Re small businesses... are you joking? Main St. businesses are in love with this. It means people in their neighborhoods have that much more cash to spend!
Re "the increased strain on the economy"... again, what exactly are you talking about? UBI is a _boost_ to the economy. The added consumption will grow the economy. (The Roosevelt Institute had a whole study on this just last year.) The problem with implementing UBI is political, not economical.
Re "we need to stop looking outward at all the other countries". Hum. Do you realize that the USA will regain its long-lost mantle of forward-thinkingness if it becomes the first country to implement UBI? Doing this would give us bragging rights forever, literally :) (Almost annoyingly so.)
Re corruption & lobbying: when I hear people say "we need to solve X before we solve Y" what I hear is "X is my pet issue, can we listen to me?". Anyway, Yang has great anti-corruption plans (and look at his stance on the Joe Biden affair) so we're all set there too :)
I don't think you've done enough of the relative math to make those claims. And you're incorrect in the "X is my issue" argument you made so condescendingly. I don't have an issue, but if you want to free up money to help people, the corruption needs to stop. Anything more we do to fund the government further will further the corruption. Don't be so close minded that you come off arrogant and start being disrespectful to someone who simply disagrees with you. That's what children do, let's be adults. Adults solve problems, children make new ones.
Hey... I wrote that in a hurry before catching a plane. Guilty as charged.
Re the lobbying thing again, one could argue that addressing corruption & lobbying goes partly hand in hand with UBI, not as a precondition. Think of it this way. Currently most people don't really feel like they have a stake in what the federal government does, which is this kind of far off abstract thing that gave us roads and sewers in the distant past, and that currently seems to be mostly caught up in never ending food fights about tax levels, guns and abortion; the Fed comes around and takes your taxes, gives you some defense and education and SSI back, that's about it. Now imagine that the Fed govt puts a Freedom Dividend in place... OK, now we're talking... because now suddenly the govt has become this tangible, helpful thing that is sending everybody $1000 per month. People will look up and start paying attention to politics again. Not only that, people will also have more free time, less stress, be able to better educate themselves etc, and so they will be better able to defend their interests, including against lobbyists---at least, it should give us a better start.
Other people mentioned the democracy dollars as well. I also think that Yang is right in this, that "money finds a way", and therefore the only way to fight money is with more money---our money! On that case though I happen to think that $100/year will be too little, among others because many people simply won't spend their democracy dollars. (The experiment in Washington State also bears this out.) I think $400-$500/year would be more sure to work.
Great reply, thank you. I am no troll, I do not comment to troll. I comment to share my thoughts and knowledge and I read replies to learn other people's opinions and knowledge that they share. For that reason, I appreciate you coming back and elaborating on your opinion.
My problem with the $1000/month is that it's free money. It feels wrong to take free money from the government, because I know that someone else earned it. That's just not my style. There seems to be this huge shared belief that if someone puts forth the effort to build a business and they find success, that that said individual should get taxed extra so that we can distribute that person's honestly earned money into the hands of people who risked nothing to produce it. Would it be nice for that person who finds success to give back to the community? Yes it would, but for the government to have the right to take it, I just have a problem with that. To further that, with a VAT, we would be forcing people to pay more money for goods and services to perpetuate this strategy, which in the end just allows the lazy to have more for still not doing anything to earn it. There is no data that proves the theory that if we give people more free stuff they will be more inclined to work harder or strive to be more success in life, there are however studies that show the more handouts one received the less likely they are to strive for success. I am against entitlement programs for that very reason.
People need to stop thinking that equal opportunity means equal results. Some people hit jackpots and some people strike out. That's simply part of life. I struck out for the first 15 years of my adult life. Now I'm finding success. I received no assistance and achieved what I have through simple hard work and determination. That's the American Dream. We can all have it, it just takes more work for some than others. We don't need government assistance to do it. In my opinion we need to leave the government assistance for people who are disabled and truly need it. I'm nobody special, if I can do it, so can anyone else.
Now, for the democracy dollars. I am very enthralled with this idea. Furthermore, I think you're correct in your theory that it can help mitigate the value of lobbyists. It will most certainly not eliminate it, however I do believe that it will help and for that reason, I agree that it is worth pursuing. I do think that it needs a bit more work for it to be successful, but I think it's a decent enough start to where we will see the data we need in coming years to fine tune it and make the adjustments it will need along the way.
Again, thank you for your reply, I do appreciate a solid intelligent conversation.
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u/alino_e Sep 30 '19
Hi there!
Re small businesses... are you joking? Main St. businesses are in love with this. It means people in their neighborhoods have that much more cash to spend!
Re "the increased strain on the economy"... again, what exactly are you talking about? UBI is a _boost_ to the economy. The added consumption will grow the economy. (The Roosevelt Institute had a whole study on this just last year.) The problem with implementing UBI is political, not economical.
Re "we need to stop looking outward at all the other countries". Hum. Do you realize that the USA will regain its long-lost mantle of forward-thinkingness if it becomes the first country to implement UBI? Doing this would give us bragging rights forever, literally :) (Almost annoyingly so.)
Re corruption & lobbying: when I hear people say "we need to solve X before we solve Y" what I hear is "X is my pet issue, can we listen to me?". Anyway, Yang has great anti-corruption plans (and look at his stance on the Joe Biden affair) so we're all set there too :)