Universal Basic Income is a scam. - Page 5 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15192244
What about a real Universal Basic Income? A payment made to every adult in the world. This would discourage immigration to western countries with a high cost of living. It would encourage people to stay in or even move to the poorer areas of the world. it would create purchasing power and encourage growth and business in the places in the world with stagnant economies. It would mean there was less incentive for poor people to pump out the babies as they would have some level of guaranteed income in old age.
#15192260
Pants-of-dog wrote:@Truth To Power

Please explain clearly how your post supports or refutes the case for UBI, thanks.

Which post? I've explained clearly both why privilege, especially landowner privilege, makes something like UBI both necessary and superior to current safety net and income support programs, and why it is nevertheless inferior to restoration of people's rights to liberty and property in the fruits of their labor, combined with just compensation for any unavoidable removal of rights by privilege.
#15192285
Truth to Power wrote: Which post? I've explained clearly both why privilege, especially landowner privilege, makes something like UBI both necessary and superior to current safety net and income support programs, and why it is nevertheless inferior to restoration of people's rights to liberty and property in the fruits of their labor, combined with just compensation for any unavoidable removal of rights by privilege.

Well then sir,
Why have you refused to reply to my idea of the MMT-JGP? It is MMTers plan to provide for "restoration of people's rights to liberty and property in the fruits of their labor [the job itself], combined with just compensation for any unavoidable removal of rights by privilege [the seemingly high wage offered]."

This is a plan to not need a UBI, because the local govs. will find a socially useful job that every UE adult or teen can do. The Fed. or national Gov. pays their wages and also pays the local admin. people. So, the JGP brings cash into the local economy so that its businesses can sell more stuff, but the Fed. picks up the entire bill for it. For the local well off people it is a win-without loss thing.
The intent of this plan is to be sure that there is a job for everyone, so there is no UE, and to add the correct amount of deficit spending into the national economy as the economy booms or slows. This means there should be no high inflation as a result. It sets the wage at a "socially inclusive" level so that people can live on it and still contribute to the demand in the local area to help the business owners have more income too. However, it is intended to just be temporary for most workers as the economy slows. They will go back into the private sector as soon as the economy improves and businesses want to hire them. The workers will not have been UE and so will not have lost the habits that good employees need for most jobs.

You say that you think that any UBI must not be set up such that workers can "freeload" off it and just not work, ever. You don't seem to grok that in the West, there are just not enough jobs for everyone. MS econ. has created a sub-theory that shows how the "natural level" of full UE changes as the UE% changes. That is why MS Econ. can claim that Spain is at the 'proper' (i.e., full employment) UE level when youth UE is over 20%, and all UE there is about 15%. This sub-theory is total BS. The theory makes no sense logically, it seems to have been created so that capitalists or the Gov. don't need to create more jobs when UE is over say 3%, even when UE is over 20%. This because the sub-theory says that as UE increases so does this artificial "full employment level of UE".
. . . But, I ask again, why don't you grok that conditioning a UBI on having a job is not going to work when there are not enough jobs in the economy for everyone to have one? Also, what about the self employed, like I was for years. I had a job and regular customers, why am I not eligible for the UBI, or would I be, if ... ?
. . . In the EU there are many nations like Spain with high UE, and this has been so since at least 2008, if not from the very beginning. In the US and Aust. this was also true, if all those not looking for a non-existing job were included in the UE calculation.

The MMT-JGP solves this problem by having the Gov. have a program that hires *all* the UE workers. This is my solution. I have not seen your solution to the problem that there are not enough jobs. What is your solution?

A note to the lurkers.
There are many here who will not reply when they have nothing to say that makes any sense.
So, the lack of a reply after a while should almost always be seen as an admission that they have no way to refute or reply to the point being made.
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#15192350
While other options exist beyond UBI, none of these other options (including radical socialism) have the chance of the proverbial snowflake in hell.

The one nice thing about UBI is that it is feasible right now.
#15192370
Pants-of-dog wrote:While other options exist beyond UBI, none of these other options (including radical socialism) have the chance of the proverbial snowflake in hell.

The one nice thing about UBI is that it is feasible right now.

There is a reason the owners will let their property talk about UBI but not about privilege or the massive, systematic, institutionalized injustice that makes something like UBI necessary.
#15192377
Steve_American wrote:Why have you refused to reply to my idea of the MMT-JGP?

I have. There are three main reasons the MMT-JGP is not a genuine solution:

1. Landowners will just charge workers that much more for permission to access the enhanced economic opportunity a guaranteed job represents.

2. AI will soon render jobs irrelevant. That proves jobs are not the problem, which proves jobs cannot be the solution.

3. A JG misunderstands what a job is. Creating the purchasing power to employ people by issuing fiat money does not automatically make their labor productive enough to justify their wages. I.e., people will move from more productive private sector jobs to less productive guaranteed jobs in the public sector, reducing total production.
It is MMTers plan to provide for "restoration of people's rights to liberty and property in the fruits of their labor [the job itself],

The JGP does neither.
combined with just compensation for any unavoidable removal of rights by privilege [the seemingly high wage offered]."

Wages are paid for labor, not compensation for abrogation of rights. People are owed just compensation for the removal of their rights to liberty whether they work or not.
This is a plan to not need a UBI, because the local govs. will find a socially useful job that every UE adult or teen can do.

They can't. The result will be busywork. We saw this in the USSR with its guaranteed jobs: "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us."
The Fed. or national Gov. pays their wages and also pays the local admin. people. So, the JGP brings cash into the local economy so that its businesses can sell more stuff, but the Fed. picks up the entire bill for it. For the local well off people it is a win-without loss thing.

Creating money is not the same thing as creating wealth.
The intent of this plan is to be sure that there is a job for everyone,

Which is the wrong goal, as proved above.
so there is no UE, and to add the correct amount of deficit spending into the national economy as the economy booms or slows.

That is the job of an independent Mint, not a JG.
This means there should be no high inflation as a result. It sets the wage at a "socially inclusive" level so that people can live on it and still contribute to the demand in the local area to help the business owners have more income too.

UBI also does that, and so would justice.
However, it is intended to just be temporary for most workers as the economy slows. They will go back into the private sector as soon as the economy improves and businesses want to hire them. The workers will not have been UE and so will not have lost the habits that good employees need for most jobs.

They will have a new habit: dependence on the JG.
You say that you think that any UBI must not be set up such that workers can "freeload" off it and just not work, ever.

No I don't. I am the one who says we have to shake hands with the fact that we are moving inexorably towards an economy in which no one will work, ever.
You don't seem to grok that in the West, there are just not enough jobs for everyone.

No. I am the one who understands WHY there are not enough jobs for everyone.
MS econ. has created a sub-theory that shows how the "natural level" of full UE changes as the UE% changes.

Which is anti-scientific trash.
That is why MS Econ. can claim that Spain is at the 'proper' (i.e., full employment) UE level when youth UE is over 20%, and all UE there is about 15%. This sub-theory is total BS. The theory makes no sense logically, it seems to have been created so that capitalists or the Gov. don't need to create more jobs when UE is over say 3%, even when UE is over 20%. This because the sub-theory says that as UE increases so does this artificial "full employment level of UE".

No. It is because a scientifically plausible theory of unemployment would identify the fact that it is caused by privilege, especially landowner privilege, and such facts are not permitted.
. . . But, I ask again, why don't you grok that conditioning a UBI on having a job is not going to work when there are not enough jobs in the economy for everyone to have one?

I haven't suggested UBI be conditioned on having a job. I have explicitly stated that if it is to be understood as compensation for the removal of people's rights to liberty by privilege, it can't.
Also, what about the self employed, like I was for years. I had a job and regular customers, why am I not eligible for the UBI, or would I be, if ... ?

AFAIAC, UBI means every resident citizen gets it unconditionally, except maybe those living in institutions where others are responsible for them, in which case the institution would get it.
. . . In the EU there are many nations like Spain with high UE, and this has been so since at least 2008, if not from the very beginning. In the US and Aust. this was also true, if all those not looking for a non-existing job were included in the UE calculation.

The MMT-JGP solves this problem by having the Gov. have a program that hires *all* the UE workers.

Unemployment is a symptom, not the disease:

"Wherever there is in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on.

— THOMAS JEFFERSON
This is my solution.

It is a band-aid solution because it does nothing to treat the actual disease.
I have not seen your solution to the problem that there are not enough jobs. What is your solution?

1. Remove the privileges that compel prospective workers to pay the privileged full market value just for permission to work, and restore the equal individual liberty rights of all citizens to access economic opportunity without paying for permission.

2. Require the holders of exclusive land tenure to repay to the community the subsidy that government spending on desirable public services and infrastructure gives them. This will give junior governments the revenue they need to provide more of such services and infrastructure, up to the limit where such public expenditures pay for themselves in increased location subsidy repayments.

3. End the taxation of wages, production and exchange that make living costs unaffordable at the market wages of the least productive.
#15192380
Pants-of-dog wrote:@Truth To Power

Please stop quoting my posts if you are simply going to reply with irrelevancies.

I will continue to quote and refute your posts when I see you spreading misinformation, thanks, even if you choose to pretend that refutations of your false claims are "irrelevancies."
#15192391
Pants-of-dog wrote:If someone can point out any misinformation in my posts, feel free.

You said: "While other options exist beyond UBI, none of these other options (including radical socialism) have the chance of the proverbial snowflake in hell."
True, radical socialism does not have the chance of the proverbial snowflake in hell, and that is certainly a good thing. But none of the other options do? Really? That is misinformation.
The one nice thing about UBI is that it is feasible right now.

And so is that.
#15192579
Pants-of-dog wrote:Feel free to show that I am wrong by providing evidence.

Sir, someone needs to make Truth to Power grok that simply making assertions is not usually considered evidence.

I suppose that if something is self-evident from common knowledge, then the assertion might be enough.
For example, we all saw videos of the Jan 6 riot, so asserting that the rioters were violent might be OK.

We all know that assertions that the Jan 6 people who "entered" the Capitol could not be distinguished from regular tourists is a lie. Yes, less than 1% of them may have looked like that in one short screen shot, but we all saw the other 99% force their way past the locked doors and guards.

Hell, I make simple assertions of economic facts very often. I know they are not evidence.
Some of them should be self-evident, like when I assert that using surplus-tax-receipt-dollars to pay down the US national debt will cause a recession after about $2T has been sucked out of the economy and a depression by the time it reaches $3T. [Unless the new tax only applies to the super or very rich, while other spending is unchanged.]
#15192653
Since no one can show I was wrong or that here was misinformation in any of my posts m I am now going to ignore the claim that there was.

If someone wishes for evidence for one of my claims, please tell me which claim. Thanks.
#15192684
Pants-of-dog wrote:Since no one can show I was wrong or that here was misinformation in any of my posts m I am now going to ignore the claim that there was.

So you will forgive me if I likewise ignore your demand that I not respond to your posts.
#15192688
Steve_American wrote:Sir, someone needs to make Truth to Power grok that simply making assertions is not usually considered evidence.


I find that it is best to ignore him once he no longer addresses the topic.

Back to the topic:

UBI would definitely help with the single largest problem facing women and gender diverse people here in Canada:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba ... -1.6160251
#15192705
Those you you who support a UBI really need to provide actual numbers and also who gets it (all adults & also kids? Or citizen adults & also kids?).
Without them, it is hard to know what you mean. For example, a UBI of $200/mo./citizen adult is very different from $1250/mo./every adult plus $500/mo./every child.
It also matters how much the other current welfare programs would be slashed or cut.

IIRC, I am the only one in this thread who has provided numbers.
I used them to show that a "living" size UBI is going to be inflationary, IMHO.
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#15192736
Steve_American wrote:Those you you who support a UBI really need to provide actual numbers and also who gets it (all adults & also kids? Or citizen adults & also kids?).

The U technically means "universal," but IMO it can only apply to resident citizens. The community's obligation is to look after its own people and not, e.g., visitors from other countries. OTOH, citizens residing in other countries have placed themselves outside the community's protection, so if they need help to survive, it's clearly up to them to deal with the problem where they are or get back home.

But the problem with UBI is that no matter how much it is, landowners will just take it all.
Without them, it is hard to know what you mean. For example, a UBI of $200/mo./citizen adult is very different from $1250/mo./every adult plus $500/mo./every child.

The idea is that it is supposed to be enough to live on; but the cost of living depends a lot on whether you have to pay private landowners full market value just for permission to live. There is also the problem of people who have to live in supervised or institutionalized situations because they can't be responsible for themselves due to physical, intellectual or psychological disabilities. In such cases, the institution responsible for them would presumably get their UBI.
It also matters how much the other current welfare programs would be slashed or cut.

Depends what you mean by "welfare." Presumably all other income support programs would be abolished.
IIRC, I am the only one in this thread who has provided numbers.
I used them to show that a "living" size UBI is going to be inflationary, IMHO.

Unless it is paid for with taxes on economic rent, which, unlike our current taxes, encourage production of goods and services rather than punishing it.
#15192738
Steve_American wrote:Sir, someone needs to make Truth to Power grok that simply making assertions is not usually considered evidence.

An assertion of fact is evidence.
I suppose that if something is self-evident from common knowledge, then the assertion might be enough.

Most of what I say is self-evident and indisputable. People just don't like the facts I identify.
Hell, I make simple assertions of economic facts very often. I know they are not evidence.

They are likely often not facts, either.
Some of them should be self-evident, like when I assert that using surplus-tax-receipt-dollars to pay down the US national debt will cause a recession after about $2T has been sucked out of the economy and a depression by the time it reaches $3T. [Unless the new tax only applies to the super or very rich, while other spending is unchanged.]

How does giving tax dollars to bondholders suck money out of the economy? You allude to the idea that it depends on who is paying the taxes, but that is an incomplete analysis: you need to explain why taxing the super-duper uber-rich is different from taxing producers and consumers.
#15192782
Truth To Power wrote:1] An assertion of fact is evidence.

2] Most of what I say is self-evident and indisputable. People just don't like the facts I identify.

3] They are likely often not facts, either.

4] How does giving tax dollars to bondholders suck money out of the economy? You allude to the idea that it depends on who is paying the taxes, but that is an incomplete analysis: you need to explain why taxing the super-duper uber-rich is different from taxing producers and consumers.

1] People will only accept one's assertions of facts as real facts, if they respect you. In a court of law experts are allowed to make such assertions.

2] IMHO, rather little of what you assert without other evidence are facts. For example, you have asserted that NASA's data on ACC, solar output, heat coming up from the earth, etc. are 'false data'.

3] What I say about MS Econ. theories and MMT are facts to the best of my knowledge. IMO, all who took econ. classes were brainwashed to believe that false assumptions can be assumed to be true in econ. proofs. Therefore, all that they learned is BS.

4] I have explained this proof at least 3 times.
. . . a] Before the transactions, person-A has $1K and person-B has a $1K bond. Both of them think they have money.
. . . b] Person-A looses $1K in taxes, which the Gov. now has.
. . . c] The Gov. redeems the bond that person-B had and gives him/her the $1K.
. . . d] Now after the transactions, person-B has $1K and person-A has nothing. Now, only one of them thinks he/she has money. Worse, person-A would have spent the $1K, but person-B very likely will not spend much of the $1K, saving it in someway instead.

Taxes suck money out of the economy. Gov. spending puts it back.
Deficit spending puts dollars into the economy. They become in the form of a bond if bonds are sold to the public. However, this is after the are used to buy something twice, at least.
A Gov. surplus, by definition, therefore, is sucking dollars out of the economy and *not* spending it back into the economy.

With a little thought, you should have seen that this is true. Too bad you didn't think before you answered.
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