Yang's $1,000/month UBI Government Payment

[peterb]

Let’s take a step back and look at the problem.

Why do we see poor people? Because some skills are more valued by society then others. That’s life, period.
It is economically and psychologically impossible to change that. Even in a society with no money, the currency simply transitions to something else .

The things a society values change over time. Changes in values cannot be legislated but can be encouraged by intelligent policy.

[BehindBlueI's]

BTW- as clarification the GI Bill is not a handout or welfare program. It’s an entitlement duly earned by honorable military service, and is thus not a relevant subject to compare with this economically suicidal proposal.

Honorable military service predates the GI Bill considerably, and while we can split the hair of what is a welfare program vs an entitlement program it remains the sole large scale experiment in direct payments to a large section of the public that was not a wage for labor (or return on investing) and observing the economic outcome*. It's considered part and parcel of military service today, much like SSI is for the work force, but that's because we are used to it and take it for granted. The original recipients did not view it as such, and apparently did not consider it an entitlement. Critics called it a handout and even the DAV opposed it.

Though it was the first veterans' law
that was devoid of "hand-out" (you had
to help yourself to get GI Bill help). it
was opposed by many who had cried
long and loud against veterans' "handouts."

Dr. Suzanne Mettler..says the GI Bill came as a complete surprise to most veterans. "I've interviewed many veterans from the World War II era, and I asked them, ‘Did you feel you were owed the GI Bill?' And they would tell me, sometimes rather vehemently, ‘No, we were not owed the GI Bill.'"

The purpose was to take a group of people that historically had issues reintegrating into society, provide them with readily available cash independent of labor, and hope that it would result in a beneficial outcome for both the veterans and for society at large. Remember it was called the "readjustment act" originally.

Colmery told an audience in Topeka, Kan., that the re-assimilation of veterans "is the gravest social problem which confronts us. They can either make the country or break it, save democracy or scrap it, promote world order or World War III. The result depends on us, not them."

And it was not a given, even after it's original implementation:

GI Bill benefits were cancelled altogether in 1956.... In 1959, a report by the Bradley Commission determined that serving in the military should be "an obligation of citizenship, not a basis for government benefits.

I would invite you to read the contemporary statements of those who opposed it at the time and compare it to the comments in this thread should you still doubt how relevant it is to the topic at hand. The recipients would be made lazy. They would not work. They would indulge in vice. Too many of the "wrong people" would get educated, such as:

Milliard Rice [of the DAV organization in a letter to a Senator on the Finance Committee]...bitterly attacked the unemployment compensation provisions of the bill, which were soon to benefit over eight
million veterans, saying: 'The lazy and 'chisely' types of veterans would get the most benefits. whereas
the resourceful, industrious and conscientious veterans would get the least benefits, if any."

Quotes taken from various articles at: https://www.legion.org/education/history


*of working age people, anyway. One could likely count various pension acts as similar large scale payouts not tied to wages.

[txdpd]

There isn’t an oversupply of higher education. There’s an over abundance of people with 4 years degrees that amount to little more than certificates of theft.

I don’t think UBI and GI Bill are a good comparison. IMO UBI is more akin to student loans. Student loans is the just the monetization of kids to make a select few rich people even richer. You take financial illiterate kids, sell them promises of future wealth, and milk them for everything they are worth. You give lower and middle class people money and it’s going to be spent at retail with the profits going straight to the top. It isn't some "the rising tide lifts all ships" nonsense, because of that automation thing Chang keeps talking about. UBI is just funneling money up hill to make a select few rich people, like Chang, even richer. All he's doing is milking the American tax payer for everything they are worth, for his benefit, while promising some imaginary benefit to the financially illiterate masses.

[Joe in PNG]

Was the post WWII GI Bill a good thing in the short run? Yes.

However, the post WWII GI Bill did cause a massive expansion in higher education. For instance, Richard Feynman spent his first night as a professor at Cornell sleeping on a couch, because of a lack of space.

Was the GI Bill the main cause of the Higher Education Bubble and Student Loan Crisis we are in now? No.

But, it was a way for the Government to get it's foot in the door of college funding, and a way for colleges to get hooked on money from the government.

I'd also argue that a lot of wrong economic lessons were learned after the unusual circumstance that followed the American Post WWII economy. Yes, being the only nation in the world that didn't have smoking rubble instead of factories does tend to push one's economy into the black.

And yes, tradeoffs and side effects are the nature of people working together. But one does have to ask if those tradeoffs and side effects are worth it. My view is no.

[Lost River]

Where has the government being in charge of giving away other people's money ever worked for a country in the long run?

Cuba?

Venezuela?

People's Republic of California?


It is like a giant Ponzi Scheme, where you know who is always the biggest loser...

[Borderland]

No new taxes until the fed gets their spending under control. Yang's plan is a ponzi scheme just like SSI and Medicare.

Notice how nobody wants to propose a flat tax on everything except the essentials like clothes, food, health care and housing.

That's really the only fair tax but it'll never happen.

[Yung]

[GardoneVT]

The things a society values change over time. Changes in values cannot be legislated but can be encouraged by intelligent policy.

In our society, money is considered a reward for productive work and a medium of exchange. You undermine both with a Basic Income policy.

Honorable military service predates the GI Bill considerably, and while we can split the hair of what is a welfare program vs an entitlement program it remains the sole large scale experiment in direct payments to a large section of the public that was not a wage for labor (or return on investing) and observing the economic outcome*. It's considered part and parcel of military service....

Some clarifications on the GI Bill are appropriate here. As a veteran whose used the entitlement to earn one degree (thus enabling the scholarship behind his second one, let me break down some necessary details.

1: it is NOT an automatic part of enlisting in the military. One can opt out of the GI Bill in exchange for other DoD funded education programs, one of which pays off Federal student loans in exchange for honorable service instead. One could even opt out entirely (obviously an uncommon choice).

2: Earning it is just that. I know recruiters and some refer to the GI Bill as an automatic entitlement: it is not so. Exit the military without an honorable and you’re in for an uphill battle to qualify for GI Bill use. “But Gardone only idiots get out with a less then honorable”. That isn’t always the case. Sometimes members piss off the wrong boss and get an incorrect discharge characterization. Sometimes they get hit with a really bad break, like the 8 year NCO who got separated on a General Discharge because of a PT failure 10 years ago & a personnel squadron fuckup.

3: Not all universities understand how it works. Some don’t want to, and the GI Bill does little good if your college either doesn’t understand how to process it or thinks you’re a “baby killer” unworthy of the time of day. A universal handout it is not.

The GI Bill should conceptually be considered a performance bonus, IME . Insofar as the opposition from the 40s goes, those folks also thought point shooting pistols was state of the art. Times change

As to the problem Yang is trying to solve, a better way to fix income inequality is twofold-

Enforce existing corruption laws and arrest people who violate public trust with crooked deals and contracts. Handing out $1,000 to people wont scale worth a damn. Handing out sentences to mayors, councilmen and alderpeople for stealing $50,000,000 in public tax revenue scales quite well. This ensures the existing multitude of state and federal welfare programs do as they’re intended, instead of being slush funds for people like Obama’s ex bag man Tony Rezko.

Remove restrictive anti-small business laws, while cracking down on Large Business influence on government. When Boeing can get an exec appointed as the #2 man in the Secretary of Defense while small Mooney Aviation goes bust, it’s a signal of societal problems that go beyond money alone.

Those solutions aren’t sexy and don’t sound cool in debates, but they’ll do a lot less damage and more good then this UBI nonsense.

[Joe in PNG]

No new taxes until the fed gets their spending under control. Yang's plan is a ponzi scheme just like SSI and Medicare.

Notice how nobody wants to propose a flat tax on everything except the essentials like clothes, food, health care and housing.

That's really the only fair tax but it'll never happen.

That's a thing Americans don't understand about the all encompassing social programs in places like Sweden- pretty much everyone pays the same % in taxes.

Here, lots people want all the free stuff, but want someone else to pay for it. And since promising more free stuff gets votes, while cutting it doesn't, this will continue.

[ranger]

That's a thing Americans don't understand about the all encompassing social programs in places like Sweden- pretty much everyone pays the same % in taxes.

Here, lots people want all the free stuff, but want someone else to pay for it. And since promising more free stuff gets votes, while cutting it doesn't, this will continue.

That worked in Sweden when everyone was contributing their fair share - will be interesting to see what happens when 1/5 of your population is now pulling from the system. I believe they are now delaying retirement age for those who have been paying into system for decades.