I think this is the message the investor class is trying to send to ordinary people: "If we can't find a place to invest at a reasonable rate of return, we will find a way to loot your bank accounts."
No, not all. For example not a positive right to healthcare.
UBI is transparently an attempt to redistribute tax income to private companies such that no opportunity for profit stays with or is limited by government. UBI would mean no more Medicare stipulations, no more existing conditions protections. Just your ten grand a year or whatever and a bunch of private companies who have what you need, at whatever price they set.
Good point; after posting I wished I'd said "...cash welfare", because of course in-kind transfers of goods and services would be immune to any amount of inflation.
Indexing the UBI amount to some basket-of-subsistence-consumption could likely address this concern.
(The handling of existing-conditions is a regulatory issue orthogonal from UBI. I'd prefer a UBI replace all "income-supporting" programs – including things like food stamps and housing vouchers – and also obviate many rules premised on the idea that the threat-of-privation captures people in bad jobs/relationships. But "structure-of-market" or "acceptable offerings" or "required minimum standards" regulations are a separate matter.)
Maybe it's a bit gauche to comment first on your own link, but these quotes from the report seem most salient:
"In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonization."
and
"The government should 'aim to reduce the number of vehicles required, for example by promoting and improving public transport; reducing its cost relative to private transport and encouraging vehicle usership in place of ownership,' add the MPs, stressing that the government ought to be 'encouraging and supporting increased levels of walking and cycling.'"
Well, can you imagine a future where a billion battery powered cars is a possibility on this planet? A billion electric bikes though is not that crazy.
That would certainly be much better, and I actually came to the Forbes piece from an article that pointed how little of these rare earth metals e-bikes use compared to electric cars:
Yes. He created Amazon and employed the people who helped to build it bigger. Those people are/were paid as a part of their employment and that's all they are entitled to as per their contracts.
UBI smells like a trojan horse for privatization of what remains of social security, disability, unemployment, etc. I would much rather have a robust national pension system than "Uber, but for retirement."
Many UBI advocates explicitly say that UBI should replace all existing welfare programs and people should use their UBI to purchase any services (e.g. insurance) they need from private companies.
Here's how you perpetrate a wealth transfer from average homeowners to the rich:
1. Deregulate mortgage lending to cause a housing bubble.
2. When it bursts, bail out the banks, and let people lose their homes, resulting in the homes being transferred to banks and landlords, causing more speculation and price increases.
3. Meanwhile, make sure the proportion of economic growth going to workers is kept minimal, even as the stock market booms.
4. Now, these workers not only have to sell their labor to the rich for paltry returns, have their retirement (if any) invested by the rich, borrow from the rich to go to college, but also rent from them in perpetuity.
Right, and the enormous pressure constantly put on the average person by advertising and work to somehow be a super being: fitter, happier, more productive, etc, as the fella says.
