Support Grows For Universal Basic Income Trials in UK (msn.com) 177
On the U.K. political scene, support may be growing for new tests of a Univerisal Basic Income. The Guardian reports:
A cross-party group of MPs has called on the government to allow councils to run universal basic income trials in response to mass unemployment triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. A letter to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, signed by more than 500 MPs, lords and local councillors says pilot schemes are urgently needed as the pandemic unleashes widespread economic disruption and drives up redundancies at the fastest rate on record this winter...
"We must trial innovative approaches which create an income floor for everyone, allowing our families and communities to thrive. The pandemic has shown that we urgently need to strengthen our social security system. The creation of a universal basic income (UBI) — a regular and unconditional cash payment to every individual in the UK — could be the solution," the letter states.
One UBI option flagged by the group would be to launch an initial £48 per week payment. [Roughly $62.08 in U.S. dollars] Demands for such an intervention have gathered pace since the onset of Covid-19 as governments around the world increase spending to help businesses and workers. There have been UBI trials in Finland and Scotland in recent years.
"We must trial innovative approaches which create an income floor for everyone, allowing our families and communities to thrive. The pandemic has shown that we urgently need to strengthen our social security system. The creation of a universal basic income (UBI) — a regular and unconditional cash payment to every individual in the UK — could be the solution," the letter states.
One UBI option flagged by the group would be to launch an initial £48 per week payment. [Roughly $62.08 in U.S. dollars] Demands for such an intervention have gathered pace since the onset of Covid-19 as governments around the world increase spending to help businesses and workers. There have been UBI trials in Finland and Scotland in recent years.
Seriously? You lost me at... (Score:2)
One UBI option flagged by the group would be to launch an initial £48 per week payment. [Roughly $62.08 in U.S. dollars]
$62 US/week? That works out to just over $3,000 US/year - that's pretty flipping "BASIC".
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Well, about half the worlds population, or 3.5 billion people, live on roughly that per year already [worldbank.org]
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They are not paying UK prices for stuff though.
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Well, about half the worlds population, or 3.5 billion people, live on roughly that per year already
What a fascinating and irrelevant point - Is everyone in the UK going to move to the third-world to maximize their spending power?
And if they do move, are they still entitled to collect the UK Universal Basic Income?
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Is everyone in the UK going to move to the third-world to maximize their spending power?
It is not a bad idea. Retirement income will go much further in a poor country.
I know Americans that have retired in Mexico and in the Philippines. There are dedicated ex-pat communities in both countries.
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The world's average salary in PPP dollars is $17,750 per year. [bbc.com] This is still a little less than half the average salary in the UK, but still far above $3000 per year. Nearly six times less in fact.
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Yes - and soon, more than half - if the World Economic Forum chief has his way with "the great reset"
Re:Seriously? You lost me at... (Score:4, Insightful)
UBI is probably what we will have in a society where most human labour will truly have become obsolete. But we’re not there yet by a long shot. And these trials don’t bring much in the way of comfort about what that UBI will turn into, eventually. What will we be granted, by whomever calls the shots by then, and by whomever will end up being the man behind the curtain? As little as they can get away with, that’s for sure. And eventually they’ll do away with us unproductive poor folk as well, maybe by mixing a contraceptive in our coke and totalcakes (for those who get the reference).
UBI represents governmental control over the recipients (which will be everyone), whether it’s working folk or unemployed. And we’ve already seen a few hideous examples of how that can wreck people’s lives (in the Netherlands we’ve had tens of thousands of lives wrecked when Internal Revenue suddenly declared child day care subsidy payouts to be incorrect, demanding the money to be paid back often going well into 5 figure amounts, knowing full well that the families involved were actually entitled to that money. When they take your income and give it back in subsidies, they own you). The real challenge when it comes to UBI is: how do we turn that payment from a stipend into a dividend, paid to a citizen holding an ownership share that entitles him to said dividend? Sounds a bit Marxist perhaps, but solving that question means the difference between being a dependent on a handout, and being a free citizen.
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"ALWAYS be rich and ALWAYS be poor and thus you always need MORE"
Thus you always need more?
The one factor I think that applies to everyone is relative wealth, most people are happy with inequality, they just don't like it when it gets to ratios like 50 or 100 to 1.
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And it's not just the inequality, some western governments seem to be happy with having people so poor that even when they're working they may need to use food banks, food banks and food stamps should not exist in a properly functioning modern society.
48 pounds a week is practical (Score:2)
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48GBP a week is completely pointless when it is a fraction of the cost of living.
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48GBP a week is completely pointless when it is a fraction of the cost of living.
UBI is supposed to be a top-up. It isn't supposed to be a sole source of income.
I doubt if many struggling people would consider 48GBP per week to be "pointless".
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*roommates and you don't get to live in downtown Vancouver or Toronto..
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Sounds like the cost of living is a lot less in Canada than the UK then, in most of the UK you won't get a room in a shared house for 48GBP never-mind food or any other bills.
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When you fund the 48 pounds by cancelling their welfare benefits, they will - loudly.
Oh, wait, you think this will be a new entitlement, on top of existing benefits? Where will the money come from?
Re: 48 pounds a week is practical (Score:2)
You started out there with a falsehood. Many if not most UBI proposals explicitly seek to provide a basic living. In fact, it's right in the name, "basic income". That's literally what that means. If you want fripperies you will have to work, but the very idea of UBI is that it covers living expenses so that if you don't or can't work, you don't cease to exist.
You don't even know what the argument is, how can you argue for OR against it?
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How much is a base income? well, financial "experts" say your living costs (rent) should be no more than 1/3 your income so the baseline income should be 3x the
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See: Earned Income Tax Credit - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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People aren't homeless because of lack of housing or money, it is often mental illness and addiction.
So they HAVE money and homes, but because of their mental challenges and/or addiction that prevents them from going home?
Re: 48 pounds a week is practical (Score:2)
It's not lack of housing or money in society, it's their lack of access to it.
Upgrade your parser, I had no trouble figuring out what they meant.
Universal Credit (Score:3, Interesting)
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The problem with unemployment or homeless benefits is they create an incentive to be unemployed or homeless. A true UBI takes away that incentive, and also eliminates the need for a minimum wage.
some minimum wage is needed or pay will pay to wor (Score:2)
some minimum wage is needed or pay will pay to work, walmart may try all kinds of BS to make peopel end owning walmart cash at end of work week.
Re: some minimum wage is needed or pay will pay to (Score:2)
If you have true, actual UBI (which pays a basic income, and doesn't just give pocket money) then there is no need for a minimum wage. A 48 pound UBI is really just an allowance.
If UBI pays enough to live on (which is the idea) then it doesn't matter how little you make, you can still afford to live. You're only working to earn luxuries at that point. So any agreement between employer and employee which they can agree on is acceptable. All you need to do is fight fraud at that point, so that workers know wh
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There is nothing surprising with politicians redistributing your tax dollars to buy votes.
Every dollar sent as aid during the pandemic is another dollar added to the national debt, your grandchildren will get the pleasure of paying for your elected official's generosity.
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UBI has a few advantages over Universal Credit.
One of the biggest problems with Universal Credit is that it takes too long to start. People are out of work with no money for 6+ weeks before they get anything. With UBI it's just there all the time, no start-up delay. UBI is also cheaper to administer because there is no need to do means testing or check if you have savings or somewhere to live.
By the way, how are you finding try to rent somewhere for £380/month? You didn't say where you are but a
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The editors lean a bit left and the left thinks UBI is the greatest thing ever invented. Meanwhile nobody can just come out and say where the money is supposed to come from. It's always watch this video or read this article. What would most likely happen is the people who pay the most taxes (middle class) would pay the most into UBI. Or since everyone is suddenly getting more money the prices of goods will increase a result. So everyone having UBI is the same as no one having UBI.,
Re: Why does every story about UBI make slashdot? (Score:2)
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We took on an additional $2-3 Trillion in new debt to cover the checks - that is not sustainable going forward.
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UBI isn't as expensive as the detractors make out. Income tax gets adjusted so that people with decent jobs end up getting nothing from it, because every penny they receive is taken back in tax. It also replaces a large number of other benefits.
The left, that giant and diverse mass of people and ideas, is generally supportive of UBI because the benefits outweigh the downsides, but usually with caveats like there would still be some specific benefits available for things like disabilities.
Re: Why does every story about UBI make slashdot? (Score:2)
The money comes from taxes and/or printing money
If it comes from taxes you need a fair graduated tax system which taxes high end income brackets higher than low ones, and you also need all income (e.g. capital gains) taxed at the same rate. And obviously you don't tax people until they are getting supplemental (non-UBI) income
If you get it by printing then you have to tie the UBI to inflation somehow. We can print trillions for wars to make already wealthy people wealthier, we can certainly print it to feed
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Take a look at the stories, narratives, and social pushes across many news outlets over the years. You will quickly notice a trend among nearly all of the mainstream ones. UBI is one of those that is being pushed pretty hard lately. Cashless society is another. Neither of these are in free society's best interests.
Those in power control the legacy news, entertainment industry, many political positions, and they want YOU to support UBI. They want you to support it so badly, that they'll put you out of work f
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As an engineer, almost everything I develop contributes in some way to reducing the labor to do something. I've always seen it as a general goal of technology to eventually eliminate the need for human labor and free all to do what they want.
I do not believe that that will eliminate "work" because many, like myself, do not work for money. I hope it actually increases work as it frees people to pursue what they want to. I work for the pleasure of it. I've not made any money off of my work in years. But, I wo
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The pandemic has made it more urgent.
The UK is currently failing badly with the virus. First we had a patchwork of local lockdowns that both failed to control infections and made it very hard for people and businesses to survive. There was much arguing and negotiating over support packages.
With UBI a lot of that would be eliminated. The money would be there by default, clawed back through tax for people who are still able to work and earn 100%, with after-the-fact assessment.
There is no chance our governmen
Who doesn't want 'free money', right? (Score:2)
How about universal basic capital? (Score:2)
How about universal basic capital? Lets make capitalism work for everyone. Giving everyone an equivalent of $25000 at birth into an IRA account for fix the problem of their retirement.
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What does that accomplish? You'll still have homeless and unemployed people but now they'll have a nicely funded retirement plan, if they live long enough to spend it.
Hillary Clinton, before her loss in 2016 rendered her politically irrelevant, proposed in 2007 giving every newborn child $5000 at birth - for college. [reuters.com]
We all laughed.
Because it was funny.
She literally wanted to pay people to have babies.
"support" (Score:2)
When you shut down the economy so everyone's running out of money, then ask "what do you think about UBI" you'll get a lot of "support".
Is UBI an antiviral or vaccine? (Score:2)
You don't need to make radical changes to deal with a temporary problem.
Given What US Does to People With Disabilities... (Score:2)
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And the funding for this bold, exciting, new experiment in wealth-transference will be funded by what, exactly? If you scrap welfare, you'll find many will take exception to the loss of benefits, as this will most likely be less than they currently receive. And of course, let's not forget sending 500 pounds/month to every citizen needlessly drives up the cost, only for many to have it clawed back with higher tax rates. (you knew the money was coming from somewhere, right?).
So the premise is, you have adequa
There's already enough food to feed everyone (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, we've got enough stuff to go around and not enough work to go around. At this point it's just a question of how to distribute it and if we want to. There are, after all, a lot of people with very, _very_ nice lives as a result of artificial scarcity.
I mean, do you really think Melania would be married to Donald if he wasn't rich?
Re: There's already enough food to feed everyone (Score:2)
Successful people are for the most part engaging in armed robbery by proxy simply by living their lives, let alone doing business. They benefit from government helping to keep others down so that they can have more. Then they complain when asked to share. Bunch of whiny crybaby thieves like you.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing new about UBI. There are many worldwide examples of it over the centuries. Here in America, Alaskans get it, many of our native Indian tribes have some form of it, the Earned Income Tax Credit was a compromise form of it we added when we had this same discussion again in the 70s, and it has been actively discussed as long ago as 1797 when one of our most vocal founders, Thomas Paine, argued for something similar. In other parts of the world there are several countries that enjoy it to some extent due usually to some shared natural resource wealth.
In general though, the current discussion is a reaction to inequities. If you don't want UBI, fix the inequities. Make sure the lowest-paid workers have a living wage that requires absolutely no supplements. UBI discussions often sprout from disrespect for the workers who work the hardest.
Re: I agree (Score:3)
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a 3BR/2BA ranch house
Three bedrooms? Half the homes in the UK don't have three bedrooms.
Two bathrooms? Shit, I've lived in a single bathroom house for the past 20 years.
Ranch house? Where the fuck are we meant to put 28 million fucking bungalows? Shit, we've concreted too much of the country already, and that's with high density flats, terraced houses and 2/3 storey houses.
Assuring that people have somewhere to live has to be realistic.
Re: I agree (Score:2)
The unreal amount of wasted money on repeated assessment processing, stupidly over-engineered computer systems, appointments, security guards, NHS doctors
It's the money system (Score:2)
... will be funded by what, exactly?
Real, honest, government issued, money. Not the fraudulent, extortionist money that the banks make up now.
And before you say "OMG inflation!", there is already a very old mechanism to take the excess money out of society: taxes. I know, this will be a revolutionary idea. Due to the Maastricht treaty, European countries are in a race to the bottom for imposing taxes on foreign companies, and currently the tax system is therefore designed to make the excesses bigger. Also, if the European Central Bank issues
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I do think a welath tax of 100% imposed on all who own more than $1bn would be a very good thing.
An economy isn't based on money, but the circulation of money. Its nothing but financial blood pumping through society.
Too bad the people sitting on all that money will never let our paid-for political classes implement such a thing.
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What makes you think taxes wouldn't be raised?
UBI 101 is that most of the population repays the UBI in the form of taxes. The benefit is that everyone has some guaranteed income to work with, and doesn't have to worry so much about the hard times because their taxes automatically fall along with their income (or spending if it's VAT funded), while their UBI remains constant.
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Re:I hope UBI gets implemented... (Score:4, Insightful)
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People paying rent usually can afford mortgages, it's the huge deposit they need that is the problem.
A landlord tax would really help, with some mechanism to make mortgages easier to get.
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Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's *your* house - i.e. if you live in it, then you're not a landlord.
If you are a landlord, that means you're benefiting from a predatory social system that keeps poor people poor through the artificial inflation of property prices. There's a reason rentier capitalism is almost universally sneered at.
In a way it's kind of like inheritance taxes - they're not there to punish the wealthy - they're there because without them, within a few generations the wealthy will own everything.
Every capitalist (and related) economic system is inherently heavily rigged in favor of the wealthy - the more wealth you have, the easier it becomes to gain more. If you don't also have some rules in place that rig things in favor of the poor, then neo-feudalism is pretty much the only possible outcome.
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Yeah, it will. Increased demand will push house prices up, so landlords will make capital gains as well as their rental income.
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Well, the housing market in the UK is easy to predict.
Economic downturn -> more renters, landlords make bank
Economic upturn -> more demand for housing, landlords make bank
Stay in the EU -> demand for housing from EU migrants, landlords make bank
Leave the EU -> demand for housing from non-EU migrants, landlords make bank
People build more houses -> rising population means there's still a shortfall, landlords make bank
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economic downturn -> migrants return home
In which year since 1997 was net migration negative?
(Hint: None.)
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You don't have to be world class economist to be informed.
For instance: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-... [bbc.co.uk]
So that's something in the region of 2-3 million homes needed just for the people already in the country (with a rising population). Current build rate? The 400k from 2010 to 2019 has risen to 170k built in 2019.
Where the fuck are the other two million going to be built? Who's going to build them? We had a green and pleasant land once.
A world class economist is welcome to add insight into this, but you s
In the US maybe in Europe doubtful (Score:2)
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And having UBI on top of welfare does nothing to end the psychopathic regime which is the current dole system that likes to mentally torture people which doesn't help them to be productive participating members of society. Kicking people when they're down is not beneficial.
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we scrap welfare as it stands right now, and replace it with UBI.
So you tell a single mother with a severely sick child that WIC, SDI, and Sec-8 are going away and she is going to get $500 per month instead, about 20% of what she can live on?
The problem with "scrapping welfare" is that there are people who depend on those programs for "reasons".
Disclaimer: Yes, I know that the UK doesn't have WIC, SDI, or Sec-8. Substitute the Limey equivalent.
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UBI doesn't mean that all other benefits have to go away. In particular benefits for the disabled or people with long term illnesses would probably stay. Remember that the UK has free healthcare too.
The more general point is that benefits are too low in the UK. People get outraged about single mothers but the bottom line is that if we want their kids to not follow in their footsteps making them poor probably isn't the best way to go about it.
Re: I agree (Score:2)
They have a NHS in their country, so the sick child isn't relevant to whether the UBI is sufficient.
One does need national health for UBI to work properly, if it's going to replace other social services.
Here in the USA the smartest way to handle the problem is to expand our basic income system (social security) to cover all ages, and our health system (medicare) to cover all ages and income levels. These systems already exist, creating new ones would be daft.
Where the money comes from is another issue, but
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Nice argument, but that $500 was picked on purpose to detract.
"tell that mother she's going to get $2k a month on top of what she earns at her job" and it's going to come on time and she won't have to prove she deserves it and maybe this mother will be cool with it. I've seen what people have to go through to get benefits they were promised and sometimes people really suffer for it. People argue over the right number to justify defeating the concept when they're two completely different discussions.
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Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: I agree (Score:2)
We already know that nothing stimulates an economy more than consumers who can afford to consume. But so many people have been convinced that they don't deserve to live well that they spend their time arguing that nobody else does either unless they're exploiting people. Sick, sad world.
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Want that universal basic income, take the birth control that comes with it.
and we mad need get rid of the 1st to get past the religion issues that will go to the courts.
and if the 1st can be killed then the 2th falling = end of the usa.
Re: I agree (Score:2)
Guaranteed employment just means people doing wasteful make-work, which consumes resources for nothing. It's a dumb idea on all levels, based on a puritanical ideal of our value being based on our work output. That's a senseless idea in the modern world, when we have more labor available than we need. What we need to do as a species is not more but LESS, in order to preserve the biosphere - doing work ultimately means more pollution.
Re:"innovative" (Score:4, Insightful)
"The only innovative part is how much taxpayer money they can steal from the public"
It's not inherently stealing. Look at taxes as a contribution to the functioning of society, and a functioning society as the precursor to the tax payers income.
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"They'll take it at gunpoint, when it comes down to it. Socialism is always about taking from the productive and giving to the non-productive, with the threat of violence for any resistance."
That's the mafia, not socialism, but either way that's not what I'm talking about.
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You can't opt out of society. You use the roads, the legal system, benefit from environmental protection and more just by living here.
If you really want to opt out of all that stuff and not pay any tax then Somalia is still pretty lawless in parts.
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"So "Tax" is another name for taking people's money against their will without them having a choice?"
No, for people to have money means they have already entered into an economic system based on co-operative regulation.
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Don't like it? Don't earn money.
Barter and in-kind income are also taxable.
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You don't have to these days, you can print as much money as you want and no inflation will result. Strange how it's been going lately.
There is very little consumer price inflation. But we do have asset price inflation, especially in real estate.
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There isn't a single benefit I can think of in the UK that isn't means-tested in some way
There is a high cost to all of that means-testing. It requires a big bureaucracy.
A lot of people, especially homeless and mentally ill people, fall through the cracks and don't get entitlements that they should be qualified for.
Means-testing also gives people a big incentive to lie and cheat. It rewards dishonesty.
One of the supposed benefits of UBI is that it eliminates these problems.
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There is a high cost to all of that means-testing. It requires a big bureaucracy.
Those are called "Jobs." And they are helping to provide for thousands of workers - cut them out of the system, and they'll simply walk around to the front of the benefits office and sign up for assistance.
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Uhh ... with UBI there is no "benefits office".
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This is one benefit which is completely pointless to means test. Progressive taxation does the same thing only much more efficiently. My guess is somewhere between a quarter to a third of households would pay as much or more in extra taxes to support UBI than they would get in UBI payments, so why waste time means testing it? This is true for most benefits which are means tested, but that is even more ridiculous for UBI payments.
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Actually, I think most of us get it. We're just blocked from having a say by circumstance. It is a case of minority rule.
Most of our rich got that way by scraping money off the backs of the poorest, not by developing useful things. Without a lot of poor people willing to work for next to nothing to survive, the rich can't be as rich as they are. Those wealthy few have become very good at misleading the poorest many into believing some mythical capitalism that we really don't have will somehow lift them out
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Read more closely. Trump has never had a majority of Americans vote for him. He didn't even get a majority of those who voted, much less of Americans. He lost the popular vote in 2016 by millions but won the electoral college.
Due to quirks in our system, we are currently living under the tyranny of a minority.
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In America, you don't get to become President by really, really, really winning New York and California and ignoring other states.
We have never elected a President based on the popular vote, it's a pointless mind game to pretend it means something in American politics.
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Note to the self-congratulating European - In America we have welfare and free healthcare for the poor, why do you think otherwise?
Re:UBI Unnecessary (Score:5, Insightful)
Low or close to zero interest rates have screwed people over. It has caused a massive appreciation of any non-perishable asset - housing, stocks, gold, land, everything that doesn't go bad and comes in limited supply. Low interest rates have priced young people out of the housing market. They also made building rental apartments a bad investment because rents are capped by salaries. What is scary, the media are not talking about it. Like the problem didn't exist.
Immigration into Western Europe has also been problematic. Immigration patterns to Europe are much different form the USA. The USA generally gets people wanting to work in the US. Europe has a lot of barriers to work for foreigners. Most immigrants coming to Sweden are refugees. They are not allowed to work immediately because the unions want to protect the labour market and there are very few jobs which don't require qualifications. The refugees bye definition are coming from regions which had been negatively affected by wars for many decades by now, consequently the do not have skill sets sought in a modern economy. Very few software engineers are coming out of Syria in Iraq. France and UK get many Africans - both from Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. Those countries are not like India, where basically anyone capable of doing so tries to become a software engineer. People immigrating to Europe seek better life, and I do not blame them for that. Everyone has right to pursue their happiness and should do so. Unfortunately neither is Europe prepared to accomodate them, not are they prepared to work in Europe. Moreover, Europe is already very densely populated compared with the USA. In conclusion, current immigration to Europe causes a lot of strain on the society. A storm is brewing, because poor pople are priced out of the market and the coming waves of immigrants either for the lowest paying jobs, most at risk to globalization and automation, or they end up straining the welfare system. Throw into that a bunch of radical islamic preachers and you have catalyzed an explosive mix.
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Low interest rates have priced young people out of the housing market.
Cheap money makes housing unaffordable?
They also made building rental apartments a bad investment because rents are capped by salaries.
I encourage you to come down to Texas and tell everyone building new apartment buildings to stop right away, because no one can afford them.
What is scary, the media are not talking about it. Like the problem didn't exist.
Because what you describe isn't a problem.
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Low interest rates creates demand which drives prices up.
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House prices in the UK have become an impossible issue to solve because people have come to rely on property appreciating for their retirements. They figure they will downsize and pocket the cash when the time comes.
They also look at the value of their home as part of their wealth, often the biggest part by far as they are unlikely to have hundreds of thousands in savings, and don't want to see it decrease. So governments of both colours won't do anything that massively devalues property back to affordable
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Well, it pays a lot less than universal credit to lots of people who don't need it by taking money from lots of people that do need it.
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Well, if it's on top of UC then it'd literally double what I could get. That's the difference between paying the bills and also getting to buy food, clothing and fuel for the car.