American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[Matata]

I think there is certain degree of inevitability to UBI, given the potential advancements in automation. It's going to come with a massive cultural and financial shift that will take decades to sort out. Not even Finland, with it's small, culturally-homogeneous population that was accustomed to robust social programs was able to find success with their UBI program.

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by MRCboicgy

Also, this was missed in this thread over the weekend a lot to take in from Texas. In addition to officially saying Biden was not elected, they went full theocracy

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06...ention-cornyn/

There is a lot about this platform that is terrifying. The only thing I can hope is that their extreme positioning tears them apart from the inside. What does a group like the Log Cabin Republicans feel about the way the party talks about their "lifestyle choice"?

It feels very much like a preview of what this country will look like the next time the GOP is in power, which is incredibly scary.

[activeStick]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

There is a lot about this platform that is terrifying. The only thing I can hope is that their extreme positioning tears them apart from the inside. What does a group like the Log Cabin Republicans feel about the way the party talks about their "lifestyle choice"?

It feels very much like a preview of what this country will look like the next time the GOP is in power, which is incredibly scary.

So, 2024, unless the Dems can some how turn their sh*t around 180 in essentially a year's time.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Isn't wanting to keep people down and paid below their costs to eke out a meager existence evil just on its face?

I don't understand why conservative people are trying to overcomplicate things. Minimum wage in the USA is too low for people to survive. Basic costs of living exceed what you can make earning minimum wage. Okay, it has to be increased. It's just so fataing simple. To argue it should stay as it is means you are a horrible, indecent human being.

I remember when there was chatter of increasing minimum wage in Alberta to $15 and everybody I know who I considered to be an a-hole thought it shouldn't be increased. Well, it increased and everything was fine, except some people got to live a little better. Oh, the horror.

It goes against all conservative views on low taxes, less government involvement and trickle down economics. You know, all that hubaloo. Pull yourself up by the boot straps when you don't have boot straps.

[PostandIn]

Given the number of things (well documented and investigated) that Trump has skated away from in his life, I have a very jaundiced view of the outcome of the J6 committee. That said, the information that's gushing out today from mostly Republican officials in the battleground States is likely going to force Garland's hand to indict Fat Donny, Rudy and half a dozen others. We all know that Democratic D's o J are notorious for inaction in the face of crime at the highest levels (looking at you Holder) but these revelations are impossible to explain away. It was a conspiracy to steal an election. Pure and simple.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by Matata

I think there is certain degree of inevitability to UBI, given the potential advancements in automation. It's going to come with a massive cultural and financial shift that will take decades to sort out. Not even Finland, with it's small, culturally-homogeneous population that was accustomed to robust social programs was able to find success with their UBI program.

Do you have a link for this? Everything I've read about the 2 year UBI trial in Finland is that it was a success. Employment increased slightly and well-being increased significantly.

[MRCboicgy]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

There is a lot about this platform that is terrifying. The only thing I can hope is that their extreme positioning tears them apart from the inside. What does a group like the Log Cabin Republicans feel about the way the party talks about their "lifestyle choice"?

It feels very much like a preview of what this country will look like the next time the GOP is in power, which is incredibly scary.

They actually banned the Log Cabins from the conference this past weekend - but it hasn't stopped them from pushing their weird supportive agenda.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Isn't wanting to keep people down and paid below their costs to eke out a meager existence evil just on its face?

I don't understand why conservative people are trying to overcomplicate things. Minimum wage in the USA is too low for people to survive. Basic costs of living exceed what you can make earning minimum wage. Okay, it has to be increased. It's just so fataing simple. To argue it should stay as it is means you are a horrible, indecent human being.

I remember when there was chatter of increasing minimum wage in Alberta to $15 and everybody I know who I considered to be an a-hole thought it shouldn't be increased. Well, it increased and everything was fine, except some people got to live a little better. Oh, the horror.

I'm not against raising minimum wage if it is really the best we can do. I am just saying that I don't think it really solves what are bigger systemic problems. The real questions we should be asking is why cost of living is so high and what we can do to keep it down. House prices, rent, energy cost, and food should not be as high as they are and minimum wage increases do not address those problems. In fact, the system pretty much ensures that when poor people get more money, the people that control necessities will just figure out how to take it. In the U.S., a 50% increase over a short period of time will probably also lead to more outsourcing and automation where possible.

Raising minimum wage has become low-hanging fruit for the left politicians to buy votes, similar to how tax cuts are for politicians on the right. Both do not address the major issues and negatively impact some people who are also struggling. It's a slight of hand trick that the government plays to pass on the burden to others while not actually doing anything to solve the problems.

I totally accept that there is just no will to fix the bigger issues though so if a band-aid is all you have, I guess you have to do it to buy time (or if you are a politician, pass the buck down the road). If I had it my way, I would target thing that are actually making cost of living higher than it should be like ban all foreign ownership of real estate and heavily tax anyone who owns secondary properties, and build public housing like crazy. I would nationalize all resource and energy industries to a degree. They make billion from the commons and pay back very little of it. We should try to be more like Norway. They have no minimum wage, but a very high level of nationalized industry and it works for them. And while foreigners can buy property there, there is a residency requirement so you can't just buy properties as investments to rent out. If wanting to be more like Norway makes me a conservative, then I guess I am.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

There’s only a finite number of jobs and people need money to live, a business owner isn’t required to pay more than the bare minimum. If the reality were that every employer that pays minimum wage couldn’t possibly afford to pay more you might have a point, but we all know that’s simply not the case. The system in the states is currently designed to allow employers to exploit workers with impunity.

There's a distinction to be made between a business that is profitable and could afford to pay employees more but chooses not to and a business where the model requires paying people little because there isn't sufficient revenue to cover higher costs. The latter doesn't seem like a business owner who is exploiting people so much as a business owner who is struggling to generate enough revenue to cover costs and be prosperous by selling their products/services. That’s not so different from employees who are struggling to find work that pays well. Employees are also participants in a market, selling their labor and time to generate revenue to cover their costs and hopefully prosper. Telling small business owners with struggling businesses that they just suck, don't deserve to be in business and should close up because they're having a hard time finding sufficient customers to generate revenue and cover their costs is pretty akin to telling an employee that they suck, don't deserve a decent job and should be out of the labor market because they can't find an employer willing to buy their labor and time at a high enough price to cover their costs.

I'm not even conservative, but I just don't get the sentiment of having no sympathy for business owners regardless of their circumstances. I agree that exploitative practices intended to leverage or expand power imbalances and profit off the suffering of others should be opposed, I just don't believe that's the nature of all businesses paying low wages. Sentiments that they just suck and should shut down their businesses seem like sentiments presented as humane while actually heartless.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I'm not against raising minimum wage if it is really the best we can do. I am just saying that I don't think it really solves what are bigger systemic problems. The real questions we should be asking is why cost of living is so high and what we can do to keep it down. House prices, rent, energy cost, and food should not be as high as they are and minimum wage increases do not address those problems. In fact, the system pretty much ensures that when poor people get more money, the people that control necessities will just figure out how to take it. In the U.S., a 50% increase over a short period of time will probably also lead to more outsourcing and automation where possible.

Raising minimum wage has become low-hanging fruit for the left politicians to buy votes, similar to how tax cuts are for politicians on the right. Both do not address the major issues and negatively impact some people who are also struggling. It's a slight of hand trick that the government plays to pass on the burden to others while not actually doing anything to solve the problems.

I totally accept that there is just no will to fix the bigger issues though so if a band-aid is all you have, I guess you have to do it to buy time (or if you are a politician, pass the buck down the road). If I had it my way, I would target thing that are actually making cost of living higher than it should be like ban all foreign ownership of real estate and heavily tax anyone who owns secondary properties, and build public housing like crazy. I would nationalize all resource and energy industries to a degree. They make billion from the commons and pay back very little of it. We should try to be more like Norway. They have no minimum wage, but a very high level of nationalized industry and it works for them. And while foreigners can buy property there, there is a residency requirement so you can't just buy properties as investments to rent out. If wanting to be more like Norway makes me a conservative, then I guess I am.

I disagree with this. The prices are what they are becuase that's what most of them cost. We've been living for decades off of artificially cheap stuff, and now the rest of the world is competing, and maybe they want stuff too. Globally wages are rising, raw materials are harder to get, and an ever-increasing population is compounding every issue. These structural shortages of everything are only going to get worse, so we need to find away to live with less, not chase an unattainable false reality that we aren't gong to return to. We don't need to ask "why", it's all pretty straight forward. Too many heads in the sand to accept it, though.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I disagree with this. The prices are what they are becuase that's what most of them cost. We've been living for decades off of artificially cheap stuff, and now the rest of the world is competing, and maybe they want stuff too. Globally wages are rising, raw materials are harder to get, and an ever-increasing population is compounding every issue. These structural shortages of everything are only going to get worse, so we need to find away to live with less, not chase an unattainable false reality that we aren't gong to return to. We don't need to ask "why", it's all pretty straight forward. Too many heads in the sand to accept it, though.

Raw price figures for either cost of living or wages aren't what matter, just the ratios of one to the other are important. Reducing costs, changing lifestyles to live with less, increasing wages etc. are all just ways of trying to deal with that ratio and how it's experienced by different groups. I interpret FlamesAddiction's point about systemic issues as more about finding a way to correct the ratio rather than to just change the figures on one end, because as long as the underlying systemic issues that result in the ratio are unchanged, changing the figures on one side will just result in changes to the figures on the other side while the ratio remains the same

[Matata]

Originally Posted by belsarius

Do you have a link for this? Everything I've read about the 2 year UBI trial in Finland is that it was a success. Employment increased slightly and well-being increased significantly.

It was a mixed bag of results, the increasement of well-being wasn't one of the metrics used by the Finnish gov't to evaluate the program, they were looking at it primarily from financial and employment perspective and deemed it unsuccessful. It's been discontinued for a few years and there's no sign of it coming back.

The results of the Finnish UBI experiment weren't able to say anything conclusively about UBI and created more questions then were answered, but it's an interesting case study in a field that's starved for good data. I think this article provides a pretty even-handed analysis of the whole thing:

https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/news/nor...rising-results


"On May 6 2020, nearly 1,5 years after the end of experiment, the final results were released. The verdict was that there was very little difference in employment or earned income between the groups. Over the first year of the experiment, there was no difference between the groups. The second year, the basic income group worked six days more, but the difference cannot be attributed to basic income alone. A new sanction regime (activation model) was implemented in 2019, which invalidated the research setting."


This would be based on an investment of 560 Euro/month * 12 months * 2 years * 2000 participants = 26.1M Euros.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

Raw price figures for either cost of living or wages aren't what matter, just the ratios of one to the other are important. Reducing costs, changing lifestyles to live with less, increasing wages etc. are all just ways of trying to deal with that ratio and how it's experienced by different groups. I interpret FlamesAddiction's point about systemic issues as more about finding a way to correct the ratio rather than to just change the figures on one end, because as long as the underlying systemic issues that result in the ratio are unchanged, changing the figures on one side will just result in changes to the figures on the other side while the ratio remains the same

I'm saying we need to accept that the ratio has changed, not in "our" favour, and it will continue in that direction so we better get used to it. Not to say their aren't massive imbalances with the obscenely rich, but that doesn't make more resources magically appear on earth.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I'm saying we need to accept that the ratio has changed, not in "our" favour, and it will continue in that direction so we better get used to it. Not to say their aren't massive imbalances with the obscenely rich, but that doesn't make more resources magically appear on earth.

Why do we need to accept it when mechanisms exist to change it?

The amount of resources isn’t the problem, the allocation is.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I disagree with this. The prices are what they are becuase that's what most of them cost. We've been living for decades off of artificially cheap stuff, and now the rest of the world is competing, and maybe they want stuff too. Globally wages are rising, raw materials are harder to get, and an ever-increasing population is compounding every issue. These structural shortages of everything are only going to get worse, so we need to find away to live with less, not chase an unattainable false reality that we aren't gong to return to. We don't need to ask "why", it's all pretty straight forward. Too many heads in the sand to accept it, though.

When it comes to luxuries, I agree. We don't pay nearly what they are worth (A TV, smart phone, or computer should cost way more than they actually do). But things like rent and housing are caused from manufactured scarcity due to domestic policies. Shelter is probably the number one basic need and takes up a disproportionate amount of someone's financial ability compared to previous generations. A lot of countries don't let foreigners buy property for this reason, but for some reason in Canada, we let it go.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Coach

Why do we need to accept it when mechanisms exist to change it?

The amount of resources isn’t the problem, the allocation is.

Not sure what you mean about allocation...western countries take a massive disproportion of them, so if we "fix" the allocation, expect less. The amount of them overall is absolutely a problem. Have you looked at what it would take to do this whole "green switch" thing? The Earth can't support it. Raising the standard of living globally is also unsupportable at western standards.

What mechanism fixes the resource scarcity issue?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I'm not against raising minimum wage if it is really the best we can do. I am just saying that I don't think it really solves what are bigger systemic problems. The real questions we should be asking is why cost of living is so high and what we can do to keep it down. House prices, rent, energy cost, and food should not be as high as they are and minimum wage increases do not address those problems. In fact, the system pretty much ensures that when poor people get more money, the people that control necessities will just figure out how to take it. In the U.S., a 50% increase over a short period of time will probably also lead to more outsourcing and automation where possible.

Raising minimum wage has become low-hanging fruit for the left politicians to buy votes, similar to how tax cuts are for politicians on the right. Both do not address the major issues and negatively impact some people who are also struggling. It's a slight of hand trick that the government plays to pass on the burden to others while not actually doing anything to solve the problems.

I totally accept that there is just no will to fix the bigger issues though so if a band-aid is all you have, I guess you have to do it to buy time (or if you are a politician, pass the buck down the road). If I had it my way, I would target thing that are actually making cost of living higher than it should be like ban all foreign ownership of real estate and heavily tax anyone who owns secondary properties, and build public housing like crazy. I would nationalize all resource and energy industries to a degree. They make billion from the commons and pay back very little of it. We should try to be more like Norway. They have no minimum wage, but a very high level of nationalized industry and it works for them. And while foreigners can buy property there, there is a residency requirement so you can't just buy properties as investments to rent out. If wanting to be more like Norway makes me a conservative, then I guess I am.

I agree with you on basically everything, except you're over-complicating what a minimum wage means and the ease with which it can offer those most in need relief with the stroke of a pen.

How many people work minimum wage jobs versus how many people own second homes? Like, should people be taxed higher on a second property? Absolutely. 50% more? 100% more? I'm fine either way as it's basically an obscene luxury to own two homes and I say that as a guy who owns two homes. But does that address the problems a guy making minimum wage of $11.95 in Manitoba faces?

So, no, it's not the best we can do, but it's an immediate and material benefit to the people who need it. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I'd love to see some sort of cap on how rich people can get, too. There should not be any billionaires, for one thing.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

If one can accept that some minimum is required, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out that the US $7.25 minimum which hasn't changed since 2009 is grossly out-of-date and no where close to a living wage. If you think $12.50 is the number (and have some data to back it up) fine, fill your boots. Just know that with inflation and the wealth disparity we have now, that number will surely climb and it shouldn't be another 13 years before it is boosted again.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

If one can accept that some minimum is required, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out that the US $7.25 minimum which hasn't changed since 2009 is grossly out-of-date and no where close to a living wage. If you think $12.50 is the number (and have some data to back it up) fine, fill your boots. Just know that with inflation and the wealth disparity we have now, that number will surely climb and it shouldn't be another 13 years before it is boosted again.

So utterly obvious, eh? Shocking there is enough pushback in the States that it hasn't moved.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Fair point, Sliver. Too bad there isn't a Second Amendment equivalent for a living wage. What a world that would be. (Probably would be interpreted as a communist plot and expunged from the constitution without issue).