Replacing U.S. Welfare system with a Basic Income Guarantee

I did not change the subject, just pointed out that additional savings in Medicaid expenditures and care improvements would accrue from the adoption of single payer.

 

That's pretty speculative, and as far as the subject goes, is irrelevant since there wouldn't be single payer, or Medicaid under a BIG system.

 

Well, I just do not see how BIG can even be contemplated without considering how people on the minimum income would get health care.

 

Well we've gone full circle then. That was one of the major issues with BIG and has been discussed extensively in this thread.

 

It's very close to communism, although, I think the current social system is even closer. To me though, this is not a fix-all. While a basic income guarantee does make it a lot easier to administer, and does eliminate a lot of bureaucracy, it does not take into account certain social situations that could arise. For instance, what about children? Does the parent / guardian get an extra check for $10,000 for every child? Should immigrants benefit from this system? Should parents still get tax breaks for dependents? What about people with disabilities? What about veterans? What about working family incentives? What about areas where the cost of living is much higher? These and many more questions were asked and answered by politicians, which led to the existing entitlement programs. Also, what about State-run entitlement programs? Would a basic guarantee not leave many huge holes to be filled by state governments, leading to a potential hike in state taxes and state-run social programs?

 

I believe simplification is better. Why not simplify our social safety nets in a market friendly manner. The concept of employment at will already exists in our republic. With better utilization, we could solve simple poverty by solving for a natural rate of unemployment and the deleterious effects on human capital due to a lack of income from structural forms of unemployment.

 

Since automation of most goods and services is on the horizon, we will be forced into paying all americans for the work done on their behalf by machines. For capitalism cannot remain viable if there is no income to buy what the machines will provide.

What is ironic here, is that the need for profit, which replaces humans with machines, will implode capitalism as we have known it. Capitalism was destined to destroy itself. Cosmic irony, I think. Capitalism with technological advances made capitalism moot. And unworkable.

But this presents tremendous problems with those that insist capitalism remain alive and viable. How will this work out? I cannot imagine how it will work out, but I can imagine capitalism imploding. And it isn't difficult at all to see that if you take out the income of workers by replacing them with automation, there is no money to buy what the machines make, and where the profit comes from for the owners of the machines.

This blindness is a product of a capitalist mentality that only seeks profits for today, but will not look at the very real implications of automation, which is our tomorrow.

We will have to make some form of socialism work, for we do not have the luxury of it not working. It was great for the owners to replace humans with machines for it gave them greater profits. But they forgot one very important part of the equation. LOL. The greed for more tends to blind, that's a fact.

 

In bold above, you believe all the motivation is for higher profits. Please explain what happens to all the US companies who have outsourced and automated...if they did not do so? According to you, the only difference will be lower profits...right? IMO most will simply close the doors or move offshore. Profits are derived from a prosperous business enterprise, and if that enterprise refuses to compete in the marketplace, there will be no profits! Competition forces most of these options and profits follow only if US companies can remain competitive...

 

Actually, most manufacturers who closed their doors or moved offshore were profitable at the time. The problem was that investors who took them over saw that there was more short term profit to be made by stripping the company of its assets, piling on debt and then raiding the pension fund and selling the machinery offshore to pay it off while they collected huge management fees and bonuses, driving the company into bankruptcy and walking away with all the money leaving wrecked local economies all over the US. They just did not care about the business's profitability or long term prospects or employees or any other thing that a businessperson would be concerned with.

Turning the accumulated wealth of a business into cash is far less work than managing it to compete in the marketplace, From 1980 to 2000 this tactic liquidated 40% of US manufacturing and industrial infrastructure and created the rust belt. It was not competition that destroyed these companies but management, Wall Street management with no interest in operating a business any longer than it would take to turn as much of the company into cash as possible. Mitt Romney made his fortune doing this.

 

I believe we need to abolish poverty through eminent domain, not a War on Poverty.

 

No need for that, a simple financial takeover would suffice.

 

That is what eminent domain does when socialism has to bail out capitalism, like usual.