Basic Income

Blacksword wrote: The liberal lefty in me likes the idea of pulling people out of poverty but the conseravtive in me doesn't like the idea of encouraging laziness. Would it do that, and would the devil make work for idle hands etc?

Well I guess it would depend on how you define laziness and work. If you just mean it as either working for an employer or not, then there would be more laziness. But if you were to consider the usefulness of the particular job for the rest of society, then I think an absence of useless jobs wouldn't be a bad thing. A garbage collector will always be useful, but there are many bureaucratic jobs that don't necessarily contribute to anything. Here is an article on that subject.

Apparently PA's censor still catches naughty words in urls for some reason.


Edited by A Person - April 30 2016 at 09:26

To bring a third world perspective to this discussion, in an advanced economy operating at the frontier, this makes sense in the short/medium term because all requisite facilities to lead your life are already at hand.  Basically what we call public amenities.  What happens in developing economies is there are many areas where setting up of such facilities, including even healthcare, are deemed unviable by the private sector and the government has to step in to provide them.  You can argue that that is bad economics but dang there are people living there and they don't have the means to shift to where they can avail of these amenities either.   My argument is moving to UBI presumes that the private sector will provide for all necessary amenities that are presently under govt.  Otherwise, paying a UBI and also having the govt run hospitals/post offices where the private sector thinks it's a waste makes no sense; it would only be a duplication of expenditure in effect. While we typically think of only stuff like food stamps (or direct hand out of subsidised/free food in developing nations) when it comes to subsidies, even services like the above are subsidised, often heavily, by the govt and a private sector player may either price it out of reach of the poor or decide against operating it. If you're going to pay a UBI to everyone, including the middle and upper classes who don't need it, then it has to go hand in hand with eliminating government from the upkeep of public amenities.  The central question then is to what extent that is feasible.  

Iris, very sorry to hear about this.....and hope things improve.  I didn't realize it was like that over there as well, I would have assumed Netherlands were very different from that experience.

Thanks Matt, I'll check it out.....and my friend salutes you

interesting article darling..

one point hits close to home.

And the supply of these “non-college jobs” is shifting away from high-paying occupations, such as electrician, toward low-wage service jobs, such as waiter.

and internal forecasts are within the next 20 years half the current workforce will need to be replaced as we will dead or retired.. or both

Those jobs are available now but you just don't take mr. Degree in Art History with a minor in English Lit and put him into a 13.2 kV transformer Our job doesn't require a college education but it is highly sklilled.  Look at my crew over at Commonwealth.  One white, me, one black. and two not even born in this country. A Vietnamese and a Mexican.  The jobs are there for 'native born' folks.. but this country is has and always will have a cult of college education. I'm all for that, but certain jobs. Like mine are recession proof, high paying, and will never be phased out by robots technology (at least in many lifetimes ) but are looked down upon by many Americans.. including my dear ex-wife....as being grunt work.

I read a sobering article a while back too...also from Atlantic I think.

It said basically that the fervency to get every kid into college is a sham.  In the future, yes, there will be a few STEM jobs out there, but not that many.  As we push all our kids to aspire the STEM, the real need is going to be in jobs like Nursing, ElderCare, and I forgot the others...but essentially non glamorous are where almost ALL of the jobs are going to be. 

Instead, we are still telling every child they must have that big name degree.  And tons of debt.  Ridiculous. 

Finnforest wrote: Thanks Matt, I'll check it out.....and my friend salutes you

Now that I am thinking of antiwork stuff I remember seeing this poster the other day:

I like it Matt.  I've been working my ass off non stop since 1979 and I'm tired, ready to throw in the towel.  Not that I can afford to really

Is our power grid really in as bad of shape as they say, Mick?  Falling apart and ripe for hacking?  Or is that a case of the media sensationalism?

My last experience with almost full-time work (teaching Italian to military people) was so devastating that I have developed an aversion to work - and I was brought up by two very hard-working parents, who instilled in me the belief that work is one of the most important (if not the most important) forms of self-realization. I am still recovering from that experience, which nearly destroyed my self-esteem and did a lot of damage to my relationship with my fellow human beings. At my age, it's not really worth it any more.