UBI: Testing Proves It Doesn't Work

dilettante

dilettante

Well-known Member
Location
Michigan
Simple wealth transfer fails.

Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a minimum income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment, i.e., without a means test or need to work. In contrast, a guaranteed minimum income is paid only to those who do not already receive an income that is enough to live on. A UBI would be received independently of any other income.​

GMI is just as doomed.

Real life just isn't this simple. Of course the MSM puts a bizarre spin on the results of the study to support their political goal to undermine natural economic systems.

 

Actually, there was a large study done in 1974-79 in Winnipeg, and Dauphin Manitoba, Canada. It was called Mincome and it ran for four years, with selected participants getting ( $3,800, $4,800, or $5,800 per year for a four‐person household ($18,780, $23,722, and $28,664 in 2020 dollars). And for every dollar they earned in that time, they lost 50 cents. So there was an incentive to work because you'd still have half the Mincome money in addition to whatever your wage. And there was no criteria to meet like there is with welfare, other than your willingness to fill out questionairres, etc.

What it found was that most people didn't quit working except new mothers who finally felt they could stay home longer with their newborns and students didn't drop out as much so that they could get a job and help the family with one of the results being that there were more graduations and enrolments into secondary education. And families health was improved because they could buy better food so health care costs were cut down. There were also lower rates of domestic violence, fewer job related accidents, less mental health problems and fewer automobile accidents.

More recently in Ontario there was a one year pilot project similarly designed and in the article I read, several people were able to start a little business and not worry about starving in the early, lean year(s), again, families ate more healthy food which meant there was less illness. And one young woman in the program used her extra money to upgrade her education so that she could get a better job. Like the Mincome experiment, a change in government killed the project.

Manitoba’s Mincome experiment | CMHR
 
I wonder if any effort was made to look into scaling that program nationwide?
 

AnnieA said:
Unless the ultimate goal is a cashless monetary system.
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I'm not sure what you are getting at.

Maybe some scheme where Big Brother controls your electronic credit to only dispense it when purchasing what's deemed good for you at the moment?

You do know that people will trade food stamps and such for drugs, sex, etc. right? Currency is where you make it, even if that's sacks of accumulated Soylent Green chips.
 
dilettante said:
I wonder if any effort was made to look into scaling that program nationwide?
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No it wasn't because the government that tested it was an NDP/Liberal party collaboration and it was killed by the newly elected Conservatives. And the second project, also started by a Liberal premier, was also killed by a new Conservative government after it had only run for a year even though it was planned to run for three years. As we're facing down the spectre of job losses because of AI, I wonder how Conservative governments are going to deal with growing job losses.

I read an article a year or so ago, that said a study on the issue suggests that 40% of jobs will disappear by 2050. Even Forbes is estimating that in the next five years, 25% of jobs will be affected by AI. What will Conservatives do then since it seems like Conservatives are the main antagonists to trying this idea?
 
The program was instituted here a couple of years ago. Recipients were chosen using a lottery system. According to our mayor, the program works. People did not think because they got this free money, they didn't have to work. It wasn't enough to be able to do that anyway but it helped families better afford child care and put food on the table.
 
dilettante said:
I'm not sure what you are getting at.

Maybe some scheme where Big Brother controls your electronic credit to only dispense it when purchasing what's deemed good for you at the moment?

You do know that people will trade food stamps and such for drugs, sex, etc. right? Currency is where you make it, even if that's sacks of accumulated Soylent Green chips.
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I've seen increasingly more discussion about moving to a cashless society over the past few years. UBI or something similar would have to be in place first because many impoverished people don't have bank accounts. There are things people have to pay for aboveboard that hoarded Soylent Green or turning tricks just wouldn't cover.
 
I wonder why we haven't seen this attempted long-term even in smaller countries.

What happens long term when incentives to achieve disappear? Does education and literacy become a frivolity? Do we return to pre-Enlightenment feudal societies as the old world crumbles in disrepair? I'm not sure how this works without abandoning the cities and returning to the land. That probably requires demolishing dams and Interstate highways and dechannelizing rivers back to a more natural state.

What supports a UBI under such conditions? Money is a proxy for labor, resources, and products. Contrary to popular belief it isn't "just printed" and anywhere that's tried that hasn't lasted long.

Does it make a society ripe for predation by avaricious foreign regimes or bands of militia led by strong-man generals?

I guess I've seen this wargamed out too often in speculative fiction to be very encouraged. My guess is that wherever it has "worked" has been on very small scales and accomplished by extracting the resources by force from the majority (i.e. taxation) and shutting them up about it. You can't conjure resources out of thin air. Historically it was accomplished through colonization and slavery.
 
Debrah N. said:
No it wasn't because the government that tested it was an NDP/Liberal party collaboration and it was killed by the newly elected Conservatives. And the second project, also started by a Liberal premier, was also killed by a new Conservative government after it had only run for a year even though it was planned to run for three years. As we're facing down the spectre of job losses because of AI, I wonder how Conservative governments are going to deal with growing job losses.

I read an article a year or so ago, that said a study on the issue suggests that 40% of jobs will disappear by 2050. Even Forbes is estimating that in the next five years, 25% of jobs will be affected by AI. What will Conservatives do then since it seems like Conservatives are the main antagonists to trying this idea?
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It’s going to be a real problem with so many jobs being affected by AI. If we didn’t spend billions overseas we would have more money to spend here.
 
Teacher Terry said:
It’s going to be a real problem with so many jobs being affected by AI. If we didn’t spend billions overseas we would have more money to spend here.
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On the other hand, there are reasons that money is spent helping others who are far away. Helping Ukraine to hopefully stop Russia means that possibly, the world won't be caught up in a conflict that will see all countries sending soldiers to die (which is good for all our families). Helping African nations in the midst of (for example) an ebola outbreak, means there's less likelihood that ebola gets here. Helping nations develop better energy systems would mean the planetary environment that supports us all, isn't bombarded by the pollutants of a dirty energy system.

Those of course are broad generalizations for the most part, but I hope you get the point. For me, the reasoning to support that kind of aid is simple, they are people caught in disastrous situations and if it was me, I would hope that someone would help me(us) in the event that we need that helping hand. I don't want to be the one who refuses to help and then when I'm in a bad way, to have to explain why anyone should overlook my past decisions and help me in spite of them.

So a combination of altruism and pragmatism. That's why I have no problem with my government sending aid. We have lots of support systems in our developed countries but some countries are too poor or governments too inept to take care of the things that support people.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
The program was instituted here a couple of years ago. Recipients were chosen using a lottery system. According to our mayor, the program works. People did not think because they got this free money, they didn't have to work. It wasn't enough to be able to do that anyway but it helped families better afford child care and put food on the table.
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It's been tried on a limited basis in several cities. I believe in at least one local study, what they concluded was that it helped a significant percentage of recipients avoid or escape homelessness.

For that alone, I'd like to see more attempts at UBI started. We do not build sufficient housing in the U.S. even for our current reduced population growth, which contributes to the rise in RE valuations. COVID did no favors to the housing issue as developers across the U.S. virtually stopped building anything during the pandemic and lockdowns. It was unavoidable, but the negative consequences ripple out to affect all of us, down the line.
 
Debrah N. said:
On the other hand, there are reasons that money is spent helping others who are far away. Helping Ukraine to hopefully stop Russia means that possibly, the world won't be caught up in a conflict that will see all countries sending soldiers to die (which is good for all our families). Helping African nations in the midst of (for example) an ebola outbreak, means there's less likelihood that ebola gets here. Helping nations develop better energy systems would mean the planetary environment that supports us all, isn't bombarded by the pollutants of a dirty energy system.

Those of course are broad generalizations for the most part, but I hope you get the point. For me, the reasoning to support that kind of aid is simple, they are people caught in disastrous situations and if it was me, I would hope that someone would help me(us) in the event that we need that helping hand. I don't want to be the one who refuses to help and then when I'm in a bad way, to have to explain why anyone should overlook my past decisions and help me in spite of them.

So a combination of altruism and pragmatism. That's why I have no problem with my government sending aid. We have lots of support systems in our developed countries but some countries are too poor or governments too inept to take care of the things that support people.
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I agree that we need to help some but I think we send too much overseas.
 
UBI probably "works" in that it helps people who receive it. The question is whether it's affordable. Since we are running trillion dollar peacetime deficits already, I would have to say no.
 
dilettante said:
I'm not sure what you are getting at.

Maybe some scheme where Big Brother controls your electronic credit to only dispense it when purchasing what's deemed good for you at the moment?

You do know that people will trade food stamps and such for drugs, sex, etc. right? Currency is where you make it, even if that's sacks of accumulated Soylent Green chips.
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We had to get to Soylent Green somehow. :ROFLMAO:
 
Truly universal UBI would cost about $3.5 trillion annually in the U.S. if we gave everybody $1000 per month. The current deficit is $1.8 trillion. Total tax revenue is about $4.4 trillion per year. I'm having a hard time reconciling these numbers. Even a massive tax increase (politically unthinkable btw) could only raise another trillion or so.
 
chic said:
We had to get to Soylent Green somehow. :ROFLMAO:
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You laugh now...

We Made People Eat Dead Crickets in the Name of Corporate Environmentalism
Bees are dying, sea levels are rising and every green space in Britain is turning into luxury apartments. Thankfully, there are some people out there trying to stem the flow of environmental disaster, including a protein bar company called Exo.
...
Well, Exo claim they’ve found a protein source that has almost no environmental impact, and that source is—crickets. Apparently crickets produce 100 times less carbon dioxide than cows and contain 12 times as much protein as beef. So Exo ground crickets into a “flour” and made cereal bars in flavors like Banana Nut and Blueberry Vanilla… but, again, with crickets. We asked some people to try the treats.
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https://www.science.org/content/article/crickets-and-pillbugs-feed-human-remains
Insects love dead bodies. Blow flies, beetles, and other bugs flock to decomposing remains to feed, lay eggs, or prey on others at the scene. But entomologists were recently surprised to find two new creepy-crawlers nibbling on human flesh. While observing how carrion insects naturally assemble on a decaying human body, scientists witnessed the bush cricket Pediodectes haldemani (pictured above) and pillbug Armadillidium cf. vulgare munching on the corpse.
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dilettante said:
Did you even watch the video or is this just your usual "thumbs in the ears and la la la" when something doesn't comfortably fit your narrative?
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Fit my narrative? I don't have a narrative. Nor do I decide to believe something, or not, because some of some no-name on Youtube. Weirdly though, writing "when something doesn't comfortably fit your narrative", are usually the ones with a narrative. Weird that.
 
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Irishdude said:
Truly universal UBI would cost about $3.5 trillion annually in the U.S. if we gave everybody $1000 per month. The current deficit is $1.8 trillion. Total tax revenue is about $4.4 trillion per year. I'm having a hard time reconciling these numbers. Even a massive tax increase (politically unthinkable btw) could only raise another trillion or so.
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And what's the total cost of continuing to send billions to the Ukraine and Israel?
 
Pepper said:
Are you saying we shouldn't? That we should abandon our responsibilities to the rest of the world? Both could be done. With a will to do it, both can be done.
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Er, no, they can't. We simply don't have the money. As it is we're running out of money for SS and we're paying close to a trillion dollars per year in interest on the national debt. People don't realize what dire shape we're in. With massive tax increases and massive spending cuts (which neither party wants) we might be able to balance the budget someday, but spending another $3 trillion or so on UBI every year is simply inconceivable.
 

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