3 ms·

Trade-offs are that binary in real life -- for everyone who would need UBI. If you are wealthy, you can choose to "forgo a bigger house". If you are middle-cla

Trade-offs are that binary in real life -- for everyone who would need UBI. If you are wealthy, you can choose to "forgo a bigger house". If you are middle-class or lower-class, the options are pretty much binary already, today, in the real world. You eat, or you don't. You have a roof over your head, or you don't. You get medical treatment, or you don't. There's no way to "penny-pinch" , when you are already at the bottom, because all possible savings an individual could make are already priced in. Comparison-shopping isn't a choice, when you are already priced out of all but one of the options. ---- Unless UBI ends up being some huge amount of money (like say, $60k USD/yr/person), there won't be any meaningful non-binary trade-offs for any of those folks to make, regardless of whether UBI happens or not.

legitster 7y ago
Okay, so anything that is essential should be provided by the government. Food, housing, healthcare. Is there anything that should not be?
- maxsilver 7y ago
  > Anything that is essential (to life) should be provided by the government. Food, housing, healthcare. Agree entirely. I'll add transportation, education and utilities to that list. (K-8 + community college, train/subway transit, water+sewer service, electricity + phone + basic internet) > Is there anything that should not be? Everything non-essential to basic life? Hollywood motion pictures, video games, fasion-based apparel, toys, luxury furniture, hardware, collectable cards, privately-owned books, airplanes, etc. --- This isn't a crazy idea. All of the US has a "public option" for postal mail, delivered to nearly every citizen in the nation at effectively zero profit margin. FedEx and UPS can happily exist and be wildly profitable, but they can't go too evil with their pricing or availability, because people will just switch to USPS. It keeps these private companies from exploiting everyone too much. Similarly, most of the US has a "public option" for water, which is provided by the government to every single person in the district (regardless of income), directly at their home and at zero profit margin. You can buy "luxury water" (Bottled Dasani, Nestle, 'Culligan Man', whatever), and those private companies can happily make massive profits all day long. But these companies can't exploit the market for water too badly, because there is always a public option to fall back on and opt-out with, when these companies inevitably become evil. Nearly every part of our society that is currently broken, is that way because it's a required purchase critical to sustain basic living, and there's no reasonable way to opt-out. If Hasbro goes evil and prices toys at $10k each, it's fine, because I can just choose not to buy them. I don't need toys to live. In this way, their greed can be kept somewhat in-check. But if a hospital prices the ER room at $10k, I can't opt out, or I'll literally die. If local housing market charges $10k/day rent, I can't opt out or I'll immediately become homeless and unemployable and, effectively, dead. There is no "check" on these people's greed, because all humans are required to purchase these things, just to sustain their own life. So the price can just grow indefinitely, and none of us can really directly do anything about it. This is why public services are so vital, why it's so critical that they exist and work well and grow.
tathougies 7y ago
> If you are middle-class or lower-class, the options are pretty much binary already, today, in the real world. You eat, or you don't. You have a roof over your head, or you don't. You get medical treatment, or you don't. This is a lie. Most 'poor' Americans have lots and lots of expensive things; they could choose to do with less. This is not to say all could, but the poverty level metric is so excessive, that many have lots of discretionary spending that many 'rich' households do not. This has to do with how we define 'poverty.' The poverty level as set means that many americans with lots of discretionary spending (for example, television) are classified as poor, despite having easily fixed overspending. For example, according to data from the department of energy (accessible here: https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2005/hc/pdf/tablehc7.11.pdf https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2005/hc/pdf...), 26million / 39million households eligible for federal assistance (~64%) had cable television, meaning almost $70/month in unnecessary expenditure. For those below the poverty line, 10.6mil/16.6 mil had cable or satellite (again ~64%). This is data from 2005, but other years are similar.That is a bit ridiculous.
- vore 7y ago
  Are you choosing watching TV for $70/month as an example of an "expensive thing"? Living in poverty doesn't mean that you get should judged so harshly for mild discretionary spending to make your life less of a hellhole.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    > mild discretionary spending If the claim is that those living below the poverty line are going hungry (i.e., "there's no way to penny pinch when you're at the bottom", then claiming $70 (which can buy a lot of groceries) is 'mild discretionary spending' is incredibly disingenuous.
    - vore 7y ago
      Most members of the middle class would classify it as mild spending, so I don't see anything disingenuous about my claim. Groceries are not fungible for entertainment, and if you choose to spend a reasonable by middle-class standards amount on it you shouldn't be punished with misery and people tut-tutting at you for it. Furthermore, I don't know what your point of revising the poverty line downwards is, apart from to tell people that they should be satisfied that their life isn't worse.

legitster 7y ago

Okay, so anything that is essential should be provided by the government. Food, housing, healthcare. Is there anything that should not be?

maxsilver 7y ago
> Anything that is essential (to life) should be provided by the government. Food, housing, healthcare. Agree entirely. I'll add transportation, education and utilities to that list. (K-8 + community college, train/subway transit, water+sewer service, electricity + phone + basic internet) > Is there anything that should not be? Everything non-essential to basic life? Hollywood motion pictures, video games, fasion-based apparel, toys, luxury furniture, hardware, collectable cards, privately-owned books, airplanes, etc. --- This isn't a crazy idea. All of the US has a "public option" for postal mail, delivered to nearly every citizen in the nation at effectively zero profit margin. FedEx and UPS can happily exist and be wildly profitable, but they can't go too evil with their pricing or availability, because people will just switch to USPS. It keeps these private companies from exploiting everyone too much. Similarly, most of the US has a "public option" for water, which is provided by the government to every single person in the district (regardless of income), directly at their home and at zero profit margin. You can buy "luxury water" (Bottled Dasani, Nestle, 'Culligan Man', whatever), and those private companies can happily make massive profits all day long. But these companies can't exploit the market for water too badly, because there is always a public option to fall back on and opt-out with, when these companies inevitably become evil. Nearly every part of our society that is currently broken, is that way because it's a required purchase critical to sustain basic living, and there's no reasonable way to opt-out. If Hasbro goes evil and prices toys at $10k each, it's fine, because I can just choose not to buy them. I don't need toys to live. In this way, their greed can be kept somewhat in-check. But if a hospital prices the ER room at $10k, I can't opt out, or I'll literally die. If local housing market charges $10k/day rent, I can't opt out or I'll immediately become homeless and unemployable and, effectively, dead. There is no "check" on these people's greed, because all humans are required to purchase these things, just to sustain their own life. So the price can just grow indefinitely, and none of us can really directly do anything about it. This is why public services are so vital, why it's so critical that they exist and work well and grow.

tathougies 7y ago

> If you are middle-class or lower-class, the options are pretty much binary already, today, in the real world. You eat, or you don't. You have a roof over your head, or you don't. You get medical treatment, or you don't. This is a lie. Most 'poor' Americans have lots and lots of expensive things; they could choose to do with less. This is not to say all could, but the poverty level metric is so excessive, that many have lots of discretionary spending that many 'rich' households do not. This has to do with how we define 'poverty.' The poverty level as set means that many americans with lots of discretionary spending (for example, television) are classified as poor, despite having easily fixed overspending. For example, according to data from the department of energy (accessible here: https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2005/hc/pdf/tablehc7.11.pdf https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2005/hc/pdf...), 26million / 39million households eligible for federal assistance (~64%) had cable television, meaning almost $70/month in unnecessary expenditure. For those below the poverty line, 10.6mil/16.6 mil had cable or satellite (again ~64%). This is data from 2005, but other years are similar.That is a bit ridiculous.

vore 7y ago
Are you choosing watching TV for $70/month as an example of an "expensive thing"? Living in poverty doesn't mean that you get should judged so harshly for mild discretionary spending to make your life less of a hellhole.
- tathougies 7y ago
  > mild discretionary spending If the claim is that those living below the poverty line are going hungry (i.e., "there's no way to penny pinch when you're at the bottom", then claiming $70 (which can buy a lot of groceries) is 'mild discretionary spending' is incredibly disingenuous.
  - vore 7y ago
    Most members of the middle class would classify it as mild spending, so I don't see anything disingenuous about my claim. Groceries are not fungible for entertainment, and if you choose to spend a reasonable by middle-class standards amount on it you shouldn't be punished with misery and people tut-tutting at you for it. Furthermore, I don't know what your point of revising the poverty line downwards is, apart from to tell people that they should be satisfied that their life isn't worse.