Topic: Basic income guarantee - opinions&criticism welcome - page 9. (Read 14389 times)

TL;DR - Nice strawman. To bad its not accurate when viewed within the context of REALITY.

There is exponentially more suitable land available for sale than buyers for land, otherwise there would be waiting lists for land. At any time I can go buy any amount of land I wish. Right now I can buy a rural AZ building lot for $2650, a $800k city townhouse, or a ranch for $18 million ... so long as I have WORKED and EARNED what is required to obtain it.

Quite obviously, many choose the stack-em and pack-em housing of our population centers. Great. For them. Let them stand on their own.

...but you dont want to work to earn anything, do you?

You want to deflect blame from yourself onto those of us who planned, prepared, and didnt waste our money of lifes frivolities, dont you?

Why else would there be the vitreole of accusing me of being from a "privilaged position"?

Privilaged position .... unreal.

Let me ask you a question ... do you have cell phones, vehicles, hdtvs, cable, internet, hobbies, a woman/man, eat out alot, games, consoles, computers, devices, or anything else you dont need to survive?

I had few of those before I WORKED and EARNED my property.

I didnt eat out. I made meals at home and made my work lunches.

I drank mostly water instead of costy premade beverages, except for special occasions and meals.

I worked multiple jobs and slept in between them.

I rolled my own cigarettes instead of buying them.

I reloaded my firearms casings and shells instead of buying new.

I preserved food.

I grew a small box garden in the back yard of the house I rented a room out of, then on the roof of the apartment building I rented before buying the property. Saved money and was fun.

I didnt waste money by laying in bars or clubs.

I didnt abuse drugs or alchohol.

I didnt "cruise around" wasting valuable production/sleep/eating time and gasoline costs.

I didnt go on vacation, except deer hunting, which decreases my external food dependencies and food costs, as well as being fun.

If you want land, go get it. EARN it and its yours.... earn your privilege.

Lol, your benefiting from it by using the internet and using a computer.
And cars and tractors etc.
All that would not have existed if it worked like you say.
So please shut off your computer and cancel your internet and your mobile because you can't have those things if everyone lived like you imagine they should.

Good land is pretty scarse.
It would barely be enough to give everyone a place to grow their own food, so no space for any other development.
According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land) there is about 48,836,976 km² of land where you can grow food on.
That means that there is 48836976 km² / 7000000000 people which comes down to 0.007 km² per person.
That is a patch of about 83 by 83 meters per person.
That's barely enough to support that and it's getting less.
So if you know a way for everyone to live off of 83 by 83 meters then please enlight us.
And i bet your own yard is bigger than this.

Also, if everyone would have to live off the land then there would be noone to create the technology you use right now.
Or did you think that newton or einstein farmed their own food?
Or that the guys at intel go out sowing their crops in the afternoon?

So it seems you are a bit misguided as to the real situation in the world and just blabber away from your priviledged position...

Thanks for the increased support of and for my position.

Show me your sources for these claims that there is not enough land for every community to have land to farm and raise livestock (with a communal orchard).

You are speaking about personal choice and personal responsibility. Go take a look at available land. Its plentiful.

A Man grows up and sets out to scratch and dig an existence out of this earth. Those who do this survive and thrive. Those who expect others to do it barely survives, certainly doesnt thrive, and usually dies... and rightfully so.

I have no problem with anyone wanting to live in a city, but dont expect us hard working, critical thinking, rugged individualists who dont even live near it nor benefit from it to pay for it.

Really?

Then why am I paying for them under penalty of death and land confiscation should I resist?


Remember where those basics are coming from?

The only people allowing the man to produce for 1000 are the 1000 who chose to buy from him. Sounds like an agreement to me.

You can sell quality all day long if there are buyers.

But don't you know that there is not enough room for everyone to have a personal (even communal) orchard?
Or that there is not enough game in the woods to feed humanity for one week?
Or that people started settling in cities where there are no orchards thousands of years ago?
Or that there would be no computers or internet if everyone lived only off their land?
And the part that produces all these nice technology for you is driven by cities with workers.
And the socio economic environment in cities is completely different from 'living off the land' and people can realy be dependant on someone providing work or even welfare.

You probably won't need to torture the recipients.

So it'll be like, "Please leave your house and other assets behind or we'll fight you to the death." or more like "Sorry you missed your chance to leave, locking/killing you to proceed immediately."

http://joinutopia.org/ - very early stage  


Well, for spaceships, there'll be but enough rare moon metals and rare asteroid metals then. Plus, recycling technologies will be optimized. We'd probably not need our cars anymore.


Valid concern that we unfortunately cannot test empirically. What we do know is that technological progress in a sufficiently functioning economy obviously does increase over-all wealth and thus mass purchasing power. The basic income might achieve a similar effect if it actually can raise the standard of living, as some hope it will, liberating resources to work on more interesting projects (like crypto-currencies), and opening new possibilities and markets by that.

Try breaking into a house in a wheelchair. 

I live in an area with very poor populations in terms of money, but rich in terms of heritage, culture, resources, and morality and work ethic.

If you need fruit, you harvest from the orchard. If you need veggies, you harvest from the garden. If you need meat, you harvest through hunting or livestock slaughtering. If you need anything else, you process your harvests into usable materials for trade and barter or monetary sales.

In other words, you produce or you die.

By being employed by someone else, you are relying on that someone else for your survival. It comes down to personal responsibility. Youmade the choice. Live (or die) with it.

It is my belief that anyone making the claim they cant survive hasnt done whats required TO survive in the first place, and they should die, unless someone else VOLUNTARILY helps them. We are no different than an insect, mammal, or fish in this regard. We just THINK we are.

It is my belief that people are being intellectually dishonest about this, especially when they claim poverty through no fault of their own while trying to pick the pockets of the rest of us, all after previously spending money on cell phones, cosmetics, hdtvs, games, consoles, computer, fast food, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, fancy clothes, gambling, and/or thousands of other useless items or services that do nothing to help them survive. They do not deserve ANY of my time, blood, sweat, and tears when they have done absolutely nothing to help themselves first.

Very true! Less educated (not stupid) people tend to have much more children! If you give people the opportunity to learn and develop, then you see populations decrease. People in low-income jobs and crime-ridden areas do not tend to get this opportunity nowadays.

Sounds a bit simplistic to me. You'll have people who want to earn for the sake of earning - the upper capitalist class, you'll have people who earn to get some luxury in their life, which is more or less the middle, and of course you'll have people slacking off. But at least they won't be selling drugs, prostituting themselves and stealing care stereos to get by, since they will have the survival basics covered. Of course, crime will still be an issue, just not out of need, but out of greed. That won't change, ever


If you hold a statement to be unarguable, then I won't argue with you. However, be careful - thinking in dogmatic terms and not questioning ideas leads down a very dark road.


What would happen if there is no work for you at the moment, and you get laid off because of market fluctuations closing down your place of work? Would you still think you deserve to starve? I can twist the argument in another way. Say that for some reason I can't get a job at the moment and my landlord is knocking on the door. If there is no social net to help me, I would break the law to make money. I would just be doing it to survive.
Doesn't make me a very productive member of society, does it? And anyway, we have to be pragmatic - many people, even in developed countries, are kept from realizing their potential because they have to stick to low-paying jobs to support their families. If they had the freedom to pursue higher education or their true interests, then we might end up with a valuable piece of art, or a new book, or the code for a great alternative online currency.


For the lazy nation argument, I'm not sure that that holds. People will still have the incentive to earn, since perceived value is not absolute, but relative. Low-income jobs will continue to decline in the future no matter what we do. And as for keeping companies here, with BIG you could actually afford to pay less, since people would have basics covered.

Your comment on the prices is regrettably true and the biggest problem I can see with BIG.

you become a burglar and rob people until someone puts you out of your misery with his hunting rifle. ancap takes care of its own 

So what happens when you are unable to do work that pays enough to survive?

is a bad idea because of 2 main very bad consequences

1. human population, like other species, is multiplying as much as possible depending on resources. Give a basic income for each person and you will see overpopulation until consumption reach the level of production helped by technology. After that upgrade technology or produce even more if possible. If the resources are enough for greater number of people and you have no problem there, pollution is a fact and is related to that increased number, affecting all citizens.

2. stupid people will make more children easier. idiocracy in making.

There is only one basic income guarantee.... work.

Get off your ass and trade your time, blood, sweat, and tears for food, shelter, and clothing.

Otherwise you die, and rightfully so, unless you lived a life of charity and good will that allows you to be helped voluntarily by others of like minds.

No one has a right to life without doing whats necessary for survival.

I can think of many examples... take someone that relies on the state stealing my labor transfer under penalty of death should we resist this theft, in order to survive.

Society tells us that MY money is not as important as THEIR life, and they agree... right up to and until the time where someone elses life is more important that their ability to survive and thrive.

+1

What you describe is basically welfare. And it's a demonstrably horrible idea. No debate necessary.

I personally think a basic income is the wrong way to go.

I see only 2 Ends to this:

1. Prices adapt to the higher income to a level where the basic income is just enough not to starve.

2. The lazy nation argument.

This is IMO the wrong direction to handle the problem.

Making Germany more attractive for low income jobs would be way to handle unemployment problems in the long term.

For example:

The company I work for is currently shutting down its complete production in Germany an reallocating it to Hungary, Romania, Mexico and China (don't worry I work in development so I'm not affected, ...yet).

Our assembly workers earn 1.400 to 2.200 € a month, you see this is only slight more than the proposed basic income. If the state would have used the money it now pays all this workers for their current unemployment instead to make production in Germany more attractive, these people would still have a job and therefore paying taxes. A way I could think of would to pay companies a bonus or a tax reduction for newly created jobs (a way to prove this is really a new job that wasn't there before must still be thought of).

Kind Regards