A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

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A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by a nameless entity » Thu Aug 02, 2018 3:11 pm

I've been hearing a lot more about this idea over the last couple years. It's nothing new, it's been proposed and even tried on an experimental basis many years ago.
I have a feeling that as more and more jobs disappear to automation, the idea of a guaranteed minimum annual income becomes more and more likely to come to pass. Otherwise some sort of revolution may occur. And what form it takes will depend on what is done for the next generation or two.

Watch this CBS Sunday Morning video from 2018-7-29. The well rounded mini discussion is 5 minutes into the video.

I worry for the coming generations of young people, and invite your thoughts on this matter.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/topics/su ... -episodes/
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Re: A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by Hook » Fri Aug 17, 2018 11:33 am

Interesting subject, and I am not even sure what to think about it. :|
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Re: A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by a nameless entity » Sat Aug 18, 2018 2:32 pm

Hey, thanks for the reply Hook.

I was expecting Herm to have something to say on the idea, but he has to show up here for that to even happen. :P :roll: :lol:

There's been a rash of gun violence in Toronto for the last couple of years. Some people blame the increase in gang activity directly on the welfare cut backs of a few years ago. I think they may indeed have a valid point! :shock:
We now have a Conservative government running things in this province. They want to go after the gangs and have pledged $25kkk for the effort. That's fine with me as far as it goes. But being Conservatives I have doubts if they'll even try to examine the root causes of the problems. :roll:
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Re: A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by Hook » Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:32 am

In Canada they call it "Welfare"? (referring to the programs that you said were cut back)
Is that because those are benefits that the recipients do not pay taxes for?
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Re: A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by a nameless entity » Wed Aug 29, 2018 5:25 pm

Hook wrote:In Canada they call it "Welfare"? (referring to the programs that you said were cut back)
Is that because those are benefits that the recipients do not pay taxes for?
Yes, we have "Welfare" here in Ontario. It is paid out by either the local municipal or more likely the local "regional" level of government. I'm guessing that welfare is not considered taxable income.

Part of the idea of a guaranteed annual income was to simplify the process of getting help, restore dignity to the poor, and to move the payout to the provincial level.
The new Conservative provincial government has moved to end the experiment. I guess they'd rather continue with the less efficient and harder to get help from welfare system. God knows the idea of a "hand out" is anathema to them, even though these alternative programs have been shown in the past to be more efficient, less prone to fraud, and so on.

Part of my original post was also to suggest that a guaranteed annual income for everyone may become necessary some day, as automation removes the need for human workers.
Programs I've watched on TV in the past have suggested that companies will have to pay a special tax to help fund the program.
-Money that they would get back in sales anyway, since people need an income to buy things. And without people buying things, there isn't any economy in the first place. :|
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Re: A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by Hermskii » Mon Sep 03, 2018 3:00 am

Very tough discussion. I'm afraid to have an opinion here but will try.

Handouts BAD.

While automation takes away jobs, it creates them too. Parts have to be built for robots. They have to be delivered. They have to be installed. They have to be maintained. My point is that there are going to have to be more of other jobs created in order to maintain the equipment that has replaced people.

I know it is not an even trade but I feel we all have ways to contribute, make money, have dignity and such.

A helping hand for people to get back on track is fine. Give people support money for some duration of time but then cut them off from it because if you don't you get ghetto's like here in the USA where families go generation after generation expecting and getting handouts for free at the cost of the tax payer.

If everyone would just work more or harder and give more of their money to the poor in Canada, the poor would stop getting violent........NOT!

I'd love to say education is the answer but the US blows way more than other countries and our free ed does not mean success for kids or adults. I think it all mostly boils down to family life. If your family is solid and loving, I think they will be OK.
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Re: A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by Hook » Tue Sep 04, 2018 10:19 am

Pretty darn well said there Hermskii! :wink:
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Re: A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by a nameless entity » Tue Sep 04, 2018 5:40 pm

Ghettos exist due to the terribly unequal distribution of wealth. The 99% are now expected to live on 1% of the wealth generated by the economy. The top 1% gets the other 99%. And they haven't paid their fair share of taxes -if they pay any at all- for over 40 years.

Most of the jobs that were done on the Ford assembly line in the spot welding department where I worked during the summers of '73 & '74 no longer exist. All of those hundreds of men were replaced by robots. Computers got rid of thousands of office clerk jobs in the same time period. We are now at the point where we have tens of thousands of well educated young people graduating every year to an economy that can't give them all jobs.

A U.S. food bank found that they got more people to come and get the food they needed by charging nominal prices for the food. By paying something for the food, the food bank clients got to save their dignity and pride. Many were going hungry rather than accept a "hand out".

The food bank's nominal price policy lock-steps with the idea that a nominal guaranteed income restores dignity to the poor, while helping to ensure that they can buy the basic necessities of life.

If the person being helped finds work his basic benefit could be "clawed back" on a sliding scale at income tax time, the same way that the universally applied Old Age Security payments used to be "clawed back" from seniors who didn't need them.

Poverty can be eliminated. We need to find a good way to bring it about, while preventing anyone from falling into the poverty cycle. God knows the old ways to fight poverty are not working. And that is why I think this guaranteed income idea needs to be explored.
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Re: A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by Hook » Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:43 am

Both of you have good points :wink:
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Re: A Guaranteed Annual Income? And Your thoughts on this?

Post by a nameless entity » Wed Aug 28, 2019 3:52 pm

Here's a couple of the UK's "The Guardian" newspaper columns on this subject, if you care to read them:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the- ... ket-newtab

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ork-or-not

Some quotes that quickly get the point across:
there have been UBI-type [Universal Basic Income] policies and experiments in India and Brazil. These have suggested that, contrary to modern stereotypes about “welfare” sapping people’s initiative, a basic income might actually increase people’s appetite for work, by adding to their sense of stability, and making things such as childcare and transport more accessible.
And then there is the rising noise from Silicon Valley. The California-based startup incubator Y Combinator has announced that it wants to fund research into UBI’s viability. Its president, Sam Altman, says: “It is impossible to truly have equality of opportunity without some version of guaranteed income.” In New York, the influential venture capitalist Albert Wenger has been sounding off about a basic income for at least three years, claiming it offers an answer to a very modern question. If, as he says, “we are at the beginning of the time where machines will do a lot of the things humans have traditionally done”, how do you avoid “a massive bifurcation of society into those who have wealth and those who don’t”?
Indeed, one particularly interesting section of Israeli society provides a unique laboratory for how to live a contented life in a post-work world. In Israel, a significant percentage of ultra-orthodox Jewish men never work. They spend their entire lives studying holy scriptures and performing religion rituals. They and their families don’t starve to death partly because the wives often work, and partly because the government provides them with generous subsidies. Though they usually live in poverty, government support means that they never lack for the basic necessities of life.

That’s universal basic income in action. Though they are poor and never work, in survey after survey these ultra-orthodox Jewish men report higher levels of life-satisfaction than any other section of Israeli society. In global surveys of life satisfaction, Israel is almost always at the very top, thanks in part to the contribution of these unemployed deep players.
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