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Stuff like this is one of the reasons I like the idea of a basic income...because you could easily just divert the BI to pay for long term services in a situati

Stuff like this is one of the reasons I like the idea of a basic income...because you could easily just divert the BI to pay for long term services in a situation like this. Can’t pay student loans, your BI gets automatically directed to paying it off with no interest until the balance is clear. Need to pay for school in the first place? Direct the monthly BI to the university to cover tuition/housing/meal plan (or a significant portion of it). Commit a violent crime that will put you in jail, let your BI go to the prison to cover your stay. Have a baby? The baby gets a basic income that can pay for daycare, baby supplies.

preommr 8y ago
This makes 0 sense because that's not how UBI works. You can't just give free money to everyone and expect things to magically fix themselves. Where are you even getting all this money under modern constraints to just give to every single person? But that's beside the point because even with UBI, you'd still have to sacrifice QoL to pay back the loans for your education because of the inefficiencies that exist in our current system. The end result would you be slaving away at work with high taxes that go off to pay off your loans and whatever percentage goes to UBI.
- brightball 8y ago
  The core idea is that every citizen is getting a monthly stipend of some basic amount. If that were to happen, it stands to reason that policy oriented side effects would kick in over time to work alongside such a stipend. First among those, actually securing student loans against the BI. I’ve never seen BI as being anything that would be desirable to live on though. Closer to survival level income in the area of $700 / month. You’d partially pay for it by reducing all other types of government service payouts (welfare, social security, disability, unemployment) by that amount. You’d likely see homeless shelters, rehab clinics, etc open that were designed to operate on a per person budget equaling the BI. At the same time, you can potentially eliminate minimum wage discussions since it would immediately supplement those workers. I think it’s doable at a low level as long as you partially address the costs with dents in the budgets of many of the other existing services.
DSingularity 8y ago
Thanks for pointing this all out. I think it’s also worth noting that such a direct will facilitate discussion of just what kind of society we want to be with regards to the means of the common man.

preommr 8y ago

This makes 0 sense because that's not how UBI works. You can't just give free money to everyone and expect things to magically fix themselves. Where are you even getting all this money under modern constraints to just give to every single person? But that's beside the point because even with UBI, you'd still have to sacrifice QoL to pay back the loans for your education because of the inefficiencies that exist in our current system. The end result would you be slaving away at work with high taxes that go off to pay off your loans and whatever percentage goes to UBI.

brightball 8y ago
The core idea is that every citizen is getting a monthly stipend of some basic amount. If that were to happen, it stands to reason that policy oriented side effects would kick in over time to work alongside such a stipend. First among those, actually securing student loans against the BI. I’ve never seen BI as being anything that would be desirable to live on though. Closer to survival level income in the area of $700 / month. You’d partially pay for it by reducing all other types of government service payouts (welfare, social security, disability, unemployment) by that amount. You’d likely see homeless shelters, rehab clinics, etc open that were designed to operate on a per person budget equaling the BI. At the same time, you can potentially eliminate minimum wage discussions since it would immediately supplement those workers. I think it’s doable at a low level as long as you partially address the costs with dents in the budgets of many of the other existing services.

DSingularity 8y ago

Thanks for pointing this all out. I think it’s also worth noting that such a direct will facilitate discussion of just what kind of society we want to be with regards to the means of the common man.