I cannot change how you decide what is terrible. You hold a belief that UBI is terrible
So are you saying your idea of a good UBI is Yang’s?
I repeat my objection about the appeal to purity and an argument from ignorance.
I think we’ll agree to disagree, and I confronted this directly. Your reply doesn’t seem to respond to that direct confrontation. That’s not on me.
What do consider as personally convincing for UBI?
A median quality-of-life increase and normalization. No major detrimental effects to lower- or middle-class (and ideally even lower-upper class, but I’ll give in on that one). A net gain for the economic outlay that meets or exceeds using the same $4T on social programs (or showing that you could do a worthwhile UBI for less, that in a way you can’t do social programs for).
That is, you’d have to show why UBI is "actually better "than social programs. I live in an area where that $1000/mo isn’t going to get someone a shitty studio apartment. So what kind of UBI are you pitching that succeeds in any way? Or, as I asked, is UBI your GOAL, and it doesn’t matter how good it achieves other goals?
For most of the population, the meaningful difference from UBI would be expanded security, against loss of income
What am I missing then? For all of the population, having guaranteed quality housing, food, and healthcare (and let’s throw in mass transit coverage) would have that same effect, with fewer gotchas. Flip-side, nothing will likely be able to stop UBI from being garnishable for debt collection. I won’t get into that topic (since you have already accused me of gish-galloping), but you seem to be arguing “UBI vs nothing” and not “UBI vs any other social use of that money”.
All of your statistics are only sidestepping the obvious observation.
UBI is simply the net transfer of money from those that who have too much food to sell, to those who have too little money to buy food.
Except it isn’t. That’s not a meaningful or accurate definition of UBI. UBI as a concept doesn’t even cover where the money comes from (what you claim is “those who have too much food to sell”), nor does it state how that money will be used by recipients. When Jeff Bezos gets that $1000 check, he’s not spending it on food and we both know it.
The thing that fits that definition would be a form of universal EBT. I’m 100% for a universal EBT.
Once the disparity is resolved through a more favorable distribution money, which is simply the universal medium for commodity exchange, the commodity market for foods would be used for the hungry to purchase food.
Care to prove this? I look at what $1000/mo will buy in my state (since you aren’t objecting to that UBI number), and it doesn’t cover food and housing.
Sorry, I AM adding a new bullet point here. In my view, every UBI plan I’ve seen will redistribute wealth from Blue States to Red States… That is not a partisan point; it redistributes wealth from states that net produce and have higher poverty to states that net consume and have lower poverty. In low-cost-of-living states with low poverty, it provides every individual with a Middle Class income. In high-cost-of-living states with high poverty, it inordinately taxes the middle class while not providing enough money for the poor.
SO my problem with UBI is that the homeless people near me stay homeless, where alternative solutions would give those homeless people homes and food while still giving middle-class QOL to people in the lower-cost-of-living states… and having a significant amount of money floating around to do something else with. (HOPEFULLY no more for the military)
The problem of cost is illusory, because the commodity of food is not genuinely scarce, and money is simply the medium for commodity exchange.
This is interesting. The fact that food isn’t scarce is actually a point I use for socialized food, and NOT UBI.
If you are still not understanding, then I doubt further clarity would be possible.
One group in society consolidates immense wealth. It has more money, food, and other assets or resources than are necessary or even useful for its members.
Another group in society holds wealth generally only supporting access to resources personally necessary and useful to its members.
Some within the latter group are so severely deprived that their survival is threatened by inadequate access to money and food.
Even so, the total capacity supports survival of everyone.
UBI is simply a transfer of wealth from those who have hoarded to those who are desperate.
From your reply, I think I understand fully and that it is you who are confused.
You’re still talking about UBI as if it’s a tax on the rich. It’s not. You talk about wealth redistribution as if UBI were socialism. It’s not.
I’ve asked you time and time again to tell me what features YOUR vision of UBI has, after listing the iconic features that I hate about UBI. Why haven’t you addressed any of the features you want or the features I dread?
I’m going to ask you a hard question. Do you actually know anything about UBI? Or is it a buzz-word for you of the simple vague idea of things being better?
You accused me elsewhere of coming across as nebulous. I’m going to use that same assertion against you. I know what the UBI I’ve objected to is about, but you haven’t addressed my objections as if they aren’t relevant to your UBI. But you’ve also not told me anything more about UBI than “It’s a transfer of wealth from those who have hoarded to those who are desperate”.
But if I called UBI strict socialism, the seizure of the means of production such that everyone owns everything and private property becomes a fiction, I don’t think you’d stand with that (since you’re standing against universal EBT over a $1000/mo check). So UBI is not the definition you’re trying to use, even to you.
Why haven’t you addressed any of the features you want
Tax the rich, and distribute cash transfers, to enforce a guaranteed income floor for each adult, and a further amount for each dependent child.
or the features I dread?
Your characterization is just a straw man, like a car with no wheels, or one you think should fly.
If you remove the features you dread, and include the ones you like, then all will be well.
If your objective is to create an idea you feel convinced will have catastrophic consequences, then you doubtless will succeed, as such a task would be trivial for anyone.
Tax the rich, and distribute cash transfers, to enforce a guaranteed income floor for each adult, and a further amount for each dependent child.
Ok. Is it your opinion that an income floor is more important than a QOL floor? If people are still homeless or starving, and others wealthy, is that acceptable to you so long as there’s an income floor?
Your characterization is just a straw man, like a car with no wheels, or one you think should fly.
What’s with the aggression? What exactly is a strawman about my characterization?
These are my fears. If you think they’re wrong, ADDRESS them by name with reasoning instead of insulting me vaguely.
EVERY UBI plan seems to punish the middle-class or poor in some way. Yang’s is the only truly mature UBI plan I’ve ever been presented, and it punished the poor pretty badly because it required opting out of welfare to receive. Tax-balanced UBI plans constantly start to turn into a net negative right around the Lower Middle Class line, meaning >60% of the US suffers for the UBI, with the middle-class and upper-middle-class suffering the most.
UBI has a ceiling. A $1000/mo UBI will double the entire federal outlay, but $1000/mo is not life-changing for most poor and middle-class Americans. It’s ONE FOURTH the living wage. So it does nothing on its own, while costing so much money that social programs come off the table. Unemployed people still need to work or starve to death. People. Still. Starve.
Those are true concerns. So true that you don’t seem to be willing to look them in the eye. You haven’t discussed specifics at all. This is the 3rd or 4th reply since I accused you of not actually knowing what UBI even is because you haven’t shown any such knowledge.
If you remove the features you dread, and include the ones you like, then all will be well.
Absolutely. If the UBI comes in the form of food+clothing, housing, and healthcare instead of cash and doesn’t cost the US $4T, then all will be well. But that’s not a UBI anymore.
If your objective is to create an idea you feel convinced will have catastrophic consequences, then you doubtless will succeed
Most of my critiques come from the only UBI plan ever seriously considered for the United States. You’re making it look like my concerns are contrived, but they are the only concrete example the world has ever provided. Have you actually read Yang’s UBI plan? As asked above, do you even know enough about what a UBI is? I’m willing to concede the possibility that there’s a workable UBI that’s just alien to those I’ve seen, but you seem unwilling to show me what. UBI feels like the wrong answer to the problem of poverty, the same way “clean coal” is the wrong answer to the problem of global warming.
In fact, your defenses have been so vague, I could probably put the words “clean coal” wherever you wrote UBI, and the argument would make more sense.
So please, stop treating me like I’m a bad guy, and show me what you see about UBI. Is it ignorance, or do you know something about UBI that I don’t? We both clearly want everyone to have access to food and shelter. I’m just convinced that the way you’re pitching will starve people. And I have no idea what your problem is with the way I’m pitching.
Not just against everything associated with the same label as what you fear.
UBI is a fairly concrete concept, cutting a check to every single person or household. While its implementation has some variants (is it a tax refund or a stimulus? Is it means-tested or means-adjusted?) that’s the heart of what you need to do to be a UBI. I try to envision the BEST possible, or at least best realistic UBI, and that’s what I try to consider. What comes out to me from that are all the concerns I have. Yang’s plan isn’t trying to kill welfare just for reasons of his capitalist ideology, it’s also because he knows his plan is prohibitively expensive. That’s what everything boils down to. I used to be all-in with UBI, but I genuinely have never been able to dial in on a possible UBI plan that’s any better than the society we have now.
Also, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
This saying doesn’t really apply when so-called Good might be worse than what we have, or harder to implement/maintain than perfect. “Perfect” is downright affordable except for the conservative mindset against “giving people things for free”. The best UBI plan I can imagine is less likely to get votes, more expensive, and less effective than just taking means-testing out of welfare. BOTH are impossible in this climate, but why shoot for “Bad” when it’s 10 miles off the coast of “Perfect”?
But you say you see something in UBI. I want to see it, too. That’s why I’m asking about it.
So are you saying your idea of a good UBI is Yang’s?
I think we’ll agree to disagree, and I confronted this directly. Your reply doesn’t seem to respond to that direct confrontation. That’s not on me.
A median quality-of-life increase and normalization. No major detrimental effects to lower- or middle-class (and ideally even lower-upper class, but I’ll give in on that one). A net gain for the economic outlay that meets or exceeds using the same $4T on social programs (or showing that you could do a worthwhile UBI for less, that in a way you can’t do social programs for).
That is, you’d have to show why UBI is "actually better "than social programs. I live in an area where that $1000/mo isn’t going to get someone a shitty studio apartment. So what kind of UBI are you pitching that succeeds in any way? Or, as I asked, is UBI your GOAL, and it doesn’t matter how good it achieves other goals?
What am I missing then? For all of the population, having guaranteed quality housing, food, and healthcare (and let’s throw in mass transit coverage) would have that same effect, with fewer gotchas. Flip-side, nothing will likely be able to stop UBI from being garnishable for debt collection. I won’t get into that topic (since you have already accused me of gish-galloping), but you seem to be arguing “UBI vs nothing” and not “UBI vs any other social use of that money”.
Except it isn’t. That’s not a meaningful or accurate definition of UBI. UBI as a concept doesn’t even cover where the money comes from (what you claim is “those who have too much food to sell”), nor does it state how that money will be used by recipients. When Jeff Bezos gets that $1000 check, he’s not spending it on food and we both know it.
The thing that fits that definition would be a form of universal EBT. I’m 100% for a universal EBT.
Care to prove this? I look at what $1000/mo will buy in my state (since you aren’t objecting to that UBI number), and it doesn’t cover food and housing.
Sorry, I AM adding a new bullet point here. In my view, every UBI plan I’ve seen will redistribute wealth from Blue States to Red States… That is not a partisan point; it redistributes wealth from states that net produce and have higher poverty to states that net consume and have lower poverty. In low-cost-of-living states with low poverty, it provides every individual with a Middle Class income. In high-cost-of-living states with high poverty, it inordinately taxes the middle class while not providing enough money for the poor.
SO my problem with UBI is that the homeless people near me stay homeless, where alternative solutions would give those homeless people homes and food while still giving middle-class QOL to people in the lower-cost-of-living states… and having a significant amount of money floating around to do something else with. (HOPEFULLY no more for the military)
This is interesting. The fact that food isn’t scarce is actually a point I use for socialized food, and NOT UBI.
I will simplify as much as possible.
If you are still not understanding, then I doubt further clarity would be possible.
One group in society consolidates immense wealth. It has more money, food, and other assets or resources than are necessary or even useful for its members.
Another group in society holds wealth generally only supporting access to resources personally necessary and useful to its members.
Some within the latter group are so severely deprived that their survival is threatened by inadequate access to money and food.
Even so, the total capacity supports survival of everyone.
UBI is simply a transfer of wealth from those who have hoarded to those who are desperate.
There is no deeper truth or mystery.
From your reply, I think I understand fully and that it is you who are confused.
You’re still talking about UBI as if it’s a tax on the rich. It’s not. You talk about wealth redistribution as if UBI were socialism. It’s not.
I’ve asked you time and time again to tell me what features YOUR vision of UBI has, after listing the iconic features that I hate about UBI. Why haven’t you addressed any of the features you want or the features I dread?
I’m going to ask you a hard question. Do you actually know anything about UBI? Or is it a buzz-word for you of the simple vague idea of things being better?
You accused me elsewhere of coming across as nebulous. I’m going to use that same assertion against you. I know what the UBI I’ve objected to is about, but you haven’t addressed my objections as if they aren’t relevant to your UBI. But you’ve also not told me anything more about UBI than “It’s a transfer of wealth from those who have hoarded to those who are desperate”.
But if I called UBI strict socialism, the seizure of the means of production such that everyone owns everything and private property becomes a fiction, I don’t think you’d stand with that (since you’re standing against universal EBT over a $1000/mo check). So UBI is not the definition you’re trying to use, even to you.
Tax the rich, and distribute cash transfers, to enforce a guaranteed income floor for each adult, and a further amount for each dependent child.
Your characterization is just a straw man, like a car with no wheels, or one you think should fly.
If you remove the features you dread, and include the ones you like, then all will be well.
If your objective is to create an idea you feel convinced will have catastrophic consequences, then you doubtless will succeed, as such a task would be trivial for anyone.
Ok. Is it your opinion that an income floor is more important than a QOL floor? If people are still homeless or starving, and others wealthy, is that acceptable to you so long as there’s an income floor?
What’s with the aggression? What exactly is a strawman about my characterization?
These are my fears. If you think they’re wrong, ADDRESS them by name with reasoning instead of insulting me vaguely.
Those are true concerns. So true that you don’t seem to be willing to look them in the eye. You haven’t discussed specifics at all. This is the 3rd or 4th reply since I accused you of not actually knowing what UBI even is because you haven’t shown any such knowledge.
Absolutely. If the UBI comes in the form of food+clothing, housing, and healthcare instead of cash and doesn’t cost the US $4T, then all will be well. But that’s not a UBI anymore.
Most of my critiques come from the only UBI plan ever seriously considered for the United States. You’re making it look like my concerns are contrived, but they are the only concrete example the world has ever provided. Have you actually read Yang’s UBI plan? As asked above, do you even know enough about what a UBI is? I’m willing to concede the possibility that there’s a workable UBI that’s just alien to those I’ve seen, but you seem unwilling to show me what. UBI feels like the wrong answer to the problem of poverty, the same way “clean coal” is the wrong answer to the problem of global warming.
In fact, your defenses have been so vague, I could probably put the words “clean coal” wherever you wrote UBI, and the argument would make more sense.
So please, stop treating me like I’m a bad guy, and show me what you see about UBI. Is it ignorance, or do you know something about UBI that I don’t? We both clearly want everyone to have access to food and shelter. I’m just convinced that the way you’re pitching will starve people. And I have no idea what your problem is with the way I’m pitching.
Advocate for what you want, not just against everything associated with the same label as what you fear.
Also, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I do. EBT, rent-coverage, healthcare for all.
UBI is a fairly concrete concept, cutting a check to every single person or household. While its implementation has some variants (is it a tax refund or a stimulus? Is it means-tested or means-adjusted?) that’s the heart of what you need to do to be a UBI. I try to envision the BEST possible, or at least best realistic UBI, and that’s what I try to consider. What comes out to me from that are all the concerns I have. Yang’s plan isn’t trying to kill welfare just for reasons of his capitalist ideology, it’s also because he knows his plan is prohibitively expensive. That’s what everything boils down to. I used to be all-in with UBI, but I genuinely have never been able to dial in on a possible UBI plan that’s any better than the society we have now.
This saying doesn’t really apply when so-called Good might be worse than what we have, or harder to implement/maintain than perfect. “Perfect” is downright affordable except for the conservative mindset against “giving people things for free”. The best UBI plan I can imagine is less likely to get votes, more expensive, and less effective than just taking means-testing out of welfare. BOTH are impossible in this climate, but why shoot for “Bad” when it’s 10 miles off the coast of “Perfect”?
But you say you see something in UBI. I want to see it, too. That’s why I’m asking about it.
It is concrete, as I explained, but you were writing mountains of text trying to make it obscure.
Keep fighting for advances, for greater power and deeper unity for the working class.
Emphasize the opportunities for today above the vision for tomorrow or the fears for next year.
Not really.
And not for UBI. I think we’re on the same page, then.
Well this discussion was about something that won’t happen today or tomorrow, so focusing on today seemed silly.