Universal Basic Income

Misinformed and misdirected because they chose not to understand what they were signing IS stupid.

 

This isn't quite the same, but it's the same basic analogy of wealth being concentrated at the top and it ultimately causing the business/economy to fail.

Imagine you start a company. In the beginning, you have yourself and 10 employees. You're paying them a dollar an hour and they're making 100 widgets a week. Your profit is $100 per week, so 2.5 times their wages. Relatively fair. Fast forward and you've found some success. There is more demand for your product so you're charging more. You push the employees to make 150 widgets per week for the same pay. Your profit is now $$500 per week, 12.5 times their wages. More time passes and you're even more successful with widget 2.0. The employees are pumping out 200 per week, you've worked out deals with your suppliers to reduce costs and raised the price of your product to bump profit up to $1000 per week. Those 10 employees are still making $1/hr so your profit is effectively 25 times their salary. In the meantime, the cost of the insurance coverage for your employees has risen 10%. The cost of the basic necessities they require to survive has risen 10%. They're effectively earning 20% less and they're getting tired of it. This is where "voluntary" comes in. You can either share some of your profits with your employees, or you can let them quit, replace them with less skilled workers, and lose the same or more profit in lowered productivity.

 

Some would, but not all. Either way, the action would grease the wheels of the economy and prevent the stagnation. And it would be real money, not fake money produced through printing more or increasing debt.

 

Why do you think people would change the way they live
if you give them a check every month?

 

The ever increasing gap between the top and the bottom, the shrinking middle class, and the growing level of personal debt.

I'm telling you, the "economy" is living on borrowed time. The reports (DOW, GDP, etc) are all aggregate and are skewed by the insanely huge earnings at the top. It's all propped up by cheap debt (low interest rates) and it cannot last. When there's a correction, the middle class will be erased.

 

http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-...mericans-are-not-struggling-to-afford-a-home/

 

Since they're counting "households" that earn more than $100k, I guess it's safe to assume that the increase is due to both parents working now instead of one?

 

For someone that wanted the discussion and not debating it the support has gone WE NEEEEED UBI

Again YOU talk about the system failing, not me. IMO it is working OK. Yes there is bias, yes there is inequities. However look around and there are successful people that started from modest means all over. Lots of famous examples including the easy one of Dr Ben Carson. But even Bill Gates started far below where he is now. His family was better off than Dr Carson but not a Vanderbuilt for sure. Oh and on that front there are a ton of examples of rich kids that failed or offed themselves, and yes some successes.

In short you see almost a caste system where you are stuck and screwed. I see a country with an amazing amount of opportunities and freedoms with some imperfections.

You will disagree ryoung57 and that is yours to do but you are wrong and things are fine.

 

If we agree then how is it a discussion or debate? This shit’s no fun if all sit in here and nod our heads in agreement.

“Yup”

“Alright”

“Uh huh”

 

Assuming that two parents working is strictly income based ignores women CHOOSING to work.

 

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#5f310894251c

 

This

 

For not endorsing it, you sure have spent a lot of time and energy arguing for it.

 

For all this talk of the huge gap between the haves & have nots...

Right now there's a woman. A Black woman. She was born into poverty in rural 1950s Mississippi to an unwed teenage mother. She herself got pregnant at 14.

Fast forward 50 years from then, and that woman need only ask for the brass ring and the Presidency of the United States is virtually certain to be hers.

She's already a multibillionaire that employs over 10,000 (current numbers are surprisingly difficult to come up with).

Thus far, this woman has said that she will not seek the office of President. Playing coy? Perhaps. Waiting for the field to thin while she lays groundwork? Perhaps.

Or perhaps she's realized that the presidency could end up tarnishing her legacy that, to this point, is pretty shiny. But the Presidency is a risky position which can result in you taking the fall for things far beyond your control. The economy. Global geopolitical and socioeconomic changes. A pissant nation taking 52 Americans hostage.

Fascinating that a woman born to such disadvantage is now in a position wherein the Presidency of the United States could be a step backwards for her because the position isn't powerful enough.

 

I like to argue

 

No you don't.