Anyone does not equal everyone. Anyone can become a movie star...
I get what you mean but I don't think Zarl is arguing against you. Is he saying that truck drivers are idiots that cannot retrain?
Are you @Zarlak?
Universal Basic Income
- Thread starter esmufc07
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I get what you mean but I don't think Zarl is arguing against you. Is he saying that truck drivers are idiots that cannot retrain?
Are you @Zarlak?
I'm certainly an idiot, just an idiot who can drive a truck and write codeAnyone does not equal everyone. Anyone can become a movie star...
I get what you mean but I don't think Zarl is arguing against you. Is he saying that truck drivers are idiots that cannot retrain?
Are you @Zarlak?
Thanks for the discussion lads. UBI is not a magic bullet.
To solve job displacement caused by AI or any other cause, we need to look at things in totality.
But firstly we need to have strong Social Programs in place.
To solve job displacement caused by AI or any other cause, we need to look at things in totality.
But firstly we need to have strong Social Programs in place.
Yeah that's fair. I can see why you strongly support it in the UK.
I think huge parts of America are still very religious especially in the Republican voting South and Midwest bible belt. I also think the generally Protestant values have seeped into the greater culture far beyond just the religious.
Incidentally there was a push for a 30 hour work week (to qualify for full time salary) back in the Great Depression. But that was going too far for FDR. I love the Kingfish; he was really a man of the people with this proposal in 1934
Share Our Wealth Proposal
- Cap personal fortunes at $50 million each — equivalent to about $600 million today (later reduced to $5 - $8 million, or $60 - $96 million today)
- Limit annual income to one million dollars each (about $12 million today)
- Limit inheritances to five million dollars each (about $60 million today)
- Guarantee every family an annual income of $2,000 (or one-third the national average)
- Free college education and vocational training
- Old-age pensions for all persons over 60
- Veterans benefits and healthcare
- A 30 hour work week
- A four week vacation for every worker
- Greater regulation of commodity production to stabilize prices
I agree in principle, but the issue with this statement is that it's essentially fluff and meaningless. Firstly not everybody can be retrained, a 55 year old man who has been out of the academic game for 30 years and who never went further than high school will never be a doctor or a surgeon. It's more correct to say that anybody can be retrained into jobs that reflect/fit their academic achievements provided they have the ability/willingness/means to learn/study a new craft etc.
The two issues with that, are that 1.) there are not enough available jobs out there to retrain the tens of millions of jobs that automation will displace which nullifies the entire premise right off the bat but 2.) the kinds of jobs that your average person with a high school education are realistically looking at without returning to university and gaining degrees relevant to specific fields, are at huge risk of automation anyway and so it would be a complete waste of time unless you can identify sectors safe from automation that such an enormous number of people could be retrained into.
That's why I keep asking for feasible suggestions on sectors that you could realistically shift millions of displaced workers into if it became necessary. It's the first obstacle that you have to be able to provide a satisfactory answer to otherwise the whole premise falls apart. It sounds nice to say something like 'everybody can just be retrained' but the data that we have so far suggests that that isn't true. Even if you make generous assumptions for the average ability/skill level/academic knowledge of an entire populous of workers in any given sector, that has little relation to whether jobs even exist in the first place in those kinds of numbers. It's a two fold problem.
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Many Countries will certainly switch to a 4-day work week. And some might not do it. Fairly certain that this might happen in the Scandinacian Countries in certain sectors in the not to distant future. Other countries will not do this for a long time.
More state regulations (5-->4 day work week e.g) and medling in the trade and industri --> less capitalism.
If some countries let the big companies do as they like (fewer employees or lower wage instead of a 4 days work week as this is more profitable for them), then those countries might get some problems with unemployment.
We're talking about dystopian future where AI/Automation will put huge number of people out of work. So, incentivizing people to work less will help ration whatever job remains available.
If you are talking about US tax brackets than going from 12% to 22% isn't being taxed through the teeth. However, it would be different going from 0% to 50%.
Yeah i am for it. I genuinely don't see a world where significant numbers of people will rely on it and i think the rich will have to pay for it (and could quite easily) through tax and earnings limits.
I'm not at all sure the general belief that only unskilled jobs will be affected by increased automation is correct. There is also the increase of globalisation, there's no reason why your accountant, solicitor or doctor shouldn't be on the other other side of the world, wherever they're cheaper, in future they won't even have to speak your language. And although I haven't a clue how coding is done I wonder if it will still be necessary, and so time-consuming, and so well-paid, and apparently immune from progress, in thirty years time.
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I am in favour.
I always find it strange that solution to most problems end up with ''more money' whilst nobody even wants to consider the source of the problem. Why not consider a tax break and widen the no tax slab? Or increase minimum wage to living wage?
As at May 2018 for the first time since 2000, vacancy was more than unemployment. The problem lies in geography and skills matching rather than lack of jobs. Is anything being done to match them, nope! BecayBethe solution is not as sexy as UBI though far more effective in long run. Give some monetary initiative for people to seek jobs outside their comfort areas. Some family relocation initiatives perhaps. Better schools, lifestyle etc that would incentive and bridge the gap. No, nobody really cares as long as you can plaster over the problem with money.
Finding a way to enhance geography and skills matching are two policies that form part of Andrew Yang’s platform actually.
https://www.yang2020.com/policies/get-america-moving/
https://www.yang2020.com/policies/promoting-vocational-education/
Let's just ship people across the country every 18 months away from family and friends and community so they can learn to code the next spiderman video game. It worked so well in the bakken oil field.
The whole “learn to code” trope is old news. It was always a nonsense anyway. Taking a bunch of truckers and telesales staff and making them computer programmers. Never gonna happen. Hence Yang’s talking about vocational skills being more important. He’s right too.
You like to be spoon fed money, don't ya?
It's a fact that jobs and skills vary and get shifted across both geographically and across industry. Expectation that a person would find a good paying job and one which they like near their home always is just nonsensical.
Of all the candidates, Yang is perhaps the one I think has the basics right. No wonder he has no chance over the conservatives or even the liberal jihadis. Practicality and common sense has no place in current ideology driven politics.
the skills gap and vocational stuff is nonsense. it's big businesses who want the government to subsidize training and keep churning out workers so they are easily replaceable and so they dont have to pay more compensation. if yang cared about working class people he would be advocating for unions, higher wages, better safety standards, etc. it's funny how the free market capitalists are always going on about the invisible hand and supply and demand and yet they just complain about worker shortages and ask for government intervention. we don't need more welders and plumbers, we need higher wages and unions that protect welders and plumbers and entice people to pursue those fields.
You make a quarter million dollars to post the absolute dumbest brain dead shit on here all day. Go have sex with a pillow and let the adults talk.
Quarter million? I so much would like to make THAT kind of money. It's my dream objective.
And you have no idea what normal people have to go through to get to that half that money to just brush it off. Sit back and play Robin Hood.
You are a banker who lives in New York City. 
dont act like you know what normal people go through
dont act like you know what normal people go throughVote Yang.
Just shows the extent of your ignorance....You are a banker who lives in New York City.
Such self delusion!
This isn't really easy though in a country as big as America where relocation can essentially see you moving across a mass of land that's as wide as some continents. It's not really practical (and I'm not sure it's ideal in a community-sense) for people to be told that they're expected to abandon the place they call home on a whim. Taking a child out of a school they're comfortable in and moving them to a completely different environment can be incredibly destructive. A lot of people probably care for older relatives, or want to be near their relatives. And if you're operating in an economy where jobs are often volatile, what happens when someone relocates for a new job but ends up out of work again in a matter of months? Relocation is useful for some people in some sectors where flexibility and moving around is expected and part of the norm, but I struggle to see how it's practical in a country the size of America.
Come on. People move continents not only countries in search of better opportunities. The concept of family and society is not unique to America and neither are rest of your reasons. With globalization and diversification of opportunities the need to adapt is more crucial than ever. And you have more jobs than unemployed within your own country.
Some do. Most people don't though, and plenty stay in the town they grew up in. Forcing people to move hundreds or thousands of miles away for a job they might only have for a brief period is a baffling approach.
Expecting jobs would come to their doorstep is even more baffling!
Migrating for opportunities is neither new nor novel for it to be baffling. Has existed everywhere.
Where are people going to move that wont have robots or ai exactly? Do we start moving out to Siberia or the middle of the amazon or something? Maybe we should start designating different areas of the globe to different time periods. We can have stoneage workers making pyramids and stuff somewhere maybe, that should provide a good few jobs.
I personally think replacing all welfare with a banded negative tax rate coupled with a large increase in tax free allowance would be far more effective.
Possibly something along the lines of £30,000 per person whereby a negative tax rate would apply of maybe 40-75% (dependant on qualifying criteria). So someone earning nothing in a 75% band would be paid £22.5k per year, whereas someone earning £20k on a 50% band would be supplemented to the tune of £5k. Naturally someone earning £30k would pay no tax and positive tax rates would apply after this.
Possibly something along the lines of £30,000 per person whereby a negative tax rate would apply of maybe 40-75% (dependant on qualifying criteria). So someone earning nothing in a 75% band would be paid £22.5k per year, whereas someone earning £20k on a 50% band would be supplemented to the tune of £5k. Naturally someone earning £30k would pay no tax and positive tax rates would apply after this.
Ummmm hi there
And expecting people to move halfway across a country, abandoning longstanding family commitments and the place they've lived their entire life (where they might own a home as well) for a job they may only be able to hold for a couple of years before they have to repeat the whole process again, is equally baffling
Been there forever. Whatcha complaining about?
I really fail to understand how universal basic income is in any way desirable. It begs three questions:
1. What's the motivation left, if you truly have your ends meet? Saying "people will then just magically do what they enjoy doing" is ridiculous and blind utopic thinking. There is literally nothing that even gives this hypothesis any sort of credibility.
2. Who pays for it? Essentially it forces people who are more successful to pay for all the rest. First of all, how is that fair? Secondly, why would they stay in a system that punishes their success to this extent? Once again, it's blind utopic thinking.
3. Will the market react to the increase buying power by increasing it's pricing and effectively nullifying the effect of UBI?
To me it seems people just want to have some easy solution of god government taking care of them without any self-responsibility. There are legit issues mentioned by the pro-UBI crowd, but in no way is UBI the solution to those issues.
1. What's the motivation left, if you truly have your ends meet? Saying "people will then just magically do what they enjoy doing" is ridiculous and blind utopic thinking. There is literally nothing that even gives this hypothesis any sort of credibility.
2. Who pays for it? Essentially it forces people who are more successful to pay for all the rest. First of all, how is that fair? Secondly, why would they stay in a system that punishes their success to this extent? Once again, it's blind utopic thinking.
3. Will the market react to the increase buying power by increasing it's pricing and effectively nullifying the effect of UBI?
To me it seems people just want to have some easy solution of god government taking care of them without any self-responsibility. There are legit issues mentioned by the pro-UBI crowd, but in no way is UBI the solution to those issues.
What is the motivation for Jeff Bezos to force people people to piss in bottles so he can have 140 billion instead of 139 billion if he "truly has his ends met"?
just got a hard-on
1. It doesn't matter. You either have millions of unemployed people, with no way to make money for food, education, housing, etc, which will result in massive rise of crime and riots, Or, you give them enough money to survive. If they want to stay home watching TV, so be it, but a big majority won't be satisfied only with that, so they will occupy their free time in stuff they enjoy.
2. It's not successful people that is going to pay for it. Machines and AI will pay for it. They are the creators of wealth, not humans.
3. Like it has always been. The basics goods shouldn't be affected though. No matter how much money you have, you will still eat the same amounts of food.
1. Or you could, you know, create a functioning economy? You know, like an actual economy where people can work and get rewarded depending on how valuable their work is? And the more valuable you are, the better you get paid. Like in actual darwinism - where the better you are, the better your end results are.
2. And who creates those technologies? Who builds them? Who maintains them? Then these people will be the new upper caste. And why would they want to pay for your lazy ass while they have the actual leverage of telling you to feck off, because they are the ones who have these machines? It makes zero sense. Except of course you assume everyone is by nature altruistic.
3. Shouldn't =/= Reality. Murder also shouldn't happen. But they do. Just because something "shouldn't" happen doesn't mean it will not happen.
On point 1 I heard the argument made that in the past the aristocracy were never gainfully employed, they just spent their time reading or philosophising or being artists or hunting or whatever. So it would be a bit like that.
On point 2, in theory it pays for itself because by putting money into peoples pockets it stimulates demand, increasing economic activity and therefore taxes. Also a lot of benefits are already handed out already and UBI would not be in addition to that, but rather replace it. Which also touches on the fairness issue: this way it isnt just the feckless, undeserving poor that get handouts, but everyone else as well.
I think the issue is like George said, there is a huge problem coming over the horizon, maybe UBI isnt the best solution to it but it is at least an idea that addresses the problem, I havent heard too many others challenging it on that front.
1. You don't seem to understand the magnitude of changes to come thanks to machines and AI. Don't think in 10 years time, think in 100 years time. There will be no point in humans working because they are inefficient and expensive. There will be no jobs for the big majority of the population, fact.
2. Yes, there would still be a upper caste, and they will have a choice. Share the wealth created by the machines, or build walls and create a dystopian future. It's their choice. Hopefully before the machine owners gets to choose, world's governments united, will decide to "earthalize" the productive resources so it can be shared properly.
3. So it's the same as today. When the "invisible hand" works in shady mysterious ways, regulation will be applied if needed.
1. And how many people slaved away for those nobles and aristocrats? It's not like their wealth fell from the sky. They essentially had an easy life on the back of a lot of people who had to provide for them.
2. Yes, it stimulates demand. And what does an increase of demand do by same (or potentially even smaller supply since many people decide not to work anymore)? It raises the price. Quite potentially nullifying the effect. And I am also against many of those benefits and I think the entire welfare should be decreased, because people need an incentive, have competition and have a stake to be productive. There is quite a bit of psychological literature on the matter. So I neither think this functions economically nor do I think this functions with human psychology. It is a dysfunctional system.
And if it would function in a world where everything is done by technology I am critical as well. For once the people who can create and maintain these machines are the new aristocrats and essentially can blackmail the rest of the population - so you either slave away nonetheless or are just on your own, because they keep these machines mostly to themselves since they do not need human workers anymore. Secondly it is also a question of ressources. Modern technology requires a shit ton of natural ressources. Silver for example is anticipated to have to be used A LOT more in the next decade or two (So go buy silver right now. Seriously.). But we only have a finite number of ressources. It might simply be impossible with the current population in the world. It might work in Europe or North American, but the billions and increasing population in Africa or Asia? Possibly not.
3. Until technology takes over (if it does) it takes at least a few more decades. The discussion is about implementing UBI right now. That doesn't exactly play out.
1. Good notion. Instantly assuming I don't understand the magnitute. I do understand it, but for once I am critical. And secondly it doesn't explain why we need UBI right now, if technology will do these taskes in several decades. That doesn't play out AT ALL. Secondly it might not even be feasible to have everything technologised, because we have finite ressources (see this post in my reply to the quote above yours).
2. "Hopefully worlds governments united". Yeah, I'm sure that will ever happen. Not. Human psychology is in the way. We are still operating in tribes and just a few decades of technological advancements will not delete that natural programming in ours. People do prefer their kinship, people do work to benefit themselves and their kinship (especially their own family). There is absolutely no way all governments will ever come together and unite. I would bet everything I have on this one. But even if there is a slight chance - do you really want to rely your entire views and hope on this low-chance scenario? Or you want to approach this realistically?
3. They will not require regulations anymore, if they control those elements. There is a reason why Nestle is trying for years to make water be ownable. Where there is power, people want more power. And if they don't, someone else will come and take their position to apply that power. If they have those machines (which is still in question that they ever will) - what's the chance of sharing? Why would they NEED regulations if they could just say "well, we will not give you any goods". Because they do not need to anymore. Right now, companies DO need workers and there is an exchange between labor. But once they have that supposed technology that does all the work humans can, they will not require that exchange anymore. And UBI surely will not help it, because there is no one paying for it.