Yes. When 10 people control more wealth than the rest of us combined while families working 60+ hours a week cant put food on the table. Then yes, the system is rigged against the middle class and we deserve a fighting chance
The top 10 wealthiest people in the world only have a fortune of around 1.8 Trillion dollars.
The estimated global personal wealth for everyone in the world is around 450 Trillion dollars.
The top 10% of the world controls a massively disproportionate amount of wealth, but definitely not the top 10 people/families.
It took me a while to come around to the idea. I believed in small American business long after it was dead. Always suspected that we would eventually regulate in favor of it again.
After studying the financial engineering done from 2008-2025 and the immense wealth concentration it created I think UBI helps the problem. As wages become more suppressed and jobs become fewer, we do need to examine our social safety nets again.
I think the only thing I disagree with about UBI is that all of us become somewhat dependent on the government. Will that make us more active participants in government? Currently, most people’s retirement funds are based on the S&P 500, and when it comes time to vote, they will always vote to protect their retirement funds in the S&P 500. This is part of the trap. We’ve been dealing with it during the financial engineering of the last two decades.
UBI would certainly strip powers from some and give some dignity back to many, but it becomes a beast in itself that must be managed with the integrity that our country hasn’t been managed with for decades. So idk! I think they need to figure out universal healthcare before universal basic income. One will help structure the other.
Yeah. I should definitely get it, and a lot of it. In fact, more than the rest of most scrubs. Ill do cool ass shit. I already do cool shit, and with more money, I could do more and even cooler shit.
Sponsor my cool shit and I will give you cool shit in return. DM me for my cash app.
Yes. I’m opposed.
Simply saying “everyone should get enough money from the government to live” has a lot of problems. The most obvious being that cost of living varies substantially from one place to another. And peoples needs vary substantially as well. So where do we set the number?
You’ll also need to figure out how to combat the massive inflationary effects that would occur.
But imo, the biggest issue is what happens in the long term. Say a nation gives its citizens a UBI. Now wait 100 years. What happens? Well what happens is that, assuming this doesn’t collapse the economy some other way, and assuming this is a democratic nation, everyone will start taking UBI for granted, and will start thinking “you know, if only I had a little more free money, I could afford that nice shirt I saw my neighbor wearing yesterday…”. And because “free money for everyone” will be a popular political platform, the UBI amount will go up and up and up, with little thought put into how to continue funding it. The government accrues more and more debt over time funding the program, until finally the government can no longer continue paying its debtors, and the country collapses into chaos.
Instead, I’m in favor of a citizen’s dividend, which is tied to the nation’s economic output. A good example is how Alaskans get a dividend, since they agreed to allow private companies to extract the oil from their state. Land value taxes could work like this. Carbon taxes could work like this. If you want to make sure everyone is fed and housed, then that is a very noble goal - but it should be accomplished by providing people with food and housing. And I think it is right and fair that the people of a nation should be compensated for the use of their land and the negative externalities they endure - but how much they are paid out should not be coupled to the cost of living. It should be well known to be an independent, unpredictable, and highly variable amount that they can’t rely on, so that they never gain the expectation that they will always have endless free money to spend however they please.
As a step inbetween industrialization and automatization, i think it’s neccessary sometime. But that means also a step from capaitalism to whatever we have then, so even that step will not be easy.
UBI needs to be combined with rent and price controls if it is not, inflation will eat the benefits inside of a 5-year period and money will be siphoned up the chain.
Otherwise I am all for it.
Yeah I talked about that a bit in a previous comment.
Oop I read through the top comments and probably missed it! ^^
I disagree, rent and price controls are not the correct tool.
Land value taxes are the correct method to solve that issue.
I don’t entirely follow? I’m totally open to alternatives to making sure the money stays where it is, I just don’t immediately understand the mechanism.
A proper Land value tax is a way of preventing owners from making any money off the appreciation of the value of land while still being profitable to construct or renovate if it adds value. It significantly reduces if not outright eliminates housing as an investment.
Land value taxes only apply to the value of the land itself, not the buildings, and therefore desirable areas with high land value taxes have a significant incentive to sell and be redeveloped with density which spread a that tax among a larger number of tenants.
The biggest downside is that it completely destroys existing equity. Which is both how it makes everything affordable again, and is also likely why it won’t pass as a policy for many years.
I genuinely like the idea of higher density, as much as I like driving, having a city that’s walkable and with good transit (which density incentives) would be a dream.
My current city is a sprawling suburb and it’s almost an hour by bus to do a trip that takes 10 minutes by car.
Also thank you for expanding on this!
Should be done everywhere and for everyone. Can you imagine a society where you don’t have to work just to be able to live? The projects you would pursue, how way less power would bad managers and bosses have? It would also help decentralization from big cities as people wouldn’t be forced to move there to get jobs.
Also I never realized the toll finances were taking on my stress and mental health until I reached some kind of financial stability. No one should have to endure that much stress just to be able to live.
Sounds ideal
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The vast majority of people couldn’t just live off basic income. Maybe a single person, no kids, no drinking, no house, no car, and living very frugality might be able to not work.
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More than not having to work is not risking to lose where you live and being hungry.
Yeah I’m interested in exploring that
I mean, there are plenty of sci-fi concepts where there is widespread UBI, and what it means is you have large portions of the population unemployed and permanent on assistance and employment is only for the social elites.
Which is to say when you raise the floor, you also raise the ceiling.
UBI that has been used IRL is often highly targeted to select population groups (like single parents, or in a single municipality). It’s never been widespread.
and of course any wide spread UBI, would be a quick reason for landlords, food companies, etc, to simple raise prices and pocket it, thus defeating the purpose entirely.
Yeah I think to your final point, some type of price increase regulations would have to come out parallel. Not sure how that would work but interested in learning.
Easy fix: public housing only for rental and public supermarkets.
except politicians need low wage workers they can grift off with culture wars, and CANNON FODDER for the military, they would never agree with that, thats why most countries dont want implement it.
Yes, I support it. Science has shown the government can afford it and it will save them money in the long run. If society has the resources to ensure everyone’s basic needs are met, do it.
The argument against it is that people won’t work if they aren’t forced to. I think people want to work. This would enable people to have their basic needs met first so they can build a career comfortably.
I believe it should happen and I believe it eventually will happen in Canada, but it will take a lot longer than it should.
I’d add that, when you look through history… Every major scientific advancement has been made by people not worried about paying for their daily life.
They had time to think about hard problems
im FOR IT
Same
I support it and think it could work. It would make people more happy and free, while removing a lot of unnecessary and expensive bureaucracy from our current welfare system.
Id agree, especially with the growing use of AI. I don’t think anyone knows fully how many jobs will disappear but we do know it wont/isnt zero.
We should not have UBI as that implicitly continues the need for money. Instead we should work towards a world with Universal Basic Resources, or even not so basic resources, if it can be automated.
Currency isn’t the problem, and you really need to keep that concept separate from the issues that happen within Capitalism.
Currency is just a convenient method to measure and exchange resources.
Very few people desire an allocated home and weekly rations of flour, chicken, and butter. If you instead give them a list of things they can choose from, and assign ratios and a limit for total resources, all you’ve done is create a new currency.
Currency is prone to inflation. See other posts here about that.
That’s where I am too.
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Only works if we limit the amount of wealth single persons are allowed to hoard.
I say that anyone with a networth over 10M should have all other income over that taxed 100%
Same for companies, cap them at 1 billion
This will allow capitalism yet spread the wealth
Yes, this requires more details, of course, but this should be a basic rule. There is no right to own more than 10 million in wealth
I generally agree, but rather than making it a specific number, I think we should tie it to some multiple of the poverty line or the average income of the lowest 10% or something like that. That way, if the rich want to earn more, they have to make things materially better for the poorest people in society; and if they don’t do enough, the government takes that money to do it for them.
The wealth cap should be tied to a multiple of the UBI. A person or corporation wants to be allowed to get even richer? Then they can campaign to raise the UBI amount for everyone.
If, as they claim there’s enough left to go around and they are paying enough taxes, then it’ll be simple to raise the UBI amount.
Also to environment too. But first we should strip out power from politicians, current system wont work
I agree we need a universal basic income, I refer to it as “automation compensation”. It only works if corporations and investors are banned from owning residential homes. Also we need to construct an abundance of efficient high rises to ensure there’s more than enough availability. In order for basic necessities like housing, electricity, water, and food are met, we need the infrastructure plan to guarantee availability. Otherwise, a UBI will just drive up costs because owners and sellers will account for that extra money people can spend.
Messaging is so important these days. “Blue collar dollars”
The words “universal” and “income” are so charged now. A lot of people dismiss it immediately as “unearned”.
Thats why I think just doing universal health care, universal internet, universal electricity would be an ideal way to transition imho. Just start by providing the basics. We’ve invested so much in energy in this country in the last 2 centuries and we all get exploited on it. doesn’t have to be a blank check form.
Progressive taxation rate that can go negative (aka people can receive money) is more fair.
Could even be easier to implement because it is not only a “social” benefit that cost tax payers money. That could help convince some people.
That has problems too ….
- Do you need to work to get your income, because how else you filing income tax
- income taxes are once per year: what if you have financial disaster after April 15?
- there’s a needy segment of the population where filing tax forms is unlikely or impossible.
The study results look really promising. I think it would be an amazing thing for society as a whole. I just also think it won’t happen because (some) humans get really bent out of shape when they think others are suffering less than they think they should be suffering.
