Mark Zuckerberg: Hey, let’s give everyone a basic income

hotair.com ^ | 7/5/2017 | John Sexton

[jjsheridan5]

If my neighbor has a jetski, a pool, and enough food to be obese, why would I work to get the same?

I don't know about you, but if I don't have a jetski, a pool, and quite enough food, there is no way in the world I wouldn't work at least enough to get those things. And I strongly suspect that an overwhelming majority of people would do exactly the same. Especially, if prices have plummeted (due to an increasingly efficient economy), and labor and career opportunities have expanded (due both to an increasingly efficient economy, and also elimination of existing welfare systems and policies, such as the minimum wage).

[jjsheridan5]

I have never heard any conservative economist propose a universal income, unless you simultaneously eliminate (except for certain extraordinary cases) all other forms of “welfare”, including the minimum wage. Adding universal income on top of, but not replacing, existing welfare, is a liberal idea, not a conservative one.

If this cannot be done politically, then it is a non-starter. But I would submit that if Trump proposed such a thing, then his political support would increase so dramatically that he could easily push it through. The left would have nothing left to stand on. Nobody could defend minimum wage laws (and makework programs, and urban development programs, and loan programs, etc.) if a minimum income came with it. Even the most vacuous social justice warrior would be flummoxed.

[jjsheridan5]

The most free-market way to handle health care is to remember that anti-trust regulations are crucial, and absolutely vital, for any free market to work. Find out *why* an MRI costs $8000 in this country (my most recent bill), and can be had for anywhere from $75, to a few hundred dollars, in world-class hospitals, elsewhere. Look at it this way: we have just undergone the most dramatic surge in economic efficiency in history (the past 30 years has resulted in greater economic advancements, probably, than the prior 3000). Yet: rather than costs of things decreasing, which they should have, costs of most big ticket items have increased. Houses. Cars. Education. To get the equivalent of 30 years ago should be dirt cheap, yet prices have increased. Why? We violated an axiomatic rule in economics. If you expand credit artificially, all you do in the long run is create price bubbles.

Similarly, in health care, we have violated virtually every axiomatic economic principle in existence. Peter pays Paul's bill. We don't enforce antitrust regulations. We allow price discrimination. It is no wonder that health care costs have followed the path of housing, automobiles, and education.

In health care, enforce all time-honored regulations (price visibility, anti-trust regulations, etc.), and health care would not be a significant problem. There is a reason why the health care lobby is the biggest lobbyist group of all, and basically owns northern Virginia. People pay the price for economic inefficiencies, but a small band of people make out like bandits.

[Tax-chick]

if Trump proposed such a thing, then his political support would increase so dramatically that he could easily push it through

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that President Trump's influence could make the U.S. Congress and every state and every county and municipality within every state eliminate its minimum wage and all its means-based assistance programs of every kind, in perpetuity. I believe that is extremely unlikely.

Even if everyone involved accepted that this is the best way to "help people," there are millions of people whose far-above-the-poverty-line incomes plus gold-plated health insurance plans plus awfully-nice pensions depend on the continuation of all these programs. Those people have time on their hands and plenty of resources to make Keeping My Job a high priority for the government entity.

Imagine trying to eliminate government-run schooling nationwide. Do you think it could happen if, tomorrow, Donald Trump decided it was his number-one priority?

[Lazamataz]

I’m going to take an unpopular position: At some point, we will need to do this. In the next 100 years, robotics and AI will be sufficiently advanced to do every job a human can do, including politician.

[Lazamataz]

Dear Mark: Economics 101. If you don’t work you get zero dollars. You cannot buy anything. In this case zero = zero. If everyone gets $20,000 without working then $20,000 is the new zero. You will still not be able to buy anything. Another example that not all billionaires are smart.

With AI and robotics as a game-changer, there will be plenty to buy with 20,000.

[Tax-chick]

I think that most people could handle their lives adequately, especially if other people kept their noses out of what individuals consider “adequate.” (My family was “in violation” for over a decade, because a baby slept in a gigantic walk-in closet. “Rules” require that all sleeping quarters have a window.)

However, our present situation features many people in a condition of “learned helplessness.” They’re not your hardy agrarian pioneers or your poor-but-determined urban working class. They’re people who have violent outbursts if a fast-food meal takes two minutes too long or the Wi-Fi connection has a blip, and they’ll say, “There’s absolutely nothing to eat around here!!!” in a house with a full refrigerator, freezer, and pantry, because the *one thing* they want right now isn’t available.

Even under more general conditions, where most people are pretty good at survival, there will always be some ... 5%? 10%? ... whose situation requires intervention. I have no doubt that private charity would continue to be a major feature. However, even with robust private resources, there would still be some kids-starving-in-the-street situations, if only because (as now) the parents refused (or were too drug-addled) to access the available help.

Then what? Government “has to” step in. Government “has to” have employees to save people from themselves. And it all starts all over again, just with a cost increment of +$20,000 from the previous level.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

“By allowing the recipients to make their own choices with that safety net, you are forcing companies to compete over the private decisions over what to do with that money.”

We have that now since most public assistance recipients can use their ebt cards anywhere they want. I’ve never heard anyone argue that a welfare state is a monument to free markets, especially when a large majority of the population is totally dependent on govt. When govt controls your money it controls you.

The govt will also end up controlling business since business will be the major source of taxes. To support a majority of citizens at a lifestyle similar to what they have now (think middle class), the business tax will have to be at confiscatory rates. It will be tough for businesses to make a profit if people’s incomes are low and taxes are high so many will go bankrupt and will be taken over by govt. Govt control of business is not good for free markets.

[rktman]

Uh, job-——politician? I don’t get it. LOL! Either one actually.

[Deplorable American1776]

Do you pay your Washington Post, Facebook and your household Employees equally, Mark? If not, why not?

[Deplorable American1776]

Son:

No you aren't getting a Ford GT....(Your mom won't let me get one). 😀

[Newtoidaho]

Hey zuck the cuck, go ahead and send me a couple hundred thousand dollars every year, I promise to not send it back.

[Architect of Avalon]

I am happy to accept all of the money that Mark Zuckerberg wants to give me.

[windsorknot]

Mark Z isn’t one to wear his heart on his sleeve; he makes it a full-body tattoo.

[Laser_Ray]

Suckaturd may be the living incarnation of a liberal assnit with more money than brains, but the grim reality is that with mass robotization threat ening to permanently unemploy millions of min-wage and near-min-wage workers, job creation at a near standstill for a decade, ‘retirement’ and ‘vacation’ becoming punchlines in jokes, severly worsening income inequality and the middle class crumbling, a basic income is just not an idea that is going to become less popular.

We may need to face up the fact that we’re on the verge of societal changes that were just not imaginable a generation ago, unless we drastically rethink how our economy works.