Yang called his UBI a "freedom dividend". The idea that, as citizens, we should all benefit from the productivity of our economy. He often said, paraphrasing, "it's not socialism, it's capitalism where income doesn't start at zero"
In other words you're free to earn as much as you wish on top of the universal basic income.
The only thing the government would "control" would be the implementation and collection of the VAT (& some kind of carbon tax hopefully) as well as the actual payments which could just be automatic electronic transfer.
The bottom line is that a lot of people in this country are very poor and lack skill or sometimes even basic education. Others are or soon will be losing their jobs to automation & robotics and that trend is only going to accelerate. We can either continue to let the gains accrue more and more dramatically to the top 1% or we can structure the system so that all citizens see some benefit.
You can call it the "Everyone gets rich" dividend. It doesn't matter what you call it, it's a terrible idea, that no one has even remotely explained how it would work on a national scale. Yang has "ideas". I'm skeptical of his "plans" behind them.
"
where income doesn't start at zero" - So what does that look like?
We already have a "minimum wage" in this country. It's a joke, and hasn't really been a living wage in a long time, but UBI doesn't fix that. It would actually eliminate the minimum wage. Employers would only want to pay a certain amount above UBI.
So how much are you talking about giving
every single adult in the country? Less than the min wage? More than?
Who pays for that? How is that even fiscally/financially possible? No one has those answers, because it can't be done at scale!
The government cannot just continue to create more fiat out of thin air to pay for whatever they want! That's why we're in this trouble in the first place.
Everyone seems to fall in love with the
idea of free money, I mean UBI, but no one will talk about the
unintended consequences of a UBI:
- No incentive to work: You set the amount too low, it's no different than welfare and min wage. You set it too high, many just choose to not work at all.
- Very likely only disbursed via CBDC ("
implementation &
automatic electronic transfer"), which myself and many others have already explained to be digital slavery.
- Elimination/drastic cuts to all social programs: Because those funds would need to go to paying the UBI, but for those in need of those services, they are above and beyond just a living wage. Not to mention even more jobs lost when those services shut down.
And many more too numerous to list.
Yes, every innovation in history has meant some jobs were lost. But it also meant other jobs were created.
- Candlemakers were drastically reduced when electricity was developed. They found other jobs.
- Horse ranchers were dramatically affected when the automobile was invented. They pivoted to cattle.
- Long distance phone carriers, the USPS, bookstores, Mom & Pop's of all kinds, and many other industries were greatly impacted by the introduction of the internet.
And the list goes on and on... My point being, AI and robotics are absolutely going to greatly impact many, many industries. But civilization, as a whole, will do what it's always done, and evolve, adapt, and continue on. Those that can't, fall.
That's true in nature and capitalism. The smartest, strongest, survive.
"
The bottom line is that a lot of people in this country are very poor and lack skill or sometimes even basic education."
Exactly! We agree on that completely. We're just different in how we would fix that.
You want to gov subsidize the
symptoms of the problem with UBI. I want to go to the
source and fix it.
For example, we have a severe lack of skilled labor in this country. We need more electricians, plumbers, carpenters, masons, etc...
This country has focused so hard for decades on going to college, getting a degree, and shaming anyone who doesn't have that (many times unused) piece of paper. So much so, that the skilled workmen we do still have are quickly reaching retirement age, and there aren't hardly any apprentices to take their place.
But because our broken education system doesn't encourage anyone to go to trade schools anymore, we're in this situation. *
The university system is a
for-profit business, and the more the government subsidizes and pays for student loans, the higher and higher tuition rates will go. The government is the problem.
And that's just one example of other jobs, that are in high demand, and pay very well, that many people could do if AI/robotics costs them theirs. Sure, there's an aging generation that this transition will be harder on.
Not to sound harsh, but that's just Darwinian progress.
We've been devolving as a society for decades now. Technology is outpacing our brain's ability to evolve, and this is what we get for it.
And tech isn't slowing down, so we sure as hell better speed up!
You're just accepting a society of poor, less skilled/educated and want to throw money at the current symptoms. I don't accept that.
I have a longer-term solution. I want to help those people, all people, help themselves by exiting the system that is rigged to hold them down. Show/teach them a better way. A way that they can actually start to improve their own situations individually. And that has to start at the source of the problem, the government's control and manipulation of the
money. Every single one of the superficial issues are all rooted in that.
Fix the money, fix the world.
Educate the public about what is money, and how it works. That's not taught in US schools, because the gov doesn't want us to know what they're doing. So we have to take it upon ourselves to search for that knowledge.
That's the single biggest thing I've benefitted from when learning about Bitcoin. I dove into what is money, and for the first time in my life, realized how rigged the system was. Not broken, rigged. It's working exactly the way they (gov) want it to. And it's impossible to try and change that system from within. Many have tried and failed.
The only answer was to exit that system. But before Bitcoin existed, there was no such exit. And that's the way the gov wants to keep it. So they'll try every way possible to remove any exits. It's why they're so against it. They can't control, duplicate, or manipulate Bitcoin in their rigged system. (Whether you're for or against BTC, I still encourage everyone to research
what is money, educate themselves, and make their own decisions.)
You want a UBI, because you don't want to deal with your own problems. Just give all your rights and freedoms to the gov. They'll handle them, tell me what to do. I'll own nothing, and like it. Zero accountability. That's a Keynesian economist's answer to everything.
That's NOT what our founding fathers wanted! They fought to give those rights and freedoms TO THE PEOPLE.
Not to
become the hierarchy they were fighting against! They were true Libertarians! **
No thanks. Give me back my rights and freedoms, as the founding fathers wanted.
If I mess up, I clean it up myself. We don't take bailouts.
*I wish the current education system would teach what matters, but since the Industrial Age, all it's done is spit out brainwashed drone employees.
Do you ever wonder why so many self-made millionaires/billionaires dropped out of school at some level? It's because they saw what they wanted to do, and school wasn't helping them get to that. Now I'm all for education, not saying everyone should just drop out. But I'm for education reform first. Not enough people are willing to leave their comfy personal surroundings to learn something new, especially if it's uncomfortable, or takes a little work.
** The titles of Republican and Democrat came later, and were really just variations of Libertarian values, just differing ways to go about it. They've been morphed into something that's completely lost their original meaning.
Anyway, sorry, I get off on tangents.
