Why are so many people afraid of Universal Income on the basis that people need a job for a meaning in their life ?

Math is wrong wrote:

Free money that would be pretty much worthless with an inflation of 500000%

Has social security for elderly lead to hyper-inflation?

Has S.S.I. social security disability payments lead to hyper-inflation?

Has S.N.A.P. & W.I.C. lead to hyper-inflation?

Has Section 8 lead to hyper-inflation?

Has aid to oil & gas industry lead to hyper-inflation?

Has aid to Prison Industrial Complex lead to hyper-inflation?

Has aid to Military Industrial Complex lead to hyper-inflation?

Has aid to veterans lead to hyper-inflation?

Has grants to law enforcement lead to hyper inflation?

Has grants to colleges and universities lead to hyper-inflation?

Do student loans and Pell Grants lead to hyper-inflation?

People have been brain washed by Republican talking points and blue dog Democrats. People have been brainwashed into believing aid to those who earn less than $50,000 per year will either ruin U.S. due to exploding national debt, hyper-inflation or cause poor people to be lazy.

The lazy argument has no merit. If everyone were to receive $24000. There would be no means testing. If a person obtained a $30,000 per year job, a person would an income of $54,000 for the year. There is no reason why a person would not want to work a $15,000 per year job. The current system with thousands of fraud investigators, if a person takes a $30,000 job, a person would have their assisted rent increase, W.I.C. &/or S.N.A.P. decrease and future financial aid for their kids at college decrease. With U.B.I., that would not occur.

Luv2Run wrote:

I don't think I have seen a realistic UBI proposal that would provide enough income so that a person would not have to work.

UBI was given a short test in Manitoba in the 70s. Some of the problems were that it was tacked onto an already expensive social services system. The proposals I have seen eliminate a huge chunk of welfare programs. It might well be cheaper to send out checks with no strings that the current byzantine system.

I understand the principal of what you're saying and the attraction of that idea, but I don't think it's as simple as you seem to think. What exactly would be included in that "huge chunk of welfare programs" that could be eliminated?

If UBI is not enough that people can simply not work, then disabled people still aren't going to be able to work and are still going to need welfare. So you still need a big bureaucracy for means testing disability. And disability isn't a simple black-and-white thing when you start considering things like mental disabilities or whether someone truly has PTSD bad enough that they can't work etc.

And it's not just disability. Think about the less-educated single moms. If they aren't able to work a job that is more economically productive than caring for their kids, then it makes more economic sense for them to stay home and care for their kids. So we need welfare and bureaucracy and means testing for that as well.

So what else is in that "huge chunk of welfare programs" that you think could be eliminated with a UBI that isn't enough by itself for people to not need to work? Maybe there's currently a lot more supplemental welfare than I am aware of for people who have jobs and are working but still need additional help, but you're still going to need welfare and bureaucracy for all the people who can't work. How much could we really reduce welfare in this scenario? What is the percentage of current welfare recipients who are working vs not working? And considering how these things work out in the real world, do you really honestly expect that if we reduced, but not eliminated, welfare, that the bureaucracy would actually contract substantially enough to provide a significant cost savings?

EXCELshEET wrote:

Most people today have office jobs where basically their main work is putting numbers on an excel sheet all day long, to then go to useless meetings where the decision has already been made before they even stepped in the room.

Is that what people long for to do in their life ?

I know people have interesting jobs, but let's be honest, it's far from being the majority.

For an example, look at Greg. Greg doesn't work. Greg gets assistance that keeps him afloat.

Greg is constantly complaining. Greg is looking for greater meaning. Greg is deluded. Greg goes out and gets in verbal altercations with the homeless because he has nothing better to do. He dreams of a future where he runs his fair city, but he can't actually do these things because he has no drive, no passion, nothing.

This is what you get if you give people money to sit around doing nothing.

Where you think money from “the Fed” comes from? Taxpayers. I am not willing to work my butt off, to have even more taxes taken out of my paycheck, to pay people who want to just sit home and do nothing. Universal Income is a horrible idea. It punishes those of us who actually work and rewards people for doing nothing. This wouldn’t take long to ruin the economy.

itsnotcommunism wrote:

James Madison wrote:

You're going to coach at a school that doesn't exist because all the teachers quit for the same reason you did. Also the school never would have been built because the construction workers quit for the same reason. Nobody works because everyone has free money.

If higher pay was allocated to such essential jobs and UBI was low enough to discourage people from not working, I'm sure a lot of people would do the work. I mean, essentially this already exists in many Northern European countries. If you do nothing at all, the gov will take care of you – your life will be pretty basic, but at least it's nice to have that safety. There are a lot of impoverished people in the US.

UBI is going to be low enough that even min wage jobs will be appealing. Sure you can live on 12k/year but working a min wage job and making another 15k would make your life a heck of a lot better.

The issue of course is always how do you pay for it? 3 trillion+ dollars is a lot of money and while there would be some savings from cutting food stamps and the like, you still need a pile of money. It was something like a 25% VAT to make Yangs plan work. And it definitely will not be neutral for everyone. Some people will get more money than before and some less.

It will be very disruptive to do. Maybe when that disruption has been processed, we will end up in a better spot. But boy is that a risky way to go. And I am not sure this is something you can half ass (i.e. only do 6k/year instead of 12k/year) and get most of the benefits.

Old and Slow wrote:

EXCELshEET wrote:

And in regards to where the source of that income comes from, easy : the Fed.

That's basically what they did these past 6 months, giving $600 a week to dozens of millions of people.

And nothing bad happened : no "hyper inflation", no massive market drop (yea 30% for 2 weeks, since then we're almost at all time high)...

Where you think money from “the Fed” comes from? Taxpayers. I am not willing to work my butt off, to have even more taxes taken out of my paycheck, to pay people who want to just sit home and do nothing. Universal Income is a horrible idea. It punishes those of us who actually work and rewards people for doing nothing. This wouldn’t take long to ruin the economy.

You work your butt of as you stated and federal government gives aid to farmers. Aid to farmers in order for farmers to actually sit on their butt to produce below equilibrium. Food prices are artificially kept high due to rent seeking efforts by wealthy farmers. To keep masses from uprising, Dole-McGovern farm aid-food stamp bill was intended to allocate money to farmers and allocate money to food stamps together. Interesting that Republicans only complain about the food stamps portion of farm aid bill. You, poster only singling out U.B.I. demonstrates your personal biases not sound government policy analysis.

It never costs too much to engage in endless war. It never costs too much to slush-up federal contractors and the politically connected. It never costs too much to give massive corporations more-massive tax cuts. The rich get MUCH richer in a rigged system while the common people slide into destitution.

It always costs too much to provide even a slim bit of aid to the needy or to ensure that we have a strong middle class. The US has become a corrupt and evil country that exploits its people for the good of only a few elites. The mandate for the average person in the US is to work for crumbs in complete insecurity and to drop dead the minute the elites no longer have a use for you.

Those wealthy elites are all democrats.

CancelllLRC wrote:

The rich get MUCH richer in a rigged system while the common people slide into destitution.

.

This. This right here is the lie that all this socialism crap is built on. First of all, a free-market, capitalist economy doesn't devolve into the type of inequalities you speak of - the rich don't get richer while the poor get poorer. The rich get richer while the poor get....RICHER, which makes sense because capitalism is based on free and mutually beneficial trade relationships. For example, you choose to give Amazon your money because they give the best deals, if there were better deals you would give your money to somewhere else. That's why Amazon is so succesful, because they give the best deal for the best price at the most convenience, NOT because they're stealing everybody's money. Also, look at the poverty rates of developing capitalist countries, they all go down. If they didn't, the society would crumble into anarchy very quick - much like socialist and communist countries do.

The phenomenon you're describing is called the Pareto distribution - aka the 80-20 rule - where 80% of the wealth is owned by 20% of the population. This phenomenon doesn't just apply to economics, it can be seen in literally every domain where there's competition or a hierachy, which is pretty much everything (it's actually very trippy to think about, because this phenomena is so ingrained into existence itself). This phenomena happens because of positive feedback loops - i.e. in economics, the more money you make, the more money you are able to save and invest, thus the higher likelihood that you'll be able to make more money and the vicious cycle continues. That's why people advocate free capitalism so much, because we want the best people to be financially able and incentivised to create and provide value to everybody else and if they decide to try and take value and exploit people, then naturally their competitors will take them out. The only way the rich can exploit people in a free society is: a) we as a society let them or b) the government protects them, which is why people want a very limited government.

What do you do about this? Well, nobody really knows, but I don't think there's anything to do about it. Nothing else in nature organizes itself into an egalitarian, equal distribution, there's always going to be a hierarchy. That also means that as a society we need to take care of our less physically and mental able citizens, and focus on helping those in need, NOT "eating the rich."

Here's more examples of the 80-20 rule.

unc wrote:

Welfare is a basic universal income.

You don't know what "universal" means...

CancelllLRC wrote:

It never costs too much to engage in endless war. It never costs too much to slush-up federal contractors and the politically connected. It never costs too much to give massive corporations more-massive tax cuts. The rich get MUCH richer in a rigged system while the common people slide into destitution.

It always costs too much to provide even a slim bit of aid to the needy or to ensure that we have a strong middle class. The US has become a corrupt and evil country that exploits its people for the good of only a few elites. The mandate for the average person in the US is to work for crumbs in complete insecurity and to drop dead the minute the elites no longer have a use for you.

Yep.

This is it.

There is always enough money to bail out corporations and let CEOs go with a big retirement package.

But giving some money to the hard working American's is somehow not a good idea.

very nice! wrote:

For example, you choose to give Amazon your money because they give the best deals, if there were better deals you would give your money to somewhere else. That's why Amazon is so succesful, because they give the best deal for the best price at the most convenience, NOT because they're stealing everybody's money. Also, look at the poverty rates of developing capitalist countries, they all go down. If they didn't, the society would crumble into anarchy very quick - much like socialist and communist countries do.

Great example

Amazon is only so cheap because for a long time they didn't have to pay any taxes on the internet. They created a monopoly and exploit their warehouse workers.

That's the reason why they are cheaper.

So yes, they are stealing from everybody. Just like Walmart, where the public has to pay for the health insurance of their employees.

It's about time that these companies get broken up.

Good point. 22% of people receive Government assistance. So there are 78% who work hard and support themselves and support the other 22%.

unc wrote:

Those wealthy elites are all democrats.

UBI is just the next socialist scam to subdue the masses and divert attention from the rigging of the financial markets to favor a few. Give them enough so they dont ask questions about why there is this small class of super wealthy people constantly making more and more. We absolutely need to backtrack on these social programs before we end up like USSR with their corrupt wealthy politburo.

You look at the covid stimulus packages. They gave just enough to the lower class to appease the public while the majority went to things that enriched already an wealthy group of the population.

unc wrote:

Those wealthy elites are all democrats.

So Trump isn't a wealthy elite? What about the Koch Brothers? And so on. The wealthy elite are split pretty evenly. Where the republicans lose is in the educated middle class. They do fine with the poors and rich...

unc wrote:

Good point. 22% of people receive Government assistance. So there are 78% who work hard and support themselves and support the other 22%.

Pretty much 100% of the population gets government assistance. How many people do you know who aren't getting government assistance for paying for health care for example? Everyone who gets that through work is getting government assitence. Through in mortgage deduction, child tax credits and so on and you get about as close to 100% as a number can get...

My god, you really just missed the whole point of my post just to take one sentence out of context to try and confirm your own narrative, in a really stupid and inaccurate way I might add. Amazon does pay taxes, in 2017 they paid over $1 billion in income taxes, but they don't pay corporate taxes because they receive tax credits for investing so much of their profit back into their business and stimulating the economy. Maybe don't just trust everything you read on the internet at face value before getting the facts.

Sub out Amazon for McDonalds or Disney or Apple or Volkswagen - it's all the same story, these companies got rich by providing value to society in return for profit at a rate much higher than their competition, and thus reached the top of the hierarchy and over represent profits by a wide margin. Pareto distribution. The idea that everybody who gets rich does so by exploiting the masses is a lie propagated by resentful marxists (that's not to say businesses can never become corrupt, but that's not the ONLY way people get rich).

Do you understand that 100% can't get stuff from the Government because the Government collects taxes and then does stuff with that money which includes social programs? 78% give more than they get back. If 100 Letsrun posters send me $1 and I send a penny back to 78 of them and I send $2 to the other 22, your logic says that they all got something from me. Only 22 received a benefit while 78 did not. You need to go back to HS economics.