Why the World Would End without Universial Basic Income
The idea of Universal Basic Income never crossed my mind until a couple days ago when I saw a post by @dantheman. My initial reaction to the concept of a Universal Basic Income is that there would be no way for it to work out. My first thought when I saw his topic on Basic Income
was a socialist approach to controlling society. After reading the article @dantheman recently wrote. I started to agree and see he made several great points about how to create Universal Basic Income. He points out in the posts he has been making that with cryptocurrency we might be closer to achieving this. I started to look into the concept on my own, I now realize this is more than just a way to control a society. There are several key people saying we need Universal Basic Income. @dantheman is showing how we can get there.
The First article I came across was on my search was: http://www.investopedia.com/news/musk-says-universal-basic-income-inevitable-tsla-0/. This article came out yesterday, Musk, Tesla CEO, said "Universal Basic income" is inevitable. Being his company among many others uses mainly robots to build, not people. We are starting to see the emergence of self driving cars. Google being the largest company involved in the project, that I know of. Other smaller companies such as GM, and Lyft have teamed up to getting the self driving vehicles on the road.
While looking I found an article where GM is testing out its new self driving cars in Arizona. http://fortune.com/2016/08/09/cruise-automation-arizona-gm/. With these kinds of changes to the auto industry how long before we no longer get to drive. Then next step would be the commercial vehicles. These are areas where the jobs pay good, but people are still driving the vehicles. Just look at the accident report for 2015, in which we reached a 50 year high according to http://www.newsweek.com/2015-brought-biggest-us-traffic-death-increase-50-years-427759.
Since the self driving vehicles have been around, according to Google https://google-self-driving-car-incidents.silk.co/. We see the number of deaths that are traffic related last year was at a 50 year high. In California there are about 50 self driving cars. They have only been in minor accidents where no one was seriously hurt. The preliminary results show that others ran into the self driving car. So the self driving vehicles are showing better results in safety.
With these steps taking place to reduce the need of humans in the work place, as well as on the road. Means there are going to be people that are out of work and unable to find employment. Thus we need Universal Basic Income to make it so people can continue to take care of themselves.
If we cut these jobs out the lower class is not going to be able to provide for themselves.
Switzerland was able to vote on the ability to try a Basic Income, but they voted against it. The reason they voted against the measure must have to do with the surrounding countries. As @dantheman said we need to start looking at these options now, before it is to late.
The ideas that @dantheman has been proposing do not include a form of taxation as he states https://steemit.com/basicincome/@dantheman/how-does-universal-basic-insurance-compare-to-universal-basic-income.
As for me, I am all for these ideas that @dantheman is proposing, I hope that we can see these implemented.
Thank you @dantheman for all your hard work.
And Than you if your read this far.
Thanks to @papa-pepper for the gifs.
You might be interested in a great podcast episode from Freakonomics Radio on the topic of a universal basic income. The page also includes a transcript in case you prefer reading to listening.
There have been studies on the subject but most have been abandoned (e.g. one longitudinal study in Canada). Fortunately, some of the work has been continued by Evelyn Forget who is in the episode.
Thank you for the article, it seems to hit a lot of good points, I read the post. Looking at the proposals, I think it is on track to what will be needed. I am going to keep looking further into this since it seems as thought there is a big need for change.
Unfortunately DanTheMan is not being entirely honest.
And he didn't really respond to my, what happens in real life examples. He even called one of those examples a strawman. I am disappointed.
Yes, you don't have to directly tax to pay for a UBI. In fact, The U.S. gets most of its money, not through taxes, but by the means in which DanTheMan proposes to pay for UBI. By inflation.
There is lots of work that needs to be done. It is just not in the "build a product to sell model". Think about a dance club for teenagers. They don't really exist (so kids get false IDs to get into adult clubs) because kids don't really have any money, so they aren't profitable. But, for a society, having young adults meet, mingle and actually interact creates better bonding and pairing. This is really important for the society, it just doesn't pay.
Welfare has driven out all of the societal charity, and has left us with generation of welfare babies. And, if you look at their lives, they are in utter ruins. It doesn't matter how much money you give them, they are poor, and their lives are garbage. If money solved these issues, The Bronx would be a shining example for the world. (people there set their apartments on fire to get a jump in the line of welfare receipt.)
Having worked with homeless, I know the extents an organization has to go to feed these people. This, being able to track and count each person to give out UBI is insane. DanTheMan gives several possibilities that are known to fail.
We definitely need a new system. One that allows payment for societally beneficial services. The systems that appear to work turn money on its head. Instead of being produced by a central source at the top, money is created by each person doing constructive labor.
Charles Hugh Smith has several books about a much better way.
http://www.oftwominds.com/ARBW.html
Sorry it took longer than expected to get back to you, you said "It doesn't matter how much money you give them, they are poor, and their lives are garbage."
I would agree if money solved the problem we could fix the issue. On the other hand these people are making just enough to pay bills, never have a dime for pleasure, so of course they are burned out tired and would do everything to just relax or find a way to seek enjoyment in life. I know several people in this category that live paycheck to paycheck and can just barely pay the basic bills they have. If they get a job they lose the government benefits and now must pays taxes making them poorer than living on the government. Or others who make just enough to be over what the governments bare minimum of living is so they are taxed, and now make less than they would have if they just took the governments money. So the system we have benefits those who do not work, over those who barely make enough money.
You also said "Having worked with homeless, I know the extents an organization has to go to feed these people."
I live in a city that it costs more money to get the permit to feed the homeless than the meal. Plus it is now so restrictive that they can not just go hand out food or they will get fined, not to mention they can only go out certain number of days in the year. The bag of lunch they had out to the homeless contains a a sandwich, some fruit and something like a bag of chips. Last I had heard anything on it. That is not enough food for me for a lunch, I am underweight as it is, and that would contribute to me losing more weight if that was all I ate.
I agree there may not be a perfect solution, but reducing or not taxing the poor would be the only other way to make a system encourage working. Since the poor are the people who we are trying to help out. This is why I do like Dan's proposal and see that it could actually work, so long as they don't change the tax codes to affect people receiving that money.
For me it is late, just to let you know I read your comment and I will reply tomorrow when I have some time to answer some of your points.
And, if we want to talk about Feeding, Clothing and Housing people (what UBI is supposed to be about) then a far simpler, more efficient, and almost error-proof way is to provide basic housing, clothing and feeding.
If we built tiny apartments for every man, woman and child in America, it would cost less than what we pay each year on housing subsidies. 1/10th of what we spend, and we wouldn't have to pay for another 30 years.
And, if you ever find yourself homeless, for whatever reason, you show up and say, can I have a room please?
Free food. From a cafeteria like place. You are hungry? You show up, you get a casserole style dinner. Nobody to talk to about being hungry, no paperwork, just show up. If you are willing to stand in line, you get food.
These are extremely cheap. And they solve the real problem. The get the basics to the people that need the basics.
In Kelowna British Columbia Canada, we have a zero percent vacancy right now! Making it triple the amount of homelessness , rents have since skyrocketed! We pay 1,100.00 a month for a old 2 bedroom apartment that we need to split 3 ways in order to survive , and we still have to go to the food bank because after paying all the bills, rent, car insurance, gas for work theres nothing left for food! And i make 13.00 per hour! Its gotten seriously bad! And the landlords treat you like crap and dont fix nothing, and you better not be late one day! They know theres no place to move to! So you have to put up with it or your out on the street ! Theres 1 million canadians going to food banks on a full time basis now. Over a thousand here in the Okanagan alone per month! And nothing gets done about it! Theres not much jobs eigther! There has been only 2 low income studio apartments built in 2 years! Which all have at least a 3 to 5 year waiting list! So something needs to be done and fast! Great reply , and comments! Keep steeming on! 💙🖒👍💙
The very sad thing is that tiny apartments can be built for about $5,000 - $10,000 per room. Meaning, at your current pay rate, it would be paid off in a year. Society really should do this.
Govern-cement, on the other hand loves this current predicament. They get to throw money and favors around, while telling everyone, its not our fault that there isn't any building happening. (When it totally is their fault, through red-tape)
There is one apartment going to built in the spring with studio apartment's costing 95,000.00 to 100,000.00 thousand dollars for a little like bachelor one room place with a bathroom! This is the price here in Kelowna as the property and land taxes plus building is all taxed to death! Its a bit cheaper if you move from town but not much! And people are buying up these places before their even built! Then they rip people off by reselling them for even more money! Its all such a scam, that still leaves no where affordable for people to live! Thanks for replying! 🖒😉
Where i come from (Aussieland) I recall these people paid like huge over priced dollars for stage one of these condo developments, the price they paid was double the next nearest price point . . .
Then stage two barely sold out at average prices, stage 3 went bankrupt and the government bought it and filled it full of welfare families : )
You can imagine how stage one felt LOL ; )
This happens alot here in British Columbia we have alot of Chinese people buying up everything they can get their hands! And the rich get richer, while the poor suffer! They buy and leave them empty! Leading to 0 rentals available! But our government just changed some tax laws to try and deter this practise, but now it effects everyone that wants to buy! Hopefully it works out we will know in time.♨ 😉♨
Great post! I left a comment bellow please read! Thanks for shareing! 💙🖒👍💙
Thank you for the comments, I did read it finally, I was away from the computer for a couple days recently. The situation where I live is not as bad, plenty of rentals but they are asking more than they should as well. I know a Mexican family that the whole family is living in the same house and just barely making it. I think it is sad that those on the bottom can not survive on there own, and the rich get all the tax breaks. I hope to see something like the UBI, I know plenty of people who guaranteed income would help the moral and improve there living quality of life.
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