Another wet-behind-the-ears professional student-turned-’professor’ who barely is old enough to grow a beard.
His ‘income’ is derived from brainwashing students on socialism three days a week for an hour and writing socialist nonsense as part of his “publish or perish” regimen. It comes so easy to him, automatic and regularly, so why can’t everyone get some, too?
They all talk about he economy of doing this and that while espousing the overall paradise such and such will create IF ONLY we gave somebody more money. They always conveniently forget to mention that the government will have to steal that money from someone who actually had to work and sweat for it.
I like it. We can replace much of the current bureaucracy and federal anti-poverty programs - as currently constructed - actually create an incentive for people NOT to work because if they do work, they lose their benefits. And it makes more sense not to go all that effort to find a minimum job that barely pays them more than welfare. Sane people don’t bother because they’re not going to be rewarded for being responsible.
A guaranteed basic income would cover basic survival necessities - shelter, food, transportation and health care. People would be free to earn more if they wanted to and the guarantee would always remain in place. It would be pro-work and pro-family. It could be administered by a simple piece of software.
And people who can’t manage their income? They can always be taken of by private philanthropy. A civilized society will never let people fend for themselves and having them sleep on the streets. We could do a lot worse than by abolishing our hugely expensive, inefficient and intrusive anti-poverty bureaucracy and make certain no one needs to fear for themselves and their families.
Its been around for a long time now and deserves serious consideration. One can see why liberals support it but it has merit as well from a conservative and libertarian point of view.
Half of the country already has a guaranteed income. The other half has to pay for it.
With nobody working, nobody producing and making product, how can you guarantee anything?
Sounds like something George McGovern used to tout.
“Then there’s the societal stability factor: If people’s basic economic needs are being met—no matter what the unpredictable job market is doing—we don’t have to worry about the potential for civil unrest as a result of mass unemployment.”
“Once people have the freedom to elect to work less, their capacity to engage in the work of rebuilding community and democracy can increase far beyond what is possible in today’s precariously overworked society,” Alperovitz said.
How so? As long as all the poverty programs and minimum wages are abolished, I'm all for a negative income tax.
This was advocated by none other than Milton Friedman.
Seriously? The United States of America should emulate Brazil????????
Why stop at a free “basic” income? That’s such a puny concept! Instead, let’s make everyone RICH by giving a trillion dollar coin to every adult in the U.S. Then we’d all be rich! And no one would ever have to work again! Since we’d ALL be RICH!
Myself? The first thing I would buy is a pony. And a jet airplane. Oh, and then I would buy the Mona Lisa. And the Broncos. Gosh, I just LOVE being RICH! And not having to work!
BTW, the trillion dollar coins could be made from a base metal like nickle, so they would be cheap to make, and a few extra ones could be minted for the government itself, so taxes could be completely eliminated and yet government could still perfectly function and be debt free to boot! It’s such an elegant solution I don’t know why it hasn’t been implemented yet!
Bullscat right out of the gate! Globalization means an increase in jobs to meet demand in places that didn't previously have something. Further, technological innovation means we need fresh, new minds to adopt, adapt, and innovate new products.
This kid is a leftist flunky. Sadly, I think this is what we should expect in the coming decades as today's youth take on jobs and put the socialist mindsets they learned in high school and college into effect.
I despite liberals.
Ridiculous and stupid. Choose the amount to give each person. Say $30,000. Now 30,000 is the new zero. Prices will rise to eat up the new-found money. The amount will have to be raised because of rising prices. Now prices will rise again, and the amount will have to be raised again.
This, like all liberal policies will fail, and liberals will demand a strengthening of the failed policy, which will again fail, leading to a new demand for a strengthening.
Liberals are incapable of seeing the futility of their policies.
I don’t support this, but actually it would be a substantial improvement over what we have now. It would be vastly more efficient than the ridiculous, convoluted welfare state bureaucracy. It’s not really that different from the ‘rebate’ portion of the FairTax, just larger in size. Of course, with our budget it could only function if all other welfare, Medicare, Social Security, etc., were abolished in its favor.
Wow....great idea....
I’d buy myself 10 phoney SS numbers and get 10 incomes...
I’m rich.....
/ S
All too true. After millions of jobs have been exported to cheap labor nations and millions more are expected to eliminated by continuing automation, some sort of guaranteed income for adults could become the only solution.
As much as many will not like that, there will be few alternatives if globalization (movement of jobs to cheap labor nations) and other trends continue as at present.
Or, we could actually produce in the country what's consumed in this country and push these developments much further into the future.
economics of misery and decline - bump for later....
What is the government going to do when people use all the money in the first few days of the moth? WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN??!!!
The ONE sensible form of this: when injecting new cash into the money supply, it should be by spreading it among the people who form this country (not convoluted cronyism).
What if you just STFU, David R. Wheeler, before spewing any more idiocy?
Will I have to work (work in my best Maynard G. Krebbs) for it? That would be a killer.
***A monthly cash payment to every American, no questions asked, would solve several of our most daunting challenges.***
It works for my worthless Brother-in-law(If you know him he probably owes you money).
He walked off his last job in 1981 (”I ain’t gonna pay taxes to Reagan!”), went on the public dole and has not worked a day since.
How did he do it? He put his wife to work, parleyed a high school football injury into a military injury, got VA help, got Social Security crazy checks for his kids. Sued a store for slipping on ice, got a payout, Now he is really disabled and begging for help from us, and we don’t have it.
All was well till his wife lost her job two years ago.