Universal Basic Income

Some probably did, but they won’t be acknowledged.

Anyway, 200 people. Put a city of 250k on UBI and get back to me.

Where did I establish goal posts in the first place, asshole? Fuck off with that.

A small group can be cherrypicked, and requires a small budget.

It’s already being done in some European countries. The problem is that the US does not own utilities and natural resources. The US does not generate income. Besides, even if it did, a UBI is a band aid for a failing system.

You don’t think it’ll work. Shown evidence that it does work, you say you want more proof.

He wants quark-level proof for the shit he's gut-biased against, and for stuff that backs his biases, biker bar bathroom graffiti is enough.

I think it’ll work. Can we replace it with all other entitlement programs?

What part of the US does not generate income are you missing? A UBI would would need to collect taxes from everyone, then pay it all back. What would be the point?

I am accepting it worked on a small scale. Not remotely convinced it will work on a large scale.

Is that clear enough, or will you continue being tedious?

So if we seize the means of production, we can then start spending like we've seized the means of production? Pass.

I don’t think you understood my post.

Because you said it backwards. Reread your post. I know what you meant to say but it’s not what you actually said.

I didn’t say that’s my preference. Only that that would be the only way a UBI would work.

Then, please, enlighten me.

If we have an UBI then we should be able to get rid of all other entitlement programs, correct?

I would assume things like unemployment insurance would be scrapped, yeah

so why wouldn’t it work on a larger scale?

i brought up the same about 35 million people and you rejected it.
so once again all you've disproven is your capacity for truth

that'd be the goal those of us who are proponents have been making since forever.
more important than eliminating those programs however, is eliminating the cost of delivering them. Welfare offices here tend to sit on high value land, with well paid staff doing things they're overqualified to be doing.

CERB (our two years of UBI here) was administered through the CRA (IRS) and based on personal tax returns. No social workers involved. For the billions it cost, the lack of overhead probably brought it close to breaking even.

Best thing is the amount was TRIPLE what welfare provides. For a lot of people who were already on the system it was the first time they'd had the financial resources to live a basic life and actually participate in local economies-IOW, the money the government gave them went to the patronage of local and small businesses.

nope, no hyperbolic weasel wording here...

of course, why wouldn't we expect dishonest representations from you?

That’s a given. But doesn’t really address my post which, understandably, is why I was confused.

It’s nothing to do with the number of the population.

Are you guys even reading?

Think, monkeys, think.

The US absolutely cannot incorporate a UBI because collecting taxes, then distributing them back to those same taxpayers is asinine.

I'd tend to agree that population size is irrelevant-UBI has been proven to work on both local and national scales.
but otherwise, this is what's already being done. The taxman taketh, then the taxman returneth.
not too mention that's how employment insurance works here. Employer and employee both contribute, the CRA dispenses it for (I think) up to six months.

that's actually a better way to describe UBI-as a negative income tax.

see, when we distributed it through Revenue Canada to everybody, those who didn't have anything other than that (and up to a certain threshhold) got to keep the 24K/year it provided them. Those beyond the threshold were taxed on that additional income. SO if your 36000 a year income was suddenly 60K, well, you paid taxes on it all. You still came out ahead naturally, just not as far as somebody only paying tax on the 24K ubi (different bracket).

Currently in Ontario we're doling out about $1200/month to disability recipients, and $750 for welfare. Factor in staffing and overheads, it probably costs the same amount as paying the benefits...

That does sound plausible. But, then …, the definition of UBI would need to be … expounded/redefined/ …. It’s my understanding a UBI would go to everyone regardless of income.

it did... those far enough over it/not qualified had it taxed back.

like by the time you get to an income over $210K (our highest bracket), then they're getting most of that 24K taxed back. (How that mechanism works is above my pay grade... I've never had to pay for being under taxed)

Well if they changed the definition, then I guess they changed the definition. Either way, I feel like its a band on an obsolete economic system

totally
we managed to evolve for thousands of years without "capitalism" as we've known it since the era of colonization.

thing is going back to a model older than that is proportionately as unfeasible.

we can only move forward using and evolving what we've got while reconciling competing interests.

Yes.

Eventually.

The problem is there is something called ‘friction’ when it comes to any large policy decision.

Run with me here on a hypothetical. Let’s say that you could wave a wand and all of a sudden you solved homelessness and lower level crime.

Let’s say the wand cost only one half of what the current system spends ‘dealing’ with the abject poor.

So problem solved yes? Half of all 911 calls just evaporate. Our jails are half empty so only cost half as much… right? We need half of the number of EMTs/ambulances so we just get to cut that budget in half right?

No.

That’s not how it works. You fix a policy that cuts your jail population by a half all of a sudden you don’t get to just halve the property tax funding the 40 year bond that built the new jail.

You don’t just get to unilaterally cut the cop or prison guard union in half.

You don’t get to fire half the cops half the EMTs half the firefighters.

That’s just not how government works. Savings are a long term thing that comes through attrition.

You can’t just flip a jail you don’t need anymore into apartments. That’s not how it works.

That is the friction.

Policies that long term save money can cost more short term because you still gotta pay for the old system while you transition to the new.

The people who remained unemployed are literally right there in the statistics, dipstick.

Depending on what you're arguing, I may agree. It is worth noting that neither this, nor most of the other successful examples, are a universal basic income. They are targeted basic incomes.

But they do demonstrate that the conservative "free stuff just makes people lazy, poor people are only poor because they lack character" line is bullshit.

thinking about how it affects my job, because it doesn't disappear so much as evolve into serving different needs... at least for what remains of my working years.

Anecdote time!

I've got this one little old babushka from the drop in centre where I sometimes put a few hours in during on site days. No real problems or issues, just old and poor and lonesome... maybe a little nutty.


She is starting to suffer one of the indignities of age, incontinence. Not like she can afford the absorbent underwear but it is something we provide. I'm the lucky one she feels safe enough to ask because I don't need to be told to pack'em in a bag in a bag for her.

But she shouldn't have to ask anybody... Is it really such a burden on society for an old lady to have the autonomy to buy her own fucking diapers?