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I wonder what the differences are between UBI and the day to day life’s of people who get straight cash payments for being citizens like: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Nat

by whb07 9y ago

I wonder what the differences are between UBI and the day to day life’s of people who get straight cash payments for being citizens like: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Native American tribesmen with successful casinos etc. To my knowledge, it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows (technical term) for them either. They suffer stagnation, heavy dependency into oil money(for those in the Middle East), and it’s dsfinitely a time bomb which those in power know it’s coming. If anyone could present some points so we could further advance this point, id be grateful

s0rce 9y ago
Similar situation in Alaska, I'm not sure there are huge implications (although the relative magnitude of the payments might be vastly different).
- danielvf 9y ago
  Alaskan fund usually pays out about 1K per person per year. As long as you can live on three dollars a day, you are good. (And that’s not unheard of if you’ve built your own cabin in the wilderness, grow some of your own food, and hunt.)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
clay_to_n 9y ago
There's a recent article from wired exploring how it's affected the Cherokee Nation: https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effects-of-a-basic-income-supplied-by-government/ https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effect...
lucozade 9y ago
I'm only really familiar with Abu Dhabi but there, idleness is a concern. It's directly evident in schemes such as paying school children to exercise. However, it is masked somewhat in the adult population as foreign companies are required to employ natives in senior positions. Anecdotally, the incumbents aren't famous for their work ethic. But it's hard to argue that it's not overall positive for the local population. Healthcare, education, services etc are all excellent. That being said, I don't think these are useful comparators. The elephant in the room is who is paying? In the case of Abu Dhabi, it's the buyers of their oil. As such, you don't have an internal tension between the net tax consumers and net tax generators. Nor do you have a significant allocation of resource issue when there is a surfeit of resource. And I think it's the latter issue that is a critical one for UBI. Although not equivalent, I think the example of UK child benefit is instructive. It was a universal benefit in the sense that it applied to all children regardless of parental income (it differed by birth order but that's not material to the point). While the economy was doing well, the money flowed. Post crash, the economy tightened and it was an immediate target and became means tested. It's not clear to me that, even if you managed to get UBI implemented, it would be stable. I would expect that it would need to show tangible, widespread benefit in about one economic cycle. Otherwise, as soon as things started to slow, you'd be seeing stories about the wasters and layabouts. It wouldn't matter if there were many cf the refugee "deluge" or similar triggers. In other words, I can see UBI lasting only if a number of other, very significant economic (cycles) and societal (selfishness) issues are resolved. Tricky.
- whb07 9y ago
  thats an issue I considered as well for the gulf states. What happens when there is less oil consumption ? I’m very much hard pressed to think of a global company that has come out of these for all intensive purposes UBI countries. (Please don’t cite Aramco or Emirates etc. As they all are either started or staffed largely by Americans and Brits)

by whb07 9y ago

s0rce 9y ago

Similar situation in Alaska, I'm not sure there are huge implications (although the relative magnitude of the payments might be vastly different).

danielvf 9y ago
Alaskan fund usually pays out about 1K per person per year. As long as you can live on three dollars a day, you are good. (And that’s not unheard of if you’ve built your own cabin in the wilderness, grow some of your own food, and hunt.)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

clay_to_n 9y ago

There's a recent article from wired exploring how it's affected the Cherokee Nation: https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effects-of-a-basic-income-supplied-by-government/ https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effect...

lucozade 9y ago

I'm only really familiar with Abu Dhabi but there, idleness is a concern. It's directly evident in schemes such as paying school children to exercise. However, it is masked somewhat in the adult population as foreign companies are required to employ natives in senior positions. Anecdotally, the incumbents aren't famous for their work ethic. But it's hard to argue that it's not overall positive for the local population. Healthcare, education, services etc are all excellent. That being said, I don't think these are useful comparators. The elephant in the room is who is paying? In the case of Abu Dhabi, it's the buyers of their oil. As such, you don't have an internal tension between the net tax consumers and net tax generators. Nor do you have a significant allocation of resource issue when there is a surfeit of resource. And I think it's the latter issue that is a critical one for UBI. Although not equivalent, I think the example of UK child benefit is instructive. It was a universal benefit in the sense that it applied to all children regardless of parental income (it differed by birth order but that's not material to the point). While the economy was doing well, the money flowed. Post crash, the economy tightened and it was an immediate target and became means tested. It's not clear to me that, even if you managed to get UBI implemented, it would be stable. I would expect that it would need to show tangible, widespread benefit in about one economic cycle. Otherwise, as soon as things started to slow, you'd be seeing stories about the wasters and layabouts. It wouldn't matter if there were many cf the refugee "deluge" or similar triggers. In other words, I can see UBI lasting only if a number of other, very significant economic (cycles) and societal (selfishness) issues are resolved. Tricky.

whb07 9y ago
thats an issue I considered as well for the gulf states. What happens when there is less oil consumption ? I’m very much hard pressed to think of a global company that has come out of these for all intensive purposes UBI countries. (Please don’t cite Aramco or Emirates etc. As they all are either started or staffed largely by Americans and Brits)