Which is in line with most other UBI experiments. How many more experiments do we need until politicians just acknowledge that this is good policy and we need to start implementing it?
Rich people. Increase taxes a tiny bit on the 1% and this will be paid for, and then some.
Well not a tiny bit. Increase taxes in the 0.1% a whole fuckload. I’d increase taxes on billionaires to 90% and start freezing assets of anyone who tries to go overseas to avoid them. levy the world’s strongest ever economic and geopolitical sanctions against countries that harbor billionaire american tax evasion expats or something.
They just print it. There’s nothing tying the value of the currency to what it’s worth in terms of purchase power except how much is circulated.
My issue with UBI, at large-scale, is that it will cause inflation that will 100% go to the wealthiest people on the planet. For example, it’s not that the cost of a burger would need to go from $10->$15 because companies now need to compete in wages in an environment where their employees have an extra $12k, it’s that the cost of a burger will go from $10->$15 because the rich want the extra $5, leaving people receiving UBI with the same (or less) purchasing power.
EDIT: To be clear, I’m excited about the possibilities that these studies show, and I’m not against UBI. I just am getting older and coming to the conclusion that the non-wealthy get fucked every time anything that is meant to help us is implemented.
Yeah the effects on inflation need to be looked at pretty closely. Extra cash to people who need it is great for them. Extra cash for everyone, especially if it is just printed, surely will cause problems. Just the increase in money supply will result in inflation but yeah greedy assholes will find ways to suck up the free money from everyone else.
The problem with the wealthy fucking over us peons is what’s truly Universal when we have so much corruption.
If I didn’t fear it falling into squalor, along with NIMBY problems, some kind of public free housing would effectively be like a portion of UBI but harder for greedy pricks to suck up the money legally. And at least that way the people who would otherwise be able to work (e.g. those who became homeless due to medical emergencies) wouldn’t be at a disadvantage from being unhomed.
Of course the real answer there is universal healthcare and elimination of for profit healthcare and elimination of health insurance. So that medical emergencies are just covered.
is that it will cause inflation that will 100% go to the wealthiest people on the planet
It will only cause inflation if you print the money. If the supply of money goes up then value of money goes down.
I just am getting older and coming to the conclusion that the non-wealthy get fucked every time anything that is meant to help us is implemented.
I hear you there. We have a corrupt political class to blame for that. Which is why I advocate for the Forward party, which aims to break up the duopoly of the political system. It’s main policy goals are Nonpartisan primaries and Ranked Choice Voting.
yeah i’ve never understood why they can’t just print the money. how does that actually force the dude at costco to print new price tags. ohh oh no this amount seems like less now, it’s not as though we have abundance beyond our wildest dreams, better increase prices because of the graphs!!
Some of these programs end up saving the governments money, due to reducing other costs like policing, shelters, and maybe also increased tax revenue due to these people improving their employment situations, thus paying taxes.
It may be the case that a less targeted program, ie an actual broad-based UBI, would have an actual cost associated with it. There are a lot of benefits to reducing poverty that reduce the drag on other government support systems, though.
Would you ask that if it came to the defense budget?
I would rather the government spent its money on directly helping citizens rather than only giving it to the military industrial complex.
Part of it comes from removing existing social support schemes that UBI supplants. Not only can you reallocate those funds, the simplified ruleset should also reduce bureaucratic overhead, which can also go towards funding UBI.
Will that cover all of the additional expenses? Probably not. But it’s a start, at least.
Rolling back trump’s $2 Trillion tax cuts for the rich and corporations would be a great start. From there, increase taxes on both groups substantially. They will still be rich and still be making record profits, but we will gain social safety nets such as UBI in the process.
Alternatively, we could generate funding for this the same way we did to fund over 20 years of military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. It could come from the same place we get the funds for subsidizing fossil fuel companies. It could even come from the very same money printers we used to give free PPP loans to “businesses” during the height of the pandemic.
The point being, if it’s good policy, a healthy functioning government does it, and doesn’t waste time asking questions about how we pay for things. Taxes. The answer is always taxes, it’s literally called the Internal Revenue Service.
