Politics Thread: Edge of Seventeen

[smjjames]

I'm a big proponent of increasing cash flows. I still think UBI unless mandated to maintain a proportional level of purchasing power would end up diluted by inflation and quantitative easing.

 

 

I guess make inflation a function of UBI? That way it moves up and down with inflation. I suppose there could be problems when you get runaway inflation (like Venezuela) or massive deflation, but those are problems in and of themselves.

Edited April 21, 2018 by smjjames

[213374U]

ITT: the economy is simultaneously a non-zero sum game and a zero-sum game, or How to Pull Oneself Up by the Bootstraps.

[Guard Dog]

I say we get rid of currency altogether and go back to the barter system. Hey Obsidian, I'll trade you two bushels of carrots and some farm fresh eggs for PoE Deadfire. What do you say?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

They need to pull themselves by their bootstraps and become machines.

Why the obsession with bootstraps? Stop looking for artificial solutions and get a job.

 

"Get a job" is an artificial solution, hence the bootstraps jokes. If your job is eliminated that doesn't mean the market ****s out replacements to keep up. Even assuming retraining is a viable option you're going to face more competition for a smaller number of jobs than pre-technoloigcal unemployment, and it is magnified for those who don't have retraining on the table as a viable option. Such a labor surplus created by these factors is going to mean lower real wages and underemployment for workers, and this holds true even when they take the sage advice of "get a job".

[213374U]

I say we get rid of currency altogether and go back to the barter system. Hey Obsidian, I'll trade you two bushels of carrots and some farm fresh eggs for PoE Deadfire. What do you say?

 

I get the feeling that you're not being completely serious. They do say that "the love of money is the root of all evil" for a reason, you know?

 

More seriously, you may be on to something. Are you familiar with time banks? JES may not want to trade you a Deadfire key for some farm fresh eggs and a bunch of tomatoes (his loss), but he could be more open to an exchange of services considering that you're an engineer that's good with... uh... engineering stuff.

 

Crazy, perhaps, but less so than crypto, and less vulnerable to a catastrophic market crash & burn, 1600s Netherlands-style...

[injurai]

To move where jobs are and to train for what those jobs are, and to take care of all the other logistics of your life while doing so. Requires a fair amount of capital. One of the best things to invest in is people and productivity.

[Raithe]

[Guard Dog]

 

I say we get rid of currency altogether and go back to the barter system. Hey Obsidian, I'll trade you two bushels of carrots and some farm fresh eggs for PoE Deadfire. What do you say?

 

I get the feeling that you're not being completely serious. They do say that "the love of money is the root of all evil" for a reason, you know?

 

More seriously, you may be on to something. Are you familiar with time banks? JES may not want to trade you a Deadfire key for some farm fresh eggs and a bunch of tomatoes (his loss), but he could be more open to an exchange of services considering that you're an engineer that's good with... uh... engineering stuff.

 

Crazy, perhaps, but less so than crypto, and less vulnerable to a catastrophic market crash & burn, 1600s Netherlands-style...

 

Yeah I actually read an article about that in the WP about that a little while back. Rhode Island is using that system for community service credits. They (the article) did explore the concept as a payment system of sorts for cooperating businesses. It's an interesting concept but I'm not sure it has wheels. 

 

I know a lot of folks have made some nice money on bitcoin but I am waaay too risk-averse in investing to even fool with real currency speculation. To say nothing of something that exists only on the internet.  I'm still remembering the '90s when people were going bust buying into massively overpriced stocks of companies that had no products, assets, and ultimately customers. 

 

But you were right, I was not being serious. As far as currency goes, you know the old saying "worst system in the world. Except for all the others"

 

On another humorous note, Bitcoin explained:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dErRj6V8_xQ

[Gfted1]

...low income workers would have more money to spend, which would mean that companies cash flow would increase and that increase for their goods and services could increase number of jobs they can offer, which would decrease our big unemployment population, which would help in economic growth. But our government was not interested any of such experiments so basic income talks will move to next government as current is failing in all their job creation attempts.

Here in the US, many low income/migrant workers send their earnings "back home" to their families.

[Orogun01]

 

"Get a job" is an artificial solution, hence the bootstraps jokes. If your job is eliminated that doesn't mean the market ****s out replacements to keep up. Even assuming retraining is a viable option you're going to face more competition for a smaller number of jobs than pre-technoloigcal unemployment, and it is magnified for those who don't have retraining on the table as a viable option. Such a labor surplus created by these factors is going to mean lower real wages and underemployment for workers, and this holds true even when they take the sage advice of "get a job".

Correct me if I'm wrong but we are here mostly from countries that have a positive ratio of immigrants/emigrants, which means our countries are importing workers, ergo the jobs do exist.

And if there are people who manages to travel to another continent, learn to live in a new culture, learn new language etc. to get a job then please don't BS me with "it's to hard to move to another city, it's to hard to learn new skill, it's to hard to try".

Are there people in completely hopeless situations? Of course there are, but it's a fraction of percent of people claiming they belong on welfare.

 

The irony about your post is very layered. When you have massive immigration you get sections of the country with that have a foreign culture; as such immigrants tend to prefer to remain within these places and form families and form the same mentality of "it is too difficult". The other issue is that because immigrants the pay rates go down as you now  have a surplus of labor force concentrated on the area and makes people disposable. I'm literally seeing it first hand at my current job and believe me being selfish and shameless pays off better than being honest. So yeah, I'm totally cool with people defrauding welfare, there are a list of other issues that I feel are more important and they all relate to governments (Fed, State) misusing and stealing funds, AKA where your tax dollars go. Therefore, I'm totally cool with people stealing their money back.

[Valsuelm]

Are there people here actually arguing in favor of a 'universal basic income'?

 

Two questions for those people:

 

A) Where does the money come from?

 

B) Can you tell me how money is created?

[Orogun01]

 

...low income workers would have more money to spend, which would mean that companies cash flow would increase and that increase for their goods and services could increase number of jobs they can offer, which would decrease our big unemployment population, which would help in economic growth. But our government was not interested any of such experiments so basic income talks will move to next government as current is failing in all their job creation attempts.

Here in the US, many low income/migrant workers send their earnings "back home" to their families.

 

I have an anecdote that's topical. My first job at a Supermarket, 3 of my coworkers were a family and were doing exactly just that. Not just sending money but also all the costs involved with immigration (which are unreasonable IMO) So all of them had two jobs; during the same day. That meant the only time they saw each other was when they were at the same job or for a short while at home when they were asleep. They had applied for welfare in order to relieve their burden, meaning that they could ditch one of the jobs and have a semblance of normality. They were denied; meanwhile at the registers we would see people that not only lied on their application for welfare but in all likelihood paid someone to give them more money every month. I'm talking people wearing nice clothes and driving nice cars who had disgusting amounts of money on their welfare cards. Meanwhile someone's granny is just getting 250 a month and her social worker is fighting to get her to at least 500.

Welfare is broken and serves no purpose other than to keep black people voting Democrat.

[Orogun01]

Are there people here actually arguing in favor of a 'universal basic income'?

 

Two questions for those people:

 

A) Where does the money come from?

 

B) Can you tell me how money is created?

The Central banks and the wrongly named Federal Reserve control our currency at the behest of private investors (The Federal Reserve Cartel) who use the currency to influence global events and gain more wealth and influence.

Before we even get near to arguing the benefits of an universal basic income, our currencies should be back in the hands of public servants who are accountable to the people (ideally). Otherwise generating money from nothing would skyrocket the national debt as every time money is made it needs to be payed back to the Fed.

[213374U]

Are there people here actually arguing in favor of a 'universal basic income'?

 

Two questions for those people:

 

A) Where does the money come from?

 

B) Can you tell me how money is created?

 

 

A) From the state's coffers, evidently

 

B) Money is created primarily by the action of private banks, through their fractional-reserve system... meaning that for the most part, money in circulation doesn't exist outside of balance sheets

 

Personally, I'm undecided on the whole UBI thing, because I'm scared as hell of the potential it has to create a large mass of people wholly dependent on the state for subsistence, which gives anyone in control of the state way more leverage than I'm comfortable with. The way state-provided privileges worked in the Soviet Union illustrates this point well enough.

Edited April 22, 2018 by 213374U

[majestic]

Personally, I'm undecided on the whole UBI thing, because I'm scared as hell of the potential it has to create a large mass of people wholly dependent on the state for subsistence, which gives anyone in control of the state way more leverage than I'm comfortable with. The way state-provided privileges worked in the Soviet Union illustrates this point well enough.

 

Aww, don't be paranoid. If anything the state is going to rent or sell you out to whatever company needs cheap labor and we all know property is better of in private hands, human or otherwise.

 

Or to be a bit more serious, just look at Germany what happens when the state locks you into a subsistence dependency. You'll end up being a cheap labor drone with the theoretical ability to improve your lot, except you're not given any bootstraps and anything resembling one is taken away from you. Both the state and the economy love it.

[Valsuelm]

[Bartimaeus]

that's the worst thing I've ever seen

 

alternatively: this is the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever

Edited April 23, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

As far as statues go, get rid of all of them. But for God's sake start with this one:

 

 

That is just... just...

 

They got a new Lucy in 2016 -

 

 

Although apparently Scary Lucy was enough of a draw, the park still has her out in a different area.

[ShadySands]

Hillary Clinton, not on ballot, is star of GOP midterm plan

[Elerond]

Are there people here actually arguing in favor of a 'universal basic income'?

 

Two questions for those people:

 

A) Where does the money come from?

 

B) Can you tell me how money is created?

 

A) Money comes from general economy via taxes calculated by bureaucrats working for government and made official by said government. Money is distributed for people by another set of bureaucrats whose job is to determine who gets benefits and how much. Kickstarting new grand scale benefit system most likely means that government usually needs to increase national debt, print more money (in those rare countries where government still has power to print money freely by their own wish) or take money from reserve funds depending mostly on which approach bureaucrats working for government think to be most efficient for general economy or  political agenda of ruling parties in government. After benefit system (Universal Basic Income in this case) has been kickstarted government needs to just adjust tax rates in such way that there is enough money flow to pay benefits and possible pay back the debt or put money on reserve funds and in case of printing money they need to monitor inflation rate and in case that economy doesn't grow faster than money loses its value to inflation then they need to make adjustments on interest rates or do some other actions to keep inflation in bay.

 

In case of replacing multiple benefits systems to universal income, there are billions of dollars worth of money that is freed from those systems to general economy, which will compensate quite big portion of money that is needed to run universal income system, especially when we are speaking about country which constitute already guarantees certain level of income for all the citizens of said country, which is why there are already benefits systems in place and governmental organisations that make sure that everybody gets at least that minimum income guaranteed by said constitute and government's watch dog organizations who are paid to seek out people who try to molest said systems. And because in some cases benefits are paid by governments of municipalities and some cases they are paid by national government there are official whose job is to move people from one benefit system to another in order to make budget look nicer even though such moving of people on paper does not have any real benefits for the country or municipalities. Meaning that current benefits systems are inefficient and there are lots of shadow cost in them that are difficult to calculate as those cost are spread in hundreds of different budgets by national government and governments of municipalities. It is predicted that adopting universal income system will actually free most of the money needed to run it from current benefit systems which it would replace. 

[injurai]

Money is a abstract concept. It comes from a relation between two things. Wealth and debt.

 

Wealth takes many forms, whether it's material items, land, education and knowledge, opportunities, free-time, revenue streams. It all ultimately comes from production and productivity.

 

Money is just the inverse of debt. It's the fungible ownership on a small loan collection.

[213374U]

Hillary Clinton, not on ballot, is star of GOP midterm plan

 

No such thing as bad publicity.

[Agiel]

McMaster and Commander, by Patrick Radden Keefe

 

For those inclined to read editorial pieces in the New Yorker chronicling McMaster's tenure as National Security Adviser, if you had to burn one of your three free pieces a month on one article make it this one (no recreation here, due to copyright and length).

Edited April 24, 2018 by Agiel

[smjjames]

McMaster and Commander, by Patrick Radden Keefe

 

For those inclined to read editorial pieces in the New Yorker chronicling McMaster's tenure as National Security Adviser, if you had to burn one of your three free pieces a month on one article make it this one (no recreation here, due to copyright and length).

 

Theres this amazing trick, browsers hate it!, it's called 'open in private window'.

 

sorry, felt like being snarky about paywall.

[Gfted1]

Theres this amazing trick, browsers hate it!, it's called 'open in private window'.

Wait, that works for getting around the "you have read your 4 free articles this month" thing? That's awesome!