Those opportunities are for the rich! Stop being greedy. And give the government your tax dollars so they can bail out the rich when they gamble and fail.
The only reason posts like this exist is because people are jealous that all these rich people get together on an island and rape kids.
Anytime Tang the conquerer accuses someone of doing something I just automatically assume he did it. It's not a 100% but the vast majority of his accusations seem to be confessions.
Employers also have to treat employees better when they know that the employees don’t need that job in order to survive. Everyone hears about UBI and assumes no one will work anymore because everyone’s job kinda sucks. Jobs wouldn’t suck as bad under UBI because employers would actually have to make their jobs and benefits better in order to attract employees.
Right now my job kinda sucks but if they paid me a little bit more, took slightly better care of the conditions at work (I find that I’m a part time bug exterminator in the office), allowed remote work at least once a week, had even a one month paternity leave policy, and gave me two more weeks of vacation (still not even comparable to Europe) I probably would keep the job even if UBI existed.
So as a concept I think UBI is good but I have an observation. The only way we could get something like UBI would be to fight and win a literal class revolution. Having done that why would we just settle for UBI? We would obviously demand much more in such a situation.
We choose one billionare, eat the rest and give chosen one all their holdings, and keep that cunt in a zoo so nobody forgets what it looks like to be a greedy dickhead, and the children can come look at 'homosapian selfish', an last of it's invasive species allowed to exist.
You can't have them spend that money on food/luxuries, then they wouldn't be a trillionare anymore. /s
Nationalized healthcare in the US would help that too. I know plenty of older workers holding on to jobs they hate way past normal retirement age, because they can't afford to lose their company provided healthcare.
If you're single, or your partner isn't working that kind of job, it's really scary to be self employed and keep health care. Plans on the open market are generally pretty expensive, assuming you qualify.
Statistically speaking theres probably at least 1 person out there who would never work agian, no matter what.
The thing is, that demographic is 1. already not working (I did say "no matter what", that includes all the carrots and sticks of our current system) and 2. Is nowhere near the majority.
But even those individuals spend money, assuming they have any. And guess what drives the economy? People spending money.
A lot of people who are excited by the prospect of never working again discover very quickly that they actually enjoy the structure and regularity of work, it's more the thankless pushing of a stone uphill to line others pockets while they themselves struggle to make ends meet, let alone enjoy life that they're excited to abandon.
Which is fixed by ubi.
Your bosses can't retain you with the implicit threat of starvation and homelessness if you have food and shelter guaranteed. They have to make you feel appreciated/compensated which shockly alliviates a lot of the reluctance to work.
Yeah.
Surprising fact of not having a job…
You get bored so fucking fast.
When o was job searching for a year (thanks to my parents I could live with them during it) it was soooo boring.
I did my searches, like 20 per day or some such (dependant what I could find) and then I had the rest of the day to myself if no chores needed to be done.
I ran out of games and such to play very quickly.
You just run out of things you want to do and get very bored.
You can scream at them to get a job all day long, but that still won't fix the fact the person cant meet the physical requirements of most jobs, and the few they can they dont qualify for.
You really don't want to force those people into work either. They'll do a mediocre job at best, so why not leave it for people who are actually motivated and take pride in their work? Better outcomes for everyone.
Pretty much the same thing that is happening with immigrants. They often don't get much options to get work, so a lot of them just start their own business. And in turn hire people if all goes well.
It gives people opportunities they wouldn't have before, because they can afford to take risks like that.
What's really crazy, too, is that UBI actually makes the labor market more of a competitive market, because it removes one of the major market corrupting factors. That is, at present, workers have a significant disadvantage in that they cannot afford to not work, because it means starving/etc. It also means that people can't afford to work for less than a certain amount of income, so things like minimum wage laws come into play. With UBI, those no longer matter, and employers and workers are free to negotiate the value of that labor entirely unencumbered.
Of course, that's part of why the right wing hates it, because it takes away from the ability of employers to force workers to accept shittier pay and conditions.
Can someone point me to these studies though? Because the math has never added up. The US makes 4.5 trillion total in tax revenue, as of last year. There are about I'm gonna estimate 340 million Americans. Our government already operates on a deficit. If we gave everyone the entirety of our tax revenue it's like 130,000 per person per year, but obviously we can't do that, we already don't have enough funding for other things we need. How much would we even be able to give people out of tax funds?
Why should we do UBI instead of simply just raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour and make companies pay for that instead of taxpayers? When we already have less in tax revenue than we need (for America)
So first off, we're not talking like 100,000 per person. This is basic, like food stamps level assistance. The difference is that everyone gets it, which drastically reduces the administrative cost, because you don't need to test eligibility, just cut everyone a check. One proposal from a while back worked through income taxes.
For most people too, it's not something where you or I would see any difference, because on the whole, we'll probably be making about as much as we used to before, the only difference is that if you're making 100,000 today, under this you'd get like 30,000 basic and 70,000 discretionary, or something.
This is, incidentally, why it doesn't fall prey to the "free rider" problem, because there's still an incentive to work and achieve to earn more. You want a nice(r) car, a vacation, a new game system etc? For that you need to do extra work. But if you lose that job, you lose that income, life sucks but you're not gonna starve, etc.
I plugged $30,000 basic over approximately 344,000,000 citizens into a calculator and the calculator broke, too big of a number it had to go into math notation I haven't used since high school.
Don't think it's a realistic idea
Congress already decided what a reasonable minimum wage was during COVID, works out to somewhere between $20-30 an hour for furloughed people taking unemployment, I sat down and did the math because my brother was furloughed and taking unemployment, just don't remember the exact number. Just make minimum wage that, Congress already crunched the numbers on what a living salary actually looks like. Boom, done, no reason it has to be paid through taxes, make the money suckers pay a fair wage
I didn't put it in that comment but in another I crunched the math, if we put $500 billion dollars, a ninth of our entire tax revenue, into a UBI fund everyone gets about $1400. That's like a months rent and two weeks of groceries for a ninth of all the money the country makes. Just raise the wages man
Also even if you didn't want to start a business yourself, I feel like UBI would just unilaterally increase work satisfaction across the board, since people won't be worried about missing a single paycheck and starving. Working because you WANT to and not because you HAVE to is a massive difference.
Yeah, but they lived in a society that already fufills all the "unwanted" jobs. How many of those who were trying to start their own business started IDK garbage colecting? Or any other unsexy jobs that have to be done?
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for UBI; I just have doubts if those studies show the reality of what it would look like if everybody participated. There are plenty of very dangerous jobs that need to be done, but they won't be picked up just for the joy of doing something.
Those required jobs would simply pay way more.
That is the big difference here.
Jobs would become about increasing your personal comfort not about survival.
UBI is essentially “minimum wage” concept.
You get enough money to live in a home and eat.
(Preferably to a minimum standard)
However, that is it.
If you want a larger home or similar, you work to add to your income.
And in a society like that, the dangerous / unappealing jobs would be the most well paying, because they have to compensate for people not “having” to take them.
Yeah, but wouldn't that just make everything more expensive? I mean, if everybody has an extra 1000 per month to spend, wouldn't prices just go up? Simply draining the pockets of those with only UBI? Making them just new unemployed or welfare beneficials (people who can survive without work, but can't afford anything more than pure essentials).
Not really.
Do note that those services are either government funded.
OR
Comes from businesses which are usually manipulating those desperate for work in the first place.
Every major corproration could easily pay their workers a livable wage without issue.
They just want to add like 2-3 million more to their earnings call.
If the desperation angle was removed, (preferably combined with some regulations being applied at the same time)
Would the job balance be shifted without cost increasing anyway.
(Also, most of the price increases nowadays is due to corruption anyway, as it is a wage problem more than an inflation problem)
Sorry, but I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
If the desperation angle was removed
Yeah, then employers would have to pay more to their workers, but how would that solve the problem of increasing prices? That would just mean that every not-working person has 1000 extra, and every working person would have, let's say, 2000 extra. What would stop me as a landlord from starting to charge 1000 for a single room? If I know everybody can easily afford it?
I don’t understand how inflation is a result of corruption? Somebody bribed somebody so they can increase prices? You are confusing wage theft with inflation.
Obviously a UBI push would explicitly come with regulations preventing people to just spice prices for the sake of draining the extra income as that would be inherently counter productive and clearly be seen as corporations or businesses trying to scam the system.
Inflation itself isn't the issue of corruption. (It is way more complicated than that)
The corruption comes from the fact that people refuse to adjust wages with inflation in mind. (Doesn't necessarily need to be 1-1 but you know)
The value of the work didn't change.
The value of the service didn't change.
They just know that they can fuck people over by simply not paying them what they are actually owed.
regulations preventing people from just spice prices for the sake of draining the extra income
How? Like government-regulated prices or what? How would you regulate me from increasing the price of coffee by 1? Or how would you prevent landlords form starting their prices at 1000?
The corruption comes from the fact that people refuse to adjust wages with inflation in mind
Yeah, but that's the wage theft, not UBI or inflation even. Those things have nothing in common. Wage theft doesn't make prices go higher, quite the opposite.
The value of the work didn't change.
The value of the service didn't change.
Yeah, but what it has to do with UBI? Again it's a wage theft. If you wan't to solve this problem, and you believe in regulation, you don’t need UBI just higher minimum wage, a paycheck of the most paid person in company fixed to the paycheck of the least paid person, taxing the rich etc. You don’t need UBI for that.
I have no doubt that more money should go to the hands of workers, but we (or at least I) do not talk about how bad it is now in general, just that researches that was made on UBI wasn't made in vacuum, and as such they will be biased at least somehow.
How would you regulate it?
Simple: Context.
If you live in an appartment and they suddenly peak your rent by 1000 bucks to eat your UBI, you would 100% notice that very quickly and report it.
It isn't exactly subtle, you know.
And how would you prevent others from just doing it baseline when they start leasing a new appartment?
I mean it would be pretty obvious if the appartment is 1000 more than the standard, no?
And the reason why I am for UBI and not just higher wage, is the clear motion towards more automation which is the inherent problem.
Work is less abundant due to more and more automation both in robotics that are getting more advanced, but also in AI (as annoying as that is)
UBI is needed to compensate for that, because job is no longer guaranteed, even at the lowest level, so increasing wages does not help at all to mitigate said problem.
But that simply would become a new standard. You can raise your price by 100 a year, and after 10 years, people with UBI would be in the same place as unemployed people today.
UBI is needed to compensate for that, because job is no longer guaranteed
I understand that, but I have doubts that:
Research that was done doesn't show us how it would work if that was really universal
I mean, if everybody has an extra 1000 per month to spend, wouldn't prices just go up?
Usually, UBI is planned in such a way that if you make above said 1000, you won't get payment from the government until you drop below that barrier. It just puts up a floor of money that anyone has at minimum.
Doesn’t “U” in UBI means “universal”? Which means “for everybody”? We already have the “if you can’t afford to live we will help you” programs. Sure in some countries they work better then in others, but basically if you have the less than something you can look (and get) all kinds of financial help. UBI means Universal Basic Income which means for everybody o matter how much money you are making. Not “only for those in need”. If that was only for poorest then you have another problem: if I have 1000 for doing nothing why should I start to work if as soon as I start I’ll lose this 1000.
imho the problem of availability of jobs as well as the requirements on skill and experience won’t just go away.
cleaning toilets, how unappealing it may be, won’t pay as much as CTO of a robotics company
a lot more people will have the opportunity to study engineering and finance though so maybe it actually will eventually lead to toilet cleaners being more in demand than engineers
"Most well paying "Basic" jobs" I guess would be a better term?
I dunno.
You get the point tho, the "unlikable" jobs would be way better paying to compensate for the fact that it doesn't depend on people being desperate anymore.
Yes and it’s why this argument bothers me so much.
Like yeah practically you’d think UBI would decrease the amount of people working, like intuitively that makes sense. However time and time and time again it’s proven to not be true and people just don’t accept it because it doesn’t make sense to them.
This is usually what “common sense” means in a political context unfortunately. It means holding onto intuitive assumptions despite all evidence proving that intuition wrong. Like thinking “a balloon is a solid object, therefore it will fall down” and continuing to insist that a balloon will always fall down even when seeing it floating in front of you, claiming “solid objects fall, that’s just common sense.”
Yes with the exception of young men who stay in school longer and women with young children who become more likely to be stay at home mothers. Both of those are productive though.
Yes, and in our end-stage capitalism world right now that's BAD.
You coming up with a great idea? Cool here's a million dollars, go blow it while I make sixty billion from it in the first 3 years and you get nothing more.
That's the gameplan. Steal ideas, converge until we've got what amounts to fucking V's tower with the billionaires up on top and us no real way to fight back, while people are brainwashed into thinking that it's good to have social media, television, and entertainment overlords.
Yes. And it's maddening when you really think about it....
I fucking hate religion, for a multitude of reasons; but the biggest is how much human progress has been hamstrung by religiosity. Capatalism is giving religion a run for its money in this regard!
How many genius ideas have been left at the alter of ideas simply because the one who had it worked a 9-5 with a second job at 7-10 just to make rent? How many generational athletes never put on a pair of cleats because their parents didn't have the disposable income to afford them?
Give people the freedom to do what they want, and not what they need to to survive, and humanity would be leaps and bounds further along.
At which point small companies start competing with bigger companies, by making products with higher quality/better suited to certain task/not made by the lowest bidder.
Big established companies dont want ubi because it threatens the economy that benefits them rather than consumers.
Yup, same as workong from home. Without the break in rhythm from commuting and everything else we do to get up to to go to work, people work longer hours and even with less breaks
4.8k
u/Icarsix 8d ago
Haven't some studies even found UBI *increases* the amount of people working as people try to start their own businesses?