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Elon Musk backs 'universal high income' to combat AI job losses

9 points by paulpauper 7mo ago

jethronethro 7mo ago
Will billionaires like Musk be willing to pay their fair share of taxes to help support this? Doubt it.
- cheevly 7mo ago
  He pays what the government requests of him (which is a lot, imo). He can’t pay more than the law mandates. So therefore he is already paying his fair share.
  - zzrrt 7mo ago
    > He can’t pay more This is a bit pedantic, but any citizen can send a gift payment to the general federal government fund.
  - UncleMeat 7mo ago
    He is currently suing the government to get the NLRB declared unconstitutional. He spent mountains of cash to promote DOGE, which sought to cut government funding for various programs supporting the poor. He is actively making it harder for the poor by applying his massive wealth.
jazz9k 7mo ago
This will never work.
cjbenedikt 7mo ago
Makes for interesting number juggling. Less income tax from people out of jobs but high universal income? I'm sure Grok has the solution.
zzrrt 7mo ago
Spends a few months trying to claw dimes out of the hands of poor people for being lazy or "frauds", then comes back to say, actually, his newest hype bubble is going to be so successful that everyone will get paid even more than DOGE saved, no questions asked.
GoToRO 7mo ago
is this billionaires just signaling they are with the poor while in fact just gathering as much resource as they can, from the poor?
UncleMeat 7mo ago
"Backs" would mean that he takes material steps to make this happen. He is the world's richest man. Surely he could be putting billions into lobbying efforts for this. No. Dude is just obsessed with his sci-fi future and is throwing out shit like this to try to convince people that he's not the most venal kind of capitalist possible.
tim-tday 7mo ago
Paid for by the government. Who gets paid by taxes. Except the only people making money will be the 5 billionaires who own everything. And those fuckers don’t pay taxes. Larry page just spent half a billion dollars to not pay taxes then fled the state.
quantified 7mo ago
In what world will the machines spit out enough good to lower the margins and profits of their owners? If there is not inflation, there is not profit growth, there is no longer a justification for equity value. He's not going to spit out more cars for less money. Food, housing, medicine, clothing will be unaffected by this machine stuff. No one's rent is going down. Food will not be cheaper unless it's Soylent gruel. Service costs (power at Tesla chargers, internet bills whether Comcast or Starlink, TurboTax prep, Netflix subscription, Claude/Grok/ChatGPT, etc.) will all only rise because that's how the world works. Instead, output of stuff will match the pace of people to afford it. Give everyone money, and prices will rise simply because better things will be rationed via higher prices, just as today. No different than accelerating inflation to the point where the poorest person gets $200k/year. Call that Utopia "Zimbabwe".

9 points by paulpauper 7mo ago

jethronethro 7mo ago

Will billionaires like Musk be willing to pay their fair share of taxes to help support this? Doubt it.

cheevly 7mo ago
He pays what the government requests of him (which is a lot, imo). He can’t pay more than the law mandates. So therefore he is already paying his fair share.
- zzrrt 7mo ago
  > He can’t pay more This is a bit pedantic, but any citizen can send a gift payment to the general federal government fund.
- UncleMeat 7mo ago
  He is currently suing the government to get the NLRB declared unconstitutional. He spent mountains of cash to promote DOGE, which sought to cut government funding for various programs supporting the poor. He is actively making it harder for the poor by applying his massive wealth.

jazz9k 7mo ago

This will never work.

cjbenedikt 7mo ago

Makes for interesting number juggling. Less income tax from people out of jobs but high universal income? I'm sure Grok has the solution.

zzrrt 7mo ago

Spends a few months trying to claw dimes out of the hands of poor people for being lazy or "frauds", then comes back to say, actually, his newest hype bubble is going to be so successful that everyone will get paid even more than DOGE saved, no questions asked.

GoToRO 7mo ago

is this billionaires just signaling they are with the poor while in fact just gathering as much resource as they can, from the poor?

UncleMeat 7mo ago

"Backs" would mean that he takes material steps to make this happen. He is the world's richest man. Surely he could be putting billions into lobbying efforts for this. No. Dude is just obsessed with his sci-fi future and is throwing out shit like this to try to convince people that he's not the most venal kind of capitalist possible.

tim-tday 7mo ago

Paid for by the government. Who gets paid by taxes. Except the only people making money will be the 5 billionaires who own everything. And those fuckers don’t pay taxes. Larry page just spent half a billion dollars to not pay taxes then fled the state.

quantified 7mo ago

In what world will the machines spit out enough good to lower the margins and profits of their owners? If there is not inflation, there is not profit growth, there is no longer a justification for equity value. He's not going to spit out more cars for less money. Food, housing, medicine, clothing will be unaffected by this machine stuff. No one's rent is going down. Food will not be cheaper unless it's Soylent gruel. Service costs (power at Tesla chargers, internet bills whether Comcast or Starlink, TurboTax prep, Netflix subscription, Claude/Grok/ChatGPT, etc.) will all only rise because that's how the world works. Instead, output of stuff will match the pace of people to afford it. Give everyone money, and prices will rise simply because better things will be rationed via higher prices, just as today. No different than accelerating inflation to the point where the poorest person gets $200k/year. Call that Utopia "Zimbabwe".