Guys, at this rate I don’t think the revolution’s going to happen anytime soon.

  • zbyte64@awful.systems
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    1 day ago

    I mean it depends on the context of how UBI is going to get paid for. If it is funded by a wealth tax then I am on board. But that’s not how the powerful proponents of UBI say it should be funded. Andrew Yang would have us take it out of Social Security to pay for it but you don’t hear him say we should uncap Social Security contributions.

    • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      Also, I think rent caps or something need to be introduced as well. I worry about landlords just assuming you have an extra 2,000 on you and then taking it.

      But implemented with the right protections, I would love UBI.

      • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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        17 hours ago

        UBI gives you “moving expense money”. Greedy landlords gives builders incentive to build more to give you alternatives. If you don’t want to work, then moving to smaller communities is a more affordable choice, and you can move before you have a job lined up. A problem with welfare/UI is not just that any job income get’s clawed back at 50%, but you need to stay close to the same welfare office to keep getting benefits.

        • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 hours ago

          I’m not sure what you’re saying.

          If landlords can assume every tenant they’ll ever see has 2,000 plus their income, then they can just set rent to be 2,000 plus the average income of the area (or whatever it is they do currently). That’s what I’m worried about.

          Like, I’m worried about inter-landlord collusion that happens not because they’re talking to each other but because they can all assume the same facts about you.

          I mean, truthfully, I think landlords should be cut out of the game anyway, but that’s a wholly separate issue.

    • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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      17 hours ago

      Income taxes, especially if investment income is not given preferential treatment, is even with a flat tax on first $100k income, with surtaxes on higher incomes, something that impacts the rich/successful while still making them more rich. You don’t need to cling to “only a wealth tax or burn it all down”. Wealth generates investment income. Taxing that properly is all that is needed.

        • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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          15 hours ago

          The higher the UBI, the more programs can be cut and make the beneficiaries (excluding people with cushy jobs administering them) of those programs still better off, while either making the UBI even higher (from cost savings) or not increasing taxes as much. The conditionality of programs is always a poverty trap, that unconditional cash solves.

          Our current government/candidates says some polite things about their role in shared prosperity. While security needs are real, that should in fact be the only role of government. Rationed bandaids meant to be divisive and anger raising, provides power with the real objectives of rulership. Deliver slaves to the oligarchs. When you oppose your precisous slavery trapping bandaids being removed for the freedom of unconditional cash that grows with economic growth that redistribution provides you are simply submitting to government power over all of us.