Gerald W. Johnson, a journalist who covered The New Deal during the 30’s for the Baltimore Sun, wrote that what angry poor people want is never usually money (or else they would have revolted a long time ago), but hope for a better future for either them or their children. Eric Hoffer, who wrote a book in the 50’s called “True Believer: On The Nature of Mass Movements”, had a similar argument.
UBI is not a long term solution, but I appreciate it being innovative and trying at least. One of the reasons we didn’t get any financial reform in 2008 was that their simply was no other economic system/theory to turn too. Right now, before the next recession, we are developing the theories that will be chosen from once neo-Kynesian economics is shown the door in the years to come.
Gerald W. Johnson, a journalist who covered The New Deal during the 30’s for the Baltimore Sun, wrote that what angry poor people want is never usually money (or else they would have revolted a long time ago), but hope for a better future for either them or their children. Eric Hoffer, who wrote a book in the 50’s called “True Believer: On The Nature of Mass Movements”, had a similar argument.
Perhaps UBI on its own is not sufficient to give hope for a better future, but combined with affordable education maybe it would be?
I imagine if one could take some time off without fear of starvation (or going massively into debt) to raise one's skills, then upward mobility would be much more accessible. I don't know if UBI is the only solution but I can see how it would at least solve part of the problem.
I'm too young to have experienced it myself but my understanding is that there was a time when people could actually survive off jobs which didn't require a college degree. I don't think this is possible in most places anymore and given that college tuition has only increased, it seems like upward mobility has decreased.
I realize that college isn't necessarily the right path to upward mobility but I think you can generalize the argument to most forms of education and it would still apply.
My grandparents enjoyed home ownership in a very nice neighborhood, in what is now an extremely high COL area. They had every modern convenience of their time period, sent their kids to college, and retired on-time without a care. Neither attended high school. It's often stated that the post-WWII era was just a fluke. I don't know enough to have an opinion about that, but it sure did lead to the perception that the American Dream evaporated for most people.
More affordable education would be nice. Certainly not free for everyone, like Bernie proposed. Not everyone needs college and there are definitely some degrees that the state shouldn't pay for.
The arts are valuable and I'd love to have a country which could patronize the arts and artists. But we don't have that kind of money. Even if we did, there are other priorities for things we should be paying people to do.
In any case, the one argument for UBI I found somewhat convincing was that it could be cheaper than social security, unemployment, etc all combined, because there'd be less administrative cost.
I appreciate that some governments were willing to experiment.
Change can be good, but tests ought to be tried before large , even well-intentioned changes to massive systems.
Yeah, I generally agree. I think one thing that is often forgotten/only mentioned in comments is trade schools. A good education in a trade can bring about a good income. Due to the lack of people joining the trades as university has been in vogue.
Some amount of military is good. I will not deny ours is quite large. Perhaps having the largest is also a good. But so much larger than everyone else's? I don't know. But that's not really the tradeoff I meant.
In the space of just social programs, or societal improvement programs, I'd love to see more national parks, environmental cleanup, scientific research funding, etc. There are people who are willing but unable to do work in these areas. The US provides a pretty good amount of money in these areas, even as I desire more.
tl;dr if you're a US citizen, vote for people who'll spend how you want them to spend. If you're not, oh well, it's not your decision
Gerald W. Johnson, a journalist who covered The New Deal during the 30’s for the Baltimore Sun, wrote that what angry poor people want is never usually money (or else they would have revolted a long time ago), but hope for a better future for either them or their children.
Improving upward mobility out of poverty is a big part of the motivation for replacing means-tested aid with UBI, so while that's probably true, using it as an argument against UBI ignores what it is replacing; it's not money replacing not-money, it's money with conditions that actively fight moving up with money with terms which complement moving up.
UBI is not a long term solution
Yes, it is. It's not a complete solution, but it is a long-term one.
One of the reasons we didn’t get any financial reform in 2008 was that their simply was no other economic system/theory to turn too.
Other? I would have thought (I am no economist so I apologize if this is daft) that the sensible response would be to permit all of the banks who engaged in gambling to actually lose their bets and suffer the consequences of their own actions. Those which extended loans which could not be repaid should have entered insolvency, with the debts owed to them eliminated. Likewise, the fraudulent practices conducted should have resulted in hundreds or more of banking executives and other employees sent to prison.
It would seem to me that the solution we settled upon - giving them titanic amounts of money, assisting their consolidation, and playing pretend as if the fraudulent loans issued were still owed by those who they were foisted upon, foreclosing on homes, and significantly derailing, if not destroying, the lives of hundreds of thousands of families - was the 'other economic system' here. It certainly was not the one laid out in black and white on paper and followed for a century or so. Under that one, when you extend credit to someone out of funds you do not have, then place bets on repayment while lying about the odds, you crash rather than luxuriate in the spoils of a looting of the masses.
permit all of the banks who engaged in gambling to actually lose their bets
When they throw the term 'too big too fail' around, they mean it in the literal sense: That the banks losing these bets would literally bring down the American -> World economy.
What _is_ missing is that no one was punished, no laws were changed (or have recently been relaxed even further?), no structured breakup of the bad actors. It means theres no incentive to _not_ risk global economic collapse, even though the words global economic collapse should be incentive enough.
I do understand the ripple effect that it could have to have the banks fail utterly, but I would think that if they entered insolvency, like a Chapter 11 rather than Chapter 7 bankruptcy, that the disruption could be managed. As far as the mortgages go, eliminating the debt and transferring ownership to the residents would effectively solve that part of the problem (aside from the irrationally angry people who seem willing to suffer harm themselves rather than tolerate the notion that someone else got some 'undeserved' benefit) without spreading disaster. And, obviously, reigning banks back to only lending 2x to 4x their holdings rather than the 30+x they were running at, or some other number actually supported by financial statistics, seems like it would be a good idea.
I know that the modern conception of business since the 1980s is that if the profit margin of a business is not growing that it might as well close its doors, but once it is recognized that the banks are doing more than simply engaging in commerce, but are actually providing infrastructure necessary to maintain our society... it certainly seems their classification ought to change, especially given the historical proof of the power of money to corrupt. It just doesn't seem to make sense that it could be both critical infrastructure and also something that should remain private with as light a touch as possible from government (viewing government as a hand through which the public can act to protect themselves, I know that's not always how it shakes out).
We already have case studies of heirs who have led/are leading happy and fulfilling lives without ever having participated as laborers in the economy. So it is proven that the combination of (having money and not having a job) is compatible with happiness.
The misery seems to come not from curbing worst-case outcomes for everyone in society (by UBI), but from the threat of material insufficiency due to structural unemployment (which motivates UBI).
Besides, even if we get strong AI and abundant energy to obsolete the vast majority of jobs, presumably it will take a long time to eliminate the long tail. One may always hope the next great genius/virtuoso will be among one's offspring.
As computer programmers, I think the one thing it teaches is that nothing is a/the solution. I remember when the default version of rails was going to require like 7 technologies to be able to do the things people wanted.
Programming also teaches that solutions come in tiny elements, that aggregate to a solution, which is usually held together by the flimsiest of margins. I remember a talk where at one point YouTube's big trouble was exporting video thumbnails, which had I think hit the iNode limit.
Programming also teaches that solutions need to address actual problems, and usually only the directly immediate problems. We have all seen the posts of someone who thinks they can write code and just let it scale, and how that never works.
My point to this long preamble is there is that the concept of a solution to nebulous, undefined "problems" is impossible by definition.
My biggest issue (and I have several) with UBI - which full disclosure I am both a fan of and a donator to the UBI test here: https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income - is that the only way it has a chance of working in the first world is to replace all existing welfare, up and down the government hierarchy (i.e. at ALL levels). The chances of that happening are... what's less likely than a snow flake in hell?
However, UBI as a tool of aid is fascinating. Currently, most aid is poorly measured, and not really that effective. If we could introduce a tool with lower overhead, and help the poorest of the poor for a mere fraction of what it costs in the 1st world, the results could be world changing for the 1-2 billion people with the absolute least. If that proves applicable in more expensive countries, more's the better, but even if it doesn't, and proves to be of value in specific situations, it could still be an unbelievable tool for human progress at the margins.
what angry poor people want is never usually money, but hope for a better future for either them or their children [...] UBI is not a long term solution
This reminds me of the town hall meetings in NYC, where conservatives show up and try to convince everyone that if their rent $500 a month cheaper then it would be bad for them because they'd likely take up smoking crack and spend the extra money on drugs.
Comments
Gerald W. Johnson, a journalist who covered The New Deal during the 30’s for the Baltimore Sun, wrote that what angry poor people want is never usually money (or else they would have revolted a long time ago), but hope for a better future for either them or their children. Eric Hoffer, who wrote a book in the 50’s called “True Believer: On The Nature of Mass Movements”, had a similar argument.
UBI is not a long term solution, but I appreciate it being innovative and trying at least. One of the reasons we didn’t get any financial reform in 2008 was that their simply was no other economic system/theory to turn too. Right now, before the next recession, we are developing the theories that will be chosen from once neo-Kynesian economics is shown the door in the years to come.
Perhaps UBI on its own is not sufficient to give hope for a better future, but combined with affordable education maybe it would be?
I imagine if one could take some time off without fear of starvation (or going massively into debt) to raise one's skills, then upward mobility would be much more accessible. I don't know if UBI is the only solution but I can see how it would at least solve part of the problem.
I'm too young to have experienced it myself but my understanding is that there was a time when people could actually survive off jobs which didn't require a college degree. I don't think this is possible in most places anymore and given that college tuition has only increased, it seems like upward mobility has decreased.
I realize that college isn't necessarily the right path to upward mobility but I think you can generalize the argument to most forms of education and it would still apply.
My grandparents enjoyed home ownership in a very nice neighborhood, in what is now an extremely high COL area. They had every modern convenience of their time period, sent their kids to college, and retired on-time without a care. Neither attended high school. It's often stated that the post-WWII era was just a fluke. I don't know enough to have an opinion about that, but it sure did lead to the perception that the American Dream evaporated for most people.
More affordable education would be nice. Certainly not free for everyone, like Bernie proposed. Not everyone needs college and there are definitely some degrees that the state shouldn't pay for.
The arts are valuable and I'd love to have a country which could patronize the arts and artists. But we don't have that kind of money. Even if we did, there are other priorities for things we should be paying people to do.
In any case, the one argument for UBI I found somewhat convincing was that it could be cheaper than social security, unemployment, etc all combined, because there'd be less administrative cost.
I appreciate that some governments were willing to experiment.
Change can be good, but tests ought to be tried before large , even well-intentioned changes to massive systems.
Yeah, I generally agree. I think one thing that is often forgotten/only mentioned in comments is trade schools. A good education in a trade can bring about a good income. Due to the lack of people joining the trades as university has been in vogue.
The solution to that is universities should start teaching trades or trade schools should rebrand as universities and offer degrees.
But we don't have that kind of money.
You have the money to patronise the military-industrial complex, I think you could easily afford to patronise the arts more if that was your priority.
Some amount of military is good. I will not deny ours is quite large. Perhaps having the largest is also a good. But so much larger than everyone else's? I don't know. But that's not really the tradeoff I meant.
In the space of just social programs, or societal improvement programs, I'd love to see more national parks, environmental cleanup, scientific research funding, etc. There are people who are willing but unable to do work in these areas. The US provides a pretty good amount of money in these areas, even as I desire more.
tl;dr if you're a US citizen, vote for people who'll spend how you want them to spend. If you're not, oh well, it's not your decision
Improving upward mobility out of poverty is a big part of the motivation for replacing means-tested aid with UBI, so while that's probably true, using it as an argument against UBI ignores what it is replacing; it's not money replacing not-money, it's money with conditions that actively fight moving up with money with terms which complement moving up.
Yes, it is. It's not a complete solution, but it is a long-term one.
Other? I would have thought (I am no economist so I apologize if this is daft) that the sensible response would be to permit all of the banks who engaged in gambling to actually lose their bets and suffer the consequences of their own actions. Those which extended loans which could not be repaid should have entered insolvency, with the debts owed to them eliminated. Likewise, the fraudulent practices conducted should have resulted in hundreds or more of banking executives and other employees sent to prison.
It would seem to me that the solution we settled upon - giving them titanic amounts of money, assisting their consolidation, and playing pretend as if the fraudulent loans issued were still owed by those who they were foisted upon, foreclosing on homes, and significantly derailing, if not destroying, the lives of hundreds of thousands of families - was the 'other economic system' here. It certainly was not the one laid out in black and white on paper and followed for a century or so. Under that one, when you extend credit to someone out of funds you do not have, then place bets on repayment while lying about the odds, you crash rather than luxuriate in the spoils of a looting of the masses.
When they throw the term 'too big too fail' around, they mean it in the literal sense: That the banks losing these bets would literally bring down the American -> World economy.
What _is_ missing is that no one was punished, no laws were changed (or have recently been relaxed even further?), no structured breakup of the bad actors. It means theres no incentive to _not_ risk global economic collapse, even though the words global economic collapse should be incentive enough.
I do understand the ripple effect that it could have to have the banks fail utterly, but I would think that if they entered insolvency, like a Chapter 11 rather than Chapter 7 bankruptcy, that the disruption could be managed. As far as the mortgages go, eliminating the debt and transferring ownership to the residents would effectively solve that part of the problem (aside from the irrationally angry people who seem willing to suffer harm themselves rather than tolerate the notion that someone else got some 'undeserved' benefit) without spreading disaster. And, obviously, reigning banks back to only lending 2x to 4x their holdings rather than the 30+x they were running at, or some other number actually supported by financial statistics, seems like it would be a good idea.
I know that the modern conception of business since the 1980s is that if the profit margin of a business is not growing that it might as well close its doors, but once it is recognized that the banks are doing more than simply engaging in commerce, but are actually providing infrastructure necessary to maintain our society... it certainly seems their classification ought to change, especially given the historical proof of the power of money to corrupt. It just doesn't seem to make sense that it could be both critical infrastructure and also something that should remain private with as light a touch as possible from government (viewing government as a hand through which the public can act to protect themselves, I know that's not always how it shakes out).
Wait so you're saying I get a free house because I took a loan I couldn't afford?
It would certainly have been painful at the time but perhaps we would be better off by now?
It's a bitter pill, but the total collapse of the financial system would have affected a lot more families.
There should be lots of regulatory effort to reduce interdependence and make it easier to unwind bad banks though.
Maybe short term, but long term everyone could have been better off if it led to a saner financial system and more growth.
We already have case studies of heirs who have led/are leading happy and fulfilling lives without ever having participated as laborers in the economy. So it is proven that the combination of (having money and not having a job) is compatible with happiness.
The misery seems to come not from curbing worst-case outcomes for everyone in society (by UBI), but from the threat of material insufficiency due to structural unemployment (which motivates UBI).
Besides, even if we get strong AI and abundant energy to obsolete the vast majority of jobs, presumably it will take a long time to eliminate the long tail. One may always hope the next great genius/virtuoso will be among one's offspring.
As computer programmers, I think the one thing it teaches is that nothing is a/the solution. I remember when the default version of rails was going to require like 7 technologies to be able to do the things people wanted.
Programming also teaches that solutions come in tiny elements, that aggregate to a solution, which is usually held together by the flimsiest of margins. I remember a talk where at one point YouTube's big trouble was exporting video thumbnails, which had I think hit the iNode limit.
Programming also teaches that solutions need to address actual problems, and usually only the directly immediate problems. We have all seen the posts of someone who thinks they can write code and just let it scale, and how that never works.
My point to this long preamble is there is that the concept of a solution to nebulous, undefined "problems" is impossible by definition.
My biggest issue (and I have several) with UBI - which full disclosure I am both a fan of and a donator to the UBI test here: https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income - is that the only way it has a chance of working in the first world is to replace all existing welfare, up and down the government hierarchy (i.e. at ALL levels). The chances of that happening are... what's less likely than a snow flake in hell?
However, UBI as a tool of aid is fascinating. Currently, most aid is poorly measured, and not really that effective. If we could introduce a tool with lower overhead, and help the poorest of the poor for a mere fraction of what it costs in the 1st world, the results could be world changing for the 1-2 billion people with the absolute least. If that proves applicable in more expensive countries, more's the better, but even if it doesn't, and proves to be of value in specific situations, it could still be an unbelievable tool for human progress at the margins.
This reminds me of the town hall meetings in NYC, where conservatives show up and try to convince everyone that if their rent $500 a month cheaper then it would be bad for them because they'd likely take up smoking crack and spend the extra money on drugs.