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

[blues]

Welcome to the worker's paradise!

[farscott]

I find the term "Freedom Dividend" unsettling as a dividend is a payment one gets in return on an investment. And there is no special "Freedom Dividend" in the plan for those members of the US military who fought to preserve and/or expand American freedoms. And lots of studies show that many veterans come back with issues that impact their ability to live the American Dream. The number of homeless veterans is troubling. If we are paying anyone a BI, I propose paying veterans who were honorably or medically discharged.

[TGS]

I find the term "Freedom Dividend" unsettling...

Shut your capitalist mouth and get in line, Comrade.

Off to see the Commissars with you.

[blues]

Shut your capitalist mouth and get in line, Comrade.

Off to see the Commissars with you.

Next he'll tell us the Patriot Act isn't patriotic.

[Chance]

Is this replacing the various benefits / entitlements / assistance programs we already have, or provided in addition to them?

[Cookie Monster]

Well, too bad, because you can't have my fucking money.

The world will always need ditch diggers, dude. Seeing financial inequality in the world and thinking, "the world is pretty fucked up" is the problem, not the existence of financial inequality; that's called life. There has been inequality since man harvested his first piece of food and always will be, and any system that aims to take from the productive people and give to the unproductive to an extreme (like Yang's proposal) is headed for implosion.

The entire point of the US Constitution and our country is personal responsibility and freedom, not "to have the government make my problems go away." The entire basis of the United States is built on this notion. Anything that seeks to make the people financially dependent on the government is the enemy of our American way of life. Wang's catch phrase of "Not left, not right, but forward" is a lie because policies like these are regressive, which seek to make The People beholden to a ruler.

Taking communism and repackaging it as a "Freedom Dividend" is bullshit.

I was probably talking in a broader view of how things are fucked up, income inequality is one thing and might be related to poor education, childhood hunger, the destruction of the environment, and all sorts of other problems.

We’ll always need ditch diggers yes but we’ll always get hard third world immigrants to do it.

Home taking care of puking kids and wife so I don’t know if I really have something relevant to put together.

I get and agree that the US is about taking care of yourself and personal responsibility and freedom. But I look at this idea like having my crew install the truck boxes on our work trucks. I used to believe it was cheapest for us to do it ourselves, fuck that shop labor rate of $80 per hour. But then I got two dudes monkey fucking a truck and box for 3 hours and extra holes in the box and the truck and we didn’t get the real work done and I spent twice the cost in salary.

So maybe UBI makes it cheaper and better, less hungry kids, better schools, better families, less people in prison, less people shitting in the streets, and overall a better society that is cheaper then the current way things are going.

I don’t know, maybe it makes it better maybe we still end up in a world where I am shooting people coming after my stored food and wishing I stocked more .308 rounds.

I got no answers just a day of rain and the stench of puke in the house.

[Joe in PNG]

Is this replacing the various benefits / entitlements / assistance programs we already have, or provided in addition to them?

In theory, a replacement.

In actuality, should they pass it, they'll never get around to repealing the other various benefits / entitlements / assistance programs we already have.

Because this has absolutely nothing to do with actually helping people, and everything to do with buying votes using taxpayer money.

The more people they can get depending on government assistance, the more votes they get. Bread and circuses, dude.

[farscott]

There is another issue with UBI that addresses a fundamental truth about money. There is never enough or there is too much. For money to function as a store/equivalent of wealth, it needs to be scarce. When there is too much money, the result is called the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe.

That fact that as long as resources are limited that money has to be limited is at odds with the idea that everyone can have enough. There have to be winners and losers at some level or everyone loses. Everyone can never win. That is a hard truth that is at odds with the idea that everyone can/should/could/would succeed. The question comes down to limiting winners. Every attempt has led to widespread misery as opposed to pockets of misery.

[TGS]

I was probably talking in a broader view of how things are fucked up, income inequality is one thing and might be related to poor education, childhood hunger, the destruction of the environment, and all sorts of other problems.

We’ll always need ditch diggers yes but we’ll always get hard third world immigrants to do it.

Home taking care of puking kids and wife so I don’t know if I really have something relevant to put together.

I get and agree that the US is about taking care of yourself and personal responsibility and freedom. But I look at this idea like having my crew install the truck boxes on our work trucks. I used to believe it was cheapest for us to do it ourselves, fuck that shop labor rate of $80 per hour. But then I got two dudes monkey fucking a truck and box for 3 hours and extra holes in the box and the truck and we didn’t get the real work done and I spent twice the cost in salary.

So maybe UBI makes it cheaper and better, less hungry kids, better schools, better families, less people in prison, less people shitting in the streets, and overall a better society that is cheaper then the current way things are going.

I don’t know, maybe it makes it better maybe we still end up in a world where I am shooting people coming after my stored food and wishing I stocked more .308 rounds.

I got no answers just a day of rain and the stench of puke in the house.

Stay off the drugs, dude.

[Joe in PNG]

Sadly, far too many people never ask the question "how is the government going to use this Wonderful Idea to screw me?"

Too many people never ask "what kind of really bad unintended consequences are we setting up?"

And too many people feel they have to Do Something when the real solution is to Do Nothing At All.

If you give the government your property (including your means of making a living), your life and liberty will go with it.