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.
Ok do have a few minutes afterall so I'll give some quick pointed.
1) none of these are peer-reviewed studies
2) The first 2 studies are survey based, and not objectively measured. In other words, people can lie, and their feelings are less important than tangable results anyway. 2nd study as the study says didnt even show long term improvements.
3) None of the studies look at economic effects overall. The first one was too small, second one only cared about how people felt,
4) None of the studies address if their actual lifestyle and behaviors were improved or if bad behaviors enabled, which was the focus of what I stated
5) None of the studies showed UBI **Actually** helped, as in, that the people were able to earn more money as a result of the UBI rather than becoming dependent on the UBI (and thus causing wealth destruction).
Oh and also the results even if we take the studies at face value even prove my point.
In Denver for example the group given a whopping 1000$ still had 1/3 of them waste the money on drugs and not get a home. Compare that to welfare where it would be conditional an incentive based, thus it would provide the home directly, thus not having this problem, 100% of people would therefore have homes if the home was provided instead of the cash.
