Ask Lemmy

As a step inbetween industrialization and automatization, i think it's neccessary sometime. But that means also a step from capaitalism to whatever we have then, so even that step will not be easy.

It would make reporters stop bitching about the economy and help keep things afloat.

People can buy groceries when they have the money to do so. They may even have a little extra to buy a candy bar, or a gadget or coffee to also boost the economy.

It would allow people to be more productive since stress destroys your ability to function properly.

And most importantly: nobody should worry about a roof over their head or where their next meal is coming from.

I wouldn't say it's a strong opinion, but I've never seen a convincing argument that "inflation" (read "greedy bastards") wouldn't immediately wipe out the extra income - which would be very bad if the UBI were to replace other forms of welfare.

It’s shit.

A bandage on top of the festering open wound that is capitalism does not help anyone long term.

I have two strong opinions about basic income.

I'll be retired and collecting a government cheque lot before we get it in Canada.

I am 100% behind a basic income.

I think that currently a job guarantee is much more practical and doable, and would have much the same benefits. Why would a company get away with treating you like shit or paying like garbage when you can easily get a government job?

I'm fine with it but feel it needs to slowly decrease as income goes up. To be clear this cannot have cut off cliffs and should err on the side of recipient. Bit there is no reason to give it to anyone with high income.

If you give it to us, we'll invest it which will fuck with the market or spend it on luxury goods. This all cause inflation that would negate the benefits.

Anyone who really needs it and is spending it all within some reasonable time doesn't have this inflation effect.

Same way people on food stamps don't cause the price of food to go up because they're not using it for excessive spending.

I understand part of the goal is no bureaucracy so I suggest it be part of the tax system. Everyone get it's but it's taxed away for high income earners in a way that is not tax avoidable.

I could also see it being added to the us tax system by simply expanding the child tax credit to include adults. That already has limits built in but that's a lump sum on a tax return so not an ideal distribution.

Thanks for asking, I do not.

I guess I do. I'm mostly in favor but not like super firm about it. Except in the context of as automation reduces the amount of work needed I believe it's one of only a few options without which society is at serious risk. The other main option is to drastically reduce working hours without changing pay to increase number of jobs. I actually prefer the latter.

I think it is a bad idea and will incentivize landlords to literally raise the rent with the UBI money amount.

We need rent control and anti monopoly practices.

Regardless of my opinions for it, it'll be a societal requirement with the advancement of technology unless we wish to move away from a monetary based system.

I personally am fully for it, I am concerned about the productivity drop if it is implemented too early, however such a system needs to exist for continued societal functionality.

Yes. I think it's a mediocre hack, and a better system would be Universal Basic Economic Seasons. Every season (year), everyone loses all of their liquid cash and debts and gains $100,000 of new cash for that year. Throughout the economic season you have to buy licenses and crap from the government to do business; which is the replacement for income tax and is how the government must engage with the system (since they're effectively the 'dealer' they can't engage with the system as a normal player) Then at the end of the year, we put all the richest people up on a leaderboard.

Prevents runaway rng from allowing corrupt business to take off, capital gained in dirty ways has a definite time limit because come next cycle people will have equal capital and can avoid your gimmicks. A good businessperson wouldn't be build on one off lucky streaks, but rather true ability and skill that can be consistent repeated.

But UBI is close enough, and it's easier to explain, and it requires significantly less market infrastructure to change.

Yes

no

I would vote for it, because it seems nice and I don't see myself sitting still regardless, just that I'd choose more fulfilling / societally beneficial work if there weren't this idea of needing to provide and work with market forces. But then it came up with my cousin and she said she'd do fuck all, travel, spend time horse riding or whatnot, anything but work because why bother. Less anecdotal studies show cautiously positive results (or exceedingly positive in misleading headlines until you open the study and find two sides to the coin), but afaik have so far been very limited in both scale and duration. So idk but it seems at least worth a real try. Do we always need to have strong opinions?

Yes. I'm opposed.

Simply saying "everyone should get enough money from the government to live" has a lot of problems. The most obvious being that cost of living varies substantially from one place to another. And peoples needs vary substantially as well. So where do we set the number?

You'll also need to figure out how to combat the massive inflationary effects that would occur.

But imo, the biggest issue is what happens in the long term. Say a nation gives its citizens a UBI. Now wait 100 years. What happens? Well what happens is that, assuming this doesn't collapse the economy some other way, and assuming this is a democratic nation, everyone will start taking UBI for granted, and will start thinking "you know, if only I had a little more free money, I could afford that nice shirt I saw my neighbor wearing yesterday...". And because "free money for everyone" will be a popular political platform, the UBI amount will go up and up and up, with little thought put into how to continue funding it. The government accrues more and more debt over time funding the program, until finally the government can no longer continue paying its debtors, and the country collapses into chaos.

Instead, I'm in favor of a citizen's dividend, which is tied to the nation's economic output. A good example is how Alaskans get a dividend, since they agreed to allow private companies to extract the oil from their state. Land value taxes could work like this. Carbon taxes could work like this. If you want to make sure everyone is fed and housed, then that is a very noble goal - but it should be accomplished by providing people with food and housing. And I think it is right and fair that the people of a nation should be compensated for the use of their land and the negative externalities they endure - but how much they are paid out should not be coupled to the cost of living. It should be well known to be an independent, unpredictable, and highly variable amount that they can't rely on, so that they never gain the expectation that they will always have endless free money to spend however they please.