Seems to me a Ph.D. economist should have been on the "expert" panel. The sad thing is a lot of people will believe the bullcrap that comes out of this.
quote “right to leisure or our right to recreate”
whoa... must have missed those rights!
don’t tell my kids about them!
Universal Basic Income. It works great in North Korea.
Hmmmm... “right to leisure” and “right to recreate”... those are addressed as rights in the Constitution... where?
Does anyone remember the lines in the soviet grocery store? Standing in line for hours for rotten potatoes...............
Socialism does not work...thump...socialism does not work...thump...socialism does not work...thump...socialism does not work...thump...socialism does not work...thump...socialism does not work..
Is this panel part of UMass’ Mental Masturbation Major ?
So maybe I can get an extra $1K/mo and collect my retirement too?
And their PhD in Advanced “How I am feeling today”.
Seems to me a Ph.D. economist should have been on the "expert" panel. The sad thing is a lot of people will believe the bullcrap that comes out of this.
“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the “right” to education, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”
— PJ O’Rourke
Universal Basic Income == Communism
It seemed to me that the "universal basic income" destroyed the incentive to do most anything else. Most homes, at least those visible from the public roads, were described as "tar paper shacks". Alcoholism was rampant, at least as indicated by the public arrest records in the local paper. The town held the record of being the most crime riddled town in Minnesota.
Do we really want this for the entire US?
UNIVERSAL COMMUNISM
Universal Anything is Communism eg background checks.
Univ Basic Income begins signing up 3rd world nations, bring your poverty to America.
You wanna tighten the workforce? BUILD THE DAMNED WALL!!!
No use trying to reason with these people. They are incapable of understanding.
These kids need to study the Industrial Revolution and the rise of Luddites - who had the same complaints & fears of automated systems destroying jobs and leaving people without incomes, fears which were misplaced as job markets changed to hire people into other work.
The fears about AI are strange to me. I’ve studied implementation of AI - it’s nothing more than searching data for suitable answers; nobody can articulate what the _actual_ concern is.
The “right to leisure” is patently absurd. The staggering stupidity of dubbing it a “right” aside... We live in the most luxurious culture of all time: the _average_ TV-watching time spent is around 40 hours per week, a full-time job spent doing nothing; what more leisure does anyone want? Much of the drive for UBI is to “give people the opportunity to pursue their dreams” ... well, most people don’t have “dreams” worth pursuing; sorry to say, but seriously? how many people would really turn copious free time into “productive” (very broadly defined) efforts, and not just watch TV, putter aimlessly, get high, or pointlessly copulate?
The ultimate failure of UBI is the confusion of surplus productivity with the fragility of wealth. Humans need a minimum caloric intake - which isn’t free, is destroyed by consumption, and serves only to provide a limited window to produce more caloric or other “income”. UBI presumes others are producing so much extra wealth that this (and other basics) can be supported with little/no impact or consternation upon the producers. UBI makes this presumption while willfully blind to the fact that such redistribution _wastes_ that wealth (literally turns to $#!^) instead of leveraging it into more productivity. They’re so dazzled by the surplus of wealth that they don’t see how hard it was to come by, nor how fast that surplus can be squandered & discouraged.
UBI is offered as a solution to unemployment, on the pretext that unemployment will rise due to increased automation - not realizing that there will ALWAYS be more to do, which others will pay for, which is cheaper to hire a human to do instead of automate.
UBI is offered as a springboard to greater productivity, on the pretext that people can’t “move up” when they’re stuck in a menial job - not realizing that _most_ people will do nothing productive given copious free time; of those who may do something interesting, most still won’t do anything that actually advances production of basic necessities.
UBI is offered as a use of surplus productivity, on the pretext that some people are so hyper-productive that vast numbers of others can live off such excess without discouraging the actual producer - not realizing that it’s the receipt of one’s own hard-earned rewards that keep that productivity going, and that confiscating much of it (just so it can be squandered) eliminates the incentive.
Insofar as we DO have a massive welfare state, UBI is (I concede grudgingly) the most efficient & fair way to distribute that welfare: give the same poverty-line sustenance to everyone, so those that can’t/won’t produce can get by, and those who do produce just re-absorb their own money. Alas, this too shall fail, precisely because (A) lots of people will be quite content living at the poverty line so long as they don’t have to work for it, and (B) lots of people will then become bored & jealous and use their copious free time to demand ever more from the productive - who will eventually “go Galt” leaving millions to just die.
Final under-discussed issue: UBI will raise entire generations (moreso than current welfare) on the complete lack of work. When the surplus productivity falters, these will have no comprehension of how to fend for themselves. What a cruelty to impose upon the dependent poor!
My speech will pay for their speech to protest and burn my home when I am at work when I disagree.
THis is an absolute no no scam.