I am one of those libertarians not quite on board with UBI. Why? I believe anyone who thinks UBI will replace other government programs and bureaucracy is somewhat delusional. If you look at the left, they clearly see UBI as an add-on. If you look at all the programs and agencies and bureaucrats involved in welfare, do you think they will simply be made redundant and thus save money? Come on. Let’s not fool ourselves. But I dislike the UBI beyond that. I generally dislike entitlement mentality in everything, not just government and money. Unless you have clear way to show you deserve something, don’t claim it. I fail to see how a welfare state – UBI even more so – does not encourage this. Furthermore, ethically, I do not think one deserves a permanent living just for surviving birth. I really don’t. I do not see why someone else should be forced to support you. Entitlement breeds entitlement.
Now the question some would pose is: doesn’t everyone deserve a decent life? Honestly, not really. Some people clearly do not. Unless you somehow think there are no scumbags in the world… In my personal, anecdotal, ehm… lived experience if you will, some people deserve little more than to starve in a ditch. These particular ditches should be shown to children everywhere, probably on prime-time TV, as the consequence of certain actions, with the message watch what you do or you to will end up starving in a ditch. I think that is sadly necessary for a society. Most people strongly disagree with me, so I do not say these things at parties.
I will not say, and I don’t think most others would either, that everyone who has a hard life did something to deserve it. It is silly. It is equally silly to say that no one hard up has a responsibility in their situation. I would say that, for at least a majority of people, there is at least a component of their actions which contribute to their issues. For the left, saying this is literally fascism. Everyone deserves the chance to have a decent life, and if the left cared about that, they would look to regulatory reform, licensing reform and other things. Now that we are done having a good laugh… I will engage in a bit of the old delusion myself and will present a form of UBI that I might find more palatable, on the entitlement front. Of course, my preference is no welfare at all. But considering that is not an option and people yearn for a safety net, I will think of one. I do not fool myself, and realize this would inevitably grow way beyond the limits I set, everything does. But… for the sake of argument, in a world where a UBI would be implemented once this way and stay the same…
I would do away with all the various programs and bureaucrats and whatnot and implement a partial UBI. Whoever applies for UBI gets it the next month, no means testing, no questions asked. But the kicker is, you get 120 months of this over working lifetime, say 18 to 68. It is up to you how you use your months. If you are done by 30, I have a nice ditch for you. I assume, in such a scenario, to be palatable to the majority, there will inevitably be an exception for severe disability. Outside that, this should satisfy all those who claim they want an actual safety net. 20% of your lifetime is plenty for a safety net, any more and it becomes a hammock.
I do wonder how many on the left would find this agreeable… I mean it removes a lot of the “humiliation” people go through the classic process. It can be made online and remove the stigma associated with being temporarily on welfare – although I am not sure of the wisdom of removing the stigma entirely. It can remove redundant bureaucracy and situations when people need welfare and are denied. You may be employed, but one month may need some extra cash, this is a way to get it. But it also a way to introduce personal responsibility and clear limits on welfare. I would say very few of our leftist brethren would agree…
Thoughts?
A buddy of mine proposed reverse social security around 1998: free money and a life of Riley until 40 whereupon you go to the mines and just slave until you die.
Well, that would fix the aging issues in Japan really fast.
The difference between a safety net and a hammock is that you’re supposed to get out of the safety net and get back up on the high wire ASAP.
^THIS!!1!
Some high wire performers refuse to even practice with a net as it leads to bad habits and can be dangerous itself.
Nice article, Pie. Thanks.
I believe anyone who thinks UBI will replace other government programs and bureaucracy is somewhat delusional.
Strongly agree. And even if it does for a short while, soon some animals will again become more equal than others and get taxpayer subsidies because they are members of accredited victim groups.
I do not think one deserves a permanent living just for surviving birth. I really don’t. I do not see why someone else should be forced to support you. Entitlement breeds entitlement.
Also agree, but we are fighting a losing battle in a society which is debating whether “healthcare is a human right.” Because if free medical treatment is a human right, that also implies that the taxpayers are obligated to provide you with food and shelter. I think that government should provide food and shelter as a last resort, but that means you get to sleep in the lobby of a government office building, have access to the lobby bathroom, and get an MRE or humanitarian ration. But private charity should be the norm, and this is where progressives generally fall flat is in providing direct, tangible relief; contrast with Salvation Army who do provide such relief, but whom progs hate because they are icky.
[D]oesn’t everyone deserve a decent life? Honestly, not really. Some people clearly do not. Unless you somehow think there are no scumbags in the world…
That is where we lose the PR battle. Because the hysterics immediately pull out the pictures of ghetto children. And those people are fine with deplorables and other wrongthinkers leading shitty lives; they are just pissed because the wrong people are living shitty lives and expect everyone else to do something about it.
I think he belief that for some being poor is being virtuous or morally superior is one of the strangest i see in some leftists.
“Of course it’s no shame to be poor. But it’s no great honor either.”
Sometimes it is. Often it is not…
Shame, humiliation, and embarrassment are underrated. Activists and bureaucrats have largely been successful in removing stigma from antisocial behaviors.
And music, even if it’s my least favorite Elvis song.
https://youtu.be/2Ox1Tore9nw
I knew what the song was gonna be before I punched it. My son and I discussed this one time, what a big surprise that the lady was gonna get another “little hungry mouth” as if it came from nowhere, as if she and some partner contributed nothing. A miraculous gift from…That song should be played every morning in every high school until reality sets in.
“Another baby? Where the hell did that come from?”
I agree, Tonio. The problem is that government regulation has completely warped the freemarket for things like healthcare and even basic food/shelter supply. Healthcare would never have risen as an expense issue for most things if people were free to seek it from anyone, licensed or not, and buy anything they want over the counter. In the current environment, where insurance = healthcare, it’s grown beyond affordable to receive even basic services for the average person without some sort of assistance, whether via employer or government. The silver insurance plan for a family is just about $30k/year without subsidies, more than most mortgage payments. It shouldn’t be this way, but government has royally fucked it up.
Similarly, government regulations have done their damn best to prevent private solutions to the food and shelter issue. Shelter needs could be met with private flophouses that charge little for a bed. Those are outlawed. We’ve all read about soup kitchens and church drives being shutdown because the food wasn’t served in a government approved kitchen. I think my favorite story on this comes from possibly Paris? They passed a law requiring grocery stores to sort and deliver all food that was still good but to be discarded to local food banks. Until this law, food banks came to the store, sorted the discarded food, and took everything they could. Post-regulations, the costs were too great to the grocery stores to sort themselves so they just started labeling all discarded food as inedible and trashed it.
I should have added to the grocery store story, that this was a win-win for both grocery stores and food banks before the new regulations were passed. The food banks got free food in return for just their cheap labor. The grocery stores got to reduce their trash bill at no cost to themselves. I wish I still had that article.
A “partial” UBI would just face the same pressures as a full one – always be someone whinging that they need moar time “what about graduates students, new mothers, blah, blah, blah.” In the end, the Free Shit Army won’t stop its march.
I know. This is why I would not really be in favor. But I was thinking of throwing a compromise to leftists on welfare. If general UBI would replace all welfare and would not grow, as some libertarians imagine the ideal perfect case for UBI, I would still be against it. But if such a limited UBI would replace all welfare programs and stay limited I could live with that
You cannot compromise with the Left.
https://youtu.be/2Ox1Tore9nw
I mean we need the occasional though experiment just to keep on our toes
A Gedankenexperiment – you are correct, that is useful.
^^^This x 300,000,000
I mean, I’m taking out ten years of my life to do deep academic research into how cowboys reinforce colonial notions of binary gender. That should be taken into account when rewarding me with other people’s money.
I blame beans in chili. Or lack of beans in chili. Or toxic masculinity
“How bout some more beans, Mr. Taggart?”
You’ll be needing a research assistant, then.
Yes, preferably one who has no Y chromosomes and identifies as a nymphomaniac.
*listens for the sound of rusty can lids readying*
I’d start my research here.
Here is my main problem with all of this. UBI and any other handout programs all assume that the recipient is going to act rationally. They will spend the money on food and shelter, buy clothes for their kids, etc. For the most part that is true. But there are, and will always be, people who do not act rationally. They will spend all their money on lottery tickets, or drugs, or alcohol, or cigarettes, and not take care of their kids. This why there are restrictions on what you can buy with food stamps.
These are the people that would normally end up in a ditch. But most people in our society don’t want to see ditches full of dead people, no matter how they got there.
Until you solve this problem UBI won’t produce results any different from our current system.
But most people in our society don’t want to see ditches full of dead people – I believe this to be a failure of government education
Snitches get ditches.
Of course, the ditches full of dead people makes the usual assumptions- if government doesn’t do it, people won’t.
I still belive there would be some left behind. But it is not like there aren’t with government involved. Can’t save everyone
If you throw people from helicopters, then they’re more spread out. Not as unsightly as full ditches.
I shouldn’t have laughed at that, but I did.
I was going to make the argument that ditches are preferable to coming across another random corpse. But I didn’t.
Ah, the pleasures of working in a hospital, where you actually do encounter random corpses. Not every day, but the route from the morgue to the loading dock runs right across the main hallway outside of our offices.
They are generally bagged up and covered with a blanket, but still . . . .
“But most people in our society don’t want to see ditches full of dead people, no matter how they got there.”
On a less drastic note, I recall talking with friends of mine during the housing crisis of 2008-09. And there response was solely emotional based on TV news reporting. That is, “but those poor families sitting on the street outside their houses with all their goods around them. We have to do something”
“We” of course means “people other than me.” And, no questioning of why those people ended up on the street. Even if the people on the news did little wrong, you can’t thereby translate that to everyone who lost their houses.
“Of course you can buy a $600,000 house for no money down!”
Heh. I see so many TV shows where the main breadwinner for the household is, I dunno, paramedic*, and the wife is a stay-at-home. They somehow have a 3,000 sq ft. house in a nice neighborhood in California, new cars, etc.
*nothing against paramedics, but they don’t usually make enough to buy a place like that, hell I know I couldn’t afford it.
so you think you are better than paramedics?
Yes.
I forgot what the commercial was for – deodorant? – but it showed a MILFY waitress sweating and slaving at a greasy spoon diner. And then shes’ back home – in a upper middle class McMansion-type interior – looking as fresh as a daisy.
She gets big tips.
Working the night shift.
I used to get this (free) magazine on the downtown part of where I live. One of the articles was always on how someone had turned their loft-style condo into a cool living space. Almost invariably the person featured would be an artist, or DJ, or work for a non-profit. And every time I’d be wondering how they could afford to buy those places – until I got to the end of the article. There would be a sentence along the lines of “X’s partner heads up cybersecurity for huge national banking chain.”
So much this. Also usually DINKs.
DINK? Is that someone whose mom and dad pays for their lifestyle?
Dual Income No Kids — yuppies or empty-nesters.
Ah. Do furbabies count?
Do furbabies count?
*throws trash can at lack*
Its the rare TV show or movie indeed that has people living in, driving, and wearing anything that their character could remotely afford IRL.
In the stuff that I’m reading and listening to, the concept of “culture” comes up a lot. I think our American culture as shifted away from people helping each other directly, to people expecting government to help those in need. And that’s causing a lot of problems. If we reversed that shift, we’d be closer to solving the problem I mentioned above.
Blame the “Greatest” Generation for that.
yeah; I heard it this way once: the notion that the Depression and fascism were defeated by big government created a norm of deference and expectation that was utterly unknown before. The 1927 flood was handled if at all by the Red Cross, but Hoover cut his teeth on that disaster and would go on to become a great bureaucrat. Then the Red Scare and the Cold War and only your uncle’s getting snuffed at Ben Hoa would wake many from the dream of Uncle Sam taking care of everything and tucking you in.
“It is largely in this way that the progressive conversion of social power into State power becomes acceptable and gets itself accepted. [1] When the Johnstown flood occurred, social power was immediately mobilized and applied with intelligence and vigour. Its abundance, measured by money alone, was so great that when everything was finally put in order, something like a million dollars remained. If such a catastrophe happened now, not only is social power perhaps too depleted for the like exercise, but the general instinct would be to let the State see to it. Not only has social power atrophied to that extent, but the disposition to exercise it in that particular direction has atrophied with it. If the State has made such matters its business, and has confiscated the social power necessary to deal with them, why, let it deal with them. We can get some kind of rough measure of this general atrophy by our own disposition when approached by a beggar. Two years ago we might have been moved to give him something; today we are moved to refer him to the State’s relief-agency. The State has said to society, You are either not exercising enough power to meet the emergency, or are exercising it in what I think is an incompetent way, so I shall confiscate your power, and exercise it to suit myself. Hence when a beggar asks us for a quarter, our instinct is to say that the State has already confiscated our quarter for his benefit, and he should go to the State about it.
Every positive intervention that the State makes upon industry and commerce has a similar effect.”
– Albert Jay Nock, “Our Enemy The State”
That gentleman was so brilliant and far ahead of his time. He saw exactly how it all works.
UBI recipient?
Feature, not bug.
I would say it’s entirely rational. You get to coast on your narcissism, always knowing there’s more money coming.
“But most people in our society don’t want to see ditches full of dead people ”
Those same people also think there aren’t enough prisons.
I have no data to back this up, but I suspect the tent-dwelling drug users scattered throughout Seattle, SF, LA, etc. would only briefly slow down their theft and panhandling were they provided a UBI. Pass.
I’ll take care of mine. If you all do the same we should be fine.
For a significant subset of the population, gaming the system is a way of life.
And a point of pride.
It’s just like any other welfare program. I’d also suspect there will be those who won’t even bother to collect UBI because it’s a hassle or there are too many strings attached.
what strings?
here, in order to collect UBI, fill out this affidavit swearing you own no firearms.
Honestly I think firing hordes of bureaucrats is as much of an impediment to true UBI as feckless people
You’re correct.
Bureaucracy exists for one reason only: to self-perpetuate.
Unless they hand out UBI as cash, the dysfunctional homeless will never see it.
Along these lines.. .
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/oprah-winfrey-college-donations-instagram-paid-off-students-debt-robert-smith
“Whycome u no give all ur munny away?”
*a month passes*
In shocking news completely unrelated to certain events earlier this year, tuition up 100% at Morehouse college.
And anyone paying their tuition or not making out their student loans got shafted. Also, enjoy the 1099 next year.
I make it a point to never criticize how people spend their money. Every person in the USA has something they spend their money on that someone else thinks is a waste. It could be pets, fancy cars, a big house, tattoos, going out to eat, visits to the salon, the list is endless. If you don’t want your finances criticized, don’t criticize someone else.
I make it a point to never criticize how people spend
theirmoney that they earned.I reserve the right to criticize how you spend your welfare check(s).
You’ll like my neighborhood Pakistani convenience store owner. In big letters on the door.
NO WIC FOR RED BULL
We had our lunch break for the class, so I went to vote.
Now it’s not unusual to have polling places in schools, but our normal election/primary/etc polling place is a community center only a few blocks down the road from the school. Today’s polling place was the school, where you had to walk past the outdoor playground, where the elementary kids were playing. Then you were presented with a door with no signs indicating that this was, in fact, the polling place. Instead, the signs said “This door is locked” and “Intercom broken”. Once I realized that the door was not, in fact, locked, I was the only voter there, faced with three poll workers. They then did more of a voter identification routine than New York does for the general election. Once they realized that I was, in fact, an eligable voter, they gave me a ballot.
On said ballot, aside from the budget questions, there was the school board election “Pick any three – of the two listed.”
“Pick any three – of the two listed.” – write yourself in
Just by showing up he is the now the third member.
Oh, and I was only the seventeenth vote cast today.
Feature, not bug.
The other 16 were the teachers.
And now they know who the nay voter was.
It was that traitor home ec teacher Ms Taxicutt!
Either that or Mr. Fu Cue Cutspen Ding
Too bad the results are enforceable even without a quorum of registered voters.
Please tell me you took video of the approach to the polls and sent it to a friendly media outlet.
What’s a “Friendly Media Outlet”?
The Playboy channel?
The Blaze?
When I was a kid and Dad took us into a city, he would point to street bums and warn us that’s where you end up if you don’t work hard.
Huh – my dad did the same thing in LA when I was 13.
“Let’s walk down skid row, kids!”
One of the few times in my life I was happy to see a LAPD officer – this was when I watched CHiPS – walking the beat.
You weren’t always happy to see Randi Oakes?
One bright day in late autumn a family of Ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.
“What!” cried the Ants in surprise, “haven’t you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?”
“I didn’t have time to store up any food,” whined the Grasshopper; “I was so busy making music that before I knew it the summer was gone.”
The Ants shrugged their shoulders in disgust.
“Making music, were you?” they cried. “Very well; now dance!” And they turned their backs on the Grasshopper and went on with their work.
Then a pair of Cockroaches joined the Ants and the Grasshopper. “Just hold on one one second there little buddy.” said the larger of the Cockroaches. “This huge store of grain you have here is the result of Ant Privilege. You didn’t make that grain. You have it because your society excludes all others and prevents them from reaping the benefits of nature. You must share what you have. Otherwise, you might not like what happens if some other insects have to come back and take it from you. Remember — Sharing is Caring.”
So the ants gave the Grasshopper and two Cockroaches all the grain they could carry. As they were walking away, the smaller Cockroach turned back to say “Nice anthill you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it. We’ll be back next week.” Then he winked and walked off down the road.
In a real anthill, the ants would swarm, dismember and eat the grasshopper and roaches.
You must be a blast at the library when they read stories to the kids.
This is why I brew for a hobby.
I don’t know. It sounded like a happy ending to me.
That’s what I was thinking.
Great minds…
Fuck. I forgot about that.
I’ve had this idea in my head for a couple of years. When you posted yours I knew I’d never be able to use it.
Such are the consequences of posting while working.
“Sharing is caring” Kinnath said while walking off with more than his share of the spotlight.
;p
I will not say, and I don’t think most others would either, that everyone who has a hard life did something to deserve it. It is silly. It is equally silly to say that no one hard up has a responsibility in their situation. I would say that, for at least a majority of people, there is at least a component of their actions which contribute to their issues.
Well, my article later this week will seem derivative.
Good Article Pie!
Well, my article later this week will seem derivative.
Or maybe it will be integral.
Narrows eyelid partitions until the width approaches zero.
*narrows gaze*
That is two of us. Although Pie started out going the other way as mine.
So, next Tuesday, treat Pie’s article as a rejoinder to my UBI article.
The UBI system crashes and burns in two weeks.
Checks issued on the 1st. On the 15th the news is full of stories of people who have already spent their money and won’t be able to make it to the 1st without CHILDREN STARVING.
Thanks, Pie, for all the thoughtful articles.
I say the same thing about reparations. All the money would be back in the old distribution within two years.
Ethically: All welfare is evil. Shouldn’t exist at all.
Practically: Some *very* limited form for a limited period to prevent people from starving to death. IE: you get free meals at a soup kitchen and we’ll put you up in some temporary housing for 6 months. In order to stay, you have to show proof that you’re looking for a job. If you can’t find a job in that 6 month period, tough titties.
The problem here is that even if you start with the practical solution, it will inevitably suffer from scope creep and eventually become a hammock. As far as exceptions for disability, it’s a totally different question, but I think you’d have to be certified by no fewer than 3 independent doctors that your condition makes it impossible to work.
A corollary here is end the WoD, redirect 10% of the money wasted on enforcement into public rehab clinics. The vast majority of homeless/truly indigent have some kind of drug habit. Wean them out of rehab and into the very limited welfare system. If they slip and start using again, back to rehab. You can do this… say 5 times? If you slip that many times, you’re out on the street.
If you slip that many times, you’re out on the street. – thing is as hard as it is for some “well meaning” lefties to understand, some prefer and want to be on the streets. but most lefties don’t want to see people on the streets and would be satisfied if they would be put in a mental hospital and consider it compassion
Q you need to find some pics of hot chicks in hammocks
Moderately NSFW.
Totally SFW
*narrows gaze*
Too much bureaucracy in your system. There’ll be housing inspectors, food QAs, etc. The whole system will be bogged down by such people and between them and the people in need yo will have a nice constituency agitating for more funding.
Fuck the Yang Gang.
Agreed. Yang was scheduled to debate his UBI proposal at the Soho Forum. He backed out.
Weak. Shouldn’t be that hard to convince a bunch of cosmos on UBI.
Fortunately this guy is running again. His ideas, on the whole, would be less damaging than most (all?) candidates: https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/andrew-d-basiago-time-travelling-us-presidential-candidate-2020/
Wow, this guy met STEVE SMITH. Which one of you is this?
He’s right on eggs and Word 2007 – and that’s just the first two platform points!
Bolton Wanderers update: there is a food collection drive taking place to help the non-playing staff who haven’t been paid.
If you are drinking tonight, please raise a glass to birthday boy Laurence Tureaud who turns 67. You probably know him better as “Mr. T”.
You should also pity any fools nearby.
I should think that goes without saying.
Even if some people don’t deserve (morally) to wind up starving in a ditch, there’s no shortage of people for whom starving in a ditch is the logical outcome of their choices. Nature doesn’t provide mankind with a living. It’s got to be scraped out through hard work. And any number of decisions will leave you unable to scratch that living out of nature. And starving in a ditch is the logical outcome of not scraping that living out of nature. But, those choices are fun. It’s more fun to party all night than to go to bed at 10PM. It’s more fun to sleep in till noon than to slog to work in the early morning.
This is why you can’t have a uniform policy across 330M people. One guy is destitute because he was laid off right after getting cancer and his wife died in a plane crash. Another is destitute because he has a bit of a crack addiction. Another is destitute because he hasn’t ever worked a job 6 months straight.
The solution to those three people’s poverty is drastically different.
Even if some people don’t deserve (morally) to wind up starving in a ditch, there’s no shortage of people for whom starving in a ditch is the logical outcome of their choices.
I’m struggling with the idea that people don’t “deserve” the logical/foreseeable/likely outcomes of their choices. On the flip side, wouldn’t this mean that people who work hard, play by the rules, live frugally and build up savings of their own, don’t deserve them?
I’m struggling with the idea that people don’t “deserve” the logical/foreseeable/likely outcomes of their choices.
Well, there are some people who wind up starving in a ditch because of things other than their choices. You get the disabled, the mentally handicapped, and some cases that are genuinely bad luck.
I mean, take a case like Paul Krugman. Sure, he shouldn’t be a professor of economics, let alone given a Nobel participation trophy. But, do you really think it would be strictly moral to let him starve in a ditch just because he was born “special”?
By the way, excellent article.
Wife and kid are both laid low with some ‘awesome’ intestinal symptoms. I think I would have gotten it by now, if I was going to. Sadly missing out on a work trip because of it.
I have wrestled with the morality of my military retirement and SS for a long time. I’ve had discussions with other retired military friends. I have tried to rationalize that somehow I have ‘earned’ it or it was part of some contract that if ‘this’ than ‘this’ will be the result. The problem always comes back to the people paying me didn’t sign the contract or didn’t voluntarily sign the contract.
I torn between the guilt and the joy of pay day every month for something that happened many years ago. It doesn’t even include the good times while I was in the army, the schools and things I learned, the evenings at the club drinking cheap whiskey, etc. I might have did that part for free. While its true we gave some things during the service days we did that voluntarily, for the most part. (Exclude the draft).
Now if I said the guilt outweighs the pay checks I’d be lying. As my wife says, “I like free shit” only she’s a little more genteel. There is no escape from this reality because it buys votes. One day we’ll be surprised when the system doesn’t work anymore.
Oh yeah, Pie, great article. Unfortunately the schools are “Doin’ a heck of a job, Brownie”
I know what you mean. I’m currently in an MBA program on the GI Bill. On the one hand, I paid into it and I’d be a sucker not to use it, but at the same time it does make me feel like a parasite.
Military retirement doesn’t bother me. It was part of the deal. The fact that many taxpayers now funding it weren’t around when you made your deal doesn’t particularly bother me. When a business changes owners, the new owners don’t get to renege on/breach the contracts the business made under the old owners.
SocSec is different. There was no deal, no exchange of value. Its pure welfare. However, I have no problem with anyone cashing SocSec checks. Its a stupid system, but its the system we have. Is it immoral? Maybe. But that immorality sticks to the people responsible for the system (legislators, bureaucrats, and (attenuated) voters). Not to the recipients, any more than someone taking communion at a Catholic Church is tainted by its ongoing pedophile scandal.
Fourscore: Really? I went through a bit of that phase, and I haven’t even started getting my Reserve retirement yet (‘cuz fedgov no pay until you make it to 60). I think it was a fair trade and the military at least has its own line item in the Constitution. That is a very legitimate incentive to ask people to volunteer to give up a lot of freedoms and take a WHOLE LOT of fucking risks, including death, for a pension that is vastly less than most state police departments get. I think it represents a fair trade, overall, and it was certainly a consideration for me and whence I came.
As an aside and observation, it (the military) also represents (it certainly did to me) a significant opportunity for an increase in social *status* or *class* – almost as a matter of course in all human societies, in fact. The Dean of my law school once made a similar point that there have been no greater vehicles for raising a person’s status or class in western society like pursuing careers in the military or the law. And a modest pension after twenty years isn’t one of the more significant burdens that the Founders would have been unaware of. Indeed, it’s been a terrible thing in U.S. History that largely goes unreported, how badly the country, since the Revolution, has induced people to fight for guaranteed promises of benefits and then when claims have come rolling in, Congress has kicked veterans in the balls. OVER and OVER again. I’m serious. It’s a recurring theme in U.S. history since its inception.
https://www.history.com/news/veterans-affairs-history-va-pension-facts
Feel zero guilt about it. A bunch of guys I flew with died in training (I’m talking in the dozens) before they ever got to war. A bunch more of guys I loved died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Then there’s the suicides… It is a difficult thing to do.
I believe a society that induces people to risk their lives for its defense ought to be on the hook to its people who roger up for that benefit: you should go in the BCMR online reading rooms and search for cases involving denials of Post: 9/11 GI Bill benefits. It’s an epidemic. And no bureaucrat gets promoted by giving out MORE of the “fedgov’s” (i.e. your) money. So the criteria for what will get paid and how it’s interpreted gets tightened up until the spigot is smaller and smaller. It’s criminal, in fact. Or it should be.
https://fusion.tv/story/27553/veterans-sue-army-board-in-wake-of-fusion-investigation/
https://www.disabledveterans.org/2014/12/31/reporter-blows-lid-military-corrections-board-scam/
You have to practice long enough in the system to see systemic changes and reactions to wars and their aftermath, but the US ALWAYS does this. They did it to WW2 veterans, too, who went to court over the ‘free medical care for life’ promise. But no tort liability for things like MK Ultra, when the Army and CIA tested psychedelics on soldiers without telling them – Stanley v. United States. Or all of the Vietnam era guys exposed to Agent Orange who were denied benefits. When the VA finally acknowledged it as a carcinogen, a whole lot of the people who would have qualified were already dead, thus letting the Gov off of the hook for a fuckload of medical costs.
This reminds me of how the GI Bill works. If you elect to use it, the VA will begin paying benefits upon request…but you have a total of 40 months of benefits, which is enough time in theory to earn a degree or pay for a trade school.
Interesting thought experiment. The way I parse this is as follows: UBI (and most welfare/hand out programs) is to the poor as helicopter/bulldozer parenting is to children.
OT: non-Catalan news from Spain – https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48348431
Top prize in a woman’s squash tournament: a vibrator (with the possibility that someone is trolling the BBC).
More like squish tournament… ammirite!
The pics of the women objecting are . . . exactly what I expected.
Colored hair and problem glasses-wearing members of the body positive movement?
Actually, no. These were Euros, so I wasn’t expecting the stereotypical American SJW harpy.
Its the look of utter, humorless, disapproval that really hit the spot.
Must be East German, then.
Yeah, we need to get rid of vibrators as prizes in women’s sporting competitions. As transfolx take over, fleshlights will be far more appropriate.
Contest winner Elisabet Sadó told the BBC that “things have to change”.
Ms Sadó was awarded a trophy and a vibrator for getting the top spot in the competition.
she’d have a sexy look if she dropped the badger face.
Yeah, given the scowl on her face, maybe awarding her a vibrator was trying to send her a message.
The one on the left, however, I’m surprised has ever had anything to do with squash. Except eating it. With a lot of bread. And cake.
Say UBI is 40kUSD. Do more Americans say:
a/ shit, I don’t hafta work any more and still get basically the same thing !
2/ shit, I get paid twice for what was doing before !
40k seems a bit rich
$40k is around the average value of welfare given to poor families with two children in the United States.
I’m not kidding.
You can see why everyone thinks we are greedy capitalist assholes.
$40K? I see my house getting paid off *super* fast. Also, there may be an uptick in hookers and blow. But I won’t *waste* it!
Would the amount of money be pro rated for locales? 40K in Minong, WI is very different from 40K in Atlanta, GA
Either way it sucks.
No. You want to live in an expensive place, deal with it. You want your money to go further, move. Why should we subsidize your decision to live someplace expensive?
“Minong, WI”
Home of Jack Link’s Beef Jerky.
Now I’m hungry.
Don’t mess with Sasquatch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZmMnaBkZLw
Always worth a stop at the IGA when going to Duluth for some bulk packages of beef jerky.
One word – “Inflation”
Sure, or they take half what they currently make knowing they don’t have to work at all.
Yes. In some ways it seems logical to just give people the money to spend, but maybe the shitty quality of government spending $40k on you is a good thing.
Is it taxable income? If so, it would quickly shoot some working low income families into higher tax brackets.
As the guarantee to make sure we only *spend* 10 years worth of UBI per person, yet still solve the problem for those who use theirs up but need more later, I’d make each person’s UBI transferable, in part or in whole, to anyone else at any time, according to each person’s discretion. Either way you end up using yours, if you need more, you’ll have to convince another to transfer theirs to you.
i see a new form of prostitution right there
Silver linings.
As a minarchist I’ve come to terms that people won’t let me get away with the rest without a “safety net”. And I say (after having abolished minimum wage, zoning laws, myriad regulations and bureaucracy so as the rest of government looks the way I think it should) One safety net, no SS, no medicaid, no medicare no unemployment, nothing else; then one means tested program, which unless you are physically or mentally unable to work, do job placement and matching programs to get each adult to some threshold. That is it, and it would be a constitutional amendment so it is properly the law and harder to creep.
I mean a lot to iron out, but it is a compromise that realistically would have to be made and I see this as the compromise that gives each side something.
The safety net should be funded year to year with a separate payroll tax, paid by employees not employers. No borrowed money can go to the safety net. Each year, the benefits for the following year, and the tax to pay for them, have to be passed as a new law. Any increase in benefits will mean a tax increase, and vice versa.
“The safety net should be funded year to year”
Back in the 18th century, in some parts of the British colonies, the towns were responsible for local costs such as their own poor, sick, disabled, orphans, and also infrastructure upgrades & improvements. At the annual town meeting, the male tax payers would have to vote on how much money was needed to do all this. They would then appoint an assessor from among their number and a tax collector to get the money. Although not a perfect system, it did mean a lot more soul-searching as to what needed to be done. Interestingly, the poor were rarely screwed since the town saw itself as being responsible. However, it closely scrutinized the use of funds.
I like this.
Our wealth is our downfall.
We are living in such fat times, that it is socially almost impossible to tell people who make horrible life decisions to fuck off. I mean, the govt is only going to take the price of a cup of coffee (or two) and that will keep everyone out of Pie’s ditch. How can you be against that?
Not too long ago, most people weren’t that far away from that ditch themselves. And they weren’t spending money on store coffee. They were using it for food, medicine and shelter. Good luck convincing those people that they should chip in to make sure the fuckups didn’t die.
How can you be against that?
Math. A UBI will cost a hell of a lot mroe than the price of a cup of coffee (or two). Get me a real number on what taxes would have to be to pay for it (no debt, which is just deferred taxes or a hidden tax via inflation), and I’ll bet most people who aren’t already on welfare would be opposed.
* straw man
* reasonably prudent person
* invisible hand
* third rail
* reasonable investor
* lock, stock, and barrel
* sword of Damocles
* moral hazard
* fifth estate
* Pie’s ditch
“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”
~St. Paul the Apostle – 2 Thessalonians 3:10
Every time we would venture into laziness, my Mom would always recite this verse.
Kipling:
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Good stuff, that. My own favorite in Kipling is “MacDonough’s Song”. But then, I get a bit bloodthirsty from time to tome.
Like most here I pretty much agree, the UBI might be better than what we have IF it is an actual replacement for all existing welfare systems but since we know it won’t be, or at least won’t stay that way it is never going to work the way it’s advocates claim it will.
That said watch this video of Jordan Peterson talking about IQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h02w5E7FGlY
The take away, our society has reached a point where there is no useful productive job that can be performed by 10% of the population. Even serving as an infantryman in the military is to cognitively complex for them to be successful at. As automation expands this number will only increase, it might be 20 years or it might be 200 but at some point we are going to reach the point where 1 in 4 people are lack the cognitive ability to productively perform any job which actually adds value to society.
What do you do with that? How do you prevent those individuals from just becoming a permanent underclass? Even if 1 in 4 people is not a sufficient quantity to overthrow the existing order, especially given we are by definition not talking about the brightest bulbs it is far more than enough to tear the society apart, especially when the right utopianist starts preaching a new order that puts them on top
The one reason I kinda almost support the UBI right now is that it is the only proposal I have ever seen which at least partially dealt with this problem.
Culling
ongoing and never ending.
Remember, IQ distribution does not vary significantly over time
our society has reached a point where there is no useful productive job that can be performed by 10% of the population.
I don’t think society has “evolved” to that point. I think that’s probably been the case since forever.
As automation expands this number will only increase, it might be 20 years or it might be 200 but at some point we are going to reach the point where 1 in 4 people are lack the cognitive ability to productively perform any job which actually adds value to society.
I think automation might actually create a significant new “underclass” that is simply not capable of being productively employed. Someday.
And a UBI might give them some means, but it will give their life no meaning, which I think most people get at least partially from their work, and which I think is a problem of equal import to try to solve for. I have no clue how to do that, BTW.
No I think that well more than 90% of the population could get by as a subsistence farming serf and even in the early industrial era there was plenty of work for people digging ditches and then later on working on an assembly line where you insert the same screw all day long.
This problem is a relatively new phenomenon only going back to the 1980’s at most
Agreed 100%, unfortunately like you I have no idea how to give their lives meaning, the best I can come up with is to give them the closest analog to Soma that we can come up with,
This problem is a relatively new phenomenon only going back to the 1980’s at most
Henry Hazlitt looms large
That’s fucking bullshit. There will always be a need for someone to dig ditches or scrub toilets. You’ll be poor as fuck if that’s your greatest skill, but you won’t starve. The low skilled just have to work harder for less money. That’s why most improve their skills so as to never have to go back. People are about as smart or dumb as they choose to be.
Except it isn’t true.
Today it is far cheaper to pay 1 man with a machine to dig that ditch than it is to pay a team of low IQ men with shovels to do it and those low IQ men can’t successfully operate the machine
Interesting conversation with one of the guys I was fishing with. As a young ‘n ages ago, he’d work crews laying oil pipes in the gulf. He said he was back down there not too long ago and saw a ship rigged for pipe-laying. What used to be done with a big crew of welders, etc. is now mostly automated, and needs only a few men.
I think that well more than 90% of the population could get by as a subsistence farming serf and even in the early industrial era there was plenty of work for people digging ditches and then later on working on an assembly line
It would take a better historian/scholar than me to estimate percentages, but beggars, scroungers, the indigent, etc. have been a feature of human society forever. I think there has always been a goodly percentage who just cannot contribute to society sufficiently to support themselves. Its not (just) that they lacked the brainpower, they might have (also) lacked the most basic socialization or physical skills/strength.
and those low IQ men can’t successfully operate the machine
Is the assumption here that automation crowds out low IQ people? That seems ass backwards. An idiot who can’t use a torque wrench may not be suited for a manual assembly line, but he can certainly look at a screen and see whether or not there are any errors that are raised by the quality control bot.
Good stuff, keep it up. Do I have to pay for this?
“doesn’t everyone deserve a decent life? ”
No. Everyone deserves a basic level of respect as a human until they prove they don’t. Beyond that, there is no such thing as ‘deserves’. Either you earned it or you didn’t.