RE: Basic Income? (revised intro - excuse my lack of understanding at the time of writing this)
Klye I think you're wrong.
UBI reduces costs to the government because you're rolling the entire social safety net into a single program and paying it in cash to everyone. This reduces administrative overhead dramatically. It can be completely automated and all the bureaucrats involved in keeping you from your tax dollars can live on UBI or find employment elsewhere. Eitherway you end up with much smaller government.
Furthermore UBI keeps lazy people OUT of the workforce. This means employers get people who want to work, not those who are showing up just to collect a paycheck.
Not only do the number of available jobs increase, so do the number of small business and cottage industries. The lazy drug addict you don't want to support is actually a business person in disguise, they just happen to be selling a product that has high demand and limited supply. The way to make the black market go away is to legalize the products and tax them.
In the meantime, buoyed by the knowledge that their kids won't starve people will feel more free to do creative endeavours including attempting to start and run a business.
It all works great... For about 5 to 10 years, after which the Basic Income will have inflated out of the market and everyone has to enter the workforce again because the purchasing power of their basic income payment has been washed out by price increases. You see price responds to demand, not supply.
Them's the facts amigo! :D
How does this math work out? By briefly looking into most of the proposed UBI I've seen it's coming out of governmnt collected taxes... Which basically means your tax dollars goes to support people who accomplish and amount to nothing at the end of their lifespan besides placing a strain on those who've made an honest effort.
As much as I like giving people the opportunity to climb up from the bottom like UBI seems to try and do just giving money to everyone doesn't solve the underlying fundamentals of why we'd even need such a ridiculous thing in the first place.
I pay very little taxes compared to your average worker bee. (being self employed and primarily focused on crypto is my life) But I cannot imagine having 20%-30% of my wages given out to do-nothing under achieving leeches.. You devalue your lower caste minimum wage workers by giving everyone money willy nilly like this. Why would anyone go flip burgers at mcdonalds when they could sit at home and create more hungry mouths to leech off the system.. :/
Take a look at how much the government spends administering the various social safety net programs. It's literally cheaper to just scrap them all and give everyone $1k per month.
Taxes don't increase here because you're removing the money the government is already spending and just getting rid of the bureaucratic road blocks.
You're already paying these people you don't want to pay. They're already in the social safety net. All this does is give you back some of it.
I'm having problems wrapping my head around this concept as you explain it.
Here (in Canada) you've got to jump through about 20 hoops and constantly be looking for work to get current welfare system payouts. With what you've outlined if just everyone got money for nothing it would in fact end up costing someone more money down the road. (that means you, the consumer, in the end)
It's true it would be much cheaper to shill out straight cash then have government bureaucracy manage the countless programs with 20 hoops. And I like the point @williambanks makes, that it gets the lazy people out of the way. I would like to get the government out of charity business but the church's are not doing their jobs.
That bearucracy provides decent paying jobs though.. You're essentially putting people out of work in order to incubate slackers and do-little's.. that isn't the direction I envisioned as a perfect setup for our species.
(Don't take this as a pro government statement. They are thieves that wear suits at best)
The lazy shouldn't be rewarded, they should be given the same chance as anyone else.. If you don't get up off your ass and forage or hunt you starve. This is nature. regardless of how advanced we tell ourselves we are it would be a MASSIVE step backwards to allow lazy, unmotivated, useless people to breed uncontrollably while giving them all the resources free to do so..
You ever see the movie idiocracy? Start by giving them internet, then memes, then cutting the jobs and then just paying everyone for being lazy plebs and you've basically got the perfect livestock.. The only problem is we don't really eat each other so besides spawning a bunch of wastes of skin I see absolutely no damn point in facilitating the decline of our species in the name of "saving it".
Arent you devaluating the lower caste minimum wage workers by not allowing them to say "no, thanks" to a shitty job thanks to the UBI? Do you not want employer to actually make jobs where people would like to work at?
Not at all. A workers value is set in my opinion on their ability and how profitable his paid work hours are compared to his overall output of product or service.
No one likes working, If they did they'd call it fun or something right?
Unless you're one of the few self employed folks on this planet you've got to wake up, and force yourself to go to work, slave for some dude who's essentially exploiting your life hours for profit, then get turned around and bent over by the govt with their taxes, then go home to a wife that hates you.
I personally could give a damn less if employers make jobs people want to work at. You're there simply because you haven't figured out your own ways to sell goods or services so you rely on a boss. When in reality that boss views you just as your govt does.. You're something to have cash made off you.
Honestly we should all be self employed and doing what we love, without some friggin' communist "everyone gets a fair share" bullcrap. This planet, Life and Humans simply are not fair, pretending like we want to get rid of survival of the fittest and have it replaced my celebrating and incubating mediocrity is absurd in my opinion.
We want to evolve as a species? You let the lazy and stupid ones die off. You certainly don't feed them and tell them their life means something. If you're simply existing and sponging off a system or host you're a parasite. straight up.
What does lazy mean? Isnt it the one who works 60 hours a week to bow money away for unnecessary stuff? Doesnt this guy takes the lazy way instead of learning how to live happy with less material possessions?
Another one who does not differentiate between biological and social evolution and who does not understand the difference between strongest and fittest sigh
I suggest you start by reading about what Darwin meant.
Thing is darwin's theory was written before we shuffled up the definition of what the fittest meant..
Classically I believe he intended the fittest to refer to the best example of the species through dominant traits..
Where as today the fittest is the most motivated, faster thinker and one with the most resources (when mirrored over to humans).
Lazy has all sorts of faces, We're surrounded by underachievers who are more than happy to slave for fiat, pay taxes, procreate, save up fiat (which is devalued by constant printing), then maybe get a few years to actually enjoy their lives as their health fails with all of their worth while years spent slaving for someone else's primary benefit.
Perhaps you're happily employed somewhere.. been there for years and have no other plans than to stick with that job.. But unless that job is actually a career and you're legitimately enjoying what you do I don't consider that any form of fittest. You're merely a slave to money and your own inability to break out of societal constructs pounded into your head from early on.
People have become docile, domesticated and worse of all farmed for the very hours of their lives.. Unless you're doing your own thing, and making your own way (happily) through your life you're not anything close to what I'd want the next generations to be like.
Pretty hard to explain to people how absolutely absurd the "american dream" is... Let alone when we have folks wanting to just give out supplies to people who frankly aren't worth their weight in elephant dung.
I'm not for universal support across the map. I am however all for putting resources into the hand of people whom express traits which are conducive to us moving forwards as a species.
I believe the medical field calls it triage. Supporting everyone regardless of their input or traits instead of focusing resources where they could be used for more than feeding needless parasites is the way to go.
We live on a planet of finite space and resources.. Don't tell me for one damn second "Everything for Everyone, Free" is going to hold up worth a crap once people realise that the lazy parasites are the reason the ones out there working and planting the crops the fields can't eat.
Leveling the playing field out and letting those who have not put in the effort free meals and shelter is honestly supporting mediocrity, frankly those types of people shouldn't get the same treatment as those who actively contribute in positive ways to society.
The fact we even entertain ideas like this rather than instructing people to do what the love and find a way to make a living off of it sort of makes me wonder how fucking brainwashed our societies have become.
Excuse my language in this post.. It just gets me passionate and heated when I hear people propose stupid, ultimately detrimental ideals to our species as a whole under the guise of aide.
It is clear we wont come together on this.
Especially as a German who would probably have been killed under Hitler because I needed operations to be able to walk I have a dim view on people who dont aid under the guise of the advantage of the species.
Anywa, as I said, get to what is meant by fittest. Compassion IS a trait that could make you the fittest.
Darwins meaning of fittest was "the one most adapted to his environment".
You could argue if we are that, but without doubt the human success is based on our ability to be social, and that includes aid to those who dont fit in the top 10% achievers.
By the way, saying someone is mediocre because he is out of work is completely bullshit. He may just lack the ability to build a big network that puts him into work, because that IS what gets you work. Not your professional prowess.
Just look at Stephen Hawking. He is a good example for several parts of your discussion. One is that he would die without someone else. He would also not have become famous without the help of others. And so on.
Ill make one point for discussions sake:
Actually it are the LAZY that are the fittest and the working fanatics the worst.
Because humanity currently does everything to destroy the earth, the living conditions that make human life possible. The workfanatics are the parasites, destroying the ecosystem.
The current "more production!" mantra is the worst for our species.
Lazy people who dont produce so much (and die off) are the best for the ecosystem and arguably for humankind, because when we are back to 1 billion people we can live sustainably and then the working fanatics can be back (hopefully not so bad as now)
Honestly as terrible as this sounds we're likely to wipe ouselves out before we destroy the planet... My money is that putin and trump get into bed with eachother and try and go after the the chinese (only people with any real gold hold). ( I hope I'm not correct)
Frankly by definition we as humans are parasitic to the earth given our current "rape it all for profit" mentality.
I'll leave you with a koute from one of my favourite songs of all time:
Lamb of God - Reclamation