Offered a few more elements in my bio. Thoughts, feeback, debate?
My stance on various issues:
Education: Free to PhD, tax paid
Abortion: Protected, tax paid, limited time-frame
Welfare: Yes, no one should starve
UBI: No, use welfare
Racism: is real
Guns: Shall not be infringed
LGBT+/minorities: Support
Pronouns: Will respect
Trump: Moron, evil
Biden: Senile, racist
Police: ACAB
🇳🇱
@freemo@qoto.org
I disagree with you on some of these points but I'll say that the way you presented them is interesting.
feel free to discuss/debate/share on any aspects youd like in more detail. They are there to spark conversation.
I have a flipped view of welfare and UBI, I think there should be a UBI and that welfare programs should be eliminated and their funding directed towards a UBI. Primarily because the administrative bloat of many disparate programs could be greatly reduced with a single program.
I'm not hard-set on any particular conception of a UBI, however I do like the concept of a negative income tax.
@kilroy_was_here @freemo ‘means testing’ was a neoliberal invention paraded in the oligarch press as a means to break post WWII social cohesion that resulted from interdependency necessitated by war - so brought back divide and rule. UBI is more efficient and cheaper.
Effecient and cheaper is not what we need to care about here.
First we care about what gets people out of poverty, not what is cheapest. Ubi doesnt do that, quite the opposite it enables bad behavior
Second, UBI leads to wealth destruction and is bad for the economy due to the above reason and will ultimately cause harm, not good.
> Effecient and cheaper is not what we need to care about here.
No dude, that's literally what we care about - helping poor people and spending as little money and resources as possible so that the money saved can be spent on helping more people.
A fun thing that ubi was tested several times, we have an empirical evidence that it works, in different economic landscapes. Yet people still think it will break the economy and turn everyone in lazy bastards
https://www.businessinsider.com/ubi-cash-payments-reduced-homelessness-increased-employment-denver-2023-10?op=1
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/the-results-finlands-universal-basic-income-experiment-are-in-is-it-working/
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/10/17827836/cash-basic-income-uganda-study-blattman-charity
No one says it's a magic thing that solve everything, it's just better than the usual crappy conditional benefits. But it looks like it's what people are expecting from it, "either your ubi will solve EVERYTHING or it useless" 🤷♀️
> No dude, that's literally what we care about - helping poor people and spending as little money and resources as possible so that the money saved can be spent on helping more people.
Right we want to actually **help** poor people, that is the priority over effiency. UBI **harms** poor people by enabling them (giving them money and fueling bad habbits with no conditions placed on it). Since helping poor people is the priority UBI is a solid no.
Also the fact that it fuels wealth destruction it has the secondary effect of not just negating any perceived effiency but also harming the overall economy significantly compared to incentive based welfare.
> A fun thing that ubi was tested several times, we have an empirical evidence that it works, in different economic landscapes. Yet people still think it will break the economy and turn everyone in lazy bastards
No I have talked in depth about how most of the studies suggesting UBI is a net positive is easily debunked. When I have time ill dig up my old posts on it where I debunk these sorts of claims in detail. I dont have the bandwidth for that level of engagement right now.
@freemo @lonelyowl @kilroy_was_here why is it that only poor people have bad habits are lazy etc?
@freemo @lonelyowl @kilroy_was_here did they do enough work or inherited? 1st gen College students and PhDs for examples have a large handicap - despite parents working themselves to the bone to get them there.
A bit of both. How is that relevant to a poor person who happens to be lazy and thus stuck in poverty?
@DaveFernig
No one said its only them. The others just dont need help, so they **can** be lazy (since they did enough work to not need help and now can be lazy)... in some cases its just luck too, which again is find since they dont need help so they can be lazy.
Its not that poor people are the only ones lazy, its just that the poor people who are lazy is a problem when you want to get people out of needing help.
@lonelyowl @kilroy_was_here