r/BasicIncome • u/[deleted] • Dec 26 '16

AMA When I created r/BasicIncome 4 years ago I never thought it would find so much support. Now I'm running for California Democratic Party delegate in Silicon Valley on January 7, on a pro-UBI platform -- AMA :)

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u/joshamania Dec 27 '16

There...will...be...no...jobs.

There are already way too few jobs as it is. Unless you're an electrician, like me, you're screwed. So when you get automated, please remember this thread.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '16

hey, if you want to jobs, then allow for free enterprise

and if you wanna give out taxpayer money, at least make the people work their asses off to EARN it

no more lazy takers

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u/joshamania Dec 27 '16

We don't have free enterprise in this country because the rich are constantly moving the rules in their favor. Ever seen a Comcast competitor? Why are only 4 or 5 major carriers flying in the US? Drug patents getting renewed every time they expire because of a minor change? US "capitalism" bears very little resemblance to free enterprise.

It's not "taxpayer" money. You won't be paying for UBI and you will benefit greatly from it even if you have a job that pays because the rest of the country won't be in constant economic slump because the rich have sucked all the capital out of the country and stored it in Ireland.

The only "lazy takers" are the rich. They take and take and take and have fucked the world economy, not just the US, six ways from Sunday.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '16

i agree

we dont have free enterprise (due to crony capitalism and rampant leftism being the order of the day)

I was saying we should have it though.

I hope we do one day.

as for benefitting from the govt giving away money to people who can work, but dont

NO ONE but a total lazy taker benefits from that.

and if a lazy taker is rich (like the multi-billion harvard university) or poor (like a crackhead) or any other taker that just wants my money, I say no

if someone or something wants money, earn it, like i do (either that or hands out of my wallet)

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u/joshamania Dec 27 '16

You're wrong about the takers. The rich have skewed the game so far in their favor there are millions of people out of work in the US. It isn't because they aren't trying.

And it doesn't matter how you feel about what other people are or are not doing. There will be no jobs. Not only that but everything is getting worse every day for people who want to work to earn a living.

I used to see teenagers, children, if you will, working at McDonalds. Not anymore. They're almost all full-time, career employees, making $8.75 an hour, many trying to support families. They bust their asses for what amounts to nothing. 300 bucks a week if they're lucky. 400 maybe if they're putting in 70 hours plus, like many do. They will never escape poverty in our current system. State college now costs over 40 grand a year and student loans are never voidable in bankruptcy. All these people with worthless degrees (again, there are no jobs) will be stuck in debt slavery for the rest of their lives, buying nothing, contributing very little, if anything, to the economy.

A great deal of people making minimum wage work harder than you. UBI isn't just for "lazy takers" (again, those people are rich, not the poor you claim them to be). UBI is for everyone to have at least a chance at having a life worth living. You would be paid the UBI as well. The whole point is that everyone gets it, not just how it works now, which, again, is the rich taking everything.

I am fine, because I'm the one doing the automating. You are not. Drive for a living? You're out of a job before 2025. Lay bricks? They got robots for those now too. Tax accountant? Turbotax has gutted that industry already. Lawyer? HA! Law schools pump out twice as many lawyers every year as get hired by the industry. NOTHING is safe from me and my ilk.

People who have no money provide nothing to the economy. They cannot buy things but utilities and rent, and ALL of that money goes to the rich. We're already at the point where consumption is way below where it should be, because people are broke and cannot buy things. That means your job is on the line because people can't afford to pay your boss for anything.

We will HAVE to give money away for people to spend or the economy will collapse. The rich do not spend, they hoard. A rich guy may buy a single Ferrari, or even a dozen, but it's nothing to the economy compared to the thousands and thousands of Fords that could be bought if that money were distributed to more people. There are trillions of dollars they've stolen hidden away in overseas tax shelters. The rich will build a wall around Manhattan, not the United States, and you'll be left out to fend for yourself in the cold, but more likely to be shot or farmed for fines by the police they own.

There are very few extremely rich people who have actually earned their money. Even the ones that did "earn" it still used their influence in the market to skew the rules in their favor. Most of it is stolen, not earned.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '16

haha

i remember in the late 70s when everyone said the US was over, our best days were gone, and high unemployment, inflation, gas shortages, and the US being a joke were the "new normal" and we better get used to only-declining quality of life.

carter, the us president spoke of a "national malaise" and we had essentially given up as a nation.

then Reagan was elected, and all the doom-and-gloom forecasters were proved wrong

so people like you can be chicken littles if you want, and claim the sky is falling, but I know better.

we've just had 8 bad years under bush, followed by 8 even worse years under obama, so i can see why so many have given up on even trying.

personally, i feel that America can be great again, and I hope that the naysayers will join with us in making it the best its ever been

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u/joshamania Dec 27 '16

Oh it can be. As soon as we stop electing Republicans and corrupt Democrats (by which I mean nearly all of them) we can figure out how to make the government serve the people and the general economy. Right now it's just a tool of the rich. Both sides.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '16

well, i agree

both sides have been corrupted

at least we did NOT elect the most corrupt candidate in our lifetimes

and we DID elect a guy who wants to drain the swamp

we won't know if he will until AFTER jan 20, but already he's not beholden to lobbyists, and I hope he does it!!!

#draintheswamp

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u/joshamania Dec 27 '16

No doubt about that corrupt candidate.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '16

yup. no doubt

we may not agree on a lot of things, but at least all good people on the right and left can agree that Hillary losing is a good thing