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With the trend of automation, is there really an alternative? Once even dentistry and teaching can be done by machines, a lot of people are going to be out of work. It's either give them money, or the rich asset owners and programmers will get arrogant and cull the herd.
This hits on the point I haven't really seen answered yet. People complain welfare discourages work, but do we want everyone to work? More specifically, do we want everyone to work jobs that are financially viable to them? There are people who could be doing volunteer work, or creating great art, but instead are pushing themselves through shifts at some job they hate because Meals on Wheels doesn't pay the bills. The only explanation I ever see is basically spite: everyone should suffer at least X much to enter society.
Even if some layabout is dragging themselves into the office pretending to be busy 8 hrs a day instead of sitting at home watching TV, why is it so important that they be working?
The primary goal of the human race is to last as long as it can. In order for the human race to last, it must get off of this planet (which will eventually be uninhabitable) and it must spread across the galaxy.
In order for the human race to get off the planet, we need to evolve to be smart and hard working enough to figure out the physics of interstellar space travel, and we as a society need to evolve to the point where we are not worrying about feeding starving people who don't contribute anything, and can spend our resources on figuring out space travel and colonization of other planets.
The key word here is evolve. Evolution means survival of the fittest. In order to evolve to be more intelligent and hard working, that means we want the most intelligent and hard working folks to procreate more, and the less intelligent and lazy folks to procreate less, and well, die off really.
In the past, before welfare, this was easy. It took care of itself. Those with the smarts and work ethic to make enough money to feed their family got to have kids who ate nutritious food, got good medical care, and lived. Those who didn't, well, their families starved, got sick, and died. That's how the human race has progressed to where it is now.
These days, however, human society has taken the short view, and decided that the fates of those who "don't desire to work" are more important than the rest. Society has figured out a way to motivate smart and hard working people to have very few children, if any. And society has also figured out a way to reward less intelligent and lazy people for having more and more children. Those who PRODUCE more resources are forced to give the majority of their resources to those who NEED it. Whether or not those who need it could produce it themselves.
The world is becoming more and more populated, but the species as a whole is not getting any smarter of late. If we keep this trend, we will kill ourselves off, either in unintelligent wars over who gets to build their house on a piece of land that someone called "holy" in a story thousands of years ago, or just by using all of our natural resources and not having the ability to get or make more, and basically starving ourselves to death.
All this to say -
Welfare should exclusively be for the few who through no fault of their own cannot support themselves. Children. Those with severe illnesses and disabilities. The very elderly. People who are required to provide un-paid full-time care to invalids. People who are busting their butts working 2 jobs but still can't make enough to feed their kids.
People who CAN work, and who don't "desire" to, should starve to death. NOT receive $20K. Come on. If you CAN feed yourself but you WON'T, then you don't get to eat. Period. A universal guaranteed income WILL kill the human race. If you are in support of a universal guaranteed income, then you want to kill the human race for the sake of you being able to sit on the couch and watch TV all day. Which is just plain disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.
This hits on the point I haven't really seen answered yet. People complain welfare discourages work, but do we want everyone to work? More specifically, do we want everyone to work jobs that are financially viable to them? There are people who could be doing volunteer work, or creating great art, but instead are pushing themselves through shifts at some job they hate because Meals on Wheels doesn't pay the bills. The only explanation I ever see is basically spite: everyone should suffer at least X much to enter society.
Even if some layabout is dragging themselves into the office pretending to be busy 8 hrs a day instead of sitting at home watching TV, why is it so important that they be working?
Because society needs the guy in the office to be doing that job? People aren't forced to work just to make them suffer out of spite, that's childish logic my 6-year-old uses. People are paid to do the jobs that need doing, that benefit society. If it doesn't pay, then society doesn't need it. And if you don't do the job to benefit society, society doesn't pay you.
Do you make your child take out the trash out of spite, just to make them suffer? No. You make them take out the trash because the trash needs to be taken out, otherwise the house will fill up with trash which will cause everyone to get sick. Taking out the trash isn't fun, it's not great art, it's not something anyone dreams about doing, but it NEEDS TO BE DONE. So you do it. You do your job that needs to get done, then you get paid by the portion of society that needed that work done, then you go to the store and buy your food. That's how it works.
And let's not forget that if we quit subsidizing big business and bailing out corporations for the poor decisions their CEOs made, we would have more than enough to fund social programs with extra besides.
Um, no we wouldn't. Corporate welfare and foreign aid make up 4% of the budget. Social programs (social security, welfare, Medicaid, and Medicare), make up 55% of the budget. Your math is off by a LOT. It would help a tiny bit, but it's not enough.
What you suggest right there sounds impossible. It's hard enough for a skilled middle class American to get a decent-paying job overseas. I highly doubt any country in the world will accept the American poor with open arms. They have plenty poor people of their own to deal with.
I've never been very poor myself, but have dealt with it.
There are simply not many jobs for low to mid skilled people, especially not men and especially not in smaller towns or bad neighborhoods. Finding a job isn't as easy as just asking for one. As I said before, if you have money (ie: have a vehicle and can drive to the jobs) it's easier to make money. Transportation is a HUGE problem poor people have - it's definitely something I take for granted. They cannot always GET to work or school. They are then blamed for that and fired.
If there aren't enough jobs for low skilled people, then there are too many low skilled people. Increasing the amount of low skilled people by giving them more money does not solve this problem, it exacerbates it.
How do you decrease the amount of low skilled people to fit the number of low skilled jobs?
(the answer is to force the ones who can to go get more skills)
Because society needs the guy in the office to be doing that job?
Does it? Maybe the lazy guy is crowding out someone who would do the job better, but isn't as good at interviewing? Or perhaps the job is not a human being's time to be worth doing, but because companies can bully people into working on threat of starvation/homelessness they can demand that workers perform tasks for less than a market rate*. In either case we would be misallocating labor.
Furthermore, poverty is a great detriment to the human race. How many people could have been the next Elon Musk, if they weren't dodging bullets in the slums or quitting college to work minimum wage to feed their kids or help their parents pay bills?
*By market rate, I mean an arm's length transaction by informed parties not under duress. Being forced to take a job because it's available and keeps food in the fridge is "under duress."
Quote:
Originally Posted by pkbab5
If there aren't enough jobs for low skilled people, then there are too many low skilled people. Increasing the amount of low skilled people by giving them more money does not solve this problem, it exacerbates it.
How do you decrease the amount of low skilled people to fit the number of low skilled jobs?
(the answer is to force the ones who can to go get more skills)
Forcing everyone to get a Ph.D. isn't going to raise the wages of janitors.
You can't eliminate or reduce welfare by using any system that still gives people something for nothing, out of the paychecks of those who work.
To reduce welfare, provide soup kitchens and basic necessities for those who can't afford them, and make them so minimal that there is an incentive to make money to afford better.
You have a very strange philosophy, but fortunately it is not shared by enough people in the US that we will ever adopt a policy of denying assistance to the poor, disabled and aged.
Where do you get denying the truly needy? This proposal is to give to everyone. So those that aren't disabled or aged would benefit, as would the lazy, entitled and selfish.
I will never understand why it's considered terrible to want to keep you own money, instead of having it go to drug addicts, people that won't stop having kids they can't afford, and the truly financially stupid.
The primary goal of the human race is to last as long as it can. In order for the human race to last, it must get off of this planet (which will eventually be uninhabitable) and it must spread across the galaxy.
In order for the human race to get off the planet, we need to evolve to be smart and hard working enough to figure out the physics of interstellar space travel, and we as a society need to evolve to the point where we are not worrying about feeding starving people who don't contribute anything, and can spend our resources on figuring out space travel and colonization of other planets.
The key word here is evolve. Evolution means survival of the fittest. In order to evolve to be more intelligent and hard working, that means we want the most intelligent and hard working folks to procreate more, and the less intelligent and lazy folks to procreate less, and well, die off really.
In the past, before welfare, this was easy. It took care of itself. Those with the smarts and work ethic to make enough money to feed their family got to have kids who ate nutritious food, got good medical care, and lived. Those who didn't, well, their families starved, got sick, and died. That's how the human race has progressed to where it is now.
These days, however, human society has taken the short view, and decided that the fates of those who "don't desire to work" are more important than the rest. Society has figured out a way to motivate smart and hard working people to have very few children, if any. And society has also figured out a way to reward less intelligent and lazy people for having more and more children. Those who PRODUCE more resources are forced to give the majority of their resources to those who NEED it. Whether or not those who need it could produce it themselves.
The world is becoming more and more populated, but the species as a whole is not getting any smarter of late. If we keep this trend, we will kill ourselves off, either in unintelligent wars over who gets to build their house on a piece of land that someone called "holy" in a story thousands of years ago, or just by using all of our natural resources and not having the ability to get or make more, and basically starving ourselves to death.
All this to say -
Welfare should exclusively be for the few who through no fault of their own cannot support themselves. Children. Those with severe illnesses and disabilities. The very elderly. People who are required to provide un-paid full-time care to invalids. People who are busting their butts working 2 jobs but still can't make enough to feed their kids.
People who CAN work, and who don't "desire" to, should starve to death. NOT receive $20K. Come on. If you CAN feed yourself but you WON'T, then you don't get to eat. Period. A universal guaranteed income WILL kill the human race. If you are in support of a universal guaranteed income, then you want to kill the human race for the sake of you being able to sit on the couch and watch TV all day. Which is just plain disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Yes, but the problem is, Humanity has a heart. Humanity has decided it doesn't want the lazy, the aged and the infirm to die off.
So, maybe all these wars Humanity keeps starting are compensation for keeping those who can't, or won't, support themselves artificially alive.
Does it? Maybe the lazy guy is crowding out someone who would do the job better, but isn't as good at interviewing?
I don't see the relevance of this to anything? Are you saying we should give people $20K so they can quit their job because they are lazy and don't do a good job anyway? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankMiller
Furthermore, poverty is a great detriment to the human race. How many people could have been the next Elon Musk, if they weren't dodging bullets in the slums or quitting college to work minimum wage to feed their kids or help their parents pay bills?
Yes but if you give everyone $20K, none of the potential Elon Musks will bother becoming Elon Musk. What's the point? It won't matter. Apathy is an even greater detriment to the human race than poverty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankMiller
Or perhaps the job is not a human being's time to be worth doing, but because companies can bully people into working on threat of starvation/homelessness they can demand that workers perform tasks for less than a market rate*. In either case we would be misallocating labor. *By market rate, I mean an arm's length transaction by informed parties not under duress. Being forced to take a job because it's available and keeps food in the fridge is "under duress."
By that logic, 99% of people who have jobs are being forced to take it under duress. *Most* people don't work unless they have to. People work in order to make money to keep food in the fridge. The whole point of working is to get food/shelter/clothing/etc. Back in the old days, people would farm their own food and build their own houses and make their own clothes. If they didn't do those things, they didn't have food, housing, or clothes. Period. Now with specialization, we can trade goods and services for those things, but the primary concept should still apply. If you don't work for your food/housing/clothes, then YOU DON'T GET THEM.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankMiller
Forcing everyone to get a Ph.D. isn't going to raise the wages of janitors.
No, but it will reduce the unemployment rate, so that more people who can work have jobs.
Unemployment is high right now because the number of low skilled jobs is decreasing. However, the number of higher skilled jobs, especially stem jobs, is increasing. There is an employee shortage in the stem field. If we are able to get a portion of the low skilled employees to learn the skills needed to work the stem jobs, then they could get the stem jobs, opening up the low skilled jobs to others who cannot learn the stem skills. You can motivate people who can learn the stem skills to learn them by not giving them $20K for nothing and then letting nature take its course.
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