[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by New Era

You present very limited facts behind your position. It's all theoretical and based on Utopian beliefs with no basis in reality. You are making systemic assumptions that no one in their right mind is willing to accept as a possibility.

This is a total mischaracterization of my position, and comes across as a desperate attempt to undermine it.

Fact is, every person has the same minimum basic needs - nurturing food, clean water, safe & suitable shelter, reasonable clothing, social interaction, and health care when the person gets sick and/or too old and requires care. No one chooses to have these needs; they are simply inherent to being human.

My opinion is that anything beyond that list is a luxury.

You treat everyone's condition as if they are the same, facing the same situations, when they are not. You have to take into consideration the situation of all individuals and find solutions that raise all people, but provide the greatest lift to the least fortunate and most in need of help.

Which is what UBI + a strong health care system does. Any money made from a job is for the worker to keep, without worrying about UBI getting clawed back. Furthermore, taxation would not significantly impact those on UBI and low income jobs, as most taxation would fall on things like higher-income tax brackets, property tax, and non-essential consumption.

What you're doing is shifting the money from programs that help and provide mobility to a lot, weakening those systems, and then providing a system that helps very few. It just does not follow any logic in any shape or form.

It does not help "very few". It helps everyone. If we live in a society where people aren't tossed aside like trash as soon as they don't do as society demands of them, we'd see a lot less crime happening everywhere. A lot of crime (I'd argue most crime) is done by people acting out of desperation. And before you say this is "baseless" and "Utopian fantasy", I can assure you that it's absolutely not. Just give it a bit of thought and you'll understand it. When faced with the choice, "I can receive 20k/year no questions asked, or I can get involved with criminal activities and risk messing up my life". Who in their right mind would choose option B?

User fees do not work. You are applying a tax on people who have chronic conditions and require healthcare services more often. You are penalizing people for conditions that are beyond their control. If those individuals are from a situation where they rely on welfare or government assistance, and you remove that assistance and replace it with a substandard form of income, those people are the ones who are hurt the most. This is a failure of the system.

Not an issue as long as the fees are kept low.

The Canadian health care system in its current form creates moral hazard. If there's no deterrent to going to the doctor every day for every minor little ache or pain, what reason is there not to go? I also think there's not much incentive for people to live active healthy lifestyles and eat properly.

A "living wage" implies a generously comfortable lifestyle? Do you have a clue what you're talking about? The "living wage" is defined as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs (food, housing, and other essential needs such as clothing and hygiene needs). That is not generous, that is basic.

$48k/year in the poorest state covers "basic needs" and nothing else...? I strongly disagree. See what I said at the beginning of this post.

So this money is just going to magically get sent out? The program is going to self administer? There will be no governance over the program and no needs for people to interface with the department responsible for UBI? Again, do you have a clue what you are talking about? Do you have any idea how government or governmental programs operate?

Strawman. Of course there has to be some administration. But you're the one acting like the cost of means testing (and all the public sector workers required to carry it out) is minuscule compared to the cost of automatically sending direct deposits to bank accounts on a monthly basis...

It's not an ad hominem, its an attempt to understand where you're knowledge base is coming from and what experience you have to make such claims. For example, if you're still living with mom and dad, and haven't had the responsibility of many of the things we're talking about, then it clearly brings into question if you have the experience or knowledge to speak these larger issues. I mean, you're suggesting that $20,000 is enough for someone to live comfortably on, which is below the poverty line pretty much everywhere. So it is very important to have context and understand what your experiences are to be able to make these judgments.
So you know I'm not trying to get you to walk into a bear trap, my experience is I have 28 years in private enterprise, 17 years in government, and almost a decade in the C suite.

It absolutely is an ad hominem, and a backhanded attempt at stereotyping me as some young naive kid. I cringe every time someone tries to play the "I've been around longer than you, so I'm more qualified to speak on these matters" card. While it may seem logical on its surface, it ignores potential biases that may have developed in the person as the years have gone on. Bottom line, more experience doesn't always translate into better judgement.

Another strawman! I didn't say $20k/year is enough to live comfortably. I said $48k/year is enough to live comfortably. I said $20k gives you basic necessities, and the power to walk away from any ###### employer who wants to treat you like garbage, without having to worry about the prospect of perishing on the street.

I've been very fortunate to have seen the insides of both interests that would have to cooperate to make UBI a reality, hence my commentary on the dramatic systematic changes that would have to take place and the incredible level of skepticism that these interests would come together to make the system work. I just don't see this happening in any shape or form.
You're not acknowledging that the market can be easily manipulated, and is manipulated to a high degree. The fossil fuel industry is the best example, how one interest or a collusion of interests can create a monopoly and artificially inflate or deflate the price of product depending on how they control availability of their product. The stock markets are another perfect example. You're refusing to accept that this is the way the system is and the corporations are not going to change or suddenly grow a conscience, doing the right thing for society. They don't care. The only responsibility corporations have is to generate profit and value for their shareholders. For this to change, the whole system has to crash and burn.

But at the end of the day, the government is the government, and can seize assets if corporations decide to make nuclear decisions. It's not ideal to do such a thing, but we absolutely cannot allow major corporations to hold us hostage like that.

You also fail to acknowledge that government institutions are not likely to change as they have very specific rules they have to follow. They have these annoying things called constitutions and laws they are compelled to follow, and they have a great level of oversight in the services they provide. Politicians cycle through the system, but the system remains pretty stagnant because of the way the institutions are setup to function. That is part and parcel of the operation of government. Because these are public interests there is a great degree of oversight to generate the transparency the public demands in using their tax dollars and sensitive information. Unless the system is burned to the ground and new institutions are defined in new and different ways, the forced transparency is always going to create that bloat you reference. This is the cost of being public interest and being accountable to tax payers. You need to understand this and recognize this as component of government.

This goes back to what I said earlier about your attitude of inevitability and defeatism. These systems absolutely can be gutted to save money. Transparency is actually increased when government is simplified, and every dollar can be (relatively) easily traced. With UBI, the bulk of government spending is going right back to the people in direct payments, and only a fraction of spending goes to priorities such as health care, education, law enforcement.

No, its not vague. It is very specific and has been used in arguments against programs where government funds were allocated without proper process.

It's extremely vague. Who is to say when taxation is "without representation" and when it isn't? Or when there is "proper process" and when there isn't? It's almost entirely subjective.

Because it would make their lives worse. You have stated you would eliminate the vast majority of the social safety net to pay for this UBI. I have been trying to show you that these programs are crucial to people's lives and maintaining a minimal standard of living, if you want to call it living. Giving someone 41% of what they need to survive on, and then eliminating the very means that could lead to some form of economic mobility is not only near sighted but cruel. This is literally pulling the rug out from the most vulnerable in our society to attempt a social experiment. Putting a face on the poverty you have no experience with is a way to show you how dire the situation is, and how UBI would make their lives worse.

You showed me pictures of people living in extremely dilapidated buildings, then telling me that this is what $48k/year gets you. I'm not really sure what to say in response to that, other than it flies in the face of every single thing I've seen in my life to this point.

So your solution is to eliminate all the support mechanism they have and then give them a nominal amount of money that does not meet their basic needs. Swell of you.
You are missing the point. The vast majority of people living in poverty do not have access to good paying jobs, so they aren't seeing anything clawed back. These are people who are living in areas (ghettos or rural areas) where jobs are scarce and there are no services to speak of outside of those provided by the government. Again, I don't think you understand poverty or the challenges these people face. I have a feeling you are insulated from this part of society and can't appreciate the systemic failings that have come to them.

Help me understand then. Can they not move to a place that has more jobs and better opportunities? Wouldn't a UBI help them do that? Let's say 2 of these people live together in one apartment, that's $40k/year UBI between the two of them, in addition to what they earn from their jobs. How is that unreasonable? Help me understand what I'm missing here because clearly I'm missing something...?

UBI does not solve poverty. Giving money to people does not solve poverty. Education and accessibility to the institutions that can provide the capital to make change in communities is what will solve poverty. To solve the problem of poverty you have to solve the problem in the communities where poverty is problematic. You need to elevate the community as a whole, and the only way you do that is through change agents. You need to elevate the people within that community by increasing their ability to provide for themselves. That comes through education. That comes through loans to the individuals who can then work within the system. UBI does not address the systemic changes that have to happen within communities so the economic and social well being of all can be elevated. That only comes with the communities having the support to make change.

We have different views on what poverty is and whether upward mobility actually solves the problem. See my previous post.

"Upward mobility is the answer to everything" is pretty close to what Ayn Rand believed. Just sayin.

Sorry, but what??? I'm not even sure where you are going with this. You lost me here.

You brought up systemic racism, so I pointed out that one of the sentiments fuelling racism in today's society is the idea that non-white people are "stealing jobs" from white people. Maybe this sentiment would disappear if we, as a society, weren't so preoccupied with the idea that every person needs to have a job.