The Utopia Mirage: Universal Basic Income, Socialism, and the Future of the Global Economy

[REMEMBERMKULTRA]

Yeah, about that...

They were statistically safer than the Gremlin or the Japanese imports in the same compact car demographic.

https://pintostampede.com/the-pinto-myth

I was just about to point this out. I can't believe none of the dipshit Redditors commented on it either. It's a classic "Well akshully!" thing.

 

[Yinci]

UBI is a good idea in theory. But heres the thing: it has to only be supplemental. That is it cant be an amount large enough to live off of soley. Nobody's going to work at retail or fast food if they can get just as much by not. So that screws up the economy until everything is automized which won't be until the next decade at least. Maybe.

I heard in Germany they have a less customer centered economic model that improved the quality of life overall for everyone compared to the United States. Customer service is crappy but they don't need a shit ton of cheap peasants to run it.

 

[Kosher Snake]

These first-world socialism fanboys should be forced to live in Venezuela for at least a year by their own means, that means no savings from abroad or money from daddy. Get shipped to caracas and get a job then see if you survive. I bet you not even one will defend this shit after a year of eating nothing but arepas with rat meat which is what they can afford with the local minimum wage of fucking $2 a month

honestly this, and include the people who are sucking demsoc dick(e.g. AOC cultists who simp on her onlyfans[idk if she has one but i wouldnt be fucking surprised since a lot of her supporters give off coomer vibes])

 

[Cool Dog]

honestly this, and include the people who are sucking demsoc dick(e.g. AOC cultists who simp on her onlyfans[idk if she has one but i wouldnt be fucking surprised since a lot of her supporters give off coomer vibes])

In a perfect world demsocs would end in the gulag just like soviet intellectuals did when they were no longer useful. Or better yet, the killing fields of cambodia were just looking like a reddit soyboy would get you killed

As for aoc my guess is her simps are the ones paying for all those deepfakes. Idk what the fuck they are thinking, she's at best a 5/10 for latino standards, maybe a butterface since she might have nice titties but you never know, just look at venti without a bra

 

[Kosher Snake]

Even then, I can't imagine who's passionate about waste management, sanitation, construction, and brick laying.
Then again, urban ghouls think all of these these jobs don't exist and buildings and waste just magically appear and disappear at will.

I sound like a broken record whenever I have to whack this into the brains of people who think socialism is still a good idea.

I kinda shut my brain off every time someone bashes capitalism. The only thing that limits it is human nature itself and you can't fix that.

And funny thing is the hammersicklecooomers won't accept that human nature + socialism = won't work. At least human nature + capitalism = somewhat works even if its a long term shot-in-the-foot for lower social strata

 

[KittyGremlin]

I sound like a broken record whenever I have to whack this into the brains of people who think socialism is still a good idea.

And funny thing is the hammersicklecooomers won't accept that human nature + socialism = won't work. At least human nature + capitalism = somewhat works even if its a long term shot-in-the-foot for lower social strata

Noone wants to admit we haven't figured out politics yet.

 

[Idaho Battle Barn]

Relatively sure that most - if not all - of the UBI trials done to see whether it would work eventually failed. One of the more recent failures is Finland's foray in 2017, for example, in which the country gave an unconditional stipend people within the trial. I know that California is going to try to do a UBI experiment because a large portion of their population is floundering thanks to costs of living skyrocketing over the last 3 decades. With UBI, the premise that people who are needy can get supplies (food, shelter, etc.) that they otherwise would not be able to access is the crux of the argument in support of it, but in actuality, the distribution of allotted wealth is a lot more spotty and in cases counterintuitive. For example, during the distribution of the stimulus checks in the US, it was discovered that a lot of people used it to buy non-essentials (video games and the like) over necessary bills such as housing. You can partly see this now in the US housing crisis after the moratorium wore off almost three weeks ago.

I think communism will only work if it's an extremely small group of like=minded, *willing participants* with similar beliefs that each have a specific set of skill that are helpful to the community overall, where those that don't work are given the boot. Humans are evolved tribalistic creatures, and studies place the maximum amount of people a person can maintain socially stable connections with about at around 100 to 250 depending on which definition of Dunbar's number you use - and nobody will really reach that point in either type of society. I believe actual working communes are less than 30 members because of how difficult it is to maintain a basic standard of living even if you have people that know what they're doing. People are naturally more inclined to put themselves and their loved ones above others, but are capable of great acts of generosity when they're not forced to.

Communism is extremely limited in scope and is extremely extremely *EXTREMELY* unlikely to work unless you fundamentally change human behavior. Countries that pride themselves on being communistic either were forced to adopt capitalistic practices (China) when happy-feel-good sentiments didn't fill peoples' stomachs or accept a shit-ton of aid (North Korea) just to survive. Additionally, communism is shit when it comes to determining what people want. With capitalism, supply and demand are intrinsically linked in the fabric of commerce to the point where the state can look at what people are buying and invest in infrastructure to bolster support. With communism, the state decide what it wants wholly by itself, leading to a poor allocation of resources and ultimately meager supplies being stretched paper-thin.

Edit: if, not of

 

[Sweet and Savoury]

OK, look here Millennials

There is one universal truth, it cannot be dodged, evaded or whisked away by fancy words.

TANSTAFL

There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch!

Some where, some how someone has to produce those goods your laying claim to. Money doesn't grow on trees and despite what you saw last year Daddy Biden can't just be handing out wads of cash without someone somewhere paying for it. In this specif case it will be your grand kids and their children who will be paying off those "free" X-boxes and PS5's.

Every-time one of you entitled, lazy, shit-headed Millennial comes up to me and demands free goods and services I just tell them to go pick if off the tree it grows on.

Whats that? You don't see a money tree?

Well then I guess your fucked as if nature doesn't provide it for you then someone will have to make it and/or create it for you. And they sure as hell won't work their asses off to hand you free stuff just because you happened to get shit out of your mothers rotten twat.

The only guaranteed thing is this world is Death, it's the only free service that nature will provide. Your welcome to help yourself to as much of that as you want.

 

[SSj_Ness]

The whole idea behind UBI is to help people. Problem is, giving them money is the least cost-effective method of doing so.

People only need food, shelter, and healthcare, primarily. Miscellaneous needs can be addressed more locally.

Solution Program:

Housing: Dirt cheap housing. Tiniest possible, highest stacked apartment complexes for everyone over 65/physically disabled, and pods for the rest of the needy.

Food: 2,000 calorie daily government slop rations.

Healthcare: Full benefits but nothing cosmetic, and promote homeopathic remedies where possible to ease the system's burden. Also cut benefits for anyone in active use of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, etc. Enforce healthy lifestyle requirements for all of the above benefits.

It'd be a dreary, rigid life but one humane enough and certainly better than dying on the street. It'd be much cheaper than welfare systems but with a higher initial investment. Over the long-term it'd save money and improve society.

UBI is a waste of money. It'll go to the wrong stuff and all the same problems of homelessness, addiction, and crime would still exist.

Weeding out the lazy would be a bit tricky, as the system would be meant for everyone else. Maybe implement a work system on a case-by-case basis, even if it's not much work it'll chase off the lazy (few hours of community service, etc).

 

[Billy Beer]

Ubi, socialism etc would all work, if we weren't human.

Our brains, at a social level (100+ people) would never allow everyone to be equal.

Everyone is equal, some are more equal than others.

 

[Homophobic white dog]

What a crock of horseshit. Our banker in chief Mario Draghi expressed himself in support of RdC, Italy's de facto UBI program, the thing isn't going anywhere.

Wages stagnate, purchasing power falls as people devote the little money they have left to paying taxes, bills, putting food on the table and paying their first home mortgage if you're a young couple, the middle class keeps shrinking, something has to keep the wheel of consumerism turning for the increasingly large portion of have-nots without fixing a thing (not that there's anything that can be fixed), returning some tax money to the public becomes essential to keep the shack from falling apart.

UBI is as capitalist as it gets as a measure, if not ideologically (don't bother finding ideological consistency in capitalism. Its constant tendency is to deny and renew itself to survive. The more it progresses, the more centralized, planned and "socialist"-like it becomes while still keeping capital accumulation and at least some form of basic exchange) on the ground, because it allows some degree of consumerism to perpetuate itself.
It also gives you the chance to track spending since our RdC is issued mostly in the form of credit cards, and electronic money has a specific purpose.

The last thing billionaires fear is UBI, it's money that the government gives, out of its own pockets, back to the population to pay it to buy shit from the companies the billionaires own.
All of this without having to raise wages, the companies don't have to pay a dime. For them, it's perfect.

 

[Meriasek]

What a crock of horseshit. Our banker in chief Mario Draghi expressed himself in support of RdC, Italy's de facto UBI program, the thing isn't going anywhere.

Wages stagnate, purchasing power falls as people devote the little money they have left to paying taxes, bills, putting food on the table and paying their first home mortgage if you're a young couple, the middle class keeps shrinking, something has to keep the wheel of consumerism turning for the increasingly large portion of have-nots without fixing a thing (not that there's anything that can be fixed), returning some tax money to the public becomes essential to keep the shack from falling apart.

UBI is as capitalist as it gets as a measure, if not ideologically (don't bother finding ideological consistency in capitalism. Its constant tendency is to deny and renew itself to survive. The more it progresses, the more centralized, planned and "socialist"-like it becomes while still keeping capital accumulation and at least some form of basic exchange) on the ground, because it allows some degree of consumerism to perpetuate itself.
It also gives you the chance to track spending since our RdC is issued mostly in the form of credit cards, and electronic money has a specific purpose.

The last thing billionaires fear is UBI, it's money that the government gives, out of its own pockets, back to the population to pay it to buy shit from the companies the billionaires own.
All of this without having to raise wages, the companies don't have to pay a dime. For them, it's perfect.

Most UBI schemes rely on increasing corporate and top earner income taxes by a large factor, so they do have to pay quite a bit.
Probably not enough for billionaires to fear the UBI, though.

 

[Homophobic white dog]

Most UBI schemes rely on increasing corporate and top earner income taxes by a large factor, so they do have to pay quite a bit.
Probably not enough for billionaires to fear the UBI, though.

Increasing top earner incomes will not make them contribute to the fund, tax evasion among them is a thing and it's huge here. Italy has some of the highest lower income bracket taxes in Europe, not to mention ridiculous VAT.
You can just as well fund a UBI program with poor people's money, it's how it's financed here. Well, that and a lot of borrowing.