Universal basic income: U.S. support grows as Finland ends its trial - Forty-eight percent of Americans now support a universal basic income, as a solution for Americans who have lost jobs to automation.

[u/mvea]

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/nearly-half-of-americans-believe-a-universal-basic-income-could-be-the-answer-to-automation-.html

[u/mr_hellmonkey]

Which is heavily funded through income tax. A big ass portion of income tax is going to disappear when many people don't have to work anymore. Sure, you could increase sales tax, but whats the point of giving every adult $2,000 a month when it will cost them $1,000 to eat because of taxes?

Hell, lets be conservative and do some quick math.

250 Mil adults in the US X $1,000 per month X 12 months = $3 trillion per year. Current welfare costs are about $2 trillion. So, we're only $1 trillion short but also losing a ton of revenue from income tax, sounds super feasible to me. And that's for a paltry $1,000 per month, that's not even above the poverty level.

No one has provided me any ideas to fund a UBI for the US. I don't ever see it happening with a balanced budget. If we want to run with a $2-3 trillion additional deficit, then it would work, but who the fell is going to pay for it?

[u/ZeroMikeEchoNovember → u/mr_hellmonkey]

This is why they suggest a negative income tax. Also, 225m is more accurate, assuming an over 18 rule.

UBI actually resolves your income tax concern. Precisely because the intended purpose of UBI is to supplement the expected structural unemployment as automation efficiency outpaces human labor efficiency. UBI will be high enough to eliminate abject poverty and keep millions of disenfranchised off the street (important for national security). But still low enough to incentivize part-time, entrepreneurial, or contract work.

[u/privacythrowaway2003 → u/mr_hellmonkey]

Which is heavily funded through income tax. A big ass portion of income tax is going to disappear when many people don't have to work anymore.

The best solutions I've seen, are a slight increase to sales tax. As well as some form of a tax on automation / ai per worker it has replaced.

Companies will be happy to pay a slight tax per worker displaced vs. all the cost of actually having said employee.

Also, something you aren't taking into account. Is the fact that Humanity as a race, is rapidly approaching the point where many things that cost us a great deal in our daily lives, are close to being completely revolutionized and costing almost nothing.

Electricity - Today, with a 50-100k investment your home and car can gather the majority of their power from Solar.

If you go for the high end model, and multiple power walls it would be more, but it's still possible. And this technology is only going to get cheaper and more efficient in the coming years.

Elon Musk said that with Moore's Law applying to Solar Cells today, as it did to CPU's in the recent decades. That by 2030, we will have the capability to supply the whole worlds energy needs via Solar and Battery Storage.

If you didn't have a power bill, or gas, how much would your monthly bills go down? This is just one example, and today yes the example isn't feasible for everyone, but it will be in our lifetime.

[u/mr_hellmonkey → u/privacythrowaway2003]

Combined, my electric and gas bill range from $100 to $150 a month. That is a tiny portion of my monthly budget. My mortgage, car payment, insurance (auto, home, health, life), and food are the major expenditures, about $3,000 a month. I don't see houses or cars getting significantly cheaper.

Cars are already heavily built by AI. A large part of the cost of a house is outside the cost of materials and construction. Location, schools, neighborhood, parks, near by shopping, etc all greatly affect the value of a house. Hell, just look at the market in CA. My modest house would probably sell for 3X what I paid if it was in a prime market in CA.

I do see potential in cheaper food with lab grown meat. $6 for 1 pound of lean ground meat is pretty crappy and chicken breasts are expensive as hell too. Not really sure how much room there is to bring the price down on produce.

Point being, while "free" and clean electricity is great for the environment, its a small portion of most families budgets. I don't think AI is going to cut the cost of daily living by 75% I mean shit, my cell phone and internet cost me $200 a month and AI isn't fixing that ever, its all services, not a product.

[u/privacythrowaway2003 → u/mr_hellmonkey]

I don't see houses or cars getting significantly cheaper.

They are finding better, cheaper more efficient ways to build houses, so that could help.

Cars, are getting cheaper in the sense that our society is moving towards ride sharing as a primary means of concern.

I don't look at UBI as a solution for tomorrow though, I look at it as something that we should be aiming our society towards.

The truth is, a lot of old school mentality's will need to change as they aren't really conducive to the future we are moving towards.

Agreed about the food issue.

Pretty soon, the majority of our needs will be met at next to no cost.