canada to experiment with universal basic income

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I believe Canada will eventually do the right thing, its history has shown some promise in this. as for amuurica........

The solution would be to give high taxation to those gaining a lot of money. The US was prosper while taxing 90% of the money of the more wealthy, so it don't give much economical problems. Also a universal basic income do not mean giving everyone money; say the basic income is 10000$, if someone is gaining 6000$ with his job then that person receive 4000$ from the government to raise his income to universal income level. Of course in practice unless that guy is loving his job he will quit it; meaning McDonald would have to give enough money to surpass the basic income even to it's more basic workers.

the corporations that have been sucking in the productivity gains over the last 4 decades or so, would be forced to give some of it back in lieu or inventing robots. if they went the latter route, they would be forced to pay more taxes. if they refused to do such, then their choices would be to hire government they bought off, to kill off the majority of the surplus workforce outright, or be burned to the ground by them. starving people are not generally a reasonable lot. corporations are in general, amoral- sociopathic in philosophy and by design. the smarter [less short-sighted and bloody-minded] among them would realize the UBI is the lesser of two evils.

No, I don't want to few money my mother recieves to be stolen by fat capitalist f***s who eat at McDonald's everyday and mock the poor.

a light-hearted look at the suggestion of a transaction tax in the EU/UK



of course, they will NEVER do it but it's fun to think of it

they've known for a century that such is where all the easy money is, and the fact that they won't consider it is due to sheer bloodymindedness and outright contempt the 1% have for everybody else. AFAIC.

I agree with progressive taxation, but in order for it to work, tax evasion laws need to be toughened up. A lot of times, if rich people are put under pressure to pay their taxes, they'll try to escape the country so that they can keep their money and avoid paying their taxes. The solution? Lock 'em up and make 'em pay. Treat tax evasion as a form of treason.

As for the whole thing about lowering the amount of UBI paid to people who are employed, to equal it out, I can't see it working. If UBI were to be implemented, there would have to be some incentive to encourage people to work, and the way to do it would be by allowing people who choose to work to make more money. UBI will be great for people like single parents, the disabled, and people who have other issues attaining steady employment, but for the time being we're still going to need people working in the service industry. Of course, I think the only people who should work are people who are honestly willing to work.

in America at least, the IRS could without too much drama, implement it via relatively simple mods to existing tax procedurals. the earned income tax credit would be a possible platform for such tinkering.

I am right of center politically and more of a libertarian but with automation, as pointed out here, we might have to enact some sort of guaranteed basic income as a pragmatic way to deal with the shrinking of jobs. It has to be enough for a basic house/apartment, food, basic car and so on, with enough left over for a small hobby or to go out to dinner every so often. In short, we'd be like Star Trek, the Next Generation. If you want more than that, find a way to invest part of your income into something, use it as a stepping stone or find a niche. Picard's family has a winery in France, Captain Sisko's dad has a restaurant and so forth. I know many people on my side of the fence will not agree but I do foresee this happening as a pragmatic way to deal with the shrinking of jobs unless we somehow guarantee good paying jobs by either outlawing automation and robots, except for dangerous tasks (like inspecting atomic reactors on the inside) to create jobs hmans can do or regulate/license/tax robots and/or the profits made with them to pay for the living wage. Maybe a living wage would remove the worry of living and paying for it while the person tries and looks for ways to better themselves and find a need to fill a niche. I'm open to the idea.

I'm seeing a pretty good amount of agreement between liberals and libertarians on this. It's nice to see when everything is so divided.

I suppose this can only happen when enough hearts soften, when the power of love exceeds the love of power, when enough middle and upper-class people can cease scapegoating the working class long enough to see pragmatic reason.

I know even Milton Friedman also advocated the Swiss idea of a guaranteed wage. There is support for it on both sides of the spectrum. I think the problem is that here in America and the Western World, especially the former, is we are too married to the Puritan Work Ethic. Yeah, it does have its virtue but as time marches on, it does have its negative side too. It was more appropriate in a world of a pioneer culture and in medieval times of the serfdom era. We are not sod-breakers, for the most part, anymore and I'm sure that if many people did not have to worry where their next meal is coming from and so forth with the effort just to survive, I believe most of us, be it NT or Aspie, would take the time freed from a drudge job to better ourselves by going to school or working at a hobby to learn something and turn it into a career. I'm a ham radio operator, I'd love to work in radio-electronics and software defined radio, perhaps a guaranteed income would give me enough to get started and to learn while me not worrying how to make ends meet so I can find my niche and so on. My cousin, I think he has a touch of Asperger's too, there are times he tells me "his family doesn't understand him" so I know the feeling, I'm the only one he is open with, we both have had strange paranormal experiences too, most laugh at us except us. Getting back to the subject, I think such an idea would give me time to experiment with SD Radio, take programming classes and so on while giving me enough to live on and take care of my two cats.

in the long run, I believe UBI will pay for itself in increased overall productivity/creativity with its concomitant increased tax revenues.

I used to be a conservative hardliner, I guess the only part of that left in me is I'm "Mr. NRA," but I don't want to discuss it here for now, if you disagree, we will have to agree to disagree for now and move on. I just wanted to say I've evolved over time.

I still see myself as "center/right." I learned that to be a true conservative/libertarian, one has to learn to think for oneself and not parrot the party line all the time. I realized that since I'm different from most people, I changed a lot where I can sympathize with those that are outside the social norm and so forth. I used to be anti-gay but not anymore, I just thought, "hey, they are different from the general social norm that society has laid down for us" like I am. I know what it is like to be different plus I have gay friends too, many of which helped me through the loss of my mother. I guess, it took me a while to "get the message" but being an Aspie (I'm not officially diagnosed but I have a lot of traits plus when I was little in the late 1960'sand early 1970's, I did show up on the autism spectrum in tests) mellowed me a bit. Yeah, there are times you have to be hard but that should be a last resort.

I guess getting the shaft many times in my life made me take stock in things too, it seems like many of us here have had that happen to them too. I can see why some of us tend to look at those scapegoating us and poor people with the stink-eye, it hurts to be tossed back and fail even though we are trying our best.

Agreed. I'll be working at a call center, hopefully it will be secure, dunno, but we will see. I do agree where if we had UBI (or whatever you want to call it), it would pay off a lot more where I can put my mind into something I love, enjoy and have a strong aptitude for so I can turn that into a career or even be an entrepreneur if I get together with my cousin. My cousin and I talk about this a lot too where this is a good idea.

I think it would even benefit companies too. If UBI is like $20K a year, for sake of argument, and if I get my way and a company wants to hire me for my developed talent at $40K a year, they will only have to pay me $20K a year instead of the who $40K because UBI kicks in the first $20K. Also, if UBI covers healthcare and so forth, the company will not have to worry about that along with the first $20K. So it would cost them only $20K to hire me instead of $40K plus benefits.

^^^