to be on welfare. Welfare just makes it easier to have children out of wedlock because you know the safety net is there. When you're not married, you're more likely to split. Over 70% of black children are born out of wedlock. Most of the time, the father is not in the home either because there was a split with the mother that had nothing to do with welfare or the man just took off to avoid his responsibilities. Not having a partner in the home is what triggers applying for welfare, not the other way around. Black women would much rather have a partner around helping them to raise their children because it's much better than being on welfare. As a matter of fact, many women lie about not having a man in the home, but he's often not the father of the children.

Most people don't earn a college degree, yet we have a higher unemployment rate among those who just have a high school diploma. The unemployment rate for those with college degrees is ridiculously low right now, so they aren't having trouble finding jobs despite the anecdotes. The blue collar jobs that are going unfilled aren't because we tell everyone to go to college; it's because people aren't taking them. I tell people who are struggling to find a good job that jails and prisons are always hiring, but I usually get crickets. I get the impression that most people would rather be homeless than work in corrections. The same applies to being a security guard. People think they're going to get beat up or shot. There are a bunch of other blue collar jobs people don't want to do because they require physical labor or working in unsanitary conditions.

Let me put it this way. Most people will never have a college degree. Most of the people who are unemployed don't have a college degree, and their unemployment rate is higher. So, the solution is to stop telling people to go to college? How about we focus on the group that actually has the higher unemployment rate and figure out how come they aren't taking these 5 million openings.

I don't know everyone's race around here, but I often see a lot of non-black people who are more willing to listen to other non-black people on what it's like to be black rather than people who are actually black.

[sanantone]

I'd also like to point out that no one wants to talk about what incarceration has done to black families. The War on Drugs, which someone from the Nixon administration admitted was created to go after black people and hippies, is the main problem. But, mass incarceration of black people, especially black men, started after the Civil War with the Black Codes. People also don't want to talk about how African American women, historically, became the heads of the household because families were often ripped apart during slavery.

Or, how about the government allowing the Nicaraguans to introduce crack to poor, urban neighborhoods because it funded the group the U.S. government sided with.

[TrailRunr]

The bottom line is that UBI will never happen with the nearly 100% corrupt politicians we have on the Democratic side on top of the cluster fest on the GOP side that doesn't care if we die. We can talk after single payer is in the US, which I think is highly unlikely in my lifetime even if the Dems control all three branches of us government.