Guarantee all Americans an income

Tide1986 said:

Apparently, guaranteeing a spouse would be more effective:

Ignoring an Inequality Culprit: Single-Parent Families

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Another reason no one discusses this - A society that accepts casual sex has no option but to result in more kids being born out of wedlock. I mean, kids are born because of sex. And if more people are having sex that aren't married, then more kids will be born to people that aren't married. Even when you factor in birth control, you are going to end up with more kids born to unmarried parents.
Save sex for marriage - it's probably the least popular non-violent opinion to hold. But I really think if our society committed to this idea, we'd see a lot of societal improvements - more kids in two-parent homes, lower divorce rates, more familial support (to decrease need for gov't aid), etc. But, nevermind. Not having sex is too hard.

BamainBoston said:

Yep, that's the cultural stuff we got into in the thread about intelligence. No government program can fix that.

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You can stop funding it.

I believe that there is no social stigma to pumping out little bastards any more and Uncle Sam will fund all the bad decisions you care to make. In fact, the more bad decisions you make, the more Uncle Sam will pay.
If you fund it, they will come.
If you stop funding it, they will stop.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/0...-universal-income-proposal.html?intcmp=hplnws

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal that would have guaranteed everyone in the Alpine nation an unconditional basic income, according to projections published Sunday by public broadcaster SRF1.

The plan could have seen people in this wealthy nation of 8 million people receive about 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,560) per month — enough to cover their basic needs.

Proponents argued that a basic income would free people from meaningless toil and allow them to pursue more productive or creative goals in life. Critics said the plan would explode the state budget and encourage idleness, arguments that appear to have convinced voters.

Based on a partial count of results from 19 Swiss cantons (states), the gfs.bern polling group calculated that 7u8 percent of voters opposed the measure against 22 percent in favor.

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Bodhisattva said:

It is the nature of government bureaucracies to be inefficient. There are no market forces to make them behave otherwise. Some guys with power who think they're smart make up the rules and procedures. There are so many layers that one has to go through to get the most basic thing done. Case in point, my office has a total of seven printers. We now have six of them that don't work. Anywhere else this would have been taken care of in half a day - go to Office Depot, buy some printers and hook them up. Well, in the government you have to get quotes from approved vendors (takes a few weeks to make sure that you have enough quotes and that small businesses are participating) for approved machines (signed off by a different office)* that can be used with the network (a different office with their own set of approval rules)* on an approved contract vehicle (our contracting office is in Iowa and they've balked at the first two cost efficient proposals our office has made). We're two months into being down to our last printer and we still don't have a solution that satisfies all the different sub-bureaucracies involved. If I was to guess I'd say we have several more weeks of waiting and will have to pay at least $20k more than we originally planned. So, trying to buy good printers at a low cost quickly is impossible.

I've seen the same thing time- and cost-wise with acquiring government mobile phones for staff use.

I've seen the same thing with laptop purchases. We ended up buying double what we needed, so half the laptops can be stored in some government warehouse until they become obsolete.

So, is there any wonder that the government wastes countless millions of dollars on ..... well, everything.

And every time I attend a government conference/symposium on efficiency the discussion always involves adding more layers of bureaucracy. It's the exact opposite of what needs to be done.

*Edit: Also note that the list of approved printers to buy is not the same as the list of approved printers for the network. Printers that are on only one list are useless, but they are there nonetheless.

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Perhaps if we could stop rewarding spending ones total budget and start rewarding budget reduction we could change that.

Bodhisattva said:

It is the nature of government bureaucracies to be inefficient. There are no market forces to make them behave otherwise. Some guys with power who think they're smart make up the rules and procedures. There are so many layers that one has to go through to get the most basic thing done. Case in point, my office has a total of seven printers. We now have six of them that don't work. Anywhere else this would have been taken care of in half a day - go to Office Depot, buy some printers and hook them up. Well, in the government you have to get quotes from approved vendors (takes a few weeks to make sure that you have enough quotes and that small businesses are participating) for approved machines (signed off by a different office)* that can be used with the network (a different office with their own set of approval rules)* on an approved contract vehicle (our contracting office is in Iowa and they've balked at the first two cost efficient proposals our office has made). We're two months into being down to our last printer and we still don't have a solution that satisfies all the different sub-bureaucracies involved. If I was to guess I'd say we have several more weeks of waiting and will have to pay at least $20k more than we originally planned. So, trying to buy good printers at a low cost quickly is impossible.

I've seen the same thing time- and cost-wise with acquiring government mobile phones for staff use.

I've seen the same thing with laptop purchases. We ended up buying double what we needed, so half the laptops can be stored in some government warehouse until they become obsolete.

So, is there any wonder that the government wastes countless millions of dollars on ..... well, everything.

And every time I attend a government conference/symposium on efficiency the discussion always involves adding more layers of bureaucracy. It's the exact opposite of what needs to be done.

*Edit: Also note that the list of approved printers to buy is not the same as the list of approved printers for the network. Printers that are on only one list are useless, but they are there nonetheless.

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In the corporate world, it is common practice to have preferred vendors with contracts already in place for frequent/routine purchases. For example, my company has preferred vendor contracts in place for office supplies and computer hardware including printers, so anytime a purchase is needed in one of these categories, the vendor bidding/negotiation process is not needed, and the approval process for the purchase is streamlined. Every few years our vendor management team researches the marketplace and conducts a bidding process for these preferred vendors (outside of any particular purchase) so competitive pricing is maintained for the company.

I imagine that part of the problem with government is that agencies are independent with their own budget authority. I have seen this with the Alabama state government for example. So, the citizens see the federal government as one large "corporation", but the reality is that the government operates like 100's if not 1,000's of much smaller corporations all with their own purchasing processes.

6 pages and no one has even addressed the first paragraph


and our own rep from the GOP is pointing out how this could be a reasonable solution and all the righties want to do is say any sort of policy like this is bad without even thinking. Want to know why we as a country are screwed, this is it. Zero thought, it's amazing I used to be as right as some of you or even to the right of some of you, then I started doing something insane to most and started thinking for myself. Started actually looking into things such as BiB has suggested, this could be a net positive but y'all don't even care. You're letting your ideological purity get in the way of your rational thought processes. And it's not just you, all parties do it. Dem's do it, Libertarians, Greens, all of them. Y'all need to do more thinking and less dismissing of solutions before really looking into them. It's no wonder our politicians keep getting worse and worse

and now back to the first paragraph, it brings up two points. Globalization and innovation eroding the Middle Class. Y'all can just go ahead and keep whistling past the graveyard and just say "guaranteed income is bad m'kay" but this is coming. Manufacturing is gone, period, it will come back but it will also be mostly automated and that will happen within 10 years. Driving jobs, Taxi, Truck Driver especially high paying long haul, Bus Driver, Train conductor, gone, Google and others have logged millions of driver-less miles and this isn't for fun. In my area, and most others we've already seen garbage collector go from 3 people per truck (driver and two hanging off) to 1 and that will be down to none by 2026 and those are good paying jobs. Mail delivery will take longer, it's a jobs program after all but seeing a postal delivery person will be like seeing a milkman by 2030. Most of that is blue collar or at least blue-ish, what about white? Well we already see software eating those jobs. When I first got into IT we needed 1 fairly highly paid admin per 200 ish physical servers, now that number is in the thousands. Heck I've been involved heavily in what is now known as "lights out Data Centers" as in there are no lights on as there is no need to waste the power as the Center itself is completely automated, no humans needed. Same is coming to manufacturing, if you've ever worked in a plant there is usually a nicely air conditioned office space somewhere in the plant where the white collar types sit. Those jobs are being taken over by software. Modern ERP Systems don't need humans with spreadsheets to figure out when and what to order, or when to bill or or pay bills or even do much of the accounting, all automated. Humans are becoming redundant systems at this point, there to keep an eye on the systems in case things screw up. And I haven't even touched on Globalization yet. Capitalism thrives on taking cost out of the model, it is what it is, and soon enough it's cheaper and better to automate or simply give a guy in India or Brazil or Russia 60% of what they pay you to do the job. Don't believe me at your own peril. For me, I am working with my kids on how to program and work with automation and robotics.

brings to mind one of my favorite quotes

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

Warren Bennis
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/warrenbenn402360.html

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Jon said:

6 pages and no one has even addressed the first paragraph

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Maybe not in this thread.

The first paragraph's view of jobs is rather one-dimensional...as if no new types of jobs will ever exist in the future.

I'll take a stab at it.
1. First, when the Founders were debating whether to give the Federal government the power to give everyone a guaranteed income, they decided not to delegate that power. We had the debate, and the side advocating that lost. For the Federal government to do so now is a violation of the Constitution they did ratify.
2. There are now 94.7 million not in the workforce. There are probably a number of people who are employed that are marginally employed, in the sense that, if they were paid the same to do no work at all, they would say, screw it. I'm going to stay home and play World of Warcraft. Any government program that would guarantee those not participating in the workforce will inevitably incur greater costs than anticipated, as incentives start invalidating the programs assumptions. (If they design a program for the 94.7 million not in the workforce, and 20 million who are currently working decide to start playing video games, the assumption of 94.7 million recipients will be invalid, when 114.7 million join the long-term unemployed. Then, when someone not working see his neighbor has two cellphones or two cars and starts whining, "It's not fair, I want to cell phones!" costs will jump again as the lefties start whining about "fairness" and demand money to fund two cell phone and two cars for the recipients of the guaranteed income.
3. You are always whining about "freedom," (especially when it involves sexuality) and I would generally agree. I say, "Have as many kids as you want. Don't come after my property to care for them, however." True freedom is the unemployed having as many kids as they want (no skin off my nose) and me keeping the money I have earned. I suspect you don't really want that, though. Your endorsement of this scheme is evidence of that conclusion.
4. Teaching your kids robotics and programming is a good response. I have taught my kids how to shoot.

Tidewater said:

I'll take a stab at it.
1. First, when the Founders were debating whether to give the Federal government the power to give everyone a guaranteed income, they decided not to delegate that power. We had the debate, and the side advocating that lost. For the Federal government to do so now is a violation of the Constitution they did ratify.
2. There are now 94.7 million not in the workforce. There are probably a number of people who are employed that are marginally employed, in the sense that, if they were paid the same to do no work at all, they would say, screw it. I'm going to stay home and play World of Warcraft. Any government program that would guarantee those not participating in the workforce will inevitably incur greater costs than anticipated, as incentives start invalidating the programs assumptions. (If they design a program for the 94.7 million not in the workforce, and 20 million who are currently working decide to start playing video games, the assumption of 94.7 million recipients will be invalid, when 114.7 million join the long-term unemployed. Then, when someone not working see his neighbor has two cellphones or two cars and starts whining, "It's not fair, I want to cell phones!" costs will jump again as the lefties start whining about "fairness" and demand money to fund two cell phone and two cars for the recipients of the guaranteed income.
3. You are always whining about "freedom," (especially when it involves sexuality) and I would generally agree. I say, "Have as many kids as you want. Don't come after my property to care for them, however." True freedom is the unemployed having as many kids as they want (no skin off my nose) and me keeping the money I have earned. I suspect you don't really want that, though. Your endorsement of this scheme is evidence of that conclusion.
4. Teaching your kids robotics and programming is a good response. I have taught my kids how to shoot.

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clearly this is addressed to me and I think you miss my point entirely


I'm not advocating or endorsing a guaranteed wage I am simply saying we shouldn't discount it without actually thinking it through and I'm pointing out that sticking to ideology is a freaking bad idea when ideology gets smacked in the face by reality. I am also showing why as the middle class is disintegrating and that disintegration is only going to accelerate. The point I din't mention but did allude to is what will we do when unemployment is 50% or 60%? Can't blame laziness when a business mba gets you no prospects or when your CPA Certification has no value as all the accounting is done in software. I hear conservatives all the time saying "15$ an hour gets a McDonalds employee replaced by a Robot" well guess what in a few years you'll hear "50K a year (or 70, 90 whatever) gets you replaced with Software" and in case you don't know it is already happening in a big, big way

Tidewater said:

I'll take a stab at it.
1. First, when the Founders were debating whether to give the Federal government the power to give everyone a guaranteed income, they decided not to delegate that power. We had the debate, and the side advocating that lost. For the Federal government to do so now is a violation of the Constitution they did ratify.
2. There are now 94.7 million not in the workforce. There are probably a number of people who are employed that are marginally employed, in the sense that, if they were paid the same to do no work at all, they would say, screw it. I'm going to stay home and play World of Warcraft. Any government program that would guarantee those not participating in the workforce will inevitably incur greater costs than anticipated, as incentives start invalidating the programs assumptions. (If they design a program for the 94.7 million not in the workforce, and 20 million who are currently working decide to start playing video games, the assumption of 94.7 million recipients will be invalid, when 114.7 million join the long-term unemployed. Then, when someone not working see his neighbor has two cellphones or two cars and starts whining, "It's not fair, I want to cell phones!" costs will jump again as the lefties start whining about "fairness" and demand money to fund two cell phone and two cars for the recipients of the guaranteed income.
3. You are always whining about "freedom," (especially when it involves sexuality) and I would generally agree. I say, "Have as many kids as you want. Don't come after my property to care for them, however." True freedom is the unemployed having as many kids as they want (no skin off my nose) and me keeping the money I have earned. I suspect you don't really want that, though. Your endorsement of this scheme is evidence of that conclusion.
4. Teaching your kids robotics and programming is a good response. I have taught my kids how to shoot.

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I often have the urge to shoot my computer also...

crimsonaudio said:

I honestly fail to see how a 'guaranteed minimum income' could do anything but fail when more and more people are out of work as they are replaced by technology (assuming there is no work for them).

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The idea that unemployment will only increase over time is as wrong-headed as thinking that houses only appreciate in value.

crimsonaudio said:

Sure, but I fail to see more government intrusion into our lives as the answer. Despite our technological advances in the last few thousands years, there's generally enough work for everyone if they want it badly enough.

I honestly fail to see how a 'guaranteed minimum income' could do anything but fail when more and more people are out of work as they are replaced by technology (assuming there is no work for them). At some point those that are employed are going to grow tired of funding - more heavily all the time as more and more are replaced by automated systems - and will stop doing it.


Agree with all of this.

We're science / tech heavy in our education here and all my chirruns know how to shoot...

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we'll see how it all plays out. I hope I am wrong but I already see it. On the Globalization front IBM for instance moved nearly all of their procurement, billing, accounts payable and quite a few of their other white collar support roles to Brazil and India in the last decade. Those jobs used to be in upstate NY and they've quietly gone, those were really well paying jobs, hundreds of them and I promise you IBM Client Execs are in the boardroom of many of your companies telling your execs exactly how they did it, how it affected there bottom line and how they can help your (the general you, not necessarily you specifically) company do the same. I sell software automation tools that make it far easier to manage huge infrastructures that used to employ dozens to hundreds with just a few people, or as an option I can have my people manage it for you and you can let all your people go. I talk to CIO's all the time and they all tell me the same "need to more with less" and "we need to get out of the IT business, we are an X company not a tech company" (insert anything for X I work across all industries) Read that as we are going to focus on selling our widget and we'll outsource all of the things that aren't directly related to our widget. With today's tech there is no reason that the person outsourced to can't be in another Country or even be a software bot

oh and my kids know how to shoot too

crimsonaudio said:

I agree, that's why I stated, "Despite our technological advances in the last few thousands years, there's generally enough work for everyone if they want it badly enough."

I don't see work going away, yet that seems to be the reason he thinks this is something that should be considered. Yet if he's correct and unemployment will rise due to automation, then there will be far fewer tax payers to support this minimum income.

IOW, I can't make sense of his logic.

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the logic isn't hard

we are looking at a future with massive unemployment and unless you want to see your children begging for scraps from the 40-50% of the population lucky enough to have one of the jobs then we will need to rethink a few things

and again I HAVEN"T ADVOCATED THAT THIS IS THE SOLUTION I'VE ONLY STATED THAT WE SHOULDN'T DISCOUNTED IMMEDIATELY WITHOUT REALLY EVALUATING IT

I swear y'all have zero reading comprehension skills

Putting aside the obvious constitutional issues ...

I am not completely against all "safety nets". The problem with them is that they are NEVER considered enough. There MUST be a strong incentive for those lying on that hammock to do what it takes to get their butts off of it instead of just kick back and swing.

I would have less of a problem with a guaranteed income if that income came with strong and enforceable requirements such as applying for military/civil service, some type of technical continuing education, and a strong enforcement mechanism when a good faith effort is not made.

The obvious problem with THAT is the huge bureaucracy it takes to implement those requirements. Add to the fact that that bureaucracy is most likely going to be completely corrupt.

Put it all together and you have the main reasons I am skeptical a minimum income would ever work as needed or even intended.