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UBI is an enticing thought. But only if you're on the receiving end. Maybe we can job share on a year by year basis so you don't have a leisure versus a working class. Since income for both would eventually rise/sink to the same level, seems pretty fair to me.
I would think it would be a relatively small sum of money. I don't like $2,000 a month or something would be realistic, I'm thinking more like $700 a month; similar to what SSI disability pays out. Not enough to be comfortable but still enough to prevent you from going hungry. I think most people would still work rather than live like a pauper and it would give employees more of a chance against predatory employers since they actually could say "no" to abuse.
I would think it would be a relatively small sum of money. I don't like $2,000 a month or something would be realistic, I'm thinking more like $700 a month; similar to what SSI disability pays out. Not enough to be comfortable but still enough to prevent you from going hungry. I think most people would still work rather than live like a pauper and it would give employees more of a chance against predatory employers since they actually could say "no" to abuse.
$700 a month for exactly who? Everyone? No way can a family of 4 live on $1400 a month assuming you're including only adults. If children of non-working parents would also qualify, then they would receive $2800 a month. Would they also receive things like section 8 housing, food stamps and EIC on top of this income?
Solution One: Universal Basic Income. Everyone, young and old, gets a guaranteed income for life, set at a level to live a reasonably comfortable life. People can still work of course, but it would not be needed to survive. In a world of few jobs, this could be the lifeline for the majority of the populace, although I see an awful lot of bored, unfulfilled individuals out there. I can smell the marijuana smoke already...
Solution Two: Make Everyone a Trust Fund Baby. The government finds a way to gin up a couple hundred trillion and gives everyone an "inheritance" which they can use to live on, either by way of investment or founding their own company. Everyone would start out as equals, but I sure don't see it lasting long. What would become of those who make bad investments, or worse yet, what happens when the whole stock market crashes? The veneer of civilization is thin enough as it is...
Solution Three: Building Pyramids. Seriously. That's what the Egyptians did to solve the problem of all those peasants who had nothing to do six months out the year. They had them build all those colossal pyramids. They probably cost the equivalent of 50% of GDP for centuries on end, but the results speak for themselves. Egyptian society lasted a long, long time.
For today's world, we could build, say 10 pyramids around the country, each of them 4000 feet tall, and taking a century to build. It would be the greatest jobs-creator all time, and there would be the spin-off effects of building massive cities around each of these pyramids to house the working population. If pyramids aren't wanted, perhaps we could build bridges across the oceans, or the Three Walls Of America, a recent proposal to defeat tornadoes in the central US. Any mind-blowing project will do - the idea is to provide jobs for every able-bodied adult in America. But the cost - whew! The printing presses would be running red-hot, for sure.
Solution Four: In my opinion, this has the greatest chance of actually working, and would probably the most politically feasible. This proposal would provide jobs subsidies to companies and non-profits, paid for by heavy taxation of the job-destroying robots. This subsidy would be set high enough to induce a permanent labor shortage, which would drive up wages, which in turn would grow the economy at a solid rate for decades on end, without worry of recessions or depressions. Everybody who wants or needs to work would be able to find a job, and the need for social programs could be unwound to a tiny fraction of what they are today, such as for the truly disabled, etc. Conservatives should love this plan, since it would promote a society based on work, as opposed to the masses living on the dole. Yes, the costs would be high, but economic growth should be more than enough to offset the increased expenditures. This is the solution I personally favor.
Solution one is plausible, but where does this money come from? And how much is determined. In order for this to work, we'd first need to know what basic income is. This is based on the price of food, housing, water, etc. If no one is working, how does that effect the price of these things? You're view on this seems a bit too simplistic at this point. The logistics of this need to be worked out, but something like this is at least possible.
Solution 2 is frankly unsustainable.
Solution 3 is impractical.
Solution 4 is both unsustainable and impractical.
Where does the money come from for these things?
If you want a solution to a world where robots do all the necessary work, you just remove money all together. If robots do all the work and human labor isn't involved, then basic things like food can be free. Money would no longer be needed (though there would need to be a limit to how much food you can take if it's free). It can still exist for certain things, but those would be luxuries.
But a robot takeover of the economy is not going to happen anytime soon, at least that's not how it looks now. Keep in mind, just because the technology exists, doesn't mean it's practical yet.
$700 a month for exactly who? Everyone? No way can a family of 4 live on $1400 a month assuming you're including only adults. If children of non-working parents would also qualify, then they would receive $2800 a month. Would they also receive things like section 8 housing, food stamps and EIC on top of this income?
Nobody is forcing you to have kids. Though I know it likely would never happen, if something like this were to be instituted, I wouldn't be opposed to having forced vasectomies/hysterectomies prior to collecting that livable wage.
On option 3: Google the "Civilian Conservation Corp". I don't think they built any literal pyramids, but anyone who spends time in state and federal parks has seen the US equivalent.
Yes... yes.... TJust print money and give everybody a million dollars of their own. It's a nice fantasy.
Here's a solution: Revolt against the mega-corporate assembly line world being foisted on us and go back to handmade craftsmanship and small family run businesses who MAKE things and sell them, or grow food and sell it, and cultivate living in small intimate communities. You leave people alone and they'll figure out how to live. Never happen though. The one percenters of the world just can't resist meddling with society.
It's absurd and stupid to expect jobs to be created by huge conglomerates that have every incentive in the world NOT to create more human jobs to pay salaries to.
My God... can people not see what is happening? These one percenter megalomaniacs want to GET RID OF at least half the human population by whatever means are necessary and to cultivate their own little "master race" of carefully selected humans to tend the utopic "garden of eden" of the future.
If you look at Agenda 21/ICLEI you will find it is closer to 50% of the human population.
Nobody is forcing you to have kids. Though I know it likely would never happen, if something like this were to be instituted, I wouldn't be opposed to having forced vasectomies/hysterectomies prior to collecting that livable wage.
LOL. And exactly who is going to pay your stipend if there are no kids (aka workers) when you get too old?
I personally believe that we're headed for a major crisis which will rock society to the core. Without enough jobs to go around, everything falls apart. Not enough consumers to buy the products companies make, not enough taxes being paid while demand on government services grows ever-larger. Without jobs, how will people live? How will society function with unemployment rates of 50%, 60% or 70% or more?
Very simple - it won't.
You're talking about a society with no real productivity, no consumer demand and no real economy. It's not sustainable, therefore it will not ever come about. It would take a couple of decades before such a scenario ever takes place, and so much can (and will) change before then. We cannot ever foresee how things can change so drastically from our present circumstances, but they do.
Two decades ago, there were no smartphones, no tablets, and hardly anyone was on the internet. There was no such thing as $100K in student loan debt, and 9-11 was still 6 years in the future. Kids were still using pencils and paper in school, and music on CDs was the hottest thing. Do you really think change has ended?
That won't be an issue. Do you really think the millions of welfare recipients out there are the ones that are funding the federal government?
Oh I see. You're not against the "right" sort of people having kids. In other words you're OK with the kinds of kids who can support any child free folks who'd rather not work. Why would anyone bring a kid into the world just to work so they become slaves to those who don't want to work? I sure wouldn't.
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