[Puffer Fish]

Guaranteed Universal Income has been a wet dream of the Liberal Left.
(I normally do not use such crude language, but in this case I believe the allusion is entirely appropriate)

But a question: How exactly would UBI work with open borders and mass immigration?
How could it work?

The more people there are, the harder it's going to be able to hand out free money to each of them, obviously. Especially when those people being added are poor (typically taking the less desirable jobs the people already in the country are more reluctant to do).
It might be one thing to create entitlements for all the citizens already living in the country, but when a country has an open-borders immigration policy, and will let in just anyone from any other part of the world, the country can't be offering free stuff.

By having open borders and taking in so much immigration, the Left is pretty much near guaranteeing that UBI is never going to be able to practically work.

Free Market economist Milton Friedman said as much in a speech in 1977.

"I have always been amused by kind of a paradox."​

Friedman then contrasted immigration to the U.S. before 1914 to the hypothetical of what if the country had those same policies today.

"The United States, as you know, before 1914 had completely free immigration. Anybody could get on a boat and come to these shores."
"But then, suppose I say to the same people: 'But now, what about today? Do you think we should have free immigration?
'Oh no,' they'll say. 'We couldn't possibly have free immigration today. Boy that would, uhh, that would flood us with immigrants from India and God knows where. We'd be driven down to a bare subsistence level.'"

"Why is it that free immigration was a good thing before 1914 and free immigration is a bad thing today?
Well, there is a sense in which that answer is right. There is a sense in which free immigration, in the same sense in which we had it before 1914, is not possible today.
Why not? Because it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both.

If you have a welfare state, if you have a state in which every resident is promised certain minimum level of income, or a minimum level of subsistence - regardless of whether he works or not, produces it or not - well then it really is an impossible thing.
If you have free immigration in the way in which we had it before 1914, everybody benefited."​

[Rancid]

Stupid liberals. When are they going to learn that a basic safety net only makes people lazy pieces of shit.

[Puffer Fish]

Stupid liberals. When are they going to learn that a basic safety net only makes people lazy pieces of shit.

It has actually been able to work in Scandinavian countries in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, when unemployment was low and prevailing wages for entry level jobs were high. (Did you know none of the Nordic countries even had a need for a minimum wage law?) But that's just not going to be possible with high levels of immigration.

If many basic jobs being filled by older adults are paying barely more than it takes to survive, and welfare payments are not much less than that, then an increasing number of people in that society are going to take the welfare payments.
If, on the other hand, the job opportunities are plentiful and nearly anyone could earn good money without too much effort, then only the very laziest or truly disabled and needy people in the society are going to take the welfare.
Another phenomena is that the fewer poor people there are in a society, that easier it will be for the economy to provide welfare benefits. So paradoxically, if a greater percentage of the people in society are poor, it might be economically impractical to give them money.

[Tainari88]

These Empires are expensive to fund. If you continue to spend like a drunken sailor on wars and shit? It will affect you with time. You won't have the ability to keep up with the constant need to control the world.

But, that will continue until the money is gone and no way out because the debt keeps needing austerity against the civilian populations. You get union strikes, angry people tired of big medical bankruptcy bills, student loans in the stratosphere, and this consumer culture spouting that you come here and bring your tired, hungry and oppressed masses and voila....you will be upper middle class soon.

It is all an image that is unrealistic. Very few people look at where the money is spent. They should.

[Rancid]

It has actually been able to work in Scandinavian countries in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, when unemployment was low and prevailing wages for entry level jobs were high. (Did you know none of the Nordic countries even had a need for a minimum wage law?) But that's just not going to be possible with high levels of immigration.

If many basic jobs being filled by older adults are paying barely more than it takes to survive, and welfare payments are not much less than that, then an increasing number of people in that society are going to take the welfare payments.
If, on the other hand, the job opportunities are plentiful and nearly anyone could earn good money without too much effort, then only the very laziest or truly disabled and needy people in the society are going to take the welfare.
Another phenomena is that the fewer poor people there are in a society, that easier it will be for the economy to provide welfare benefits. So paradoxically, if a greater percentage of the people in society are poor, it might be economically impractical to give them money.

Agree. It's time to defund social programs, including education.

[Tainari88]

Agree. It's time to defund social programs, including education.

Eres un sarcástico de primera Rancid.

The answer to Puffer Racist Fish is this:

All his bullshit goes down in flames. It is about getting people out of poverty. Period.

[Godstud]

Universal Basic Income sounds good, but someone has to pay for it. You can bet the rich aren't going to pay for it. I am sure the middle class will burden this load and this will lead to even more people on UBI.

[late]

Universal Basic Income sounds good, but someone has to pay for it. You can bet the rich aren't going to pay for it. I am sure the middle class will burden this load and this will lead to even more people on UBI.

We've had high levels of income inequality before, and fixed it.

If we don't fix it, the country goes straight to hell..

[annatar1914]

The historical evidence suggests that a large urban population can survive for a long time on the dole. But they become useless for any labouring or military purposes and eventually the cities all collapse, typically losing 90% of their residents over a short period of time if the city doesn't disappear altogether.