Universal Basic Income / Andrew Yang for president

''This was a session at the August 2018 [[Resilient Communities Mini-Unconference]].'' == Participants == * [[Brandon]] (convener) * [[Ben]] (note-taker) * [[Shawn]] * [[Eric]] * Judy * Steve * [[Shelley]] (briefly) == Discussion == * Judy: Should UBI be provided only to people who really need it? ** Perhaps on an honor system? I want to have faith in people ** Shawn: The idea is similar to the negative income tax for the poor * Brandon: I've listened to one podcast on UBI, with Sam Harris interviewing presidential candidate [https://www.yang2020.com/ Andrew Yang] ** Side note: Harris is a New Atheist, but more spiritual than most ** Yang has run companies and been a professor at Harvard Business School (where the students are motivated by just wanting to make lots of money) ** Yang also supports social currency that aligns purchasing power with work that isn't currently paid, e.g. caring for the elderly *** Everyone starts with an equal amount of "esteem" points and hands them out to each other as reward for work they appreciate *** Related to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_currency time banking] ** The context of Yang's UBI proposal is that automation is rapidly replacing jobs, and there may be no replacement jobs coming *** Yang proposes a UBI of $1000 per month, which is below the poverty line, and would be mutually exclusive with other assistance programs for the poor *** At one point he and Harris express the motivation of "not wanting to have to buy bulletproof cars for their children" due to crime arising from immense income inequality *** Steve (much later): I don't see a problem with a world where robots do all the hard labor **** Shawn: Tell that to people whose family identities are wrapped up in that labor, and who want to feel valued for their contributions **** Judy: But if you had UBI, it would give you time and resources to figure out another way to contribute to society * Issues with UBI ** Shawn: "Rentier states" are using something like UBI to buy off their own citizens, e.g. with oil money, making the government unaccountable to those citizens ** Judy: I thought I saw an article in [https://www.yesmagazine.org/ Yes Magazine] saying UBI would be somehow destructive to the Black community ** Shawn: How do we pay for it? *** Judy: Get the wealthy and corporations to pay *** Brandon: Yang wants to use a European Union-style value-added tax **** Steve and Shawn: That would be paid by consumers, which seems to defeat the purpose **** Brandon: Trades in the economy add value; this tax and UBI distribution means more money moving around and therefore adds the value needed to make it worthwhile * Argument about perpetual growth and whether or not it's motivated by compound-interest loans ** Brandon: The three origins of value are: *** Using up stored value (e.g. oil) *** Accelerating the movement of money (not counting banks' financial tricks and automated trading algorithms) *** New ideas and inventions **** Steve: e.g. if we find a more valuable use for rhodium, the world supply of rhodium suddenly has more value without having to mine any more **** Shawn: But you pay a resource cost for every invention, generally underpinned by cheap fossil energy **** Argument about replacing fossil fuels with renewables * Brandon: I support UBI because it makes me feel like things would be possible that weren't before, e.g. for new college graduates who don't currently see a positive future for themselves * Shawn: I see UBI as life support for the current system, when what we need is system change ** More argument about compound interest and "unpayable" debt *** Eric and Judy: In Canada, they have rules so that banks can't lend more money than the borrower can pay back ** Steve: Lenin viciously attacked reformers as enemies of revolution * Ben: What can the SolSeed Movement do about any of this huge national economic stuff? ** Brandon: Support UBI