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Why do you think so many 1%ers are advocating for Universal Basic Income? It's not due to some altruistic notion that everyone should be able to follow their d

Why do you think so many 1%ers are advocating for Universal Basic Income? It's not due to some altruistic notion that everyone should be able to follow their dream. It's out of fear of a populist revolt. Their backup plan is New Zealand based prepper compounds.

PopsiclePete 9y ago
Populist revolt? In America? 50% of the population would gleefully shoot the other 50% dead as soon as their Masters tell them it's just "treasonous liberal Marxists". The 1% are super-duper safe. They've got nothing to fear from the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires".
AnthonyMouse 9y ago
A UBI is literally the purest form of redistribution of wealth. It takes money disproportionately from the rich and then gives it equally to everyone. There are only three classes of people who oppose it: 1) people who oppose all redistributive programs, 2) people who favor the centrally planned farce of the existing welfare system because it allows them to covertly insert corrupt industry-specific subsidies into the system, and 3) people who don't actually understand how it works. If the 1% favor it they must like income redistribution, dislike opportunities for political corruption, or not understand what they're asking for.
- throwaway1748 9y ago
  I don't think there are only 3 groups of people that oppose it. You can draw some nuance here. For example, many people believe that work helps give people a sense of purpose, and a mere basic income might enable people to make poor life decisions. A "basic minimum job" might still be a re-distributive system, but with some nuance.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    Half the point of a basic income is that it doesn't discourage people from working, unlike welfare systems that suspend payments to working people including a basic job that de facto prevents you from taking a real job because if you stop doing the makework job you no longer get the redistributive subsidy. A basic income even eliminates the need to have a minimum wage, which allows people whose labor is not worth a living wage to nonetheless trade it for whatever they can get and still not starve. A basic job is economically damaging because by definition the value derived from the work is less than the compensation (or it would just be a regular job). Which creates all kinds of terrible incentives where, basically, people choose the basic job over more actually productive work because it's government-subsidized and the real job isn't.
  - imtringued 9y ago
    >For example, many people believe that work helps give people a sense of purpose, and a mere basic income might enable people to make poor life decisions Working as a teacher and having a second job to subsidise the first is considered purposeful. Working as a teacher and receiving the rest of the income as UBI is suddenly no longer purposeful? The pro UBI argument is: UBI removes the incentive for people to work at jobs they hate. It gives them negotiation power. If people are looking for purpose in their work then arguably not being restricted by financial considerations is allowing them to find purpose and be more happy. People get to decide what purpose means to them. I believe this is what women are doing in exchange for lower pay. The anti UBI argument is: Someone must force their own definition of purpose on them and if they weren't forced to work bad jobs they wouldn't have any purpose at all. They need someone that "thinks" for them because they are unable to "think" for themselves.
- wetpaws 9y ago
  If you would take a look at bay area, it's a very good example of what happens when you give a lot of people bigger income - rent, housing and prices will automatically go up and net average would be the same. I don't understand why people are pushing for redistribution of income rather than redistribution of goods like we pretty much did with utilities, public transport and, to a certain degree, internet.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > If you would take a look at bay area, it's a very good example of what happens when you give a lot of people bigger income - rent, housing and prices will automatically go up and net average would be the same. The main price increase in the bay area has been housing -- rent is still housing -- and the reason for that isn't primarily incomes. It's artificial scarcity (from zoning) in the face of increasing population. In a normal market without the artificial restrictions, the fact that people are willing to pay a million dollars for housing would cause lots of new housing to be constructed which would bring the price down. Incomes contribute, because if housing cost that much and people weren't making that much money then they would move out of the area (which would lower demand), but those prices would never be sustainable without the restrictions on new construction. But more importantly, this is all about relativity. If Bob has twenty dollars, Alice has ten and Charlie has one, and you print three more dollars and give each person one, now there is going to be ~10% inflation because $31 used to exist and now $34 exists. But now Charlie has $2 which are worth as much as $1.82 used to be, which is less than $2, but he's still up $0.82. And on top of that, a UBI doesn't actually create new money. Everyone gets a dollar, but it's because Alice paid $1 in taxes and then got it back and Bob paid $2 in taxes $1 of which went to Charlie. There is no new money to cause inflation, it's just redistribution. In theory there could be relative demand shifts, if Charlie likes to buy different stuff than Bob would have, but unless that stuff is in limited supply, people will just make more of it. And if it is in limited supply, it still works as redistribution because it just means we're back to relativity -- even if things did cost more, it still increases the proportion of things that Charlie gets. > I don't understand why people are pushing for redistribution of income rather than redistribution of goods like we pretty much did with utilities, public transport and, to a certain degree, internet. I don't understand what "redistribution of goods" means. More free public infrastructure? There are good reasons to do that for natural monopolies like roads and utilities, but that's a completely different thing, and we can do both at the same time.

PopsiclePete 9y ago

Populist revolt? In America? 50% of the population would gleefully shoot the other 50% dead as soon as their Masters tell them it's just "treasonous liberal Marxists". The 1% are super-duper safe. They've got nothing to fear from the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires".

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

A UBI is literally the purest form of redistribution of wealth. It takes money disproportionately from the rich and then gives it equally to everyone. There are only three classes of people who oppose it: 1) people who oppose all redistributive programs, 2) people who favor the centrally planned farce of the existing welfare system because it allows them to covertly insert corrupt industry-specific subsidies into the system, and 3) people who don't actually understand how it works. If the 1% favor it they must like income redistribution, dislike opportunities for political corruption, or not understand what they're asking for.

throwaway1748 9y ago
I don't think there are only 3 groups of people that oppose it. You can draw some nuance here. For example, many people believe that work helps give people a sense of purpose, and a mere basic income might enable people to make poor life decisions. A "basic minimum job" might still be a re-distributive system, but with some nuance.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  Half the point of a basic income is that it doesn't discourage people from working, unlike welfare systems that suspend payments to working people including a basic job that de facto prevents you from taking a real job because if you stop doing the makework job you no longer get the redistributive subsidy. A basic income even eliminates the need to have a minimum wage, which allows people whose labor is not worth a living wage to nonetheless trade it for whatever they can get and still not starve. A basic job is economically damaging because by definition the value derived from the work is less than the compensation (or it would just be a regular job). Which creates all kinds of terrible incentives where, basically, people choose the basic job over more actually productive work because it's government-subsidized and the real job isn't.
- imtringued 9y ago
  >For example, many people believe that work helps give people a sense of purpose, and a mere basic income might enable people to make poor life decisions Working as a teacher and having a second job to subsidise the first is considered purposeful. Working as a teacher and receiving the rest of the income as UBI is suddenly no longer purposeful? The pro UBI argument is: UBI removes the incentive for people to work at jobs they hate. It gives them negotiation power. If people are looking for purpose in their work then arguably not being restricted by financial considerations is allowing them to find purpose and be more happy. People get to decide what purpose means to them. I believe this is what women are doing in exchange for lower pay. The anti UBI argument is: Someone must force their own definition of purpose on them and if they weren't forced to work bad jobs they wouldn't have any purpose at all. They need someone that "thinks" for them because they are unable to "think" for themselves.
wetpaws 9y ago
If you would take a look at bay area, it's a very good example of what happens when you give a lot of people bigger income - rent, housing and prices will automatically go up and net average would be the same. I don't understand why people are pushing for redistribution of income rather than redistribution of goods like we pretty much did with utilities, public transport and, to a certain degree, internet.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > If you would take a look at bay area, it's a very good example of what happens when you give a lot of people bigger income - rent, housing and prices will automatically go up and net average would be the same. The main price increase in the bay area has been housing -- rent is still housing -- and the reason for that isn't primarily incomes. It's artificial scarcity (from zoning) in the face of increasing population. In a normal market without the artificial restrictions, the fact that people are willing to pay a million dollars for housing would cause lots of new housing to be constructed which would bring the price down. Incomes contribute, because if housing cost that much and people weren't making that much money then they would move out of the area (which would lower demand), but those prices would never be sustainable without the restrictions on new construction. But more importantly, this is all about relativity. If Bob has twenty dollars, Alice has ten and Charlie has one, and you print three more dollars and give each person one, now there is going to be ~10% inflation because $31 used to exist and now $34 exists. But now Charlie has $2 which are worth as much as $1.82 used to be, which is less than $2, but he's still up $0.82. And on top of that, a UBI doesn't actually create new money. Everyone gets a dollar, but it's because Alice paid $1 in taxes and then got it back and Bob paid $2 in taxes $1 of which went to Charlie. There is no new money to cause inflation, it's just redistribution. In theory there could be relative demand shifts, if Charlie likes to buy different stuff than Bob would have, but unless that stuff is in limited supply, people will just make more of it. And if it is in limited supply, it still works as redistribution because it just means we're back to relativity -- even if things did cost more, it still increases the proportion of things that Charlie gets. > I don't understand why people are pushing for redistribution of income rather than redistribution of goods like we pretty much did with utilities, public transport and, to a certain degree, internet. I don't understand what "redistribution of goods" means. More free public infrastructure? There are good reasons to do that for natural monopolies like roads and utilities, but that's a completely different thing, and we can do both at the same time.