Posted on 01/03/2018 10:29:16 AM PST by SeekAndFind
QUESTION: What is your opinion of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg idea of universal income?
ANSWER: The idea of free money being touted by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg only demonstrates that they know nothing about humanity or economics. They see universal free money as a cushion for workers whose jobs might be replaced by automation or robots. They argue that free money could provide workers with the flexibility to retrain for a new career, pursue creative interests, or start their own business.
If we are talking about a temporary benefit during a retraining period, then that is an entirely different idea from a universal basic income guarantee. You can drive down the streets in New Jersey and you see hand-made signs posted that they pay cash for diabetes medical material handed out free by the government. They also sell food stamps. You cannot change humanity. Some people will obey the rules and others will circumvent them.
The last thing you want to do in society is provide to the population some sort of guaranteed income where people can stay home and do nothing. This will foster the same hatred of anyone who works and has more than they do and it will promote hatred and class warfare.
When the automobile was invented, that displaced people who were carpenters making wagons. When the Dust Bow hit during the Great Depression, it added to the displacement of farmers. The tractors replaced people tilling the soil just as the cotton gin replaced slave labor in the South. Technology will always replace workers and the greater the tax burden, the greater the incentive to replace workers.
Neither Elon Musk nor Mark Zuckerberg has any clue about economic history for if they did, they would understand that technology always advances and displaces segments of the workforce. This is also one reason governments like war to thin the herd when unemployment rises.
Providing free money is actually an experiment in Finland. It began one year ago taking 2,000 unemployed Finns who were randomly selected from across the country for a trial testing universal basic income. Each month for two years they would receive €560 euros from the government, tax-free. They can spend the money however they decide. The plus of this program is the reduction in bureaucracy. As I said, the US government hands out food stamps but people sell them. From an economic standpoint, this system is less costly than the current one in play with bureaucrats determining what they will allow people to have or not. The full report on the Finland experiment will not be issued until the 2-year program is complete after January 1st, 2019.
Maybe the most stupid and dangerous idea that’s come along for a while. It will create a permanent, dependent underclass whose vote can be bought by the simple expedient of promising them more money.
Only acceptable if the recipients are sterilized and lose the right to vote.
not insanity at all. what’s insane is that the “basic” income being proposed is too small . If a small “basic” income is such a good idea economically, then an even BIGGER “basic” income should rev up the economy even more!
I propose that each person in the U.S. be given a trillion dollar coin instead of a “basic income” coin. After all, the cost to make a “basic income” coin is the same as the cost to make a trillion dollar coin, and everyone would be RICH and not have to exist at just the subsistence level of a “basic income”. Everyone could buy anything they wanted and no one would ever have to work again.
The coins could be made from a base metal, 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 function. It’s such an elegant solution I don’t know why it hasn’t been implemented yet.
For myself, I’m going to start by buying a pony and the Broncos NFL football team (and fire all the kneelers). And I won’t even need pony food stamps anymore to feed my pony because I’ll be so rich!
The up-and-coming generations have been thoroughly indoctrinated. The idea that government is infallible and the primary provider for society is espoused across much of the west, and young voters don’t see hard work, personal property, or true freedom as values worth preserving. I truly believe we are fighting a losing battle.
Worse, it creates a class that teaches their children to not work. At least their parents understand the concept of working, even if they don’t; their children are raised not even knowing the concept, expect a comfortable (if paltry) income to just happen, and have no concept of working per se.
Yes. The bureaucracy will need to remain so they can assure that some universal basic incomes are more basic than others...
Yes, but what about counterfeit coins?
;-)
That’s too bad. Then when it come to blows, one way or the other, you’ll bow out I suppose. POW or MIA I guess.
Was Washington fighting a “losing battle” with a bunch of rag-tag colonists against the greatest military force in the world? We’ll it sure looked like it at first since his main strategy for quite some time during the war was “retreat”.
But they had something we are sorely lacking and need to embrace fully: FAITH in the Divine Providence of God Almighty. You cannot have or maintain FREEDOM without FAITH. With God, as Washington beat the odds, so can we. But we have to put our trust not in man, but in God. Trump’s miraculous election is the first sign of Divine Providence fighting for us
Instead of going to the trouble of legalizing dope and paying everyone UBI, so they have money to keep themselves doped up. Why not just create a “pod” system, and plug in all the people who don’t want to do anything into the “pod”, and the pod will keep them doped up, tube feed, and let them be in a life simulation, aka, matrix. Be cheaper, less crime, and they would not reproduce that way.
People get it in their heads that there are a finite number of jobs, and a finite number of slices of the pie.
Automation changes the workplace, but entrepreneurs transform it. If there is endemic unemployment, you'll find entrepreneurs roadblocked. As long as creative minds are allowed to build, you'll always have a demand for people with hands and minds to help them achieve their dream.
How about instead of a universal basic income, we take 80% of the land the US Government owns, split it up, and give every citizen a few acres?
And a mule!
The sarcasm appreciated, it does miss the point which needs addressing:
We live in a highly productive culture, where most who produce do so with enough “excess” that - in theory - some of that excess could be siphoned off and give everyone at least a poverty-level income.
The snide “well, give everyone a $million!” isn’t helpful. There isn’t an extra $million per person to go around.
We need to address this UBI nonsense with what makes our side successful: objectivity.
UBI will fail because:
- $UBI becomes the new “zero income”
- The basic incentive to work (produce or starve) is eliminated, reducing national productivity
- Low-income work is disrupted, no point in doing mundane labor when you receive the same value in productivity for breathing (leading to “the new zero income”)
- The productive have the fruits of their labors reduced, disincentivizing high productivity
- Some of the productive find that UBI is a comfortable baseline for personal productivity (growing own food, etc) and stop contributing to tax base
- Bottom line: “supply and demand” is an economic law which WILL level itself out regardless of artificial adjustments; trying to out-smart it _always_ fails.
It’s a stupid move. Anyone who seriously proposes it is either a marxist or insane, or both.
Giving people money for doing nothing is stupid. Those who do work will have most of their money confiscated by the government (”taxed”). There will be no incentive to work. Millions will move to that state for free money. Millions will come to the USA for that money, which is a fortune in their home hellhole.
The proponents will always claim that it costs the people nothing, and that they will actually save money. This is a lie.
Suppose you give everyone 10,000 a year free. Then prices will rise so that 10,000 buys what zero bought at the start. At that point, the non-workers will no longer posess any skill that will get them a job, and will demand $20,000. After a short time, 20,000 will buy what 10,000 bought, and so the recipients will demand $40,000. After a short time, ......... repeat until the Sun engulfs us in its expanding inferno.
About the experiment in Finland. It’s called “trial testing universal basic income”. A blatant contradiction in terms. This is not testing a UNIVERSAL income. It is given to 2,000 unemployed Finns. That is not UNIVERSAL, and anyone who says it is is stupid. You cannot test “universal” on 2,000 people. It is not universal. You are not testing the “universal basic income.” I have to say it over and over again, since the people who proposed it are too dense to understand what I’m saying.
World land mass divided by world population = 4.8 acres per person.
US land mass divided by US population = 7.5 acres per person.
Figure half of land is unusable, so divide by 2.
Sure, but I’d still have all of us get a slice, even if it is small, rather than the federal government hogging it and doing nothing of value with it. It’s also much better than giving everyone a universal income, since giving them land will not lead to rampant inflation. The land already exists, we are not creating anything out of thin air.
The Swiss, practical people that they are, had a chance to implement a BASIC INCOME for their citizens in the middle of 2016. IT WAS REJECTED IN A REFERENDUM.
See here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/world/europe/switzerland-swiss-vote-basic-income.html
EXCERPT:
Swiss voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to guarantee an income to Switzerland’s residents, whether or not they are employed, an idea that has also been raised in other countries amid an intensifying debate over wealth disparities and dwindling employment opportunities.
About 77 percent of voters rejected a plan to give a basic monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs, or about $2,560, to each adult, and 625 francs for each child under 18, regardless of employment status, to fight poverty and social inequality and guarantee a “dignified” life to everyone.
Switzerland was the first country to vote on such a universal basic income plan, but other countries and cities either have been considering the idea or have started trial programs.
Finland is set to introduce a pilot program for a random sample of about 10,000 adults who will each receive a monthly handout of 550 euros, about $625. The intent is to turn the two-year trial into a national plan if it proves successful.
So do we have too many workers (Universal Basic Income position) or too few workers (pro-immigration position)? The left supports both positions simultaneously.
And I'm a lazy bastard who hates to work.
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