The Screwed Generation

[cardgame]

250,000,000,000

250 billion for $1k per adult

10k per adult and we're at 2.5 trillion - per year. My rent and util is $5k, this sounds great to me.

In fiscal year 2016 about $2.7 trillion – more than two-thirds of the total – went for various kinds of social insurance (Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, unemployment compensation, veterans benefits and the like).

So, this is actually doable. Like, completely, absolutely doable. However, we would need to have some kind of universal health care in place first, and probably more gradually fade out SS benefits (i.e. pay them the difference between 10k ubi and what they get now). Without healthcare, 10k UBI is worthless, because healthcare costs hundreds of thousands. So, with healthcare and keeping some social security alive, spending would definitely increase, but it would be worthwhile. If conservatives would just look at the facts and how demonstrably better UHC is, and how immoral for-profit health insurance is, they would totally find common ground on eliminating welfare and other government.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Great post!

 

[Hygro]

It seems like you have hit the nail on the head. Just printing money without increasing real output doesn’t make people better off, it just causes inflation barring other contractionary monetary influences.

in cardgames example, not general inflation but inflation of rents.

Which we would assume would also inflate asset prices.

But no guarantee of general inflation.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

And that's assuming that no regulations aren't passed with UBI which is a dubious notion.

 

[Hygro]

It's dubious to think that landlords are the only ones who can command economic rents on UBI-recipients, or even that rentiers as a whole will be able to capture directly all the money by way of price increases. Cardgame's point is nevertheless very interesting.

Personally I think UBI shouldn't even be limited to adults.

 

[cardgame]

It's dubious to think that landlords are the only ones who can command economic rents on UBI-recipients, or even that rentiers as a whole will be able to capture directly all the money by way of price increases. Cardgame's point is nevertheless very interesting.

Personally I think UBI shouldn't even be limited to adults.

That's not a bad idea in population-shrinking countries, but people will have children just for the money. Maybe if you cap UBI at 2 or 3 kids or something. And the amount would have to decrease or there'd definitely be generalized inflation, a family with 6 kids in rural nowhere couldn't spend that much money.

 

[innonimatu]

It seems like you have hit the nail on the head. Just printing money without increasing real output doesn’t make people better off, it just causes inflation barring other contractionary monetary influences.

Money could be taxed from the most wealthy, as it was in the past. That way it'd work as a transfer. But the original objection was right: landlords (and others such) would just collect more money from rents in order to attempt to "make up" for the taxes.

UBI is an horrendous idea that cannot be implemented, and that is the reason why some smart billionaires and publicly backing it. Good PR and no read disadvantage for them It's like Bill Gates pretending to be a philanthropist even while accumulating more billions. Or Jeff Bezos pretending to give to charity while squeezing his own employees and destroying their health.

For a wealth transfer to actually happen the conditions that allow rent accumulation must be eliminated. UBI is a distraction. Eliminate private monopolies. Progressive taxation. National sovereignty and no tax evasion to "heavens". Simple recipes that have been used in the past and are known to work. Or more radical ones involving some form of extended public ownership of rent-producing sectors of society.
and I say society, not the economy, because they mean the same thing, yet people are talked to about "the economy" as if it were a technocratic thing, mechanical and deterministic, instead of a living thing of which they are part and shapers of. It is a battle that to be won in practical terms must first be won in the minds of people, by reviewing what had been sold as fact over the past couple of decades. The fact is that there are political, social choices to be made. And economics is a tool for those. The people who control the speech control the ideas and the the tool.

 

[Traitorfish]

And yes I'm one of the few advocating eliminating welfare entirely. It's made people lazy.

I mean, if you can convince corporations to create full employment, and to do so on a living wage, then you must know some trick that Bernie didn't.

 

[innonimatu]

I mean, if you can convince corporations to create full employment, and to do so on a living wage, then you must know some trick that Bernie didn't.

The trick is easy to know, really. The corporations are not a sentient entity. There are people running them, people setting their goals.. Doing the trick, that is the tricky bit: how do you change the way the corporations are run? Sanders did had some ideas.

But I get what you mean. Ran as they are now they'll keep squeezing wages and increasing profits... and "management compensation" for those profits.

 

[Hygro]

That's not a bad idea in population-shrinking countries, but people will have children just for the money. Maybe if you cap UBI at 2 or 3 kids or something. And the amount would have to decrease or there'd definitely be generalized inflation, a family with 6 kids in rural nowhere couldn't spend that much money.

I'm pretty ok with it.

We could also have deferred payouts to kids or even something fun and weird like like UBI=$1(days alive)

 

[hobbsyoyo]

$10k per year would solve the student loan crisis going forward. Hell it would end it retroactively and very quickly to boot.

People would lengthen the time they are in college to spread out the cost and avoid loans. And they could work part or full time and maintain Independence. People who have already finished will have money to pay off the loan with.

Some people won't pay off the loans quickly and will continue paying excessive interest but hey, everyone's free to choose and if they choose unwisely then that's on them. This solution maximizes freedom because it doesn't tell people how to spend the money.

For once there would be no excuse for anyone to go hungry. $10k a year is sustainable for food security. It can pay for the homeless to be able to get apartments too without having to blight entire areas with high density public housing. Being able to get out of the weather allows homeless people to move away from cities with shelters and spread out.

A homeless person doesn't cause problems in society but homeless people do. By paying enough for them to be off the streets a lot of then problems associated with large homeless populations goes away. San Diego has an ongoing hepatitis outbreak thanks to large numbers of the homeless defecating in public spaces, for example and this would end with UBI.

 

[innonimatu]

College was cheap until the "college student loan" was invented. And all other things remaining equal, the more the students are loaned (or given), the more the colleges will take. It's not quite up there with health expenses by sick people, but it's close. College is perceived as a need worth whatever it will take and people will go into debt as much as they are allowed (or pushed) to.

Housing, college and health care are the top selling stuff, the top drivers of indebtedness, and the top sources of steady rents in modern countries that do not control these things by having the state provide them.

 

[cardgame]

And given that all of it is a necessity, we need to implement price controls (rent, public/state college) and bust monopoly/noncompetes (really for HC I'd prefer if we got rid of the parasitic insurance industry entirely)

 

[Gori the Grey]

College was cheap until the "college student loan" was invented.

right, but that was invented as state governments started scaling back their financial support of their universities, i.e. when a college educated citizenry went from being seen as a social good to just being seen as future employees. Colleges should just make corporations pay for all the college-educated employees they provide them. You want the minion we've spent four years honing to be a cog in your corporate machine? 80,000 bucks, please.

 

[metalhead]

Student loans always existed. However, their popularity exploded starting in 1987 when you could no longer discharge them in bankruptcy, and banks could hand them out to anyone capable of signing a piece of paper. The lowering of government subsidies for education was a huge factor too, but student loans have been around for a long time. A lot of factors have converged to make them the behemoth they have become.

 

[rah]

True, but I think another main factor was the rising costs. In the 70's, my tuition at the University of Illinois was only 450 dollars a semester. You didn't need a load to cover that.

 

[metalhead]

No doubt. But in a sense, inno is right - the reason costs were able to skyrocket is at least partly because the money to finance a degree became much more easily available. The demand went through the roof, which meant states could cut back significantly on education funding without upsetting people too badly - just take out a loan, which the bank is happy to give to you because you are stuck with it until you die, AND it's fully guaranteed by the U.S. Government.

I think Gori is onto something. Corporations should pay taxes specifically earmarked for higher ed. I don't know what a reasonable structure for such a thing might look like, but they get the most benefit from educated workers. Why should the workers foot the bill mainly to enrich other people? Makes no goddamned sense!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Given that we don't tax businesses in the form of living wage requirments, which in turn forces legions of Wal Mart workers onto food stamps, I don't see a college tax ever gaining political traction.

If as a society we don't put the cost of food security onto businesses, I don't see how we can do that for higher education.

It's a sad commentary that food insecurity for working people is a thing in this country

 

[Broken_Erika]

Given that we don't tax businesses in the form of living wage requirments, which in turn forces legions of Wal Mart workers onto food stamps, I don't see a college tax ever gaining political traction.

If as a society we don't put the cost of food security onto businesses, I don't see how we can do that for higher education.

It's a sad commentary that food insecurity for working people is a thing in this country

Silly Serf. Food is a privilege, Not a right. Just like healthcare and housing.

 

[Gori the Grey]

If these people didn't make such poor life choices, they'd have food.

Why, there were times while I was pulling myself up, when all I had to eat was my own bootstraps.