That's enough for Brexit so maybe if we put this to referendum too?
Y'all jest but UBI is gonna be a necessity as automation and outsourcing continue to take more and more jobs.
I'm pretty "capitalism ho!" minded, but honestly at some point in the future it'd be pretty cool if UBI was feasable
I support UBI, always will, but I frankly do not see it becoming a thing until everyone on this forum is already grey or greying.
The beauty is, that's completely fine. It's not strictly speaking necessary currently, the vast majority of the job market is safe right now.
The rollout will be gradual, where we'll at first need to have an extremely strong unemployment program because a large amount of low-skill jobs are trivial to automate (and are even economically viable).
I'm not an oracle so I won't make an educated guess a hundred years into the future, but at least somewhere in the region of 50 years from now, we'll still have people at places such as assembly lines due to small tasks on the line that change every 2-3 years. It's just not economically feasible to automate those tasks at that point.
Eventually we'll have general artificial intelligence that's capable of performing those tasks, and robotics capable of doing the physical part of it, but there's still a long way to go.
Foxconn sunk a lot of money into automating large parts of the latest iPhone's assembly, but that's about where our capability ends currently.
Samsung might do a lot of the steps with automation too since they also have a lot of volume, but those are essentially the only two manufacturers that can even think about automating the assembly of modern smartphones currently. You need to recoup the cost of the line somehow, and the current design of the phone becomes obsolete in a little under 2 years.
The same problem can be found in all sorts of jobs, I'm just talking of assembly since I'm familiar with it, having listened to automation engineers.
I am only okay with it if everyone receives it.
Doesn't matter if you work or not, I mean I would be okay with it if you're making below 6 grand a month.
After 6 grand - don't need UBI.
UBI that cuts off if you're employed isn't really UBI, it's basically glorified unemployment benefits, and may serve as a perverse incentive not to work. I think it's necessary for UBI to really be a universal income for all citizens, with individuals free (and self-motivated) to supplement that income with work.
So UBI counts literally everyone? (based on citizenship/residency)?
I used to think that it's only for unepmployed but few months ago I learned that it literally involves anyone who's has citizenship or meets certain residency conditions.
That's where the term universal comes in
UBI can (and pr definition has to) coexist with capitalism tho
I mean they essentially asked people if they'd like free money, of course a lot of people will say yes. The real question is how many people would agree to pay the taxes required to have a universal income.
I heard somewhere that UBI would actually decrease social welfare/supplement expenditure? (not really sure how is that suppossed to work).
With current rental market being fucked up in UK and IE - It's imposible unless government really enforces some rental laws towards cunt-landlords.
Well, it'll certainly grow the economy and it'll incentivise people to better their current financial positions since you won't have people afraid of having their welfare cut if they start earning over a certain amount, and people will be able to pursue better jobs since they won't be forced to take shit jobs for shit pay. UBI will be incredibly empowering to employees and should be able to effectively extinguish the current stranglehold that employers have over us. Overall, I genuinely believe that UBI will be good for everyone. Even employers, since the people working under them will be there because they want to be there and not because they have to.
ok but my worry is that
Mortgages/rent goes up because now everyone is guaranteed to have a set amount of income every year, and landlords will take their share of that
wages go down for the same reason as above
i think UBI goes hand in hand with restrictive laws on pricing and minimum wages, i dont see it working any other way
Yeah I'm worried whether housing will actually be affordable for people on UBI, or whether the market will self-balance to a point where some people are always below the poverty line.
I also don't know/understand how UBI interacts with inflation
I would love to see it implemented though. It feels like, as automation increases, the value of unskilled labour is only going down, relative to the cost of living. At some point you either need financial intervention, or go for the "Kill All The Poor" strategy
I'm pretty sure lower wages is one of the facets of UBI. Employers are able to offset the increased tax expense since they no longer need to pay a living wage. Everyone's basic living expenses should be covered by UBI.
I'd imagine that everyone's monthly paycheck would be reduced by the montly UBI payout, on average.
As nice as UBI would be, I suspect it'll take a crisis that business and governments can't wiggle their way out of for it to happen.
Universal basic income is a trap.
it sounds amazing in theory, until you realize that giving people "free money" means you increase the overall wealth of people, which means products will get more expensive because of a little thing called supply/demand.
Take an iPhone, for example. It doesn't cost what it costs because that's how much it's worth. It costs what it costs because Apple's marketeers performed a study to see how expensive they could make it to maximize sales and revenue. If the overall wealth increases, that means people have more money to spend, which means these type of goods will become more expensive.
Secondly, the notion that people having to work less for the same income means they start doing other productive things is endearingly optimistic. We all know full well that the majority of people would just sit at home and do nothing all day if we did not have to work.
Overall, universal basic income is a terrible way to fix poverty.
Whatever form it takes it needs to start soon, It's the lower tier jobs that are already going first. Office admin type activities, payroll, purchasing and finance activities are much cheaper and more accurate with robotic processing and it's not worth paying somebody to do it.
Do you have a better solution? And do you have sources to back up your claim it's a trap?
or unconditional basic income. if people earn money, they pay more taxes, works itself out.
While I like the idea of UBI, considering the world we live in, it will just jack up prices on everything due to higher availability, which will inflate money into nothing. Correct me if im wrong, but isnt that how capitalism works?
This youtube video explains the benefits and pitfalls rather well.
https://youtu.be/kl39KHS07Xc
This is one of the most common arguments against UBI, which is more money = more demand = higher prices = raising UBI in response which creates a cycle leading to inflation. However, it's pretty easy to dispel. Sure, businesses could collectively raise prices on their products in order to attempt to increase profits. But as long as the supply isn't monopolised, then competition will ensure that this never happens. Another thing to note is that the government isn't going to be printing free money. Rather, they are redistributing it. It's in everyone's best interests to prevent the cycle that results in inflation.
Apple will always make bucketloads from their products, but you don't need to buy their iPhones when you can get a Samsung or other competitor for way cheaper. Apple products are the luxury end of the commuter industry. Kind of like a fashion label. So Apple might certainly raise their prices to squeeze more out of their relatively well-off customers. But those paying for the cheaper phones shouldn't be effected by this. Even if demand goes up for these products, there is an intensive to increase supply to meet this demand for the best price. In fact, prices may even go down with automation making it cheaper to produce. I also doubt digital goods will increase in price since the supply of these are infinite.
It's the same with housing, if you're living in an expensive housing market then those prices might go up. But the poorer/rural areas should be fine. And more people will be able to live in these cheaper areas since UBI won't make them geographically dependent (living where all the work is). We might even see rural revival as a result creating more jobs in these areas.
TL;DR
UBI (assuming it's managed properly) should match, or even outpace inflation.
Competition will regulate the market as it has always done. (Increased demand will in turn increase supply to match that demand.)
Luxury goods and expensive housing might increase.
Regular/digital goods and cheaper housing likely won't.
Automation may even reduce prices.
People will be less geographically dependent on cities and can relocate to more affordable markets.
No we don't? In fact, that didn't end up happening whenever UBI experiments were conducted.
You speak of supply and demand, and then provide an example for exactly not that.
A competitive market item like grain will have its price determined by supply and demand, as long as nothing upsets the market.
Apple's products on the other hand have a monopoly market - only Apple is allowed to produce Apple products, thus the price is not set by supply and demand, since they entirely control the supply.
UBI isn't enough to live like a king, the main purpose is to enable people to stop worrying if they'll be able to both eat and pay for rent this month because of a life event happening.
Back when we did our very small-scale UBI experiment here in Finland, we had a bunch of people start up small businesses while on the UBI, and on average they make enough money to live, but it's very bumpy.
To my knowledge, most of those people will have to kill those businesses when the experiment ends, because the business isn't sufficient to safely provide for an entire family.
YLE did a piece where they interviewed the people in the experiment, there was a guy who lived by himself with some kids, some of them adopted, and UBI was enough to enable him to start a small business while taking care of the kids.
Ain't it funny how it's always a right-wing government saying how it's unsustainable, without having any evidence to prove it?
Patently false.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl39KHS07Xc
This video (which covers and I'd trust to fully consider most aspects) makes a good case against "people just sitting at home not working and taking free money".
Universal basic income is a great idea. It works where benefits fails. It's not gonna fund you a life style of wealth and glamour, but it could help you make ends meet when times are tough. I like a system that closer resembles a meritocracy with understanding for those who can't contribute as much. I'm having difficulty wording this post, so I will simply say, I fully agree with Universal Basic Income. If we can make it happen - the hard part being where the money comes from, and the opposition the people will face given that it's the people who have money who ultimately have a bigger say (while it's sad to say, true none the less) - it would be fantastic and raise the living prospects for all.
Workers would be happier, people less stressed, and the nation would be more productive as a whole. Nobody wants to sit at home doing nothing while not having enough to do anything that makes them happy - people would rather work to have the money that allows them to do the things they wish to do. I would happily debate this with anyone, academically this is an interesting subject to analyse
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