A $1,000 per month cash handout would grow the U.S economy by $2.5 trillion, new study says

[DonFerrari]

konnichiwa said:

Pyro as Bill said:

No offence but I'll take the Invisible Hand over a socialist's crystal ball and tarot cards.

You need to stop being robophobic. Sure some may cause harm due to their programming but the vast majority are hard working and massively contribute to the well being of our society, they just want a better life for themselves and their family human beings.

#Notallautomatons

Confusing, I already stated that automation benefits the people in the end but it isn't creating more jobs and that is what I mean with harmfull. A small example was a coal mine in Kentucky that employed 1500 people but wanted to go with automation/software and investing hardly in new machines. The company was nice and let most of them follow the course/train them for the job but at the end only needed a few hundred people.  What should the +1000 others do? Mostly people who worked 20*30 years in this industry? Nobody really have an answer for them.  Except for 'If you want to work you always find work' or 'Stop being lazy' or even worse 'they are just fecking deplorables'. Those + 1000 people would vote against an universal basic income and so would I at the moment but that's why I would love a workforce trying to find a solution. 

 

RolStoppable said:

Pyro as Bill said:

A billionairre becomes a billionairre by providing products and services that other people want. If it's done through free trade and not some green energy government subsidy, then who have they hurt/exploited?

"that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."

Capitalism 101 - Prices fall making everyone richer. You don't have to work as many hours for the same goods/services.

The robophobia in this thread is scary. If leftists had the first clue about free trade and the damage they cause by getting in it's way, they wouldn't be leftists.

Huh? Multinational corporations and billionaires have so much money because they shuffle around the revenue and thus avoid to pay a lot of taxes in a lot of countries. Meanwhile, the common man pays his taxes and does his fair share of contributing to the society. The obscenely rich are most definitely exploiting the financial systems everywhere they go. Free trade agreements in and of themselves are commonly set up to be exploits to make the rich richer.

It's not like proper taxpaying and an idea like UBI would put rich people on the same level as the people at the bottom. Some people in this thread have the attitude of "I can't be happy if nobody else has to suffer." Something as simplified as UBI might not be the solution, but the distribution of wealth is similar to the distribution of food in this world; there's actually enough for everyone to have something, but the systems in place are so messed up that many people have next to nothing.

Sorry you are making the mistake of looking at only one level.

Sure automation will remove some positions from the automated line, and those jobs won't be recreated the same or for the same people. So anytime you look at the problem like this you'll get stuck. Just like the defenses that if employement law in Brazil and minimum wage in Brazil ceased to exist the bosses would enprison and enslave the employees. But forgeting that sure some bosses may do that, but others will offer a little more and others even more, etc. In such a way that bosses that just want to pay for poverty will get the very worse employees and likely go out of business.

In short time the 1000 guys will probably suffer a lot, but long term the economy will adjust itself, some will become enterpreuners, others will learn other functions, others will retire, etc. Economy have been working like that since forever. Brazil have gone from like 5 to 15M unemployed in a very short time and when economy regrows it will tend to go back to near 5M.

RolStoppable said:

Miguel_Zorro said:

One of the key arguments against universal basic income is that people will opt out of the work force, so I think it's on topic for you guys to discuss it. 

It's an interesting argument because it's such a flawed assumption. Social status and self-worth matter for the vast majority of people to at least a small degree, so a mass movement of people opting out of work isn't going to happen.

It matters for a lot of people, Maslow is still valid most of times, but I wouldn't say majority are willing the burden, because if they were most wouldn't be working entry level jobs for their whole lives.

In Brazil because of "Bolsa Família" (a form of UBI that was the almagamation of several others government help to the poor) outside of big centers there have been a period over 5 years that people wouldn't accept minimum pay jobs because they would loss the UBI and since the UBI would at least allow then not to starve they didn't want any formal jobs (and informal jobs can either get you a big fine as the employer or loss of UBI if employee when discovered) and employees in Brazil love to go to court against employer.

StuOhQ said:

DonFerrari said:

Well you are right, shouldn't have used "funny".

Socialists and the like refuse to accept that capitalism "by itself" have brought quality of life that basically makes the very poor of today living a standard better than kings of the past.

And all the cries "for the poor" on minimum standards is even crazier. Basically they raise the minimum standard every time, until middle class at the time is considered very poor. Because there are people with a house, 2 cars, food, amenities but that is supposedely bellow the living standard because that person have to work 8h/day.

Without the "greedy and exploitivy" bosses these guys would be on farms working 12 to 14h/day to have only enough to eat.

There is too much wrong here to nitpick, but let's keep things simple. "Poverty" means you can't afford healthy food, rent, transportation, and a place to sleep for you and your family.

I work well above minimum wage, as does my wife, and we spend over 1/3rd of our income on rent -- our apartment is not "kingly" by any fashion, does not include a washer and dryer, and is located within 40 feet of an interstate highway. We have no children and we drive used vehicles which were purchased off of family members for dirt cheap. Even so, add in our other bills and we spend over 2/3rds of out income before we even get to buying gas and groceries for the week. 

Imagining us trying to raise a child on our income, let alone minimum wage, let alone if either of us were a single parent... There simply would not be enough money coming in to come close to paying the bills, let alone have money for extravagances like movies and video games. 

The point isn't that we live better than peasants in the Dark Ages. 

The point is that people doing the same job made more (adjusted for inflation) in the 50s than we do now. The "socialism" you decry is simply a rebalancing of a market that is controlled by the world's wealthiest through lobbying. People now work longer hours for less pay than in our recent past, often working more than one job to make ends meet.

The minimum wage, which was explicitly created as a living wage, does not sustain a family of two on 40 hours anymore. Adjusted for inflation, the 1968 minimum wage would now be roughly $12.64/hr. 

Sorry but I can only say you are very bad with your expenditures as most people.

Or how would you explain people that have a single form of income, earning minimum wage and still maintain a household of 5 in the same city of you?

Do you even know that minimum wage in itself is an evil thing that bit the poor more than it helps and that you aren't even suppose to live on minimum wage or close to it for more than a few years when entering a job? And also that there is always the option to be self-employed and that doesn't need millions to start?

Most of times is excuses and entitlement.