9 ms·

Universal income is a dumb idea. If you have money to give away then give it to those who are struggling for example, single mothers, families with low income,

• rhelz 3y ago
  Yeah, its a bad idea just to give money to people so they don't have to work....it has all kinds of corrupting influences on them. Make 'em work. That's why I support a 100% estate tax.
  • ArtemZ 3y ago
    There is not enough work anyway and there is going to be even less with AI and automation. I am struggling to find a job for a year already, seems there is no demand for DevOps/SRE anymore. Surviving thanks to a food pantry and a house I bought for 30k$ in East Cleveland knowing shit going to hit the floor.
    • rhelz 3y ago
      I was just pointing out (obviously in a too indirect of way!) that nobody seems to care about the UBI that somebody inherits from their parents.
  • thunky 3y ago
    > Make 'em work Doing what? Does it not even matter to you as long as it consumes 40+ hours every week of their productive lives? A goal of UBI is to recognize that human value is not always realized via a paycheck (for example, a stay at home parent).
    • rhelz 3y ago
      chuckle it was a joke man. Most of these types who complain about UBI are trust-fund babies.
• bilsbie 3y ago
  A great idea in theory but once there’s a distinction it opens an opportunity for politicians to endlessly fight over who gets it. You also get the instinct to “parent” the poor and limit what they can buy. Giving it to everyone isn’t the best idea but it’s the best way to keep politicians out of the kitchen. (And I say this as someone who’s against the idea. But I do think the “universal” is the best idea within a bad idea.)
  • snarf21 3y ago
    That is the problem today, but we could also just have it be based on filed income and get rid of the bureaucracy instead. The issue is that some political parties are actively against helping the poor. The more practical idea is a universal poor stipend. The problem with UBI is that it would literally require everyone above income X to pay and extra $500/month in taxes just so they could receive a "free" $500/month in taxes.
    • RhysU 3y ago
      If it is based on filed income then people will file less income or not work. Incentivizing lying or sloth is clearly bad.
  • mattchew 3y ago
    If you can't imagine how politicians could endlessly fight over a UBI you haven't tried hard enough.
  • lo_zamoyski 3y ago
    Traditionally, in the West, the Church ran charities to help the poor. Tithing and charitable giving contributed to the coffers managed by, say, local monasteries. Communities also helped each other out on an as-needed basis, In both cases, help was local and this meant insight into the particular situation of each person who needed it (hence the superiority of the principle of subsidiarity). In both cases, no politicians were involved. In the West, with the kicking out of the Church from the public sphere and the rise of hyperindividualism, many of the good works performed by the Church and the community was arrogated by the State. The State is now the uncontested institution, it is now the Church. Now these things become subject to and embroiled in all sorts considerations unrelated to the basic problem of dealing with someone in need. UBI entrenches the very isolating hyperindividualism that ruined the family and destroyed the resulting communities.
• snarf21 3y ago
  I agree that UBI is silly and that we should just give it to those who need it most. I also think we should just stop collecting income and income related taxes on the poorest X%. For example: if you are below the poverty line (or some multiple), you just don't have to pay income tax or into social security (but still get credit for it), etc. That said, I don't understand you very judgmental take about people wasting money on things you don't approve of. I hardly think buying clothes has a large moral imperative but even if someone does want to buy alcohol with their own money, I don't see how that is any of your concern. Also, just because people are "young and healthy" doesn't mean they aren't disadvantaged and need support.
  • dorfsmay 3y ago
    You can argue that X is the wrong value, but in Canada income under X (the BPA set for that year) is not taxed, as you deduct the Basic Personal Amount from your gross income revenue before calculating your taxes. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/programs/about-canada-revenue-agency-cra/federal-government-budgets/basic-personal-amount.html https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/programs/about-canad...
• systemvoltage 3y ago
  No need to guess what happens, Native American reservations are some of the poorest, worst places in US for various metrics: https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-can-we-learn-from-native-americans-about-a-universal-basic-income https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-can-we-learn-from-native-ame...
  • afpx 3y ago
    Any politically neutral articles for comparison?
    • systemvoltage 3y ago
      What do you consider to be politically neutral?
      • afpx 3y ago
        A presentation of the facts, accounting for multiple perspectives with criticisms, with minimal editorializing or loaded language.
        • systemvoltage 3y ago
          Like what? Can you point to such a resource?
          • afpx 3y ago
            Foreign Policy magazine is pretty good.
• afpx 3y ago
  Too complicated. A big part of UBI fwiu is reduction in administrative costs, overhead, etc. Plus people don’t want a bureaucrat or politician deciding who is qualified or not
• knubie 3y ago
  Subsidizing something will get you more of that thing.
• graypegg 3y ago
  I can understand that! It’s kind of stupid that, for example, Galen Weston (the owner of one of Canada’s grocery store oligopoly members) will still get a cheque in the mail representing some infinitesimal chunk of his income. Same applies to people with regular high paying jobs who use it as monthly fun money or just toss it into a savings account every week. Feels pointless. However, I would also bet the current system of multiple federal and provincial assistance programs with differing eligibility requirements and TONS of staff on the pay roll… might cost the same as “1 cheque per SIN”. It will massively ease up the stress on those systems, possibly even negate the need for quite a few of them. (Even if they don’t seem to plan on cutting any of them based on the article) And on the access side, it’s much less effort, which is the ideal for someone that really needs it. Also the cynical side of me thinks the Canadian banking oligopoly is excited about a monthly payment will be made into their client’s accounts.
  • thunky 3y ago
    > Feels pointless. Not so much when you realize that those with high incomes are just going to give their check right back via taxes . And that money is then used to send checks to others who don't make enough to have to give their check back.
    • graypegg 3y ago
      Fair point! I guess similar to CERB which makes a lot of sense!
  • BeFlatXIII 3y ago
    > It’s kind of stupid that, for example, Galen Weston (the owner of one of Canada’s grocery store oligopoly members) will still get a cheque in the mail representing some infinitesimal chunk of his income. Same applies to people with regular high paying jobs who use it as monthly fun money or just toss it into a savings account every week. Feels pointless. Which is a fraction of the money that they already paid in taxes to fund the program in the first place. How was this not self-evident?
    • 3y ago
• kgbcia 3y ago
  The government can't even provide citizens with basic necessities of life such as food , shelter, water, and bathroom. A government run soup kitchen and homeless shelter would solve this. However, two problems. First Toronto homeless shelters are at max capacity during winter months. So there is already a lack of funding. And we already effectively taxed 30%. * Second, what's stopping the world from immigrating to Canada to enjoy this social net? I believe we need tiers for new immigrants or international students. A person that has lived in Canada 30 years should be infront of the line for social assistance. *The average family paid 45.2 per cent of their income in taxes to federal, provincial and local governments in 2022, estimates the Fraser Institute
  • jandrese 3y ago
    I am always amused at the argument of “If we make it too nice to live here we will be flooded with immigrants so we must maintain our current level of shittiness.”
    • BeFlatXIII 3y ago
      …then change immigration law to stem the flow. Canada is a sovereign nation, not a state in the US where such experiments would be doomed by the freedom to relocate between the various states.
    • kgbcia 3y ago
      Nope read what I said again, we can discriminate by putting people who live here longer or first ahead of the line. First in First out a simple queue system based on your government id. The previous government before Trudeau got in trouble by saying "old stock Canadians"
    • codedokode 3y ago
      You just need to exclude immigrants from social benefits.
      • jandrese 3y ago
        You want a caste system? Because that's how you get a caste system.
• jayski 3y ago
  I'm not for or against UBI. I just want to clarify the position of it proponents. We already do a version of what you're saying and it has a lot of administrative overhead and costs. For example unemployment requires recipients to actively be looking for a job. Unless you have a doctor approved disability. Or you got a really bad flu and were stuck in bed for a week. Then you have the people who go apply at the same place every week just to fill the requirement. Other people get an offer but come up with a reason why that job doesn't suit them, it's too far, etc. So now you need to legislate all that stuff and validate it. It gets complicated and expensive real quick. So maybe it's cheaper to "waste" money paying some young/rich people, if you can save all the administrative work.
  • lotsoweiners 3y ago
    Highly doubt that the amount of administration would go down. Having worked for the government for 2 decades I can assure you that isn’t how the government operates.
• tenthirtyam 3y ago
  Good idea in principle. I suspect it might lead to unintended consequences: there is suddenly an advantage to being a disabled single parent with many children.
• jjav 3y ago
  > No need to pay money to ... In order to implement the filter, you now need enormous bureaucracies tasked with tracking and identifying people to filter, equally enormous agencies to enforce the filters, you get endless loop politicians fighting who should be filtered, you get endless lobbying pro and con filtering certain people, you get lots of people who make it their career to evade the filters and another even larger crowd who make it their purpose in life to persecute those who avoid the filter and on and on. All of this is pure waste on society. That's why UBI is a better idea. Just pay to everyone, remove all the nonsense overhead from being able to exist and move on.