Income Inequality

[Fife]

Eliminating a myriad of agencies with all their overhead and personnel costs with one UBI agency and one uniform payment across the board sounds like it might be a more efficient way to go. Not that I know what any of the numbers might be, but it appears that gutting everything we have now and replacing it all with one thing could feasibly save money.

Another question comes to mind. What do we do when the recipient spends his entire allowance on the 3rd of the month on booze, hookers, blow, and the casino; and then has starving babies at home a week later?

Why should we let them spend that community allowance on that kind of shit anyway, when they have kids to raise? And what about cigarettes?

I would hope that if everyone is getting a UBI, they would be less inclined to tolerate that sort of behavior. Might be being optimistic, but

The rest of us can act like responsible adults. Try not to be a piece of shit next month. Maybe being broke for the next four weeks will help with that.

So, dirt sandwiches for the kids for the last 3 weeks of the month?

As much as seeing a parent letting that happen chaps my ass, making me pay for his/her vices that are killing their children takes the cake.


.... also the Try not to be a piece of shit next month. Maybe being broke for the next four weeks will help with that part points out the fantastic black market and underground economy that would instantly arise. Al Capone won't be brave enough to sell a damn ice cream cone in our brave new world.

[Speaker to Animals]

If you waste your kids' grocery money on booze, then maybe we have an issue separate from UBI.. not a great counterexample, in my opinion. There are lots of shitty parents regardless of the economic system.

[Ph64]

Anyway, back to IRL honest, serious, questions:

What programs would the UBI replace? ALL of them? if so, I might take another look. But if it is not 100% ALL of them, which ones get immunity?

If it is a 100% replacement, how much will it cost, and who will pay for it?

Who gets the UBI? Does a legal immigrant get it the first day off the boat? What about an illegal immigrant's anchor baby?

Just wondering.

Eliminating a myriad of agencies with all their overhead and personnel costs with one UBI agency and one uniform payment across the board sounds like it might be a more efficient way to go. Not that I know what any of the numbers might be, but it appears that gutting everything we have now and replacing it all with one thing could feasibly save money.

Another question comes to mind. What do we do when the recipient spends his entire allowance on the 3rd of the month on booze, hookers, blow, and the casino; and then has starving babies at home a week later?

Why should we let them spend that community allowance on that kind of shit anyway, when they have kids to raise? And what about cigarettes?

Ah, but like that woman in (I think) FL, with like 12 kids by 6 different fathers, evicted from her housing and crying how "she needs to be taken care of" (personally she needs her tubes tied first )...

...my understanding of UBI would be it'd replace welfare & food stamps at least... (section 8 housing?)... but the one attempt was Sweden or something with a 'pilot', and that was only $600/month or so I think. What becomes workable, $1000/month without housing? I mean housing is incredibly variable depending on location, so if you tried to make it "livable" in NYC you might need more than in Shitsville OH, and then it's not very "universal" anymore.

So that laid off coffee barista can peruse that dream of being an artist in his section8 govt supplied housing, on his $1000/month for food, bills, etc... not much left probably for paint/canvas/brushes, or that guitar&amp with some effects, or whatnot.

...meanwhile that woman in FL is collecting UBI for herself and 12 kids, screwing 5 different men in the "who'll be the next baby daddy" lottery, living well on $13,000/month... until menopause anyways. Think she's gonna be working at something more meaningful?

Something tells me there's gotta be better ideas...

Oh yeah, the ex-barista would still be poverty level and eligable for Medicaid under obamacare, while she'd have to pay her own health insurance... there's one "savings". Of course she'll be popping out more kids and probably still be screaming how she needs 'help', only with her medical bills now...

[Okeefenokee]

Something tells me there's gotta be better ideas...

Government bison ranches. Can't find work, go be a rancher. Go down to the saloon and brothel on payday and blow all your pay. Back to the ranch on Monday.

[Fife]

If you waste your kids' grocery money on booze, then maybe we have an issue separate from UBI.. not a great counterexample, in my opinion. There are lots of shitty parents regardless of the economic system.

So are you going to take away the state programs to protect those kids in exchange for UBI?

[jbird4049]

If you waste your kids' grocery money on booze, then maybe we have an issue separate from UBI.. not a great counterexample, in my opinion. There are lots of shitty parents regardless of the economic system.

So are you going to take away the state programs to protect those kids in exchange for UBI?

(Bit of a rant here. ... Sorry. )
There have been, there continues to be, and, far as I know, there will always be bad parents, losers, abusers, fools, and idiots. There are no easy answers either, but the "there be moochers somewhere getting free stuff, so cut all aid to anyone, anytime, anywhere" is nutz.

I've read people seriously saying nonsense like that albeit in a more refined way to push against communism, socialism, UBI, Guarantee Jobs, unemployment insurance, all current forms of welfare assistance including SNAP, anything really that helps people because "moochers". Not just from the Right either.

Somehow, the fact that a few people are slurping up almost all the extra income growth from the past forty years hasn't been an issue until very recently. Why? When an actual handful of people have the same combined wealth of half the country, or less than twenty people have the same combined wealth as the lower poorer half of the human race, we have a problem. The problem is the job killing caused by the concentration of wealth. Not all, but most of our current unemployment, and poverty, would go away if we had same distribution of wealth we had in the 60s. But there is still too much focus on the results, which is poor, miserable, people wasting away, because there are not jobs to be had, instead of finding ways of actually working.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Well nobody is proposing full Communism here. You can still make more if you do choose to get educated and work, but the UBI would serve for those that aren't needed or motivated to do so.

When everyone in America can choose to work or not, what do you do when the "or not" demographic outstrips the workers ability to support the needs of the non-workers? And it's fairly inevitable that through a combination of natural laziness and the propensity of the lower economic classes to reproduce at higher rates than others, the "or not" demographic WILL outstrip the worker's ability to subsidize them.

This is extremely shortsighted.
Really, any amount of reflection upon this topic should be sufficient to reveal the fatal flaws with the plan.

Then the market would respond and provide the balance. This issue is irrelevant, without a labor surplus in the first place. Remember those 'market forces' that we're supposed to depend on for this?

[Okeefenokee]

Then the market would respond and provide the balance.

I didn't know you were so religious.

Unless you mean that one such response would be to kill off billions of people, because that is one possible response.

It sounds a lot like the idea that science and innovation will arrive to fix any problem facing humanity. The whole idea that, when we get there, we will innovate to find a solution, because magic.

There is no guarantee that we will automatically fix any problem simply because we must.

It didn't happen for the Anasazi or any other civilization that faced problems that were ultimate. Sometimes you face problems that you fail to solve. Has happened many times. Look at any group that ever lost a conflict. Probably best not to look at a problem with the assumption that the necessity of solving the problem will result in the problem being solved.

[DBTrek]

Note the bold part that was deleted from the quote DB selected . . .

The reason you don't see that in the welfare state is because: (A) the welfare state actually requires that people not work in any way. If they show any aptitude for innovation or work, the rug is pulled from beneath them and they starve or find work (which in our near future is not going to be possible). (B) the welfare state creates further disincentives by drastically cutting welfare/disability funds if the person can manage part-time work. It's not economically feasible for people on these programs to work part-time even when they can or want to do so. The system is designed top-to-bottom to keep people out of the workforce and dependent upon the bureaucracy. (C) most of the people in the welfare systems were already compromised by a corrupt and useless government school system that denied them in many case of even literacy. (D) Other government policies encourage some classes of people (especially women) to become totally dependent upon the system in order to farm them for votes, further increasing the cancer of the welfare state.
. . .

His post was lazy and no attempt at honest debate. It was a waste of all our time.

I deleted the bolded part because it was completely divorced from rationality. There's nothing to discuss there, it's simply a list of clearly flawed assertions.

(A) Ignores the glaring reality that many full-time minimum wage earners are on government assistance (the same assistance you claim requires people not to work in any way). It also ignores the fact that the average recipient of government assistance receives less in benefits than a 40-hour minimum wager earns.

(B) You claim that part time jobs pay less than what some people receive in benefits. Well duh, dude. Part time jobs aren't there for adults to sustain a first-world lifestyle. Then you make this whacky claim that "The system is designed top-to-bottom to keep people out of the workforce and dependent upon the bureaucracy". . . Because part time jobs pay less than some people's full time benefits. Have another jump, guy:


(C) You: "most of the people in the welfare systems were already compromised by a corrupt and useless government school system that denied them in many case of even literacy"
Me:

Behold, "the system" denying "the people" literacy.

(D) Claims women "become totally dependent upon the system in order to farm them for votes". As if there are no independent women, or all women vote a single way. Ridiculous. Look out that basement window sometime and see if you can spot any free-women roaming outdoors. I heard rumor that a wild pack of them were spotted around New York City somewhere.

As you can see, none of this omitted nonsense addresses the fact that slave owners didn't usher in a second Era of Enlightenment with all the inventions, poetry, innovations, art, and deep Jeffersonian thinking they must have engaged in once freed from the burden of having to work. That's because it never happened. Because freeing part time workers and the serially unemployed from the burden of having to do something for income doesn't transform them into paragons of their time.


"Give that Denny's waiter $30k a year and watch him transform into Benjamn Franklin, fo realz"

[jbird4049]

Then the market would respond and provide the balance.

I didn't know you were so religious.

Unless you mean that one such response would be to kill off billions of people, because that is one possible response.

It sounds a lot like the idea that science and innovation will arrive to fix any problem facing humanity. The whole idea that, when we get there, we will innovate to find a solution, because magic.

There is no guarantee that we will automatically fix any problem simply because we must.

It didn't happen for the Anasazi or any other civilization that faced problems that were ultimate. Sometimes you face problems that you fail to solve. Has happened many times. Look at any group that ever lost a conflict. Probably best not to look at a problem with the assumption that the necessity of solving the problem will result in the problem being solved.

The Anasazi finished themselves off because of war followed by the survivors fleeing, but the humongous drought was the true cause. God given you might say. Considering this civilization problems are self inflicted, our collapse would be a kind of suicide.