Universal Basic Income (UBI)

[flb]

Just now, Social Justice League said:

Who says I want social justice for them?  I rather not see riots though and middle class neghbourhoods getting burned to the ground though.  Even the Romans understood the need to keep the public happy, up to a point.

Interesting. The Romans. Well, seeing how they are my ancestors, I had to study a lot on the subject. Perhaps I should tell you that some of them found solutions for that problem - such as selling debtors into slavery, burning down the poor parts of the city, conscription and compulsory service until you were 50...

Care to discuss the universal basic income system implemented by the Romans?

[Social Justice League]

Just now, flb said:

Interesting. The Romans. Well, seeing how they are my ancestors, I had to study a lot on the subject. Perhaps I should tell you that some of them found solutions for that problem - such as selling debtors into slavery, burning down the poor parts of the city, conscription and compulsory service until you were 50...

Care to discuss the universal basic income system implemented by the Romans?

Yes, they gave everyone Bread and circuses.

[warpig]

12 hours ago, nothernsoul said:

Universal basic income can obviously be seen as socialist, but not necessarily. It is also popular among silicon valley entrepreneurs who view it as an inevitable necessity for a peaceful transition into a society where technology has made lots of paid work obsolete. A lot closer to the aristocracy giving out bread to keep the starving poor away from their gates than based on any socialist principle. Some libertarians like the idea too, as long as UBI replaces all other state benefits and state run services including health and education. 

I am unsure about UBI myself. Maybe I am too conditioned to think beyond conventional orthodoxy? However, I am suspicious of the idea in the same way I am of modern monetary theory. Both just seem too easy a solution. Again, maybe that is an irrational criticism? 

You should be suspicious... implementing UBI at a time when the economy is positive and GDP increases year on year would still be a monumental task... To talk about it now... means they're trying to fix something they broke, namely employment. UBI if it ever comes to pass will not just be a direct, more efficient, like for like replacement for the current social welfare system, it will be a replacement for the furlough scheme as millions of people become unemployed and to prevent riots, the government will just print money to keep them quiet. This will be the first significant step towards socialism because they've run out of ideas.

[flb]

7 minutes ago, Social Justice League said:

Yes, they gave everyone Bread and circuses.

So did the British Empire, when it was following the Roman example and just conquering/looting and bringing stuff home. It's quite unfortunate that it stopped doing that, but here we are. On the plus side, that does help with social justice, does it not? 

8 minutes ago, warpig said:

it will be a replacement for the furlough scheme as millions of people become unemployed and to prevent riots, the government will just print money to keep them quiet. This will be the first significant step towards socialism because they've run out of ideas.

Because that worked so well everywhere else, right?

It would be funny - having all those wonderful examples (Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe and all the other great socialists who've resorted to printing money to solve the problem) and still going for it.

 

[Social Justice League]

The government have run out of ideas imo.

Furlough will need to be extended and I think it will be.  UBI in disguise.

[warpig]

2 hours ago, Locke said:

Hilarious. You have absolutely no answer, just pie in the sky "someone else will pay for it and it's cheap anyway".

You are proposing to force people to follow your point of view at gunpoint. Your hubris about not actually knowing how that is going to work is astounding.

This is the problem with socialists, they have no idea how the system works. Noble ideas dressed in idiocy.

[Social Justice League]

2 minutes ago, warpig said:

This is the problem with socialists, they have no idea how the system works. Noble ideas dressed in idiocy.

How does the system work then?

 

[warpig]

11 minutes ago, flb said:

So did the British Empire, when it was following the Roman example and just conquering/looting and bringing stuff home. It's quite unfortunate that it stopped doing that, but here we are. On the plus side, that does help with social justice, does it not? 

Because that worked so well everywhere else, right?

It would be funny - having all those wonderful examples (Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe and all the other great socialists who've resorted to printing money to solve the problem) and still going for it.

I'm with you... the who premise of UBI relies on a whole orchard of magic money trees... They don't understand that creating more money out of thin air diminishes the value of each preceding unit of currency. Diminishing marginal returns or what is commonly called inflation.

[flb]

1 minute ago, Social Justice League said:

The government have run out of ideas imo.

Furlough will need to be extended and I think it will be.  UBI in disguise.

Welcome to democracy - the travesty it became, to be more precise.

That's the trouble with it. If you don't shoot every communist/socialist in sight you can't have democracy, because you eventually get a socialist party in power. The random person is too stupid to understand the cost of voting for the people who promise everything on a silver plate, so of course they'll vote for the people who promise more free stuff.

Eventually every party has to 1up the government to win; if those guys give you 100/month, we promise to give you 200/month! Then 300! ...and so on. More and more and more, until you just can't pay up anymore, at which point money floats in the sewage system and people fight and kill over a loaf of bread.

...and then you're suddenly afraid of social unrest.

Go figure.

[flb]

Just now, warpig said:

I'm with you... the who premise of UBI relies on a whole orchard of magic money trees... They don't understand that creating more money out of thin air diminishes the value of each preceding unit of currency. Diminishing marginal returns or what is commonly called inflation.

Well, like our man here said, details are to be worked out by smart politicians. Any moment now - they just haven't had the time to come up with a working system in the past 3000 years, but we're not about to give up just because of THAT.

Everyone's going "ooooh, social unrest otherwise". How about cut ALL benefits for EVERYONE and let everyone fend for themselves for a while. And if they feel like causing "social unrest", well, deal with them according to the law. I keep hearing that it costs to maintain a police force, an army etc...it would be nice to get something back for once.

[warpig]

6 minutes ago, Social Justice League said:

How does the system work then?

It relies on an efficient allocation of finite resources. It relies on integrity and the productivity of a nation... we could be here all night... but I can assure you that if you remove the incentive to better yourself - we're on the road to ruin. The only reason things have value is because resources produced it. Put it this way... does someone who won a million pounds value it the same as someone who risked their future, by investing and working hard in their line of work? The answer to that is obvious. 

Edited September 3, 2020 by warpig

[Social Justice League]

3 minutes ago, flb said:

Well, like our man here said, details are to be worked out by smart politicians. Any moment now - they just haven't had the time to come up with a working system in the past 3000 years, but we're not about to give up just because of THAT.

Everyone's going "ooooh, social unrest otherwise". How about cut ALL benefits for EVERYONE and let everyone fend for themselves for a while. And if they feel like causing "social unrest", well, deal with them according to the law. I keep hearing that it costs to maintain a police force, an army etc...it would be nice to get something back for once.

That's ok until you get hung from a tree.  History gives us clues.

[katchytitle]

On 21/05/2020 at 22:36, A17 said:

Total UK annual spending on pensions and welfare - £287.4 billion (ref 1)

Total UK Population - 63,200,000 (ref 2), approximately 21% are under 18

So, dividing one by the other gives a weekly income of £87 per person, which would raise to £111 if under 18s did not receive it (or their parents on their behalf). Would children be eligible for it?

No matter how much you try and make the sums add up, it would be hard for a single person to survive on £87pw if you have to pay for accommodation (renting a room in the cheapest part of the country), but maybe just about on £111?

A family of four receiving £87 per week each would take home £1,500 per month though... Starting to look tempting - maybe the same as a £24,000 salary (pre tax).

 

Ref 1 - https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/

Ref 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingdom

But you included pensions - people paid in their national insurance for 40 years to receive that. The government obviously mismanaged it, but they are just receiving the money they paid, not receiving benefits for nothing.

The problem is always govt mismanagement - you might think its expensive to provide UBI, but if we can work with robots and AI then all it requires is taxing this work rather than the money benefiting a very small group of elite investors who will have way more money than they could possibly spend in their lifetimes or give to their children.

 

[warpig]

5 minutes ago, flb said:

Well, like our man here said, details are to be worked out by smart politicians. Any moment now - they just haven't had the time to come up with a working system in the past 3000 years, but we're not about to give up just because of THAT.

Everyone's going "ooooh, social unrest otherwise". How about cut ALL benefits for EVERYONE and let everyone fend for themselves for a while. And if they feel like causing "social unrest", well, deal with them according to the law. I keep hearing that it costs to maintain a police force, an army etc...it would be nice to get something back for once.

Politicians only have a 4 year event horizon... and let's be honest - how many of them do you really regard as bright, let alone wise...

The problem isn't a lack of socialism, it's too much socialism. Central Banks interfering in markets when the capitalist system should have been allowed to function. Bankruptcy is part of the capitalist model... it ensures an efficient allocation of resources. Old ideas replace with new... The old system of 20 years ago worked just fine... it's the politicians meddling that has smoothed out the business cycle, but in doing so - they've assured the bust is going to be biblical. We need less government, not more... UBI is definitely more...

I think now would be a bad time to cut benefits... but when we get back on our feet (eventually) it needs an overhaul. The best solution to unemployment is not having enough money.

[flb]

10 minutes ago, Social Justice League said:

That's ok until you get hung from a tree.  History gives us clues.

That is, indeed, what happens when you fail to shoot the socialists/communists. Of course, eventually they all hang next to you, on another branch, but in the meantime you're dead as well. I thought I was clear on that.

Here's how it works.

You get a "socialist" (which is really a fancy term for someone who's either an idiot or a crook) and they tell you that you COULD have everything, but the reason for which you don't have everything YET is that someone else stole it from you. It could be a class (nobles), a race (white, black), it could be religion/ethnicity (as seen in Uganda), anything.

You listen to the "socialist" because, well, you want to believe that you could actually have everything too. You want to believe that you deserve it. Of course you don't, but that's beyond the point, human nature is human nature. So you somehow get rid of the oppressing class. Yet somehow, you're now worse off than you were before. But the socialist is there, next to you - he knows what went wrong. It wasn't just ONE oppressor, you see; there are MANY of them; they have to be hunted down in order for the socialist heaven to happen. So you keep hunting them until you're literally out of food or too old to remember what you were supposed to do. Meanwhile, the "socialist" is educating your unfortunate offspring - telling them the same thing. Of course they too believe it. It sounds so good! And the cycle repeats until you run out of money or until hunger prevents people from hearing the "socialist" lies, at which point the socialist (well, some of them - soon to be replaced by other younger, hungrier socialists) hangs too. Nothing personal, it's the cost of doing business. As for the young, hungrier socialist who replaces the one hanging by that branch...well, he knows that's where he'll end up too, but it's not a bad deal; hang when you're 90 and living the life until then (see Mugabe). It's not a bad deal, is it?

Case in point

Edited September 3, 2020 by flb

[warpig]

Socialists rely on capitalists to steal from.

[flb]

Just now, warpig said:

Socialists rely on capitalists to steal from.

Pretty much. I was born in such a country. I've seen and heard it all from socialists. 

"My" country (well, I'm British now, so meh) will NEVER, ever recover, unless some asteroid or whatever kills all life outside its borders.

[Social Justice League]

2 minutes ago, flb said:

You listen to the "socialist" because, well, you want to believe that you could actually have everything too. You want to believe that you deserve it. Of course you don't, but that's beyond the point, human nature is human nature.

No I don't want "everything too".  I've got enough.

[Pop321]

4 hours ago, flb said:

Well, you see, I'm not complaining about "fairness". I just want to know where the money's coming from - whether it's 1k/month or 8-9k, whichever figure you find more appealing.

But this is what we've got now. You can be perfectly fine on universal credit with no kids. You get your check, your wife gets a check, move to Yorkshire or Liverpool (plenty of council homes there; you could get a home in Liverpool for 1 pound at some point - read the fine print, though) and you're fine. You'll get a home, food, tv etc.

This is the system that apparently doesn't work - and if you say "go very very hungry if you want 4 kids" they're going to call you a nazi, fascist, classist or something like that, I believe.

But again, you can already do that now. Get the right jobs and you can live there, if you like it so much. Personally I thought it looked boring there, but what do I know.

I'm more interested in who'd provide the materials required for that house and who would "assemble" the house. I mean, you need brick, timber, cement, stuff like that. I worked on a construction site when I was 18. I'll tell you, it was a bit horrible. I mean, carrying those cement bags was quite difficult. They're not as light as they might seem. The glass wool (used for insulating) gets in your skin. You get really itchy and it stings and it hurts hours after you've left the construction site. The only thing you can do is sit in a hot bath for an hour or so, hoping it will come out before it kills you. That's before considering the dust you inhale - it kind of hurts to breathe.

If I had the option of getting a free council home and 8k/year, I wouldn't have worked there for a single minute. I mean, obviously, who the hell wants to go through all that every day?

So when I ask who's going to pay for all of this, yes, we've got an issue with the cost of housing. Because a house won't be 224k on average in Britain, it will probably be around 1M - easily. Because it's not just Bob the builder doing that, it's also the other Bobs working on creating those components, the truck drivers bringing them in etc. I drove a truck. It wasn't too bad, but that's because I was driving during the day. I had colleagues driving at night, sleeping in the truck. Not fun, from what I've been told.

I want to know who's going to pay each of the individuals involved in this say 5k/month (after tax) and why. Surely they'd have to make a crazy amount of money to be able to do that and I'm asking who's paying them that crazy amount of money and where are they getting it from in the first place. 

But you can already do that now. Well, it's not gonna be 35 hours a week, it's going to be 40. Not much of a difference.

Sounds great. But again, who's going to pay for it?

I mean, there are disabled people out there who can't even use the toilet without help. You can either stay in your nice council home and get 8k/year...or you can go and clean their assholes when they're done. Perhaps you'll choose the latter. If so, I'd like to know how much you'd expect to get paid for it (given the fact that you can just get the 8k you mentioned and a free home in this UBI system) and who's going to pay you.

Well, you see, the trouble with that is that it requires doctors and nurses and drivers (as far as I know, we don't have self-driving ambulances at the moment). 

So I'm wondering who'd bother with that if they could just sign on, get a home and 8k. 

I mean, you realise becoming a dentist takes quite a while. It involves a lot of studying, a lot of sleepless nights, exams. Then you've got to practice along an existing dentist and so on. Most dentists are still kind of broke in their 30s. So I'm wondering who'd bother with that in this scenario. How much would they have to be paid to make it all worth it and who'd pay for it?

That's not the issue. 

The issue is, for the nth time, who would pay for all these wonderful things?

Right now, you've got millions of people on significantly less than 8k/year (and no free home either), so many that the system is starting to crack. Now, obviously, if you had 8k/year and a free home, that number would go up - by a lot. Think 10X at least (the median income is 29,600 per household, apparently).

Everyone working for 25k/year or less would sign on immediately (as they'd be better off that way). Quite a lot of people under 35k/year would do it as well - the difference is too small to be worth the hassle of working, especially when you take transportation, clothes etc into account.

You're basically talking about having about 3/4 of the workforce on benefits, which would leave the other 1/4 unemployed (I work in IT, but the company I work for provides services for companies who hire all sort of staff; bakers, builders etc). With no bakers, builders etc left, those companies would go out of business so obviously the company I work for would go out of business too. Right. So we're all comfortably sitting at home (our free homes, of course) and we're getting 8k/year.

Who's paying for this? 

I won’t answer each point because I have lost the thread and other points being made. Ie the £5k a month for builders and removal of pensions. Pensions haven’t been paid into...we are of course talking state pensions. They young currently pay for the old...there is no ‘pot’...another rabbit hole  

So the principal is pay everyone enough to eat but also enough to motivate work. £8k and no housing. I never said free homes, you need to work for one of those. 

So couples can scrape by on £16k, singles need to share, couples with kids struggle and if they want more they work. Nazi? Maybe, I did say my thoughts on this matter wasn’t a socialist viewpoint. 

If £8k doesn’t motivate enough people to work to help pay for this then pay everyone less. I am not suggesting paying more...paying the same (Ish) and distributing differently. Impact on housing would be interesting we might expect lower rents and house prices ie market forces.

[flb]

5 minutes ago, Social Justice League said:

No I don't want "everything too".  I've got enough.

Good for you, but others can never have enough and they always want more, because they've decided that they deserve more.

5 minutes ago, Pop321 said:

Pensions haven’t been paid into...we are of course talking state pensions. They young currently pay for the old...there is no ‘pot’...another rabbit hole  

Don't be ridiculous, of course they paid for it. What you're saying is that a random government took that money (i.e stole it) because they could. How does that change the fact that the people paid for it in the first place?

5 minutes ago, Pop321 said:

So the principal is pay everyone enough to eat but also enough to motivate work.

That is what they're doing now. It's not working, because people would rather eat less and not work (legally) or work in the underground/cash-in-hand "industry" to get more.

5 minutes ago, Pop321 said:

Impact on housing would be interesting we might expect lower rents and house prices ie market forces.

If you don't mind me saying, you lost the right to discuss "market forces" when you started talking about interfering with pay and giving away free money.

Edited September 3, 2020 by flb

[Social Justice League]

2 minutes ago, flb said:

Good for you, but others can never have enough and they always want more, because they've decided that they deserve more.

I agree with you on this point

[warpig]

12 minutes ago, flb said:

Pretty much. I was born in such a country. I've seen and heard it all from socialists. 

"My" country (well, I'm British now, so meh) will NEVER, ever recover, unless some asteroid or whatever kills all life outside its borders.

I've got a mixed heritage as well... but would quintessentially refer to myself as English. Scottish grandmother, Croatian Grandfather, American father... German ancestry on both sides... a true mongrel!  Been here most of my life though and I'd happily fight for this country. Where were you born out of interest? 

Edited September 3, 2020 by warpig

[flb]

2 minutes ago, Social Justice League said:

I agree with you on this point

Yes, well, would you also happen to agree with me if I said that MOST PEOPLE believe they don't have enough and that they deserve more without actually having to earn it?

[flb]

4 minutes ago, warpig said:

Where were you born out of interest? 

Eastern Europe, soviet satellite. In year 1 (school) they were teaching my colleagues about why not everything is always great. It was...the enemies of the people. They kept infiltrating our welcoming nation and sabotaging the socialist efforts. I know that because they pointed at me. I had unhealthy origins (my grandfather fought alongside the Germans at Stalingrad and as any good socialist knows, it's genetic).

I do believe that should tell you enough.

Edited September 3, 2020 by flb

[Social Justice League]

1 minute ago, flb said:

Yes, well, would you also happen to agree with me if I said that MOST PEOPLE believe they don't have enough and that they deserve more without actually having to earn it?

Yeah you're probably right with this statement too.  What we don't really want to see is social breakdown because millions don't even have the basics, like food, water and shelter.

60" TV and smartphones are not what I'm talking about when I talk about the basics.