We need a two-speed economy

Discussion in 'Political Science' started by yangforward, Apr 26, 2022.

  1. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nobody 'has to' drop out of the economy. But a lot of people will opt to drop out of the production side if they can live on their UBI. They will still be consuming w/e the UBI allows them too, but they will not be producing anything to replace what they consume. If too many people do that, then we run out of, well, everything, eventually.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2022
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  2. yangforward

    yangforward Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good point, now I want to change my member name.
     
  3. (original)late

    (original)late Banned

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    A killing??

    That's hallucinatory.. most of them can't make ends meet as it is.
     
  4. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    There are plenty of people who'll exploit that advantage and make a killing. If all they did was invest that $1000 a month in a high interest account, they'd be about $15,000 a year richer. More considered investing could turn it into $20k or more. In a few years they could buy a cheap rental property, and increase that ongoing, well invested $20k a year, to $40k+. And so on and so on. If you're working full time and meeting your basic needs, all it takes to turn that free $1000 a month into wealth, is determination. If you're also sharing housing with other working adults, the collective wealth possible is unlimited.

    The upshot is that if 50% of recipients do something like this, and the other 50% stop working altogether, or work as little as possible, where do you think that will take us? Exactly where we're going now .. a massive wealth divide. There's nothing equal about $1000 a month for every adult - because adult humans aren't equal.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2022
  5. (original)late

    (original)late Banned

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    Repeating dumbass BS doesn't make it better.
     
  6. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    So you think no one will exploit that $1000 to get rich? Seriously? And that no one will give up working to take it easy?

    And maybe you actually think all human adults are the same, and don't vary at all in their amibitions, determination, laziness, honour, productivity, or anything else.

    Wow .. planet disneyland must be weird.
     
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2022
  7. yangforward

    yangforward Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I was thinking of the claim that neoliberalism would make the US rich if we ship the low-paid work overseas and keep the high-value work here.

    But of course, that was all part of the smoke and mirrors of Reaganomics - which we are still using.

    Investors built factories in other countries that used cheap labor to make huge profits, while retailers in the US bought from overseas.

    So money flowed out of the country and now we are 30,500 billion dollars in debt and rising.
     
  8. yangforward

    yangforward Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How UBI would work depends on the motivation of the people receiving it. I would use it to study full-time and work part-time, but I'll concede to other people who know that many people would just put their feet up instead of exercising their brains.

    So perhaps the answer is to rework the healthcare system so it doesn't mean low-paid workers are too expensive to employ, but terminate them and then the government pays for the healthcare. So it still costs the same amount but the nation doesn't get any useful work done.
     
  9. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    I live in a nation with free healthcare AND more generous welfare than America's. And we have exactly the same social problems and wealth divide here. None of it makes a jot of difference, when the people it's meant to help refuse to help themselves.

    When you condition humans to do the least they can possibly do to stay alive, that's exactly what they'll do. You don't fix such a massive error by adding to it.
     
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  10. yangforward

    yangforward Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes, but paying people more than their jobs paid on the condition that they quit their jobs, as was done here, is a wonder of Democrat reasoning.

    Talking to one Democrat he explained that getting people out of low-paid jobs would produce a labor shortage which would force the employers to pay more.

    All I could see from that mad scheme was billions of dollars wasted and the Macdonald's at work permanently closed.
     
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  11. yangforward

    yangforward Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I still think we need some way of keeping factories open.
     
  12. (original)late

    (original)late Banned

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    They will use it to keep from becoming homeless. Those people are usually deep in debt, partly thanks to our policies that are just horrendous.

    Let's just say your fantasy life is no substitute for research..
     
  13. yangforward

    yangforward Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I got the 85% wrong, that is the people capable of doing work at the skill level of shelf stocking upward.

    But there are 15% who can't seem to learn anything. Welfare is necessary for those.
     

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