A fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. There is a significant non-majority of the population that will take the money and do absolutely nothing but waste it.
This mentality is exactly the problem. The idea that people with more money should get to decide how people with less money get to spend it. And if they don't sped it the way they want, Its waste.
This is a straw man. Nobody is talking about funding people to the point where they get everything they need for free. That's insane. We are talking about giving people bootstraps so they can pull them selves up with them. Reducing poverty reduces crime and health care costs as well.
> Nobody is talking about funding people to the point where they get everything they need for free. That's insane. We are talking about giving people bootstraps
If it isn’t funding subsistence it isn’t basic income. Whether we flourish that as welfare or bootstraps is rhetorical dressing.
"The idea that people with more money should get to decide how people with less money get to spend it."
If it's my tax money, I get to say how it's spent. This is yet another example of the incredibly sad and stupid, "whoever is weakest is rightest", "morality" that's becoming more and more prevalent in the west.
> If it's my tax money, I get to say how it's spent.
No? This has never been how it works.
We all get to decide how it’s spent by voting. You don’t get to individually decide because, obviously, you’re always just gonna choose yourself. In which case - why bother taxing you?
There’s really two camps here: people who think taxation goes towards freeloaders, and people who think taxation goes towards the community.
I’m in the second camp. I believe these things are mutually beneficial. I want to live in a country with less homelessness, less drugs, less violence, less crimes, more education. That costs money, and I’m happy to give it up because I think I DO benefit, just not directly.
You "get a say" when voting, but you do not "get to say" where your money goes exactly. Those phrases have very different meanings, maybe you got them confused
If you were being ironic/sarcastic in your initial comment, that didn't come through for me.
Given the degree of political friction on this (and other) sites, and the fact that for any "obviously" exaggerated point of view you are quite likely to find absolutely sincere adherents ... it would benefit your writing to be clear when you are or aren't being sarcastic.
And to reply in a positive rather than antagonistic tone, particularly if someone's supporting your own viewpoint.
(I'm not certain even this take of mine is valid. However your writing doesn't make your viewpoint clear as it can be read two ways. Which itself raises the temperature within the thread. Avoid that if possible.)
If the communities improve overall - what's the problem? Everyone dealing with UBI knows that there will be individuals who will spend in non-optimal way. There's no misunderstanding or surprise here.
I agree with you, but that's a hard sell to many people.
There's been a large amount of social conditioning over the past few generations in America that says that if even a tiny slice of the population would abuse a program, that program is worse than the problem itself.
Anyone who's volunteered at something like a food bank will have seen the person in the nice car and nice clothes show up and take food and it requires an unfortunately rare level of benevolence to just move on and remember that you're there for the far larger number of people who really need it.
> social conditioning over the past few generations in America that says that if even a tiny slice of the population would abuse a program, that program is worse than the problem itself
This problem is sort of caused by how hard Americans work. If you’re working two jobs to make ends meet, it is insulting to see someone lazing on the perceived fruits of your labour.
But now you get the fruits as well, and only have to work one job. The perceived insult will feel lessened, would be even more without one side constantly telling you to feel aggrieved over it.
Because it places the burden on those that are actually participating in the work force. What incentive do I have to work when the end result is similar if I don't?
The end result is not anywhere close to similar. UBI will never provide more than the basics. Food & rent and that's about it. If you want more than that, you'll have to work.
That's the point, I have a full time("good") job currently, and can barely afford food and rent for my family, I am literally selling plasma 2x a week for gas money, while paying a significant amount of taxes, so why would I work?
Now imagine getting by with a lot less. That's what UBI-only would be like.
I assume your main problem is that you're in a high cost of life area. A national UBI would almost certainly be set at a level appropriate for a median area. If you want to not work and maintain your standard of living you'd likely have to move to a low COL area.
with what money? we already do a lot of that with de facto negative tax rates for the lowest earners.
You bring up a great option though, I have been working to move to a lower COL(see rural) area already. Part of this plan is a draw down on my participation in the labor market, basically a necessity unless I want to commute multiple hours each way. We have gotten by on much less than I do currently, my QOL was very similar, but I was doing more work for myself and my family, rather than my employer or society.
Which is why I picked your comment to reply to. People have this inclination that UBI is going to provide a reasonable amount of money. But if you do the math you'll find that about $1500 a month is about the limit that's feasible. You want to increase the tax rate by an amount that has the average adult paying the same amount in extra taxes as they receive via the UBI. $1500 a month gets to European level taxation rates which I figure is about the limit of acceptable.
A couple can live on $3000 a month in some areas of the country, and perhaps a single person can live on $1500 a month in West Virginia.
But even at current levels of taxation I am looking for the exit because it is unsustainable. I am already deciding that the tax burden and COL is too high to justify my participation, and I am working on severely cutting my income and moving away from the city in order to be more self sustaining, and sharing less of my labor with everyone else.
*So my original question still stands, what incentive do I have to participate?
"If a small amount of my taxes goes to somebodies rent or healthcare, instead of paving roads for the Amazon trucks to drive on, or the FAA for the Amazon airplanes, them I might as well just be homeless myself!" What a strange argument.
As it currently stands ~40% of the profits from my labor is taken by my federal and state government and they are both running at a deficit. That's before accounting for state sales, property, and utilities taxes. It doesn't seem like a small amount currently, and the government's books are not even balanced at current entitlement levels. I have a really tough time coming to the conclusion that the governments would get better with more liabilities, especially when the largest UBI study showed less workforce participation, not more.
You are also conflating my position with that of one who thinks the current corporate protections are a good thing.
Satisfaction and drive to work. This actually happens all the time with ubi tests - people work more, not less. Turns out we're wired to try doing useful stuff on average.
And you benefit either way - lifting whole community and reducing homelessness and risky behaviour is good for everyone around, not just that one person. The burden of social issues has always been and will always be on the working people. Ubi doesn't change that part.
Even on a website that largely self-selects for people with enough agency, pride and autonomy to graduate and go into software development (then choose to discuss it online), we have people like the 'I currently have 10 fully remote engineering jobs' guy
I mean... if i was given a livable amount of money for no work for a year or two, my quality of life would go up, but I wouldn't quit my job and move somewhere cheaper (where I could get more for that amount of money).
But if i was guaranteed livable amount of money for the rest of my life, that would be a whole different story.
What else are we to base opinions on? There is no available data. It doesn't exist. The "data" you're referring to is tripe.
To repeat the point you're replying to - a UBI study that examines human behavior from a set of people who are only guaranteed to be given some livable amount of income for a short period, and not for their entire lives, is completely useless. It isn't actually studying UBI. It's studying "what do people do if I give them $20k or so over a few installments?".
Very boring thing to study. Honestly a waste of time and resources to even bother conducting such a study, the results can be put directly in the rubbish bin.
Unlike the wealthy which spend money on useful items like golf courts and investment funds, the significant non-majority of the population wastes it on groceries and rent.
How do you waste money? By burning it, throwing it in the bin?
Isn't the goal in a capitalist system to spend that money?
Also, several GMI studies have proven your statement to not be true. It is not a significant non-majority of the population that do this.
Setting aside how often people actually do it, it's clearly possible to waste both money and value. You can buy lottery tickets, or you can buy things you don't need.
Buying lottery tickets with UBI money is just returning the money to the government and/or some other lucky individual. Only an insignificant amount of marginal wasted work is performed.
TBF: many state lotteries are operated by franchises which may be engaged in fraud and/or abuse, or simply skimming a large share of the take.
Texas, notably, recently:
"The Texas Lottery Is Accused Of Fraud, With Calls For It To Be Shut Down"
The Texas Lottery is under fire once again, after Lt. Governor Dan Patrick paid a visit to a store in Austin, where an $83 million dollar winning ticket was sold. Upon arrival, Patrick discovered a warehouse of lottery ticket printing machines, run by a ticket reseller....
Lotteries also manifestly fail in their often-posited goal of funding beneficial services such as education. In reality they shift tax burden from the wealthy (who know better than to play) to the poor (who are desperate even against very poor odds), and cut overall educational funding. See:
"The Big Lie: Gambling and Education Funding" (2012)
“Don’t insult me with those ridiculous claims like “the money is for education!” Money is fungible, and education is already a high-priority budget item. Money raised from slot machines and earmarked for education is simply money that would otherwise have been diverted from some other budget item. The disingenuousness of this claim is jaw-dropping, and it’s even more appalling to me how many people fall for and parrot it.”
Then it's not a waste of money. That is the beauty of money, everyone see fit how it is useful to them, while holding the same value (currency) for all.
What I do with my 1 EUR has value to me, and might be a waste to you. You might be spending that 1 EUR on a keychain that looks good to you. Personally, that's a waste of money, but not to you.
Are you making this point because you believe that UBI/GMI is not earned, and therefore someone else had to dictate how to be use? Like food stamps?
