Author Topic: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?  (Read 2531 times)

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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #75 on: January 22, 2022, 07:56:06 pm »
This is true but you said...
'Fundamental justice in our society is more important than efficiency or cost'

Fair enough.

Quote
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.

There's no point in getting rid of "old attitudes" if the old ways of needing work for society to function is still here and we have finite government revenues budget money.

We'll deal with mass unemployment if an when it happens.  Installing UBI now because something might or might not happen in coming decades doesn't make sense.  It also sounds like changing the original argument, nobody seemed to be talking about 30 years from now.

Marxism, UBI, MMT...these are ideas the utopian idealists come up with to get a free lunch but they don't work in reality.  If we want to give the working class a break lets tax the mega-wealthy and close the tax havens/loopholes and give people better education, healthcare, and maybe a break on their mortgage and/or taxes, and better regulate the financial industry so the banks aren't lying to people and sucking people's wealth via rip-off products like mutual funds etc.
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Offline Squidward von Squidderson

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #76 on: January 22, 2022, 08:33:05 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.

You think truck drivers will stop going too their good paying jobs for the paradise that is subsistence living near the poverty line?

LOL

You don’t think very highly of truckers.

Offline eyeball

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #77 on: January 22, 2022, 09:43:07 pm »
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/
A small log home in the boonies was just about the perfect place to hole up during COVID and judging by the way people are fleeing cities in search of the rural life...property assessments just came out too :o

If a Matrix-like metaverse is the future people would probably rather step outside into a forest when they're unplugged. Forums like these will probably become a thing of the past too one day I bet. Instead of trying to beat some sense into one another's heads lefties and righties can go shoot it out in some imaginary blasted out citiscape in the metaverse.


Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #78 on: January 22, 2022, 11:19:35 pm »
You think truck drivers will stop going too their good paying jobs for the paradise that is subsistence living near the poverty line?

LOL

You don’t think very highly of truckers.

What would UBI make minimum basic income they'd provide?  If it's 25k or 30k (minimum wage) there's going to be a lot of people not working lower-wage jobs, or companies will raise wages to compete with the government and inflation will occur.
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Online wilber

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #79 on: January 22, 2022, 11:45:47 pm »
You think truck drivers will stop going too their good paying jobs for the paradise that is subsistence living near the poverty line?

LOL

You don’t think very highly of truckers.

Not existing truckers, new ones. If it is such a wonderful job why are we short 20K and why do we need a UBI.  Why do we need so many TFW’s?
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Online Michael Hardner

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #80 on: January 23, 2022, 08:06:58 am »

1. There's no point in getting rid of "old attitudes" if the old ways of needing work for society to function is still here and we have finite government revenues budget money.

2. We'll deal with mass unemployment if an when it happens.  Installing UBI now because something might or might not happen in coming decades doesn't make sense. 

3. It also sounds like changing the original argument, nobody seemed to be talking about 30 years from now.

4. Marxism, UBI, MMT...these are ideas the utopian idealists come up with to

5. ...get a free lunch but they don't work in reality. 

6. If we want to give the working class a break lets tax the mega-wealthy and close the tax havens/loopholes and give people better education, healthcare, and maybe a break on their mortgage and/or taxes, and better regulate the financial industry so the banks aren't lying to people and sucking people's wealth via rip-off products like mutual funds etc.

1. The point is they're not... if the necessary labour to maintain a society is too plentiful then economics starts to fall apart.  Economics is about the management of limited resources remember ?

2.  It's already happening.  Automated vehicles will throw millions out of work with no mental picture of how to process this.  Roughly the same thing happened with industrial decline - the impact of which is less.  We got rust belt populism, opioid addiction, and conspiracy theories.

3. Nobody was talking about it ?  Ok.  I don't understand why we shouldn't talk about it now though.

4. Marxism and Capitalism were highly relevant in the 19th century when industrialization started to create poverty and disparity.  Marxism is relevant in times of great economic change IMO. 

5. "free lunch" is an ancient term... from the era when 90% of people worked in food production... again you reveal your old attitudes by using old terms of reference

6.  ...and pay people to do what exactly ?  Take a look at some of the new and ascendent careers of late: physical therapy, healing, coaching... we are at the point of paying people to talk to each other and this is "work".  Physical labour is already being replaced... the most physical labour being services with some physicality involved. 

The robots are coming man... and society isn't going to pay the heirs of the robot inventors and the stockholders 100% of the spoils while people sit deprived.  To meme it:



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Offline eyeball

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #81 on: January 23, 2022, 10:40:21 am »


The robots are coming man... and society isn't going to pay the heirs of the robot inventors and the stockholders 100% of the spoils while people sit deprived.  To meme it:
The other meme says war breaks out between humans and the robots and we end up with Terminators the Borg or the Matrix.
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Online Michael Hardner

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #82 on: January 23, 2022, 11:25:21 am »
The other meme says war breaks out between humans and the robots and we end up with Terminators the Borg or the Matrix.

Or we start f***ing
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #83 on: January 23, 2022, 12:16:37 pm »
1. The point is they're not... if the necessary labour to maintain a society is too plentiful then economics starts to fall apart.  Economics is about the management of limited resources remember ?

2.  It's already happening.  Automated vehicles will throw millions out of work with no mental picture of how to process this.  Roughly the same thing happened with industrial decline - the impact of which is less.  We got rust belt populism, opioid addiction, and conspiracy theories.

3. Nobody was talking about it ?  Ok.  I don't understand why we shouldn't talk about it now though.

4. Marxism and Capitalism were highly relevant in the 19th century when industrialization started to create poverty and disparity.  Marxism is relevant in times of great economic change IMO. 

5. "free lunch" is an ancient term... from the era when 90% of people worked in food production... again you reveal your old attitudes by using old terms of reference

6.  ...and pay people to do what exactly ?  Take a look at some of the new and ascendent careers of late: physical therapy, healing, coaching... we are at the point of paying people to talk to each other and this is "work".  Physical labour is already being replaced... the most physical labour being services with some physicality involved. 

The robots are coming man... and society isn't going to pay the heirs of the robot inventors and the stockholders 100% of the spoils while people sit deprived. 

1. I don't really understand this point.

2. Yes, but the unemployed rust belters can' be re-trained for something else, so let's pay for their education and maybe support them financially while they learn.  But paying them an income to sit on their bottoms is not a useful allocation of tax dollars.  Social assistance and EI programs can take care of this, or roll them into a single program if you want.
But getting rid of the eligibility requirements is ridiculous.  China has 1.4 billion people working tooth and nail pumping out production to overtake the west economically and you're talking about music on a street corner. 

3. Ok. But changing goalposts on thy fly.

4. The answer was never Marxism, it was regulation, taxing the rich, education, social safety net etc.

5. Sayings like "Free lunch" and "money doesn't grow on trees" are truisms that still apply today which you seem to be forgetting and so im using them as a reminder.

6. Neither of us can predict the future.  If there's mass unemployment then as I said tax the rich people who own the robots and get people to be trained to work where human interaction has value like teaching, nursing, sales, therapy etc.  Deal with it as it comes, future hypotheticals are a lame excuse for the naive idealists to implement their utopian schemes.

I've said my peace on this issue in our convo, I just keep repeating myself. We can agree to disagree.
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Offline Spike The Hike Shady

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #84 on: January 23, 2022, 12:49:00 pm »
Maybe the way to break this impasse is that recipients volunteer some of their time to something that needs doing.  I think it would have to be really loosely structured to work however almost to the point of being on a honour system.  It could be for just about anything.  Showing up at food bank on occasion, picking up garbage or just helping a senior now and then. Perhaps there could be something like an online social credit registry where recipients of volunteerism or volunteers themselves could leave a record of their efforts.

The value of volunteer labour to the economy is in the billions and worth around $25 - $30 per hour these days.  Such a system could conceivably even allow a person to get ahead if the more they worked the more they received and it also provided a gateway to training and education.
This is probably the best idea I’ve heard so far in connection to UBI.

Online Michael Hardner

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #85 on: January 23, 2022, 01:52:58 pm »
1. I don't really understand this point.

2. Yes, but the unemployed rust belters can' be re-trained for something else, so let's pay for their education and maybe support them financially while they learn.  But paying them an income to sit on their bottoms is not a useful allocation of tax dollars.  Social assistance and EI programs can take care of this, or roll them into a single program if you want.
But getting rid of the eligibility requirements is ridiculous.  China has 1.4 billion people working tooth and nail pumping out production to overtake the west economically and you're talking about music on a street corner. 

3. Ok. But changing goalposts on thy fly.

4. The answer was never Marxism, it was regulation, taxing the rich, education, social safety net etc.

5. Sayings like "Free lunch" and "money doesn't grow on trees" are truisms that still apply today which you seem to be forgetting and so im using them as a reminder.

6. Neither of us can predict the future.  If there's mass unemployment then as I said tax the rich people who own the robots and get people to be trained to work where human interaction has value like teaching, nursing, sales, therapy etc.  Deal with it as it comes, future hypotheticals are a lame excuse for the naive idealists to implement their utopian schemes.

7. I've said my peace on this issue in our convo, I just keep repeating myself. We can agree to disagree.

1. In short, as time goes on there is not enough work to do.

2. China will have the same problem.  At a certain point there will be so little work that the social utility of doing anything will outweigh the utility of monitoring benefits.  I think that's a good way to think of the economics.

3. Something that wasn't on the radar 30 years ago is not 'changing goalposts', it's an emergent problem.  Nobody was talking about climate change 50 years ago either, they were talking about 'pollution' so talking about an emergent problem isn't 'changing goalposts'.

4. Marxism is also a framework for critical analysis and as such, it is a perspective that can be used to examine (modified) capitalism in various stages of history.  Marxism hasn't connected the dots adequately to their utopian end state, and the various attempts (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Deng Xiaoping, Hoxha, Kim) have provided a less desirable path for the west than gradually adding more social programs to capitalism.

5. "Fear God and work hard." - David Livingstone;  "Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it! Labor is life." - Thomas Carlyle

Human wisdom is based on the conditions that produced it.  Our world will soon be even more remote from the world that produced ancient truisms.

6. Yes, 'taxing the rich' may well be a path to this, but you included "sales" in your list which is also going to be redundant.  Keeping in mind the abundance we are delivering, the absence of equity in distribution and the coming decline in population a kind of capitalist-communist mix is coming that your old truisms would never have foreseen.  A kind of extended family of humanity will be here some time next century assuming we don't destroy ourselves.

7. We don't disagree much at all.  I appreciate your values, I am only trying to get you to imagine beyond the horizon a little.

Cheers...

Online wilber

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #86 on: January 23, 2022, 03:44:27 pm »
And yet we have a half million TFW's in Canada.
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Online Michael Hardner

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #87 on: January 23, 2022, 04:03:43 pm »
And yet we have a half million TFW's in Canada.

What's the economic case pro and con ?

Online wilber

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #88 on: January 23, 2022, 04:45:24 pm »
What's the economic case pro and con ?

The economic case is we have a labour shortage. Why are we importing workers and talking about a UBI? TFW's involve a ton of expenses and red tape for employers.
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Online Michael Hardner

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Re: UBI - are you Aye or Nay?
« Reply #89 on: January 23, 2022, 04:51:37 pm »
1. The economic case is we have a labour shortage. Why are we importing workers ...
2. and talking about a UBI?
3. TFW's involve a ton of expenses and red tape for employers.

1. ?  We are importing workers because we have a labour shortage seems like the obvious answer.
2. UBI is long term - shouldn't really bring in the day-to-day economic ebbs and flows...
3. You make it sound like they should be easier for employers - is that your intention ?