Universal Basic Income is not Socialism

[Lost in Translation]

7 minutes ago, Aetherous said:

 

 

It doesn't necessarily take from anyone. This was discussed earlier in the thread.

If a certain plan for its implementation does depend on taking from others, then I think you have a point...at least about that plan, but not about the concept of UBI.

 

The U in UBI is Universal. If we, for example, want to give everyone in society a $1000/month stipend then we need to tax everyone $1000/month to pay for it. Obviously not everyone will pay $1000/month. Some will pay $200/month, others will pay $5000/month, and others will pay nothing.

 

How is this not taking from some to pay others?

[Aetherous]

10 minutes ago, Lost in Translation said:

The U in UBI is Universal. If we, for example, want to give everyone in society a $1000/month stipend then we need to tax everyone $1000/month to pay for it. Obviously not everyone will pay $1000/month. Some will pay $200/month, others will pay $5000/month, and others will pay nothing.

 

How is this not taking from some to pay others?

That example is definitely taking from others, and isn't at all what's being discussed in this thread.
 

Look into the Alaska Permanent Fund, which while it doesn't provide enough to survive on, is a working example of universal income for Alaskan citizens that doesn't derive its money from people.

Some are also talking about privatizing the US highway system as a means of generating such a fund for all Americans.

There is also the question of automation providing value.

I think there are many other possibilities, which just require creative minds to think up. Why is this possible? Because every citizen has an inherent value simply due to being a consumer. For instance, advertisers pay for us to see their marketing...it's just that they pay a middle man (maybe a bus company if it's plastered on the side of their bus, maybe tv if it's on commercials, maybe Facebook if we're seeing ads on there). A capitalist economy makes its money from the existence of consumers...yet we as consumers don't currently see any of the compensation for the value that we provide to the overall society.

This is one reason why there's the potential for UBI without taking from others.

Because money comes from something having value to others, not from work.

[Lost in Translation]

31 minutes ago, Aetherous said:

Look into the Alaska Permanent Fund, which while it doesn't provide enough to survive on, is a working example of universal income for Alaskan citizens that doesn't derive its money from people.

 

Quote

The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) was created by the Alaska Legislature in 1980 as a quasi-independent state entity tasked with the important mission of prudently investing and managing the assets of the Alaska Permanent Fund. As one of the first sovereign wealth funds, and the largest state-level fund of its kind in the United States, the Alaska Permanent Fund (Fund) has gained world-wide recognition as a model for converting a non-renewable natural resource into a renewable financial resource. 

 

The successful stewardship of the Fund, one of Alaska’s treasured resources, is founded on the shared commitment of the APFC Board of Trustees and Staff to diligently protect the Fund’s Principal, while simultaneously striving to outperform its peers in up and down markets. 

 

With a staff of just under 50 people comprised of highly accomplished professionals in the fields of investment management, accounting, IT, and administration, APFC is fortunate to have such talented, dedicated, and innovative team members. From managing investments of a multi-billion dollar Fund, to executing complex operational and administrative tasks, each staff member plays an essential role in carrying out APFC’s important mission.

 

The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, as the name implies, applies a long range investment vision for Alaska. APFC’s guiding principles outline our commitment to act honorably and respectfully, in order to earn the enduring professional trust and confidence of our peers and of those we serve. In our service to Alaska and our partners around the world, APFC is united in our shared values of Integrity, Stewardship, and Passion.

 

https://apfc.org/who-we-are/

 

I might be able to get behind this, but we first must decide how the initial fund gets created, who pays into it, and who is paid out of it. It basically sounds like a quasi private version of social security.

[idquest]

1 hour ago, Lost in Translation said:

 

The U in UBI is Universal. If we, for example, want to give everyone in society a $1000/month stipend then we need to tax everyone $1000/month to pay for it. Obviously not everyone will pay $1000/month. Some will pay $200/month, others will pay $5000/month, and others will pay nothing.

 

How is this not taking from some to pay others?

 

You are missing the fact that this wealth re-distribution is already happening. But now it is happening through various vehicles like welfare, unemployment insurance, old age pension, child allowance and so on. Half of the population is already getting this money anyway. If UBI is implemented correctly, all those vehicles should disappear and be replaced by one universal one. The likely problem with implementation, of course, are corrupt politicians.

[Marblehead]

4 hours ago, Aetherous said:

Look into the Alaska Permanent Fund, which while it doesn't provide enough to survive on, is a working example of universal income for Alaskan citizens that doesn't derive its money from people.

Not a fair example.  The state of Alaska get X% of all oil removed from its lands.  This is where that money is coming from.  Not all states have such resources.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

12 hours ago, rideforever said:

No Such Thing As Society

 

The current society does not have a capitalist free market.   The media (or culture) is perverting people's minds, twisting them.   It is no longer about making cars or something like that.   The fabric of society itself, the legal system, institutions, academia, has become the new ground of warfare.   Nobody cars about cars now.    They fight at a different level, were far more damage can be done.

 

(...) 

 

What? 

[Zork]

7 hours ago, Marblehead said:

Not a fair example.  The state of Alaska get X% of all oil removed from its lands.  This is where that money is coming from.  Not all states have such resources.

 

Yep. That's why I mentioned that UBI should be evaluated first and then implemented. It might be a terrific or terrible idea depending on circumstances.

[rideforever]

Millionaires become billionaires and then trillionaires .... why don't they stop ?

They would stop if they get what they want and need, but they don't, so they keep going.

This society is hell bent on doing things that don't answer our questions or needs.

Unless you fix that, it doesn't matter who has got what amount of money, just doesn't matter.

[Marblehead]

3 hours ago, rideforever said:

Millionaires become billionaires and then trillionaires .... why don't they stop ?

They would stop if they get what they want and need, but they don't, so they keep going.

This society is hell bent on doing things that don't answer our questions or needs.

Unless you fix that, it doesn't matter who has got what amount of money, just doesn't matter.

Greed is the primary driving force.  The more one gets the more one wants.

 

But then, there is also the instinct for survival.  Store away assets in the event something bad happens.

 

[rideforever]

53 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Greed is the primary driving force.  The more one gets the more one wants.

But then, there is also the instinct for survival.  Store away assets in the event something bad happens.

 

But what is greed ?   It's nor a normal evolutionary force, the animals don't have this.

The only answer for all these things is a higher level of consciousness.

[Marblehead]

1 minute ago, rideforever said:

 

But what is greed ?   It's nor a normal evolutionary force, the animals don't have this.

In various ways they do though.  Males having their harems.  Storing more than enough to carry them through a winter.  Territorial defending. Etc.

 

1 minute ago, rideforever said:

The only answer for all these things is a higher level of consciousness.

Long way to travel for that.

 

[windwalker]

3 minutes ago, rideforever said:

But what is greed ?   It's nor a normal evolutionary force, the animals don't have this

 

 

Ya might want to rethink  that.  Try taking away with a animal feels is theirs. Doesn't matter what it is.

[rideforever]

7 minutes ago, windwalker said:

Ya might want to rethink  that.  Try taking away with a animal feels is theirs. Doesn't matter what it is.

 

For sure, that is the basis of animal life.   But like TTC, 

Retire when the work is done.
This is the way of heaven.

 

And the animals do.   But mankind doesn't.    Man doesn't need food anymore it's all easily available.

 

An animal that hunts for food hunts for what he needs, he takes risks, works hard, gets the reward and rests.
In this era, a man wakes up stressed, spends 45 minutes in a metal box in a meaningless commute listening to idiots on the radio, then does a meaningless job totally unrelated to his needs or anyone elses, mostly lying cheating and stealing exploiting other people, or selling them shit they don't need, eats shit at lunch because that's all that is available, and then returns home, feeling like shit.

He does nothing he likes, he gets nothing he needs.

 

Only an idiotic species would organise things like this.

Having a basic income or not, or whichever economy you imagine, .... that's not really the problem.

Nobody is happy, but human-apes are cowardly lazy and willingly dumb.   Mostly humans would simply like to die, they are so unhappy.
Wake up.

 

[Marblehead]

You make a good argument Rideforever.  True that greed does not grow happiness.  Never has.  There is always more to want.

 

Contentment grows peace.

 

To know when enough is enough.

 

[Lost in Translation]

8 hours ago, rideforever said:

Millionaires become billionaires and then trillionaires .... why don't they stop ?

They would stop if they get what they want and need, but they don't, so they keep going.

This society is hell bent on doing things that don't answer our questions or needs.

Unless you fix that, it doesn't matter who has got what amount of money, just doesn't matter.

 

Taxes and regulations upon taxes and regulations .... why won't they stop?

They might stop if they got what they wanted and needed but they don't, so they keep going.

The government is hell bent on doing things that purport to support the general welfare but don't.

Unless you fix that, it doesn't matter how many regulations you write or how much you tax, just doesn't matter.

 

[redcairo]

On 8/13/2018 at 10:25 PM, Aetherous said:

This doesn't make sense...immigrants breed uncontrollably, but nature in its wisdom is lowering the birth rates...but only of quality citizens? And we're pressed by others to let immigrants in with their excessive breeding, despite going toward automation and needing less workers?

I don't think a decreased birth rate is the solution to the automation problem.

 

Sure. It's an environmental thing. A large amount of genetic response is gene expression, not just hard coded DNA. We "adapt" even within a couple generations to a lot of environmental things. I'm not referring to long-term "evolutionary" changes obviously.

 

It is a known that the more threatening the environment, generally the more children people seem to have (if allowed). A survival instinct to make sure at least some make it far enough alive to reproduce.

 

And even on a small individual scale you see this in soldiers who often suddenly are driven to breed (not just have sex) after hitting combat experience. Threat to survival = urge to replicate.

 

Immigrants don't come from our culture. They come from their own cultures and environmental situations. Most of which suck given since '65 we've been importing from pitiful-situations out of mercy far more than any other reason. Then add tens of millions of illegal aliens. This plus religion (held differently most the time, again a result of culture) drives enormous birth rates.

 

On the whole, US citizens have a declining birth rate and the higher the economic class the moreso. They don't feel threatened. And their culture is also geared to people not wanting to spend their life on a hamster wheel starving with the kid -- they want to work out schooling, and often some career, prior to settling down and having kids.

 

Unfortunately we also have a nutritional armageddon the last few decades that is resulting in a staggering quantity of disease to include a variety of things that lead to unofficial infertility. (Meaning there's not "official reason" why a woman doesn't get pregnant, she just doesn't.) Plus a culture that tells women it doesn't matter you can always do it later, when in fact fertility is higher in the younger and health is better, usually for the baby as well.

 

So I'd say that sure, our culture is at least a much a part of that declining birth rate as anything.

 

But I think the lack of sense of threat is related. Because it naturally results in lower birth rates. And the lack of threat is in part because it's getting easier. We don't often die young except by accident (though disease rates are growing for every segment of population). We don't die of most the contagious illnesses. Even most forms of poisoning and injury if not immediately fatal are curable because of the tech speed at which we can reach, transport, and treat people. There isn't the same sense of driving-need.

 

So that reduces birth rate naturally, which is an environmental adaptation of the population to the situation.

 

Automation increasing (I mean, it's already present in everything, just not "fully") is what I hooked it to, not because "our bodies are saying hey AI is coming, adapt!" LOL, but because the state of our technology is what has so vastly improved our survival environment in every way.  I probably could have said that better or differently in the first place.

 

RC

[redcairo]

On 8/16/2018 at 4:12 AM, Marblehead said:

I know.  But they are first cousins.

 

 

"The goal of socialism is communism." -- Lenin

 

[Marblehead]

1 hour ago, redcairo said:

 

"The goal of socialism is communism." -- Lenin

 

Thank you for the clarification.  I was having trouble expressing myself with this.

 

[zerostao]

UBI is another scheme to dis-empower folks by making them more dependent on the state and less independent.

It is not much different than when friendly neighborhood crack dealers began giving out free samples.

Feel that rush? Wanna try another? sup sucka?

[Zork]

@zerostao

since you have clairvoyant powers of the future can you tell me the numbers of the lottery? seriously guys some proof wouldn't hurt.

[Marblehead]

We are on Page 7.  A little late for proof.

 

[thelerner]

I'm a pragmatist.  We're paying money now, in terms of food stamps, subsidized housing, huge emergency care bills.  There is a chance that in some cases a UBI would be a similar payment and could spark the independence needed to rise out of poverty.  That's what this man posits.  It's worked in a small town Canada.  Don't know if it'd work in the US, but it might be worth some trials to find out. 

 

I understand some think living poor or on wellfare is the dream.  I suspect for many or most, its not.  That they'd like to find alternative. 

Here's the video.  Worth watching. 

 

Edited August 20, 2018 by thelerner

[Marblehead]

And a lack of cash indicates that you are not working, working for too low a wage, or not working enough hours.

 

One of the reasons there are so many people wanting to come to America is because there is work here that pay cash.

 

[Aetherous]

I haven't looked through this closely yet (thread of tweets, must be clicked to see them all), but saving it here:

 

 

[shortstuff]

The problem with UBI is that the people who want it will whine if it ever happens that "the rich" shouldn't get it, and so you will end up with the people who work and earn lots of money, getting nothing whilst paying taxes that go to the socialists who do nothing.

Here in the UK the "poor" are actually not the bottom class because they tend to have a lot of children. So they get a house, a car, and roughly £30k a year all paid for by the state all paid for by taxpayers. Whereas the class above, the 9-5ers, who earn £14k a year...and pay tax, are poorer than them yet work 40+ hours a week. But no one cares about them. They only care about the "poor". Who are not poor due to being tax exempt and given money!

And because they have no job they sit on FB all day whining about the need for UBI...whilst whining that people who work should pay more tax under the guise of "blame the rich". Then they have more children and recieve more benefits and so it goes on.

And some get paid more in benefits then they could ever make pre-tax working: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/387308/Working-is-not-worth-it-Benefits-mum-rakes-in-70-000-in-welfare