Universal Basic Income?

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Chicago could be the largest US city to launch a basic income pilot (UBI).

Alderman Ameya Pawar has proposed a bill to provide 1,000 families with $500 a month in a pilot that would make Chicago the largest US city to try a basic income program. In an interview with The Intercept, Pawar said he introduced the bill because he is worried that automation could leave millions of people without jobs.

Detroit might have been a more obvious choice, but perhaps due to the extreme poverty, crime levels and drugs epidemics there, not ideal or fully suitable.

Beyond Chicago, a number of cities and countries (Oakland, Alaska, Finland, Ontario, W.Kenya) around the world are running their own studies/experiments. link

BrokenArrows

UBI is just a bad idea.
It has noble ambitions but it unfortunately doesnt work with human nature.

If you give the whole population a basic income then you will just give a % of the population a means to contribute nothing to society and become a burden. This small % will become the same as the eternal dole recipient we have today.

PlaneSpeeking

BrokenArrows wrote: »

UBI is just a bad idea.
It has noble ambitions but it unfortunately doesnt work with human nature.

If you give the whole population a basic income then you will just give a % of the population a means to contribute nothing to society and become a burden. This small % will become the same as the eternal dole recipient we have today.

Agreed.

We effectively have this now, all UBI would do is attract the small percentage who feel slightly bad about scrounging or who care what people think.

Grayson

drillyeye wrote: »

But not my specific question.

How can a country implement UBI without completely closing immigration?

Why did you include two links and neither are to the question you asked?


I don't see any conflict. People who move to other european countries generally don't have a right to start collecting the dole immediately. Why should UBI be any different? And people from outside the EU don't even have that right, they need a job offer to get a visa.

4068ac1elhodqr

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Agreed.

We effectively have this now, all UBI would do is attract the small percentage who feel slightly bad about scrounging or who care what people think.

Disagreed.

UBI will allow all the folks who are currently afraid to do an odd days job here and there - because it will result in them loosing all their other benefits, tax credits, housing, medical cards, bus passes or whatever else as a result.

Only after various meetings, form filling-in and a promise never to do a bit of random work ever again without notifying authorites will they get back to their previous status.

The future is one of a gig-economy, zero-hours contracts and one of little rights for workers.

kilns

It went to public vote here in Switzerland (like most things) and giving CHF2500 per month to each person living here was defeated, the Swiss are a very responsible race
Imagine if it went to public vote in Ireland, it would pass 99% to 1%

4068ac1elhodqr

Robots will handle over 50% of work tasks by 2025 - WEF report
https://www.rte.ie/news/technology/2018/0917/994231-world-economic-forum/

Most other reports suggest the robot takeover (wave 2/3 50% replacement) was not until 2030.
Unless there has been sudden escalation in automation, this figure seems a bit premature.

"By 2025 more than half of all current workplace tasks will be performed by machines as opposed to 29% today" .

- a statement by the Swiss non-profit organisation WEF.

Sure there 'may' be some new roles, but this is largely speculation.
Afterall there will only be human roles if a 24/7 robot/autobot can't do it faster/better/cheaper.
Any new human only roles will therefore require very unique skills, education and abilities.

Water John

The idea of UBI just won't go away. LB Govn't in the UK will trial it.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/12/labour-would-trial-universal-basic-income-if-elected-john-mcdonnell-says

suicide_circus

Water John wrote: »

The idea of UBI just won't go away. LB Govn't in the UK will trial it.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/12/labour-would-trial-universal-basic-income-if-elected-john-mcdonnell-says

no harm in trialing it but i wonder if you get accurate data from doing it in certain areas, i mean, does it tell you what will happen when it is launched nationally ?

Water John

One has to trial and use different models. The effect will be more social than economic IWT based on some previous trials. It depends then on what value is put on, quality of life.
It is interesting that our new Central Bank Governer, coming from New Zealand is an exponent of the welfare/happiness index.

suicide_circus

suicide_circus wrote: »

no harm in trialing it but i wonder if you get accurate data from doing it in certain areas, i mean, does it tell you what will happen when it is launched nationally ?

No.

The Kuwaitis have had basic income for years. Almosy all of its citizens still work and are fabulously rich, but you can't really compare an economy that's eating psychedelic drugs to an advanced economy in Europe or North America.

UBI is almost definitely going to happen, but contrary to what was suggested above, I don't think we'll be among the first in Europe to pursue it. Our liberal economic policy is just too ingrained.

beejee

A totally whacky idea that has no connection to reality.

"it's a case of "when" " my arse.

Billions of people will die if jobs/purpose dry up, not be supplied with free money. How many people are already standing around gulping air and little else already? In other words, people will bend to reality and not the other way round.

Its the nuttiest idea since Professor Nutt of Nutt Industries proposed recycling the nuts from circus elephant dung.

Junkyard Tom

UBI will be little but a sop to the masses. We need to take democratic control of automation/AI and disabuse those who currently control it of the false notion that they somehow 'own' it.

This can be done peaceably or it'll be taken by force.

sk8erboii

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

UBI will be little but a sop to the masses. We need to take democratic control of automation/AI and disabuse those who currently control it of the false notion that they somehow 'own' it.

This can be done peaceably or it'll be taken by force.

You want to forcibly take peoples private property?

Junkyard Tom

sk8erboii wrote: »

You want to forcibly take peoples private property?

I don't consider the fruits of the totality of human advancement the private property of individuals who happen to live at this current point in history.

Each discovery, each advance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to the physical and mental travail of the past and the present.

circadian

They should at least be paying income tax for each job replaced, otherwise it's free labour with even more incredible profit levels.

suicide_circus

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

sk8erboii

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

I don't consider the fruits of the totality of human advancement the private property of individuals who happen to live at this current point in history.

Each discovery, each advance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to the physical and mental travail of the past and the present.

But everything ever invented is the ‘fruits of totality of human advancement’

Does some random guy on welfare have the same claim to AI as say Elon musk?


Your argument is so full of holes

Sonny noggs

I think i’d rather a Skynet takeover to the communist ‘utopia’ that comrade Tom and his ilk would foist on us.

sk8erboii

Sonny noggs wrote: »

I think i’d rather a Skynet takeover to the communist ‘utopia’ that comrade Tom and his ilk would foist on us.

Whats this got to do with communism?

Sonny noggs

sk8erboii wrote: »

Whats this got to do with communism?

Forcibly taking control of the means of production and expropriating private property etc? Ring any bells?

Junkyard Tom

Sonny noggs wrote: »

Forcibly taking control of the means of production and expropriating private property etc? Ring any bells?

One of the reasons we see big players in Silicon Valley get behind UBI is because they know that the future is one of abundance with fewer-and-fewer jobs and increasing poverty which creates a major, systemic, problem for them.

As political economist Mark Blyth said 'the Hamptons is not a defensible position. Eventually the people will come for you.'

Ubbquittious

We are way ahead of the trend here having had dole for decades now. The whole "UBI" discussion is more relevant in places like the states where you are left to die a death if you lose your job

Loafing Oaf

Greens proposing UBI in their election manifesto
https://www.rte.ie/news/election-2020/2020/0125/1110817-green-party-manifesto/
FF committed to setting up a commission to look into it
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/fianna-fail-says-basic-income-model-could-help-counter-rise-of-the-robots-37668652.html

Doubt it'll actually happen under the next government but could be on its way soon enough...

mariaalice

One of the big issues with UBS that does not get much traction and would be a huge issue is: The vast majority do not have the skills, interest, talents, or ability to use endless free time they are not going to be making art, gardening communing with nature or whatever, the boredom will lead to a lot of drug-taking fudeing with their family, fighting and so on.

The ones with all the skills and talent are the ones who will most likely to have interesting work in this future scenario.

We could end up with a two-tiered society.

4068ac1elhodqr

mariaalice wrote: »

One of the big issues with UBS that does not get much traction and would be a huge issue is: The vast majority do not have the skills, interest, talents, or ability to use endless free time they are not going to be making art, gardening communing with nature or whatever, the boredom will lead to a lot of drug-taking fudeing with their family, fighting and so on.
The ones with all the skills and talent are the one who will most likely to have interesting work in this future scenario.
We could end up with a two-tiered society.

You have no faith in the endless demand for the 'want a bigger tv' human condition.

Also, UBI benefits those with nothing the very most (the low skilled that will be looking at the scrapheap after mass automation). A Banker getting an extra 300pwk for nothing will just spend that on a big lunch and bottle of pop.

But for the average sofa based cheesos grazer, it will open up a risk-free world of opportunity (they'll likely discover that, once they can process the simple logic behind it) even while stimulated/inspired by a 6-pack serving of dutch gold.

NIMAN

I read one of the parties (think it was SF) had an increase of the dole to €245 per week in their manifesto.

That's practically UBI there.
A grand every 4 weeks for doing nowt.

4068ac1elhodqr

NIMAN wrote: »

I read one of the parties (think it was SF) had an increase of the dole to €245 per week in their manifesto.

That's practically UBI there.
A grand every 4 weeks for doing nowt.

Dole is not UBI

biko

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Greens proposing UBI in their election manifesto
https://www.rte.ie/news/election-2020/2020/0125/1110817-green-party-manifesto/

Vote for us! Free money!

Feisar

drillyeye wrote: »

It might be a another attempt to be the best boy in the class by them, ie run a trial, but let it die after that.

The problem, as I see it, first and foremost is that if a country were to actually implement it on national scale.....who wouldn't be tripping over themselves to get there?

So if UBI is dead out the gates, then that means automation and increasing unemployment doesn't have a cure.

We always think it'll be the menial jobs that go first, I'm in construction and paid from the neck up for the want of a better expression, it'd be easier replace me with a program than the lads on the tools.

In the long run we'll either be living in a utopia or some sort of hell with a tiny percentage having everything and the rest of us existing on scraps.