Topic: Should UBI Replace all Welfare Systems? - page 2. (Read 1349 times)

Proponents of UBI claim it could be implemented through value added taxes, which is done in Europe (consumption taxes placed on a product whenever value is added at each stage of the supply chain, from production to the point of sale.) The amount of VAT that the user pays is on the cost of the product.

If AI and more efficiency takes jobs away on huge scales, paying clients will have less spending power and the economy would stagnate. The abundance that technology will create could be distributed in this way to keep the economy alive and well and people off the streets.

I think the future will be that homelessness etc. will be solved but if you want more you'll have to either be very inventive or be a programmer. I don't think there will be as much motivation to rise above however, as technology is making it so that more money doesn't necessarily equate to a better life.

I don't understand how UBI would exactly work, perhaps if every automated machine which takes the job of a human was given a working salary and a % of that went to the UBI pot.. I could understand it working then.. but if you just have machines replacing humans in the lower level jobs.. you ultimately just have fat cat corporate owners making bigger profits with lower costs.. I think it should be mandated that automated machines | robotics whatever you want to call them has a 'earning salary' which is then distributed amongst the people it puts out of work...

The other issue with all this is when you have the IMF just able to print money.. it makes the whole exercise superfluous.

Andy Kessler an editorial column in the WSJ today, that will presumably be published in Monday's paper.

He argues that UBI created government dependency, and would lead to socialism. One missing piece from his argument is that entitlements inevitably will be expanded over time.

An interesting portion of his piece is:

I mean, if every other single welfare system is removed then we don't have an issue with the whole fiscal responsibility thing. As it's pretty close in price (I don't have the exact numbers, but that's it)

I would have to say that people support UBI instead of min wage increases is because it puts people out of the market, if there are people willing to work for $7.50 an hour -- then so be it they're going to get jobs. But if the government sets an arbitrary number at lets just say $10, then less people are going to be able to be employed by this firm as they're not going to increase salaries (they're going to cut hours, or employees, or both) That's just simple economics.

But yes, there probably are tons of other ways to fix the system -- but this is just what I proposed sometime ago, hehe.

I just don't understand UBI, someone has to pay for it.  Deficits are ballooning out of control I can't imagine handing everyone free money is going to help fiscal responsibility...

There are WAY better ways IMO to help the lower classes (if that was the goal which I am sure it is never the goal of any politician hehe) that actually incentivize working. 

Reducing the tax burden on working people by increasing the non taxable income threshold would be a major start to helping low wage families that actually work.

I am also very unclear why people are in favour of some kind of UBI but resist a higher minimum wage (or reject the concept of min wage at all).

I am not really even suggesting constructing anything new, the idea was that certain jobs shown to have a significant public benefit could be predesignated to be approved for this type of work. The choice where one would work would still be a meritocratic system largely based on choice and convenience of both parties involved. There would still be just as much competition for these jobs, just a different form of payment.

Though this does open up the question of who is going to approve these 'community service centers' Because this could become a political issue where people are saying that certain centers that are aligned with political parties (such as the NRA, Planned Parenthood, etc) This would open up some pretty big issues IMO, unless there's a way to screen against things like this.

The only thing that I was going on when I initially proposed this idea of replacing UBI was to improve productivity because there is no large cliff-like a cutoff point.

This is why UBI as a replacement for welfare is a pipe dream.   Children cannot manage their money on their own and without highly restrictive limits on what the UBI money can be approved to pay for, people would spend their (and their childrens) UBI on things that the UBI was meant for, then what?  What if all of the money was spent and they don't have housing? food?

In design thinking, when you want to design a solution to solve a problem, you need to make sure your solution addresses the cause of the problem directly.  UBI does not solve any problem.  It only gives money with hopes that money can solve the problem.

Example
 If the housing crisis is caused by low housing supply, paying all individuals a median rent, is not going to result in everyone being house.  Its simply going to increase demand.  This problem could be applied to many of sectors UBI hopes to address. 

Example 2
Healthcare spending is unpredictable on the individual level.  Most people would end up with a surplus from whatever you calculated but someone who becomes severely ill will not be able to cover their costs under UBI.  UBI is never going to be a realistic solution to "healthcare costs"

UBI is a lazy solution. If you really want everyone to have the necessities, (housing, food, healthcare, basic education, transportation, internet, basic recreation. ) your solution needs to actually end with people getting those things. 

I'm not opposed to a UBI for non essential things but UBI as a replacement for all welfare programs is just "throwing money at the problem" and would be a disaster for the very people it intends to help.

UBI/welfare both warp price signaling conditions in markets, which can cause very serious issues. They both result in inflation. IMO we should offer some kind of tax credit where you can volunteer at approved facilities, and be "paid" in the form of a tax voucher at a regular wage rate. This voucher would be good for the year and could be applied to negate any existing tax liability during that period.

IMO this would foster a culture of community service, create jobs, help people transition to the work environment, and most importantly be productive while also not skewing the market conditions which we all rely on. This wouldn't solve every problem but IMO it would be more effective than the current welfare system.

I would like to share some of my thoughts on how a society that adopts UBI could be like:

That society will be divided in maybe 3 social classes:
group 1: the masses: UBI provides them with everything that is considered necessary, like housing, food, healthcare, basic education, transportation, internet, basic recreation.
group 2: highly educated, high payed professionals: will have or do whatever distinguishes them from the masses, but need to work hard in order to do so.
group 3: investors: provide the masses whit the products and services that UBI pays for and will live an exceptional lifestyle.

The before outlined classes will be difficult to leave, for obvious reasons. To me UBI means a new form of socialism, which does not expropriate the rich, but instead dictates what is considered as necessary and that will be given for "free" to everybody in the form of an income, which is high enough to pay for all the basics. But if you dare to want something not basic? Well, you could work. But wait, it will not be that easy, because all the things that are considered not basic will become crazy expensive.

But everybody wants free stuff, right? Don't get blinded by "free". There does not exist something for nothing in this world. Somebody will have to pay (taxes or inflation or similar). Just imagine the following: today as you work and earn a decent income (hopefully) you can eat out in a nice restaurant eating good food. But now imagine a society with UBI. Will there be somebody who wants to work as a waitress or chef, if not exceptionally highly paid? And if highly paid, will you be able to afford to eat in that restaurant with only your UBI income?

And then there is the problem with the UNCONDITIONAL in UBI: would people spend their income on providing their children quality education or rather drink, do drugs and gamble? Will people use their free time for constructive or destructive persuits?

Often people think of automation as something that will lead to UBI. I believe the opposite, once UBI gets implemented it will lead to massive automation.
The ancient greeks built simple steam machines but saw them as toys, not tools because they had access to a very cheap labor through the use of slaves.
If a UBI was implemeted people would probably turn away from low payed BS jobs and it would become economically viable to automate these jobs.

Well, if you look closely, you will see that they didn't take and loan. They simply borrowed against. There is a difference. They might have been in trouble if they hadn't repaid the loan... oh, that's right, they didn't repay it. But a promise to repay without a date set, is a perpetual loan that essentially doesn't have to repaid, because the payment remains in the future. Until time ends, there will always be a future.

Btw, it's legal to do it this way.

These difficulties that Social Security is having isn't because of problems in the program, it's because Politicians never wanted to change the program as it should have been in order to adjust for old age. As Social Security (when it was started) was pretty much a gift to people who could live long enough to be able to get what they put into the program. I'm not saying that we should change the program to fit like it was. What we should do is admit that politicans failed the program as a whole.

They took money from the Social Security fund and loaned it to themselves in order to pay into the mass amounts of programs that they needed to pay for.

Check out this link, it'll be a nice read - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund

If UBI is set in place, and if you want to accept it, read the fine print in the agreement, and use your head.

What I mean is, when you paid into Social Security, you did so thinking that you understood what SS was all about. You were wrong, of course, which can be used to nullify any agreement you had with SS. The point is that your property went into SS first, so you deserve it returned to you.

Your property doesn't go into UBI. You simply get UBI freely. This means that you will have to pay later. Even if it isn't written like this in the formal paperwork, it is standard law that is written in basics in The Uniform Commercial Code.

Look at the difficulties that Social Security is having regarding maintaining their ability to pay out. Do you think that you will have it any easier when UBI money is demanded back from you? Rather, you will pay with your life and soul.

I think that at the levels we're thinking at about income limits then it's not going to be something which is the same problem we have now (as the problem we have now set the limit too low, something around 24,000 which makes the gain from not working harder outweighs the benefits)

I don't think we should establish where these people spend their money, this is their own decision on what they're going to be doing with their money.


Ah, Suchmoon -- we agree on so much around here!

CGP Grey is usually a pretty good source, but sometimes these people abuse their audience as a way to throw them fake news. People have been saying that AI is going to take over all of the jobs of the world for years now, but it's never going to happen at least to the degree that people think it will.

This is fear mongering that is happening by so many people to push their own bottom line today.. as a way to freak people out for tomorrow.

The way to make sure that free money from the government isn't a substitute for working is to set the amount of free money to zero.

Or set it to 13,000 a year, but then inflate the currency to the point where a hamburger costs 13,000.

The only way I'd agree with UBI is if part of the money is automatically "saved" somewhere, meaning even if the person receiving the stipend is rather lazy or a spendthrift, he/she would still end up with some savings, which can only be accessed upon reaching a certain age or for medical emergencies.

I'm not so sure about the idea of limiting the UBI by income. That would just bring us back to the same problem we have now with cash transfers to the poor, they reach a certain income level, they lose their allowance, making some people just not try harder.

From the video footage, I couldn't see her till she was in front of the car. Couldn't have done much even if it was a human. The road wasn't lit enough IMO. I doubt the cameras would have picked her up. Even if its the AI's fault. These cases will be considered "Outliers". How many crashes do humans cause per year after "Billions" of years of evolution? while this thing has been out for not even a decade yet. It's kind of unfair to judge these things this early.


Agreed! but I wouldn't call this job "Secured".

GOOGLE AI CREATES ITS OWN ‘CHILD’ AI THAT’S MORE ADVANCED THAN SYSTEMS BUILT BY HUMANS: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-child-ai-bot-nasnet-automl-machine-learning-artificial-intelligence-a8093201.html

I did. It's clickbait. He doesn't address any practical challenges facing AI implementations and how these could be overcome. AIs are still very bad at some very basic tasks, such as pattern recognition. This is far more than Facebook's creepy photo tagging. We as humans have billions of years of evolution behind us, which allows us to hit the brakes when we see an object on or near the road that shouldn't be there. CGP Grey instead proclaims that self-driving cars is a done deal and that was 4 years ago. Can't take it seriously.

Having said that, AI engineer is one of the best jobs to have right now. I know folks who got $200k straight out of college. Good option for anyone worried about job security over the next 50 years.

Exactly! just take my Dota 2 AI bot as an example. It took 6 weeks of gameplay on a high-end PC which is still millions of times slower than the supercomputers we have. Imagine, how good these AIs will get once they are trained on these supercomputers. The possibilities are endless.

@squatz1 @suchmoon You guys should really watch this 15-minute Gem by CGP Grey. "Human need not Apply": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

The video isn't about AIs but how the world is changing and how this time it is different.

If you want to read the transcript of the video you can read it here: http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not-apply