Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm really curious 'cause at least with "traditional welfare" the "us vs. them" mentality explains why folks are against it ('cause they think those people are getting off on the system) but with UBI, everyone's included so why is anyone against having a minimum income themselves???
Because people have a difficult time comprehending a reality that doesn't yet exist. At this current point in time, the reality of a world run by AI and robots is something only seen in movies. Currently, it's only fairy tale.
If you could take a trip back in time during the US slave-era in the deep south, I'm sure you'd have the same type of denial and aversion towards a society without a slave economy. If you told an old southern cotton farmer that he'd eventually have to clean his own kitchen and pick his own cotton, he'd probably laugh in your face, too.
As far as people freeloading... let's be honest, we already have that. How many people are making genuine contributions to society other than what they're getting paid to do?
The measure of a person's genuine contributions to society are reflected in total compensation.
I'm really curious 'cause at least with "traditional welfare" the "us vs. them" mentality explains why folks are against it ('cause they think those people are getting off on the system) but with UBI, everyone's included so why is anyone against having a minimum income themselves???
if everyone has it, it only resets the bar to zero again...
so what if you and everyone else has an extra $x? the business owners will raise costs and then you are still stuck being poor
why do you think unskilled people wont be at the bottom of society if they got ubi?
its no different than raising minimum wage, the minimum wage workers are still at the bottom because they are still minimum wage workers, not because they make $x/hr.
I think the economy is moving in a direction of fewer employees and jobs. Business owners want to replace people with machines to save on costs, and there really is no reason for them not to. Businesses are not charities.
But nations are societies. Not everyone will have the cash to run one of these automated businesses, and it won't be a good thing to have people sitting around, unemployed, homeless, and starving.
That won't even be good for the business people. Who will they sell to?
This might be where universal income comes in. If work as we know it is no longer needed, maybe people can spend their lives having fun, if the nation as a whole produces enough money. I know this doesn't sound "fair" to those hard-working business automators and outsourcers, but they need consumers, too.
^^ This is a great point. As "unfair" as it may be to those who are still working, they wouldn't be working at all if no one was buying their product/service. So really, that UBI would be making sales possible. Everyone benefits.
if people are working, then ubi is not needed. they need to figure out how to increase their income by increasing what they can offer
That's playing one against the other. It's a competitive solution but not a comprehensive solution. Like baseball, where only eight teams make the playoffs, you can tell all the others to just get better but still only eight teams are going to make the playoffs.
Anyone making minimum wage can improve their education and skill set to make a higher wage. But not everyone.
At the lower tier of sit-down restaurants (Ruby Tuesday, Red Robin) I suspect customers prefer the automated ordering kiosks to having a human in the loop when placing their order -- not just for the reduced need for fake friendly human interaction, but also because the computer won't get your order wrong.
At fancier restaurants, the human waitstaff is part of the justification for the higher cost of a night out-- customers are paying/tipping for the brief illusion of having another, lower status, person at their beck and call.
Something similar (generally without the status differential) is at play when there's a good bartender behind the bar. Most of the time, when I go to a local bar, I want a certain level of human interaction, a guy who knows what kind of beer I like, can make recommendations in relation to what's new on tap, and who every once in a while will comp me a beer or a shot. Some of the newer computer tab systems even recognize this, and allow the bartender to legitimately comp a certain number of drinks per shift.
Experts agree that advancements will bring rise to new industries, but are unlikely to create more jobs than they displace.
Today's computers need fewer and fewer human minds in the loop, why would "something more advanced than today's computers" need more human minds behind it? And why would that human mind be an expensive local employee instead of a remote worker offshore?
For example, the next generation of Roomba will displaces many "housekeeping" jobs (particularly in hospitals and hotels). Yes, there will still be one senior housekeeper per hotel and a few new jobs created to design, build,maintain the new cleaner 'bots, but at best that means 5% of current housekeeping would be retained or retrained as maintenance technicians, the rest are displaced.
And when a camera-equipped SuiteRoomba needs remote assistance backing out of a tight corner, that telepresence would most efficiently be handled out of Mumbai, not Boise.
Nationalism isn't going away, and places (like the EU) experimenting with suppressing nationalism (e.g. by promoting open borders) are finding that unrestricted immigration interacts poorly with their existing welfare programs (e.g. Sweden's migrant issues); they'd be even more strained if they went to universal basic income.
Require citizenship, and make citizenship require a minimum 5 years residence as a taxpayer.
That's playing one against the other. It's a competitive solution but not a comprehensive solution. Like baseball, where only eight teams make the playoffs, you can tell all the others to just get better but still only eight teams are going to make the playoffs.
Anyone making minimum wage can improve their education and skill set to make a higher wage. But not everyone.
that's how I feel about UBI... you can give it to everyone but it doesn't mean they will improve their education/skill set
everyone's version of UBI has no "conditions" attached to it. Mine would be you report in for a "job"/training/etc (public service) and at the end of the day you can have your UBI money or you can find a job on your own terms
but this would be govt mandated jobs and a better minimum wage... so to me, we don't need UBI, we need a better system of what we have now, minimum wage/job expectation/current welfare system
I believe in personal freedom, not govt funded freedom. If people want to be free, they are free to be poor if they choose to through lack of action, but don't expect govt to bail them out
that's how I feel about UBI... you can give it to everyone but it doesn't mean they will improve their education/skill set
everyone's version of UBI has no "conditions" attached to it. Mine would be you report in for a "job"/training/etc (public service) and at the end of the day you can have your UBI money or you can find a job on your own terms
but this would be govt mandated jobs and a better minimum wage... so to me, we don't need UBI, we need a better system of what we have now, minimum wage/job expectation/current welfare system
Everyone's version? How would you know?
As far as I what I have heard or read about it, this has only been floated around as a general concept. There has been nothing close to an official elaborate discussion of how such a program would be rolled out. It would take years for something like this to be planned and rolled out, not to mention instituted into law.
Last edited by Left-handed; 11-28-2017 at 12:25 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
