RE: Why bother with circle jerks?
I completely agree. jerking motion
It is actually something that I felt in some of our more recent discussions. We have talked for hours and hours, and I think I got a pretty good idea of your values, ideology and "way of thinking".
We have a ton of common ground. I would even dare to say we agree on all problems and only differ from time to time in the solution. But even there we tend to accept the solution of the other as a valid approach.
What I really do like about that, is that I find many of my ideas in your texts. Well written out, comprehensive and thought through. I often struggle to bring ideas across in a compelling manner, a problem more dominant in my verbal communication. I would have no problem to point someone to one of your articles instead of explaining my thoughts myself.
Had the topic with a friend on a party yesterday. He told me how he could argue his statements much better when he was still young. After 15 years of just hanging out with people he liked, he never got his "conspiracy theories" or ideas challenged.
It is normal to feel to drawn to people with the same ideas, but you should always try to seek 'confrontation'. The philosophy class in school that I mentioned before was not great because we all agreed on everything, quite the opposite. We had completely different viewpoints, but a very civil and calm way of discussion.
Steemit is great to challenge your ideas, because we have this 'keep it positive' attitude going on. My latest opponent is @sirknight , I am gonna try and convince him of unconditional basic income. Any opinions on that btw? Hoped it might finally be a topic we can disagree on as well....
Well I was asked about that the other day on another post. The biggest risk I see to UBI is how the market would likely adapt. I say likely, because it is how they have adapted to other guaranteed by the government things.
I suspect if you gave people $15K of guaranteed income, that over time there would be $15K of unnecessary inflation, and or other fees. So eventually you'd be piling on the new debt (see my there is no free shit article from a couple of days ago) and people would be in the same circumstance they were before UBI was implemented.
This is what happens when we raise the minimum wage (every time).
As thing adjust eventually we are back where we were before but the people negatively effected when it adjusts are actually greater in number because, minimum wage increase followed by the reaction actually erode away the bottom side of the middle class. So in the long run the lower class grows, and the middle class shrinks from the bottom side. This has happened every time. I do not see why repeating it would change this.
However, UBI I don't believe would erode or change the class composition like the minimum wage increase does. It would be given to everyone so really all I see it doing is over time resetting back to $0 in value even though everyone gets it.
Like minimum wage though I suspect it would be a short term THIS IS GREAT for a lot of people. Then later it might be bad.
The likely outcome is they keep increasing the size of the UBI just like they do with minimum wage.
In my opinion minimum wage and UBI are very different. It might shock you, but I am not in favor of minimum wage. The Idea behind UBI is that you do not need a job to survive, you can do things like art, writing or music as your main occupation without the risk of becoming homeless if your next book flops or you dont sell enough drawings.
The job creations in the service sector are laughable. They are jobs that dont create value in many cases. Just let the people chill. Why is "we have not enough work" even a problem in a society?
Thomas Paine, one of your founding fathers had really cool ideas on UBI. I believe as well that you should get part of the income of your community, so that you have a sort of stock in it. It would have very positives effects on the community just like on Steemit :D
btw Alaska has something interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
They are different. I agree. I suspect we can learn some from minimum wage to some degree though. As I haven't found proof of any FREE things when government is involved. That means UBI given to everyone would likely express it's existence in a form of payment elsewhere.
I mean if all the billionaires pooled there money together and offered to pay the UBI from their funds they may be able to do it for a year or two. Eventually they would no longer have enough themselves.
So it is basically printing money out of thin air (which they do) and this increases the amount of money in circulation and dilutes it's value. What $1 can buy today might take $2 tomorrow. It is a form of inflation.
UBI I would expect to accelerate this. And like minimum wage, when the UBI is no longer enough then there will be calls to increase the UBI and it'd just be a vicious cycle.
So yes they are DIFFERENT. Yet there are similarities as well.
I have read quite a bit of Thomas Paine. STOCK is also different from the UBI people are proposing. That would be an interesting way to do it, and could be better than the way they talk about doing it. The problem is it'd require a vast retooling of the global economy, and it wouldn't necessarily favor those that have power. So something like that MIGHT work, but that is not what they are proposing. :)
A problem with UBI is that in rural pparts of eastern Germany you only need 600€ to get along while it can easily be 1500€ in a big city. Its one of the reason I found these oldschool The land belongs to the people thus they have stake in it and get a part of the profits.
Also you have a mathematical redistribution of wealth. It wont make the rich become poor, the average man should be slightly on the winning side. This would only slow down the well known richer get richer effect. Just to demonstrate the math very simplified.
2 people earn 20000$ p.m.
8 people earn 5000$ p.m.
6 people earn 0$ p.m.
We take 10% of each and redistribute equally
2 people earn 18500$ p.m.
8 people earn 5000$ p.m.
6 people earn 500$ p.m
ofc nothing is free, im not pro state, because i am pro-free stuff :D. But as you can see the middle class his not rly hit only the upper class and the lowest class gets some leeway. Ofc you can get rid of a lot of welfare stuff that should become obsolete.
Since my approach is local, I dont see how it could not be a voluntary contract between a community to have such redistribution. State does necessarily be involved for UBI.
Also those pushing for a UBI like the billionaires are not pushing a redistribution of wealth program. As far as I can tell it would simply be a debt based print more FIAT currency program.
Yes... I get that.
It isn't the moment of implementation or the reasons I am concerned with.
Once you have a guaranteed income or guaranteed by government something. It historically is taken advantage of.
My concern is no matter what value you set UBI at let's call it X.
Over time you will have new taxes, fees, and potentially price increases to make your expenses be essentially X more than they are now. It just resets 0.
At that point people will say raise the UBI. So perhaps it becomes 2X.
Over time the cycle repeats and soon the new zero due to fees, taxes, and cost inflation is 2X. That is the new $0.
People don't always inflate prices because they have to. The also do it because they can. This is what has happened in the U.S. in both our education system and our medical system.
This is why I compared it to the minimum wage, as this also happens every time we raise the minimum wage.
People get all excited during that period where X is above the zero point. Once it becomes the new 0 point then things are the same as before the UBI.
I see your concerns, I still think UBI can be a good instrument if used correctly, tho. As you said inflation is always happening, so my approach would be to negate some of the resulting pressure.
It would also be perfect in my Utopia, because I just dont see how we have to create working places out of thin air, just for the sake of letting people work.
I see the need for people to be able to survive. This is clear. Though I also do not believe someone needs to survive if they put forth ZERO effort. I am not saying those who look for work, or try to be creative and don't succeed. Those are the people that need help. I don't see the world as being benefited by people who choose to do nothing and just live off of the UBI.
I do however, like the old saying:
We may not be able to have jobs in the traditional sense. Yet we may have other ways a person can be of value.
Doing nothing and collecting UBI has no value IMO. In fact, it can be like a plague. People see it, wonder "Why am I working, when you just sit on your ass, I want to sit on my ass too" This does happen. There are people like me that would never be content doing nothing.
I've been asked what I think of immortality. I've stated as long as I still have ideas to create, and projects to complete then I have a reason to want to live. Without those things why bother?
sry, I had to go to sleep.
I think every person strives to provide value to society. Sure you can party for one year straight, but nobody would just get drugged up for 10 years and be content with it.
I thought you would think the same in that aspect, you are a believer in voluntaryism after all.