Universal basic income

[gosub]

Universal basic income of £1,600 a month to be trialled in two places in England

Scheme to run for two years and participants will be monitored to see what effect it has on mental and physical health

www.theguardian.com

Just had this on Go8d Morning Britain. Being trialed by 30 people.....Forme4 Chancellor did point out full scheme would cost over half the tax take...2hat didn't come up though fucking should have done is the inflationary pressures the thing would cause....obviously that won't show with a 30 person pilot

 

[MickiQ]

Universal Basic Income is one of those things that has pretty much every serving politician frothing at the mouth at the very thought of the idea yet is as inevitable as the sun coming up in the morning.
For all its successes capitalism has one killer flaw it requires people buying goods and services. It's no good the robot factories churning out consumer goods if there is no-one to buy them.
In order for it to survive it will need a means of enabling the huge number of people replaced by robots to buy stuff which means UBI. There is a practical alternative in the form of Fully Automated Luxury Communism but that is just a slightly different variation on the same idea.
The only other alternatives are collapsing back into barbarism or the AI's deciding we're too dumb to put up with and culling us optionally keeping a few of the cutest ones as pets.
It's coming not in the next few years certainly probably not in the next decade or two but before the end of this century definitely.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Universal Basic Income is one of those things that has pretty much every serving politician frothing at the mouth at the very thought of the idea yet is as inevitable as the sun coming up in the morning.
For all its successes capitalism has one killer flaw it requires people buying goods and services. It's no good the robot factories churning out consumer goods if there is no-one to buy them.
In order for it to survive it will need a means of enabling the huge number of people replaced by robots to buy stuff which means UBI. There is a practical alternative in the form of Fully Automated Luxury Communism but that is just a slightly different variation on the same idea.
The only other alternatives are collapsing back into barbarism or the AI's deciding we're too dumb to put up with and culling us optionally keeping a few of the cutest ones as pets.
It's coming not in the next few years certainly probably not in the next decade or two but before the end of this century definitely.

The robots can just churn out goods for the 1%...

 

[Pickman's model]

The only other alternatives are collapsing back into barbarism or the AI's deciding we're too dumb to put up with and culling us optionally keeping a few of the cutest ones as pets.

other options are available

 

[MickiQ]

other options are available

I'd be genuinely interested in what other alternatives you think are possible. I don't think we can just say "OK we will freeze progress at its current level and just carry on with the current social order" That's just slow decline as opposed to collapse. The genie that is automation and AI is out of its box and won't go back in. I daresay there will be the odd tyrant/cult (the Taliban spring to mind) that will try and stop further progress but they won't succeed.

 

[Cloo]

It makes a lot of sense to me. What would help would not be sleepwalking into a scenario where huge corporations can slash jobs for automation without having to give anything back to the public purse, which might help pay for UBI. But given the current shower of bastards I imagine sleepwalking into a corporate job slashing scenario is exactly what will happen.

 

[ska invita]

big thread here Basic Income

 

[Pickman's model]

Universal Basic Income is one of those things that has pretty much every serving politician frothing at the mouth at the very thought of the idea yet is as inevitable as the sun coming up in the morning.
For all its successes capitalism has one killer flaw it requires people buying goods and services. It's no good the robot factories churning out consumer goods if there is no-one to buy them.
In order for it to survive it will need a means of enabling the huge number of people replaced by robots to buy stuff which means UBI. There is a practical alternative in the form of Fully Automated Luxury Communism but that is just a slightly different variation on the same idea.
The only other alternatives are collapsing back into barbarism or the AI's deciding we're too dumb to put up with and culling us optionally keeping a few of the cutest ones as pets.
It's coming not in the next few years certainly probably not in the next decade or two but before the end of this century definitely.

other options include a) revolution; b) ai/robots being a harbinger of us moving into a different mode of production, not socialism and not capitalism but something entirely new; c) ai turns out to be a massive flop and we go on as before

 

[MickiQ]

other options include a) revolution; b) ai/robots being a harbinger of us moving into a different mode of production, not socialism and not capitalism but something entirely new; c) ai turns out to be a massive flop and we go on as before

I think your options are basically the same as mine tbh a) could be either collapse or moving to happy clappy capitalism(aka UBI)/FLAC. b) is either happy clappy capitalism/FLAC (you're right it probably won't look exactly like what people are currently envisaging) and c) is pretty much inevitably eventual decline and collapse.

 

[Pickman's model]

I think your options are basically the same as mine tbh a) could be either collapse or moving to happy clappy capitalism(aka UBI)/FLAC. b) is either happy clappy capitalism/FLAC (you're right it probably won't look exactly like what people are currently envisaging) and c) is pretty much inevitably eventual decline and collapse.

at the moment i think i'd go with socialism or barbarism

 

[wtfftw]

Is it per person or household?

 

[LDC]

Is it per person or household?

Could you not just read the article?

It's a tiny trial of 30 people in 2 areas, and payment is per person.

Guardian reporting it as a done deal, some other places are calling it a proposed trial and it's being done by a small think-tank, not a government project.

It's these folks Autonomy

 

[wtfftw]

Could you not just read the article?

It's a tiny trial of 30 people in 2 areas, and payment is per person.

Guardian reporting it as a done deal, some other places are calling it a proposed trial and it's being done by a small think-tank, not a government project.

Don't be so pissy.


But ty for saying.

 

[MickiQ]

Could you not just read the article?

It's a tiny trial of 30 people in 2 areas, and payment is per person.

Guardian reporting it as a done deal, some other places are calling it a proposed trial and it's being done by a small think-tank, not a government project.

If it's a private think-tank I wonder if they are going to have to pay tax on the money they receive or whether the payer will allow for that and fiddle the figure to get the desired result. I presume the 30 volunteers are going to have to live on just £1600 (you'd have to earn about £23K pa to have that much disposable) alone? It does seem a bit of an odd experiment and I can pretty much tell them the results already, those that had less before will benefit, those that had more will lose out. You wonder what's going to happen to the volunteers when the experiment is over? How are they going to explain it when they need to look for a job or sign back on.

 

[strung out]

It does seem a bit of an odd experiment and I can pretty much tell them the results already, those that had less before will benefit, those that had more will lose out.

Not sure you understand what the experiment is actually testing.

It's not about who has more or less, and how they benefit, but (in the words of the thinktank): "We want to see what effect this unconditional lump sum has on people’s mental and physical health, whether they choose to work or not."

 

[MickiQ]

Not sure you understand what the experiment is actually testing.

It's not about who has more or less, and how they benefit, but (in the words of the thinktank): "We want to see what effect this unconditional lump sum has on people’s mental and physical health, whether they choose to work or not."

Quite possibly I'm not. I was assuming they were testing whether people could live OK on £1600 pm as a sole source of income. If they are just going to give 30 people chosen at random £1600pm regardless of what their income is now then I suspect that the answer is even more predictable.
As an extra £1600pm helped your mental health?
"Hell Yes it has"
I'm surprised they think it needs testing to be honest it's bit like saying we will punch you repeatedly in the face are things better when we stop?
I'm massively pro the idea and don't doubt the time will come when everyone gets a basic income from say 16 to death regardless.

EDIT: Thinking about whilst I make a cuppa, it occurs to me that the fact the experiment will have a known end date is going to skew the result, the subjects are probably going to be planning what they will do when the experiment ends.

 

[Elpenor]

I already live on about £1600 / month as it is as that’s my net pay roughly before overtime (which I haven’t had time to do lately)

Would I get double bubble then?

 

[LDC]

If it's a private think-tank I wonder if they are going to have to pay tax on the money they receive or whether the payer will allow for that and fiddle the figure to get the desired result. I presume the 30 volunteers are going to have to live on just £1600 (you'd have to earn about £23K pa to have that much disposable) alone? It does seem a bit of an odd experiment and I can pretty much tell them the results already, those that had less before will benefit, those that had more will lose out. You wonder what's going to happen to the volunteers when the experiment is over? How are they going to explain it when they need to look for a job or sign back on.

It'll all be covered in the trial briefing and plans.

 

[xenon]

I already live on about £1600 / month as it is as that’s my net pay roughly before overtime (which I haven’t had time to do lately)

Would I get double bubble then?

I haven’t read it either but heard one of the organisers talking about it yesterday. yes, you can still work or find a job if you haven’t already got one et cetera. it’s not testing if people can live off 1600 quid a month. Rather what are the effects of having an extra 1600 on lifestyles, motivations et cetera.

 

[StakerOne]

I already live on about £1600 / month as it is as that’s my net pay roughly before overtime (which I haven’t had time to do lately)

Would I get double bubble then?

Yes you would.

 

[StakerOne]

I used to be for Universal Basic Income from the state, but now I'm opposed to it.

There's nothing wrong with everyone getting £1600 a month from a moral stand point, it doesn't get me "frothing at the mouth".

I would rather some kind of mechanism outside government brought about UBI.

If this was 10 or 20 years ago, it's not a problem. But now that we have so many people pushing for a CBDCs (central bank digital currency, my worry is that the government is going to do a set piece number on us where we have an economic disaster where everyone is desperate for money and economic stimulus and the answer would be to launch both the CBDCs and the UBI together.

If retailers know that everyone is getting an extra £1600 a week in the form of CBDCs, then they'll make sure they can accept it by doing the relevant upgrades on their backends.

Then that's it. They've got us. A currency that's programmable and soon after the moral panics will be instigated and we won't be able to buy any fags, alchohol or possibily even meat with that £1600.

They're hoping we'll trade out freedoms for comfort.

No thanks.

 

[B.I.G]

I used to be for Universal Basic Income from the state, but now I'm opposed to it.

There's nothing wrong with everyone getting £1600 a month from a moral stand point, it doesn't get me "frothing at the mouth".

I would rather some kind of mechanism outside government brought about UBI.

If this was 10 or 20 years ago, it's not a problem. But now that we have so many people pushing for a CBDCs (central bank digital currency, my worry is that the government is going to do a set piece number on us where we have an economic disaster where everyone is desperate for money and economic stimulus and the answer would be to launch both the CBDCs and the UBI together.

If retailers know that everyone is getting an extra £1600 a week in the form of CBDCs, then they'll make sure they can accept it by doing the relevant upgrades on their backends.

Then that's it. They've got us. A currency that's programmable and soon after the moral panics will be instigated and we won't be able to buy any fags, alchohol or possibily even meat with that £1600.

They're hoping we'll trade out freedoms for comfort.

No thanks.

Shame how you conspiraloons don’t just get banned.

 

[LDC]

What a surprise the resident bitcunt loon turns up spouting his idiot conspiracy shit.

Any fucking thread, and he turns up shouting the same shit ffs.

 

[StakerOne]

Shame how you conspiraloons don’t just get banned.

Fact - The Bank of England wants to introduce a CBDC. It's on their own website.
Fact - Rishi Sunak wants to introduce CBDCs, he's said so many times.
Fact - The Bank of England asked the government whether CBDCs should be programmable. The government has said "No". - But the question was asked.

Now sit there and tell me with a straight face, that it's impossible to upgrade to be programmable AND there will NEVER be a pack of retrograde cunts in charge evil enough to do it.

You don't have to be a conspiraloon nut to say "Hold on a minute, let's not put all the incentives in front of people so that it's really tempting for them to be absolute cunts!!!"

 

[strung out]

You don't have to be a conspiraloon nut, but it helps!

Fixed.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I already live on about £1600 / month as it is as that’s my net pay roughly before overtime (which I haven’t had time to do lately)

Would I get double bubble then?

If it went live properly I'd wonder if companies would end up paying less. Call me a cynic.

 

[Elpenor]

 

[B.I.G]

Fact - The Bank of England wants to introduce a CBDC. It's on their own website.
Fact - Rishi Sunak wants to introduce CBDCs, he's said so many times.
Fact - The Bank of England asked the government whether CBDCs should be programmable. The government has said "No". - But the question was asked.

Now sit there and tell me with a straight face, that it's impossible to upgrade to be programmable AND there will NEVER be a pack of retrograde cunts in charge evil enough to do it.

You don't have to be a conspiraloon nut to say "Hold on a minute, let's not put all the incentives in front of people so that it's really tempting for them to be absolute cunts!!!"

Lets ignore all the real problems in the world for made up ones.

Hopefully you get banned soon. Complete waste of space.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It needn't be inflationary to introduce a UBI. f you were to incorporate it into the income tax system, it could be done without any new money and with a minimum of bureaucracy. Everyone starts on a negative income tax of £1600, or whatever, then your tax goes up from there according to how much you earn. Redistributive? Sure, that would be half the point of doing it. But it could be done without the need to 'print money'.

This kind of scheme seems pretty pointless to me. They will very much feel that they have free money. It will feel very different and produce very different reactions from a situation where everyone gets it. I don't see that there is much to be learned.

 

[StakerOne]

Lets ignore all the real problems in the world for made up ones.

Hopefully you get banned soon. Complete waste of space.

You've got NOTHING to say, just "Ban him".

Because you can't accept any other reality than your own.

There are real problems in this world because people abuse what power they've got.

Your answer is to centralise power despite the obvious dangers of connected technologies.

Get CBDCs taken off the menu and then we can a serious discussion about government backed UBI, but until then, it's too dangerous.