I've posted in the past my support for universal basic income. In specific I favor a citizens income which goes to all US citizens regardless of race, class, or need, as a way to unite the country around economic ties.
Recently Mark Zuckerberg has come out in favor of universal basic income in his post: where he praised the Alaska Permanent Fund. The Alaska Permanent Fund is a citizens dividend for all citizens of Alaska.
With support from Zuckerberg perhaps momentum can build for a basic income. On the other hand there are rumors that Zuckerberg wants to run for President and these new stances might be to lay the ground work for a future political campaign.
Yes indeed, we don't have enough debt. By all means let's increase it exponentially. The Alaskan plan is basically what Venezuela did with their oil reserves, they used their oil to fund vast social programs. And we are witnessing how that is playing out.
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@uvas, but wouldn't you want to have tens/hundreds of millions of people that depend on the government for their money?! :) Smart strategy on behalf of central authorities to continue to convince the regular folk to keep coming to those voting booths.
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It will just circulate money in a different way, while greatly reducing the need for all the bureacracy of today.
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It has nothing to do with debt. It's a citizens dividend so the debt wouldn't have to be increased because it doesn't come from taxes.
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Let's see. The government would be paying everyone a dividend check. If everyone received a dividend of $1000 like Alaska did last year, that would be 300 billion dollar payout. The USA budget is sitting with a deficit of 536 billion for 2016. So making that one time payout of 1000 dollars would increase the deficit to over 800 billion. That deficit is covered by the government borrowing money, so therefore adding that one time payout of 1000 dollars would increase the USA debt load.
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I love this idea. I find it amusing, however, that one of the most common objections to this idea is how it will be funded. To which I say, if billions can be spent on wars, a few priorities are available for adjustment.
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I find it amusing that people think that getting money for nothing is a good idea.
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Nothing? What exactly do you consider "nothing"?
Even the genuinely laziest members of society still participate in the economy. Even the poorest members of society still participate in the economy. Even the most vulnerable members of society still participate in the economy. Even the most spoiled of bratty children still participate in the economy. Why? Because just about everything costs money, meaning just about everyone needs to spend money on something...
An eight year old gets that new gadget for which they've been begging their parents.. money goes into the economy. That's an eight year old... they didn't earn that money... or did they? Chores were a potential part of the agreement.... Learning about making agreements perhaps (preparation for living in society)... Or perhaps they got it purely for begging until the parents could take it no longer. That's a pretty concerted effort... might have taken some manipulative skills (again, preparation for living in society). Of course, this is all disregarding the possibility that the kid may have mowed a neighbours lawn for that money. Sure, it's not curing cancer... or repairing crumbling bridges... but it's certainly not nothing.
Every month, a female menstruates... $$$$$$ goes into the economy.... this starts when they're a tween and goes on for decades... hygiene products, extra showers, pain relief.... bleeding more than blood here... #NoTaxOnTampons :P The mere existence of menstruating females keeps a lot of people in jobs. Sure, it's not some sort of effort for sociological reform, but I think tampon companies would agree that it's not nothing.
Hungry? Don't know a farmer? Don't know how to grow your own food?... money goes into the economy. A lot of it. Regularly. Babies don't do much, relatively, but they gotta eat, right? Actually, let's consider babies for a moment...
I could guess all day long at what you mean by nothing and be wrong, but I would imagine you'd consider that babies are pretty much doing nothing (but by all means, correct me if I'm wrong on that). Yet the amount of money that goes into the economy simply because a baby is about to come into existence can amount to quite a lot. Then there's the birth, which isn't cheap... followed by the diaper years, which also aren't cheap. This baby is just figuring out the absolute basics, yet money is just flowing into the economy because of them.
And they might actually grow up to cure cancer, repair crumbling bridges, or make some sort of effort for sociological reform... especially if they have a smart parent that saves their kid's monthly $1000 in an interest bearing account until the kid is informed enough to make decisions about it.
Oh, can't forget about water. Water is necessary to live, and that costs money too. And not everyone in the country is even getting the clean water for which they paid.
Considering that nearly all basic necessities need to be purchased... and most states charge sales taxes (and a variety of other fees from state to state)... and making purchases keeps the economy going... and taxes should keep the infrastructure going... wouldn't the sheer act of purchasing anything within the country be contributing in some way?
Sorry, seems I went on a bit of a rant when I was aiming to inquire as to what you meant by "nothing"... I'll circle back there now... What exactly do you mean by "nothing"?
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Natural resources like oil in the Alaska case.
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Universal Basic Income makes slaves of those who work for a living, and the taxation and bureaucracy that would be necessary to make it work would make criminals of honest men.
I say this as one of the homeless. I say this as one of the chronically unemployed.
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I found this post interesting. I think you did a good job
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This comment has received a 0.12 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @hamzaoui.
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I think a universal basic income can potentially have some support especially in light of advancing AI and automation technologies. These may cause workers to lose their jobs before they can be retrained for other fields. A universal basic income can help greatly during this transition. Still, I think some more data is needed on this. I read recently that Finland has started a trial on this for some of its' unemployed citizens. I am very curious to see what would be the results from this trial.
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I believe that UBI in some form is almost a necessity in the future and I am a big supporter of it as well. I see many upsides to it including the theory that people would become more creative and innovative when having freed up more time and having security.
I do, however, see a dark side to it as well!
Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most wealthy people on earth and supporting UBI from his position actually makes good sense.
Listen,
What we see these days are an increasing wealth gap between the rich and the rest. This gap is accelerated by robots, AI and machine learning. Just take the employment rate of the auto industry when that was booming and today's biggest earner the Silicon Valley. The Silicon Valley is generating a much bigger value in terms of income, but is only emloying a fraction of yesterday's auto industry.
Result: The rich are getting richer and the rest are losing their jobs and their income. We are about to create an elite class. This class will be made up of those few owning the robots. Robots will soon be able to do most jobs better than humans and all the wealth generated by those robots will end up in the pockets of the owners / shareholders.
This could potentially lead to a rather dystopian future where the elite will own the world living in a fortified society cut off from the masses protected by surveillance and robot soldiers (a bit caricatured, but still scary).
What would you do if you were one of those rich guys?
Personally I would dread a future, where I would no longer have anyone to sell to because the masses didn't own a penny (crypto?). So the most logical thing would be to hand out money (UBI) to the masses so they could buy my life supporting products and I would continue to be rich.
In such a world the UBI would not increase freedom and creativity because as a regular guy you would not stand a chance in the competition. The elite would simply be too much ahead of you.
I am a much bigger supporter of Bill Gate's suggestion of taxing the robots / AI so we could all benefit from the increased societal wealth generated by cheap AI labor.
Just my thoughts!
ronni
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Zuckerberg isn't offering shares in Facebook to the users though.
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Exactly! That would be a much better option if we would start handing out Universal Basic Shares (UBS) in stead! :)
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Hey, why not both? Tax the robots and use that to pay for some form of basic income.
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That is actually an excellent idea!
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It saddens me that I didn't discover this in time to vote on it. Great post. Followed.
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For our civilization to evolve is 100% sure we need a type of UBI. This may look unreal today, but in 50 years or less, our focus should be on something else than money for living. If you think about it, it's not normal, with all the development in society, to still work to make a living.
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A very noble idea but unfortunately with humans being humans and corporations being corporations the idea is doomed to fail.
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This is a really interesting post, thank you very much for sharing this with us :)
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you may want to watch an insightful discussion of UBI before supporting it
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Free shares of Facebook stock for everyone lol
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Hi Dana-Edwards... very good, You might like my article about how BlockChain might be one of the deciding factors in rolling out the economic revolution
https://steemit.com/crypto-news/@outerground/universal-basic-income-could-it-be-facilitated-by-blockchain-you-bet-it-could-the-rise-of-the-blogdollar
I'm following
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Lets give him our support :) I gave you a follow
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It will be exactly like the income tax.
When the income tax was first started, it only affected the upper portions of income and was graduated between 1% and 6% of income.
How's that "limited tax" working out for us now?
Social security. Started with 45 workers supporting 1 retiree. Now 2.9 workers per retiree. Think that's sustainable?
No argument that the starting numbers look good. Problem is, everything we know about bureaucracy is that they won't stay that way. Once an entitlement is started, it just gets larger and larger and more and more difficult to remove.
Like cancer.
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If the economic previsions are correct, developed countries are aproaching to a digital era in which much less labor workforce is needed due to advances in automation and artificial intelligence.
If the developed countries do not take blunt measures this will cause a massive social crisis. And basic income in my opinion is the simplest solution, although it may not be the better.
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Alaska's dividend works because:
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T'is interesting to consider the possibilities, factoring in his support of a basic income, in combination with 'rumors' about some sort of Facebook cryptocurrency - basic income and crypto being two subjects often discussed together, with a power-player like Zuck supporting no doubt advancing the exploration of fascinating experimentations, should he follow up on both together...
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I very sincerely doubt an UBI would unite the country in any significant way. It will cost a lot of money and create one more entitlement and one more thing for unscrupulous politicians to buy votes with.
Alska has a lot of resources and not to much population. It really is not relevant to the US as a hole.
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It actually is quite relevant everywhere in the world.
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Interesting !
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