Posted on 09/21/2017 11:22:11 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
UBI from the likes of SpaceX, Y Combinator & Zuckerberg — sounds like an alphabet soup recipe for financial disaster…
More fake research. What do all those people receiving checks on SSI do with their money? As of 2015, 8,309,564 persons received SSI in the US, of which 1,292,302 were in California. For 2017, the average SSI payment is $8,830 year or $735 month. A couple get $1,104/month. This does not include food stamps or Medicaid.
Some states supplement SSI. As of 2011, California supplemented SSI benefits by $171/month to $255/month per person or $396 to $564 per couple.
Study results:
$1000 is better than $50.
$950 better.
I'd probably start eating nice steaks and prime rib more often.I might use more butter.I'd definitely use it to spend more time in areas where malaria and other nasty diseases are found.
I live in about the bluest state in the country which might make me a candidate.My current income and resources might rule me out as a candidate.But I could hide that...or try to.
Where do I apply?
Where do I sign up? I got 1x kid in college, 2x teenagers in sports, 1x 8 year old in a growth spurt. You would not believe my weekly grocery bill between those 4x food vacuums.
Real news. It’s been discussed at Y Combinator for months/years.
Problems with the study:
- The money is donated (as charity), not confiscated (as taxes)
- The number of recipients is so small they won’t affect the economy (vs _everyone_ having $1000/mo and, say, rent jumping to that minimum).
This tests the effectiveness of CHARITY, not UBI.
The industrial revolution will put people out of work, we need Socialism!
Assembly lines will put people out of work, we need Socialism!
Automation will put people out of work, we need Socialism!
Computers will put people out of work, we need socialism!
Tech will put people out of work, we need socialism!
Y Combinator is a very influential venture capital group. Their whole thing is giving money to people to encourage productivity ... problem is, they spend so much time around hyper-productive people that they don’t comprehend how _un_productive people can be.
I was dealing with one of my low-end renters this week. The husband gave the rent money to the wife to deliver. It was $50 short. She has a drug problem. He seemed disappointed, but coughed up the additional money.
Last month when he delivered the rent she shouted from the car, “Don’t give it all to him!” He shouted back, “You stupid b@tch, do you want to be homeless?” If she had $1,000 she would probably end up dead. (Oh, they have two kids as well. That doesn’t seem to matter.)
You could give them $5,000 per month. I guarantee it would not improve their life one bit. Probably, it would get them in even more trouble. He has no driver’s license, due to multiple DUI’s. She is on probation for grand theft. They spend every penny they get. They have every cable channel and a house full of new furniture and TV’s. The air conditioner is set at 68 degrees.
I, on the other hand, own nine houses, have no TV or cable beyond internet. I am constantly fixing my own cars. If you gave me an additional $1,000, I’d put it in my 401k. I would probably never qualify for the gift and the people who would will probably be hurt by it.
Econ 101 and 102 are classes which no one seems to take anymore. It is a shame.
It is impossible to TEST the “Guaranteed Universal Income” on 3,000 people. For the liberals, 3,000 is not all (universal = all).
It is not a TEST. To test it, you have to give the money to all. Duh!. Of course, the “test” will work! The recipients will ALL say that it was great, of course, and wish they had always had it, and thank the wonderful politicians, etc. No one will be asked how they felt about having their tax money given to 3,000 people, to prove that the 3,000 people will like getting it.
What a bunch of a$$HOLES.
Gee cutting taxes and rewarding work never occurs to these people.
Tax freezies?
If it’s recast as a universal sales tax credit for every qualifying adult, then I am for it. I am for it as long as state and federal governments decrease their size proportionately.
$1000 per month is too much. In Washington State the sales tax borders about 10%. A monthly income of $2500 is mostly spent, and if all is subject to sales tax it would pay about $250 per month in tax. $250 a month sounds about right.
But legislators will never vote for such a tax cut. Fine, they can give their reasons why and suffer the consequences. State government can reform its sales tax revenue to a funding level based on a net spending more than $25,000; in other words, first $25,000 of spending is excluded and is implemented by State EBT cards charged up monthly to a level of $250 as a tax credit. Foreigners, non-residents, tourists receive no tax credit.
Actually, Washington State is not doing as bad in government spending as is the federal government. It’s not good but the federal government level is where the focus needs to be.
If this UBI test is recast as a universal tax credit, the federal government is where the focus needs to be to implement it while the expense is offset by downsizing DC.
The five richest counties in the US are around Washington DC. Nearly everyone there is feeding at the federal government trough, either directly or indirectly. If half the people feeding there were cut off, no American outside the DC Metro Area would notice.
To be humane, make lump sum payouts for reductions in force and retirements, and help relocate them or transition them into work not connected to federal appropriations. Their home values will plummet so give them workout arrangements with their banks to sell their McMansions at a loss.
And repeal the damned 17th Amendment which will shut the lobbying firm revolving doors and put a large percentage of them out of business. The number of lobbyists has more than quintupled since Ronald Reagan’s 1986 Tax Reform. It’s time for downsizing them.
The DC Metro area needs about two decades of contraction while the area outside it in the private sector needs at least two decades of expansion.
Government service should be a duty and commitment, not a self-enrichment scheme.
Here’s how to repeal the damned 17th:
************************************************
AMENDMENT XXVIII (’Federal State Rebalancing’)
To restore the foundational structure of State Legislatures to Congress, the following amendment is proposed:
************************************************
Section 1.
Senators in Congress shall be subject to recall by their respective state legislature or by voter referendum in their respective state.
Section 2.
Term limits for Senators in Congress shall be set by vote in their respective state legislatures but in no case shall be set less than twelve years nor more than eighteen years.
Section 3:
The seventeenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
************************************************
Trust me on this, pull up the free movie (sorry, it is Amazon) “Obsolete”, the creators of this movie said this would happen...no reason to work, billionaires don’t want anyone to ever challenge them and they know what is best for us since they have technologically made all jobs obsolete with robots and such...
I imagine many of them will do what many current welfare recipients do -— sit on their butts and take it, insisting it’s their right, and making absolutely no effort to rise above their status and work for a living.
1. In real UBI, you’d likely be making enough money that all the $1000/mo would do is give back the extra $1000/mo they’d take out of your pocket - along with another $1000/mo for someone else’s UBI. You don’t get an ‘extra $1000/mo’ unless you don’t pay taxes.
2. For this “experiment”, that’s exactly the problem: it’s not modeling the ACTUAL total economic seismic shift that would be caused by paying _everyone_ $1000/mo (basic goods/services suddenly cost more because _everyone_ has $1000/mo to spend), and by half the population not seeing that money because it’s just taken out of their pay just to hand it back for a net $0.
A person can live on $1k/mo. Depending upon the local cost of living. That’s with low rent, low grocery costs, no medical expenses, low utility rates and nothing but the most basic and cheapest of phone services. Notice I said nothing about personal care, clothing, owning one’s own transportation and resulting costs. Forget about supporting a family on it. I know it’s possible because I do it on several hundred dollars per month less than that. If I had the extra for a grand a month, with my very careful spending habits, I’d live like a king compared to what I have to live on now.
Families with children who receive welfare benefits live on less than 1k per month. Not everyone on public assistance is an addict (of any kind).
That’s what I was thinking. Do I need anymore stuff? The only areas in my life that I feel like I’m not devoting enough cash is saving for retirement and contributions to my Church.
I already eat too much, all my basics are covered and accumulating more stuff just causes me stress.
OK, I may buy more ammo.
Exactly. If you’re not motivated, and satisfied with squalor, you can live pretty well on a guaranteed $1000/mo. Zero incentive to improve.
The one benefit is this would eliminate the income valley the poor have to traverse when they do try to improve their income. Roughly, $12/hr + welfare = $36/hr without welfare ... and in between, you find that welfare cuts off fast leaving a huge net pay _cut_ that’s hard for many to bridge; hard to take an $18/hr job when the $12/hr one netted equivalent of $36/hr (including housing & other subsidies).
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