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@Rembrandt said in Universal income:
Dammit I guess Rogan is gonna take another 3 hours of my life. Feels like something I need to get my head around...especially as my company is doing a big push for AI automation, outsourcing and mass Aussie redundancies this year.
Normally the reddit threads that accompany a Rogan podcast are full of sarcastic digs and snide remarks. This one is a bit different, lots of people agreeing with Yang including people in the industries he’s talking about
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I listened to the Yang podcast but I'm not really sold on his conclusions. If we are already in the midst of the AI takeover why is unemployment at record lows currently? Surely if you are proposing free money you'd then have to be in support of the wall right?
Also that talk about cutting drug related deaths in half...I got a feeling if you are giving addicts an extra $1000 a month you might get the exact opposite result.
I'll have to have a look through these 'studies' he refers to, from what I understand most trials of this have failed.
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@Rembrandt said in Universal income:
why is unemployment at record lows currently?
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
There is employment, unemployment, and underemployment. As we increasingly shift toward a gig economy, reporting on employment in the traditional sense will be increasingly unreliable as a measure of success. Zero contract jobs spring to mind. Food delivery drivers, etc.
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@Rembrandt said in Universal income:
I listened to the Yang podcast but I'm not really sold on his conclusions. If we are already in the midst of the AI takeover why is unemployment at record lows currently? Surely if you are proposing free money you'd then have to be in support of the wall right?
Also that talk about cutting drug related deaths in half...I got a feeling if you are giving addicts an extra $1000 a month you might get the exact opposite result.
I'll have to have a look through these 'studies' he refers to, from what I understand most trials of this have failed.
I thought he did favour border control?
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@jegga @Rembrandt he's in the pod as saying he favours strong border protection. He also states that the illegals in country are better to bring in from the cold - and pay them $1000 a month - in order to cease wasting money on trying to track them and clean up after any issues a non-documented person commits in your society.
Building a wall at billions seems to fly in the face of UBI, IMHO.
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@NTA said in Universal income:
@jegga @Rembrandt he's in the pod as saying he favours strong border protection. He also states that the illegals in country are better to bring in from the cold - and pay them $1000 a month - in order to cease wasting money on trying to track them and clean up after any issues a non-documented person commits in your society.
Building a wall at billions seems to fly in the face of UBI, IMHO.
Yeah I thought I recalled his talking about the businesses hire illegals over citizens were the real issue
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@jegga said in Universal income:
@NTA said in Universal income:
@jegga @Rembrandt he's in the pod as saying he favours strong border protection. He also states that the illegals in country are better to bring in from the cold - and pay them $1000 a month - in order to cease wasting money on trying to track them and clean up after any issues a non-documented person commits in your society.
Building a wall at billions seems to fly in the face of UBI, IMHO.
Yeah I thought I recalled his talking about the businesses hire illegals over citizens were the real issue
My interpretation was the fact that a lot of illegals operate in a dark economy where they're not contributing to the usual channels via taxation (personally or via business taxes) etc. but also not reaping the benefits.
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@NTA said in Universal income:
@Rembrandt said in Universal income:
why is unemployment at record lows currently?
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
There is employment, unemployment, and underemployment. As we increasingly shift toward a gig economy, reporting on employment in the traditional sense will be increasingly unreliable as a measure of success. Zero contract jobs spring to mind. Food delivery drivers, etc.
Out of curiosity, how do you see those not being captured by the official figures - now or in the future? All of the things you mention are measured in some shape or form (including the often overlooked participation rate). I think the measure of underemployment will become increasingly important/need to be reported on more widely as the gig economy grows, but it's already surveyed for now.
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@Donsteppa it is more the way the figures are used disingenuously by the government of the day to say everything's alright and "how good are we as economic managers!"
Underemployment and wage growth are more critical measures of a happy and contributing workforce IMHO.
In Australia the progressives use wage stagnation versus CPI versus corporate profit versus corporate tax as a metric they can point to the failings of the conservative government. The only response the conservatives have is "RECORD LOW UNEMPLOYMENT!"
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@NTA said in Universal income:
He's selling it pretty well actually. The trap for Republicans being "we don't want to pay our core voters experiencing hardship".
Reminds me of this quote I saw on FB
I’ve seen that quote attributed to a few people, H L Mencken springs to mind.
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@Donsteppa Stats NZ have other measures - probably the most relevant to this discussion is underutilisation, which is everyone who is not employed full time (I.e. 30+ hours/week) but wants to be (so includes unemployed and underemployed, and is 12.1% or 351,000 New Zealanders.
The labour force participation rate is high as well, so I think a UBI would result in a drop in all those figures as some of the underutilised people would stop looking for work.
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@NTA said in Universal income:
@Donsteppa it is more the way the figures are used disingenuously by the government of the day to say everything's alright and "how good are we as economic managers!"
I'm not sure how it is in Oz, the NZ process is that the figures are surveyed neutrally by Stats NZ, published, then every man and their dog puts their own spin on them (and in the case of some business journalists, spin plus lack of understanding )
@Godder said in Universal income:
@Donsteppa Stats NZ have other measures - probably the most relevant to this discussion is underutilisation, which is everyone who is not employed full time (I.e. 30+ hours/week) but wants to be (so includes unemployed and underemployed, and is 12.1% or 351,000 New Zealanders.
Yep, I was lazy in just referring to underemployment. People get quite wound up at how low the official definition of employment is (from memory either an hour or two a week), but it's one of many good reasons why things like underutilisation are measured.
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Some more discussions on UBI & Shapiro with some good counter points.
I really like the idea of it being an 'Opt-in' program and if you do go in then you lose your welfare payments. In theory this should reduce enrolment in those welfare programs even from those who earn more than the $1,000.00 UBI because that payment doesn't required any red tape whereas the red tape involved with welfare can be enormous so people may willingly take a paycut just to avoid the drama.
I'm still not sold on it but have to say of all the Dem candidates Yang seems far and away the most reasonable person they have.
Universal income