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I can barely begin to imagine what you've been thru, I was evicted from a flat once and that was incredibly stressful - but we had a support network and were he

by jgord 11y ago

I can barely begin to imagine what you've been thru, I was evicted from a flat once and that was incredibly stressful - but we had a support network and were helped out and got back on our feet. This is one of the reasons I feel viscerally that Basic Income is important - it would have made a massive impact in working thru this. Yes, as a society we don't value that kind of work that traditionally women have done the majority of - child rearing for example. Maybe as a single dad I can now have some empathy or appreciation of that, that I wouldn't have otherwise as a middle class white male. Looking after my kid and making paintings have probably been the most useful things I've ever done - neither of them paying anything, unlike programming work which does provide an income. I have to wonder what more useful things I could have spent my time doing, rather than some projects which paid ok, but were unlikely to be of much use to anyone. I can relate to some of your comments - when I see people who want an Uber clone developed, or who think programmers should get 5 bucks an hour because they enjoy their work anyway.. or who dont understand how much skill it takes to draw a plausible figure, who think a one off oil painting should cost 70 bucks. But then these people are using apps that cost 20 million bucks to develop but are free to use, or they can buy a print for 30 bucks and a chinese replica for 150.. There are some economists and even politicians who have been talking about the value of all the work that is done which is not paid for - value and money don't match up, in many cases. I hadnt seen the term 'emotional labor metafilter' but I'd heard of the concept [ as I listen to people like Piketty, Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren and lately Bernie Sanders ] My hope is that a Basic Income might be a way of partly fixing this flaw [where real work is undervalued], rather than entrenching it - if the free market is not efficient enough to pay you for the useful work you are doing, basic income might at least cover the cost of living. Its not a solution to every ill.. teachers will probably still be paid less than their true worth, stay at home parents will probably still have to sacrifice a lot of income. It wont solve sexism, racism, ageism .. but it might alleviate some of the worst symptoms, some of the current pain ? Maybe the government service is in fact BI, because it covers so many special cases where individuals can do useful work, that the government wont ever be able to implement an overall program ? > No one should be expected to live in poverty on an allotment of Basic Income while taking care of others. It is a shitty, shitty expectation. I agree.. but I assume the Basic Income is more than being poor, that it was high enough to cover living expenses so that you are free to function without stress. So the question is how much should BI be - equivalent to 15 bucks an hour ? 25 an hour ? Should the minimum wage be set at the same level as BI ? Location dependent on average rent ?

Mz 11y ago
One of the points you are missing is that there are two kinds of poverty: absolute and relative. Even if you could eliminate absolute poverty, there is no means to eliminate relative poverty. The minute you have a UBI, anyone who only has that is de fact poor relative to others. Many years ago, I saw a study that asked people in different countries to define poverty in terms of things like how many meals per day a person ate, what kind of shelter they had, etc. The study concluded that less than 0.5 percent of Americans were poor by the standards of people in India at the time the study was conducted. Meanwhile, Americans routinely conclude that 12% to 14% of us are living below the poverty level. As a homeless American, I have regular access to electricity via a public library. I have access to public toilets. I have access to cheap goods. My quality of life is likely higher than that of many people in the world who live in countries without consistent supply of electricity and other basic infrastructure that I take for granted. There are countries where women are fairly routinely raped and sometimes murdered while attempting to relieve their bowel or bladder in an open field because there is insufficient infrastructure. My quality of life is likely higher than that of kings of old, who had no electricity or Internet or antibiotics etc. Humans are a social animal. If you eliminate physical hunger but cut us off from freedom of choice, social connections and a great many other things that money cannot buy, you do us egregious harm. We need to invent the 21st century's version of the 40 hour work week. I believe the answer here is currently being called The Gig Economy. We need to make sure the Gig Economy empowers ordinary people to work when they want, as much as they want. We need to make sure "gig" work can create a middle class lifestyle if you do it decently for about 40 hours a week. This will empower homemakers, single parents, etc to create a comfortable life that works for them without being cut off from Society and the halls of power. We need to worry about empowering people to readily and easily make the money they need. Giving money to people will never provide the same quality of life as earned income. It is qualitatively different. It will always be qualitatively different. You cannot change that fact.

by jgord 11y ago

Mz 11y ago

One of the points you are missing is that there are two kinds of poverty: absolute and relative. Even if you could eliminate absolute poverty, there is no means to eliminate relative poverty. The minute you have a UBI, anyone who only has that is de fact poor relative to others. Many years ago, I saw a study that asked people in different countries to define poverty in terms of things like how many meals per day a person ate, what kind of shelter they had, etc. The study concluded that less than 0.5 percent of Americans were poor by the standards of people in India at the time the study was conducted. Meanwhile, Americans routinely conclude that 12% to 14% of us are living below the poverty level. As a homeless American, I have regular access to electricity via a public library. I have access to public toilets. I have access to cheap goods. My quality of life is likely higher than that of many people in the world who live in countries without consistent supply of electricity and other basic infrastructure that I take for granted. There are countries where women are fairly routinely raped and sometimes murdered while attempting to relieve their bowel or bladder in an open field because there is insufficient infrastructure. My quality of life is likely higher than that of kings of old, who had no electricity or Internet or antibiotics etc. Humans are a social animal. If you eliminate physical hunger but cut us off from freedom of choice, social connections and a great many other things that money cannot buy, you do us egregious harm. We need to invent the 21st century's version of the 40 hour work week. I believe the answer here is currently being called The Gig Economy. We need to make sure the Gig Economy empowers ordinary people to work when they want, as much as they want. We need to make sure "gig" work can create a middle class lifestyle if you do it decently for about 40 hours a week. This will empower homemakers, single parents, etc to create a comfortable life that works for them without being cut off from Society and the halls of power. We need to worry about empowering people to readily and easily make the money they need. Giving money to people will never provide the same quality of life as earned income. It is qualitatively different. It will always be qualitatively different. You cannot change that fact.