Author Topic: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?  (Read 2545 times)

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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #60 on: January 20, 2022, 06:46:29 pm »
But what is the net saving on tax revenues/expenditures if less people are working, generating income and GDP, and thus paying net taxes?  The dollar would decrease in value if GDP and TSX go down.  Some bureaucracy to monitor and distribute then becomes a good investment.

Not so many would quit working to do this.  It's still a subsistence living.
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Offline eyeball

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #61 on: January 20, 2022, 06:51:26 pm »
So you are saying we should pay people to volunteer? They wouldn't be volunteers then.
Okay. Either way I suspect it's just pennies on the tax dollar that you or I likely pay but if you're saying the higher costs of the moral point is worth an extra penny or two why should I have to pay it if i don't agree?  When you volunteer me to pay it alongside you what does that make you? 
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Offline wilber

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #62 on: January 21, 2022, 08:49:12 am »
Okay. Either way I suspect it's just pennies on the tax dollar that you or I likely pay but if you're saying the higher costs of the moral point is worth an extra penny or two why should I have to pay it if i don't agree?  When you volunteer me to pay it alongside you what does that make you?

It makes me a volunteer and you an employee.
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Offline eyeball

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #63 on: January 21, 2022, 11:52:05 am »
It makes me a volunteer and you an employee.
No it makes us both slaves. You're the one whose nose is out of joint over someone getting free money and I have to pick up the extra cost of fixing your nose.  You're effectively volunteering my money to pay for the extra costs Hugh Segal described. I'd rather explore alternatives. Call it workfare if you like.  I just think reducing the moral angst is probably as important as reducing the economic cost.  We're going to have to shed our moral issues with people getting free stuff at some point with the rise of automation, robots and the redundancy of human workers.

What else are we supposed to do, just scrape them off? How much will that cost?
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #64 on: January 21, 2022, 12:26:09 pm »
to me the essential thing is for people to stop thinking of work and wages in a 19th century framework.

Unless you want to pay the robot owners everything you make in 20 years.  We could instead tax them and pay for people to pursue a better path.  All of this discussion points to a limitation of capitalism (and communism) in discussion the economics of labour. 

I'm not a Star Trek fan, in fact I hate it, but from what I have seen they kind of nailed how economics will happen in the future.
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Offline wilber

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #65 on: January 21, 2022, 03:07:07 pm »
to me the essential thing is for people to stop thinking of work and wages in a 19th century framework.

Unless you want to pay the robot owners everything you make in 20 years.  We could instead tax them and pay for people to pursue a better path.  All of this discussion points to a limitation of capitalism (and communism) in discussion the economics of labour. 

I'm not a Star Trek fan, in fact I hate it, but from what I have seen they kind of nailed how economics will happen in the future.

But that is not where we are. There is a huge labour shortage in this country. If you want a guaranteed income, get a job and earn it.
"Never trust a man without a single redeeming vice" WSC

Offline eyeball

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #66 on: January 21, 2022, 06:28:11 pm »
But that is not where we are. There is a huge labour shortage in this country. If you want a guaranteed income, get a job and earn it.
Pretty hard to argue against that alright. We will be there one day though.

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #67 on: January 21, 2022, 07:50:22 pm »
Not so many would quit working to do this.  It's still a subsistence living.

I suppose you're right.  But then how many people who could afford to not take a full income would?
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #68 on: January 21, 2022, 08:02:31 pm »
No it makes us both slaves. You're the one whose nose is out of joint over someone getting free money and I have to pick up the extra cost of fixing your nose.  You're effectively volunteering my money to pay for the extra costs Hugh Segal described. I'd rather explore alternatives. Call it workfare if you like.  I just think reducing the moral angst is probably as important as reducing the economic cost.  We're going to have to shed our moral issues with people getting free stuff at some point with the rise of automation, robots and the redundancy of human workers.

What else are we supposed to do, just scrape them off? How much will that cost?

I think everyone healthy person of working age should work and chip in their contribution to society.  Even if it's 3 days a week, people need something to do.  People need a reason to get up in the morning.  It is part of the human condition since the dawn of mankind.  We are not adapted to have long-term vacations.  My parents went bonkers in retirement.  They were extremely hardworking people but had nothing to do.  I tried to get them to do more things but they became set in their ways as old people do, and so they sat every day together and drank.  Their mental health and physical health without a doubt deteriorated because of it.  I don't think subsidizing this environmental condition is good for anyone especially working age healthy people.  My parents were retired, they had their own money they earned to do whatever they wanted, including drinking, nobody could stop them nor should they.

If you think society would be better off with everything automated and all of us able to do whatever we wanted (including nothing at all) I'm telling you that i firmly believe you're incorrect.  It is not utopia, well it would be fun for a short while but would then turn into hell.  It would be one of the worst things to ever happen to society.  It would drastically quicken the decadence in our society that's already occurring.  Western society has reach the peak and is slowly regressing back down the hill.  We are all obese and full of depression and anxiety.  There is such thing as too much of a good thing.
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #69 on: January 22, 2022, 07:21:59 am »
What is this based on?  Who has said anything remotely like this?  Not I.

It's absolutely impossible to 100% properly monitor every government program.  I've never said I wanted to do this.   

This is true but you said...
'Fundamental justice in our society is more important than efficiency or cost'

It can be inferred from your statement that monitoring is more important than efficiency.

What I am getting at is that our old attitudes about work must change as work changes.  It's not a statement pro or con UBI to say that.

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #70 on: January 22, 2022, 07:25:01 am »


If you think society would be better off with everything automated and all of us able to do whatever we wanted (including nothing at all) I'm telling you that i firmly believe you're incorrect.  It is not utopia, well it would be fun for a short while but would then turn into hell.  It would be one of the worst things to ever happen to society.  It would drastically quicken the decadence in our society that's already occurring.  Western society has reach the peak and is slowly regressing back down the hill.  We are all obese and full of depression and anxiety.  There is such thing as too much of a good thing.

Well I agree with you that it would not be a good thing, I also think that your view of humanity is pessimistic. I don't think people would actually do nothing and I think any restructuring of our economy in the way UBI envisions would have to include some kind of volunteer coordination program.

Offline eyeball

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #71 on: January 22, 2022, 11:33:40 am »
I think everyone healthy person of working age should work and chip in their contribution to society.  Even if it's 3 days a week, people need something to do.  People need a reason to get up in the morning.  It is part of the human condition since the dawn of mankind.  We are not adapted to have long-term vacations.  My parents went bonkers in retirement.  They were extremely hardworking people but had nothing to do.  I tried to get them to do more things but they became set in their ways as old people do, and so they sat every day together and drank.  Their mental health and physical health without a doubt deteriorated because of it.  I don't think subsidizing this environmental condition is good for anyone especially working age healthy people.  My parents were retired, they had their own money they earned to do whatever they wanted, including drinking, nobody could stop them nor should they.

If you think society would be better off with everything automated and all of us able to do whatever we wanted (including nothing at all) I'm telling you that i firmly believe you're incorrect.  It is not utopia, well it would be fun for a short while but would then turn into hell.  It would be one of the worst things to ever happen to society.  It would drastically quicken the decadence in our society that's already occurring.  Western society has reach the peak and is slowly regressing back down the hill.  We are all obese and full of depression and anxiety.  There is such thing as too much of a good thing.
I don't know that we'd be better off either.  If the process of automation was virtually immediate via some major technological breakthrough and everyone was in the same boat it might work.  I think a slow dragged out process during which the morality of those who're left behind is subject to the judgement of those who keep up or get ahead will be the **** myself.  Automation does seems inevitable however, maybe not in our lifetimes but probably sooner than society might think.

Anyways, I lost 25 lbs last year and I'm happy enough because the immediate future looks bright enough to warrant shades.
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Offline wilber

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #72 on: January 22, 2022, 06:45:25 pm »
Among other things, apparently we are short 20,000 truck drivers in this country and that was before Covid. A UBI isn't going to help fix that.
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Offline eyeball

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #73 on: January 22, 2022, 06:51:53 pm »
Among other things, apparently we are short 20,000 truck drivers in this country and that was before Covid. A UBI isn't going to help fix that.

Quote
Automated trucking, a technical milestone that could disrupt hundreds of thousands of jobs, hits the road

We may focus on the self-driving car, but autonomous trucking is not an if, it's a when. And the when is coming sooner than you might expect. As we first reported last year, companies have been quietly testing their prototypes on public roads. Right now there's a high-stakes, high-speed race pitting the usual suspects - Google and Tesla and other global tech firms - against start-ups smelling opportunity.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/driverless-trucks-could-disrupt-the-trucking-industry-as-soon-as-2021-60-minutes-2021-08-15/
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #74 on: January 22, 2022, 07:43:36 pm »
Pretty hard to argue against that alright. We will be there one day though.

It's possible.  But they also said that when the industrial revolution came along.  But we aren't content with a small log home, we want the nice car and the TV and the smartphone and a telephone and a carribean vacation once a year, and an Xmas tree filled with stuff we don't need under the tree.

Maybe we'll all be voluntarily in The Matrix for most of the day (metaverse it's called now by big tech).  Is this our future utopia?  It sounds like dystopia.  https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-the-metaverse/
"Nipples is one of the great minds of our time!" - Bubbermiley
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