7 ms·

> I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job. I would be perfectly happy without a job. It's the income I'

> I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job. I would be perfectly happy without a job. It's the income I'm concerned about.

3D30497420 1y ago
Agreed. I have can think of about a dozen things I'd love to do if I didn't have a full-time job. Unfortunately, most cost at least some amount of money (not to mention food, a roof over my head, etc.).
- throwawayoldie 1y ago
  As a friend of mine put it, "I don't know if UBI would take people out of the workforce, but it would probably take me out of the workforce."
  - atemerev 1y ago
    UBI sadly is purely a fantasy. We don't have money even for retirement funding, which shows cracks in every country. And UBI is basically a lifetime pension.
    - vkou 1y ago
      We have the money, it's just flowing into making the top 5% comfortable and the top 0.0005% really comfortable. Real estate in particular (but there are others) is a bottomless pit that society dumps money into, and speculators scoop money out of.
      - atemerev 1y ago
        Just try and calculate. The rich are rich, but there are too few of them. Even $1000 UBI (which is not enough for anything) is like $3.2 trillion per year. All the rich taken together do not earn this much.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      > We don't have money even for retirement funding We only don't have it because we refuse to collect it. There is enough wealth in the world to end hunger, poverty and allow people to age to death in dignity, but we lack the political will to achieve any of these things.
      - lotsofpulp 1y ago
        Nominal wealth is useless if supply of products and services is in decline. The population histogram of pretty much all developed societies has passed the curve where the supply of labor is decreasing so that “wealth” will be competing to buy less and less labor. US federal government alone spends trillions of dollars on wealth transfers from workers to non workers via Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with a few other program. And even that doesn’t guarantee you will be able to see a doctor in a timely manner.
      - t-3 1y ago
        In countries without sovereign currencies it's more complicated, but in the US money wouldn't even need to be collected (technically it would need to be collected/added as debt, but that's entirely due to the Constitution and not some kind of natural law). The only real considerations needed to spend are whether or not adding more debt is politically viable and whether or not percepetions of and expectations for inflation are manageable. A UBI would be way too big to be able to avoid triggering inflation expectations and opportunism. Ending hunger would be much more manageable as the costs are very low relative to the impact and so it could be more easily hidden from financial doom-speakers.
      - atemerev 1y ago
        Hunger is easy. It is housing, medicine and education that are unsolvable. And no, even if you skin all the rich and put all their money to UBI, it will only last a year or two (you can take Excel and calculate). The bulk of income and taxes comes from the middle class.
    - joquarky 1y ago
      I'm also curious how UBI won't turn into the same convoluted mess that our tax laws have become. I doubt it would stay universal for long.
  - orangecat 1y ago
    "I don't know if UBI would take people out of the workforce, but it would probably take me out of the workforce." A realistic UBI would be $10-15k/year, which means a crappy apartment and/or roommates and no luxuries. There's probably a margin where some people who want to do FIRE would be able to retire slightly earlier, but I can't see many people abandoning median or better paying jobs.

> I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job. I would be perfectly happy without a job. It's the income I'm concerned about.

3D30497420 1y ago

Agreed. I have can think of about a dozen things I'd love to do if I didn't have a full-time job. Unfortunately, most cost at least some amount of money (not to mention food, a roof over my head, etc.).

throwawayoldie 1y ago
As a friend of mine put it, "I don't know if UBI would take people out of the workforce, but it would probably take me out of the workforce."
- atemerev 1y ago
  UBI sadly is purely a fantasy. We don't have money even for retirement funding, which shows cracks in every country. And UBI is basically a lifetime pension.
  - vkou 1y ago
    We have the money, it's just flowing into making the top 5% comfortable and the top 0.0005% really comfortable. Real estate in particular (but there are others) is a bottomless pit that society dumps money into, and speculators scoop money out of.
    - atemerev 1y ago
      Just try and calculate. The rich are rich, but there are too few of them. Even $1000 UBI (which is not enough for anything) is like $3.2 trillion per year. All the rich taken together do not earn this much.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    > We don't have money even for retirement funding We only don't have it because we refuse to collect it. There is enough wealth in the world to end hunger, poverty and allow people to age to death in dignity, but we lack the political will to achieve any of these things.
    - lotsofpulp 1y ago
      Nominal wealth is useless if supply of products and services is in decline. The population histogram of pretty much all developed societies has passed the curve where the supply of labor is decreasing so that “wealth” will be competing to buy less and less labor. US federal government alone spends trillions of dollars on wealth transfers from workers to non workers via Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with a few other program. And even that doesn’t guarantee you will be able to see a doctor in a timely manner.
    - t-3 1y ago
      In countries without sovereign currencies it's more complicated, but in the US money wouldn't even need to be collected (technically it would need to be collected/added as debt, but that's entirely due to the Constitution and not some kind of natural law). The only real considerations needed to spend are whether or not adding more debt is politically viable and whether or not percepetions of and expectations for inflation are manageable. A UBI would be way too big to be able to avoid triggering inflation expectations and opportunism. Ending hunger would be much more manageable as the costs are very low relative to the impact and so it could be more easily hidden from financial doom-speakers.
    - atemerev 1y ago
      Hunger is easy. It is housing, medicine and education that are unsolvable. And no, even if you skin all the rich and put all their money to UBI, it will only last a year or two (you can take Excel and calculate). The bulk of income and taxes comes from the middle class.
  - joquarky 1y ago
    I'm also curious how UBI won't turn into the same convoluted mess that our tax laws have become. I doubt it would stay universal for long.
- orangecat 1y ago
  "I don't know if UBI would take people out of the workforce, but it would probably take me out of the workforce." A realistic UBI would be $10-15k/year, which means a crappy apartment and/or roommates and no luxuries. There's probably a margin where some people who want to do FIRE would be able to retire slightly earlier, but I can't see many people abandoning median or better paying jobs.