
Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty - tpatke
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/business/economy/why-a-universal-basic-income-will-not-solve-poverty.html
======
jbob2000
Something that is missing from the basic income/poverty debate is the notion
of "learned helplessness"; after a long time in poverty, people get used to
the lifestyle and have difficulty adjusting to "regular" life.

For example, if you've been homeless your entire life, you've never had to
lock your apartment door or carry a key around. My partner (a social worker)
had a client who's apartment was always getting robbed because whenever she
left, she never locked her door; it was not something she was used to doing.
Another client was unable to set an alarm and follow a schedule. 20 years of
living on the street, waking up whenever he felt like it, meant that he had
completely lost his faculties for time management. He couldn't hold down a job
and regularly missed appointments.

Part of my partner's job was carrying these people through their journey to
"regular" life. She would show up to their apartments and take them to their
appointments. She would call the woman who didn't lock her doors every morning
to remind her to lock her door on her way out. Etc. Etc.

Basic income doesn't solve any of this. It just drops a load of money into a
person's lap who has no idea what to do with it.

~~~
funkysquid
"He couldn't hold down a job and regularly missed appointments."

I think this is part of the problem - right now in society, if you can't be on
time and hold down a job, you'll go hungry and have no place to live. Basic
income removes that harsh penalty, and lets people live regardless of whether
they can make an appointment.

~~~
dionidium
_" Basic income removes that harsh penalty"_

The real challenge of a basic income isn't how to pay for it; it's how to
convince regular people who get up every day and go work at jobs a lot
shittier than most of us here have that that's a harsh penalty.

There is enormous social momentum behind the idea that you should work if you
can.

~~~
sgnelson
Not to disagree with your point, but shouldn't we examine the reasons behind
and for necessitating that all people work? Not to get too existential, but
does anyone really believe that's why we're here, or what we should be doing
with our lives?

~~~
thedaemon
This is a very good point. We are at a point in society where we have replaced
multitudes of workers with automated machinery. (1st world countries)This in
turn is supposed to make way for more high thinking jobs, but in my
understanding does not. To me it seems we have reached a point where we should
find a way to fund people who want to do creative work, or experimental. To
me, yes, we are meant to work. But that work is not just for a company.
Perhaps teaching yourself how to garden, painting, etc. Doing something,
that's work.

To validate the point of work being why we are here I will roughly quote
Marcus Aurelius: When you wake up in the morning get up and get going. Why are
you wanting to sleep and be lazy? Does the honey bee say forget this and sleep
all day? Does the ant forgo his work and sleep and eat all day? No, all
creatures go to work. What makes you any different?

This is of course out of context, as this is just reasoning for himself to get
up in the morning, not a blanket statement about society.

------
nullsmack
The very first argument in the article is flawed which leads me to wonder how
much of it is or isn't flawed. It talks about a Universal Basic Income for
everyone over 21.. then it complains that would cost 3 trillion dollars for
all of the 300 million Americans. According to the Census Bureau as of 2015
there were 321 million Americans and 24% were under 18. No clue how many were
under 21. But that still takes it down to 244 million people. If we left
Social Security alone then that would cut another 46 million people out as
well. The article doesn't even attempt to explore cost savings by eliminating
excessive management of all of the existing programs.

~~~
newacct23
You are arguing about specifics that do not make any difference to the overall
argument the author is trying to make. UBI for 244 million is still
unfeasible.

UBI is just a bad idea, jobs in themselves have nice externalities that UBI
wont give. People that have jobs generally don't commit crimes. Also a UBI
will disincentivize working jobs that are undesirable but are necessary for a
functioning society.

~~~
funkysquid
Are you saying that people commit crimes because they have too much time on
their hands?

~~~
swalsh
It's an unfounded assumption, the reality is (and you can prove this with
data) most people committing crimes today do it as an act of desperation.
Professional criminals are definitely a real thing, but they'll exist with or
without a basic income. However, if a basic income eliminates poverty, it may
have a real impact on crime.

------
jimmytidey
An absolutely key feature of basic income is the security it gives someone who
is on breadline.

I can only describe the situation in the UK - but imagine this generalises. If
you are on government benefits, and you accept some money to do a small or
casual job, you face a choice. Not declare it, and face court and destitution
if you are found out.

Declaring the income, on the other hand, is an administrative nightmare. Worse
- it might trigger a recalculation, or removal, of your benefits. Most benefit
seekers don't fully understand how their benefits are calculated, and, again,
they could be destitute if benefits are removed or reduced.

So, for any long term unemployed person, it's often best to sit tight and not
take any risks. Thus the person is trapped in poverty, plus of course the
sense of self worth that comes from doing a job.

This is also true for an entrepreneur who decides to quite his job and build a
business. Basic income can provide some security while you get that business
going. This is not typically true of unemployment benefit.

Everything comes back to what unemployment benefits are - a payment
conditional on not doing any work. That causes so many problems, and basic
income can solve them.

On the cost: basic income, at substantial levels, is clearly very expensive.
However, you simply tax that money back. This can leave pay after tax
absolutely unchanged for everyone, while still delivering the advantages
described above.

------
carapace
Keep in mind when discussing UBI, especially in the context of poverty, that
it is _not_ a solution to poverty. It is a solution to automation crashing
demand by throwing earners permanently out of the economy.

Robots take the jobs so people have no money to spend even as the robots make
more stuff, cheaper.

What to do with the people? Throw them in a volcano? "Hunger Games"? Let's
just give them money and see what happens, okay?

 _That 's_ UBI.

UBI isn't for the bum. It's for _you_ (okay, well, your cousin. You read HN,
you're probably fine.)

------
thesimon
>[...] Why not subsidize workers’ wages instead?

Sounds like a great idea! Companies get to save money and the tax payer
effectively pays the companies profit.

~~~
bpodgursky
Well, corporate income tax is higher that individual income tax for the vast
majority of people... so it probably would mean more tax revenue overalll.

And no, income earned in the US cannot be kept offshore, so yes, taxes will
actually be paid on it either when "earned" by the company or distributed
(buybacks, etc).

------
lossolo
Problem is with capitalism and it's founders that told us all that you can't
live without work. In next decades we will need to change the system
diametrical because robots will take all not creative jobs out there. If we
want basic pay we will need to tax corporations that use robots at around
70-90%, money from tax will go for basic pay, money from people that receive
basic pay will go to corporations etc. Thing that needs to be controlled is
capital, it can't be taken out of the market like it's done now, companies are
gathering billions of dollars which are taken out of the market. Capital taken
from the market can not be redistributed again. One thing is for sure, current
system need to be changed and adapted to robots revolution.

~~~
witty_username
If robots take all the jobs, then nobody has to work anymore and everything
will be very cheap. Think robot maids, drivers, and robot-cooked meals. People
are so used to today's world of not-so-many-robots that people think not
having a job is bad.

~~~
visarga
Not having any money or job is bad, though. I don't see the state as being
reliable enough to care for the mass of useless and unemployed. They will
probably set the UBI at a level below the necessary, there will be protests
and riots, people will ask for more, politicians will tell them their excuses
for why it isn't possible.

If push comes to shove, owning some land and cultivating it could be a job.
The earth will hire people its owners to work it. That is, if people will be
legally allowed to cultivate their own seeds on their own land.

I see a possible utopia where individual farms or larger agricultural areas
will be owned and worked by communities of people. They will be independent as
a community from state welfare. They will be able to implement their own
lifestyle as a consequence of their independence. Technologies working for
this are: solar, batteries, 3d printers and robots.

~~~
drabiega
This is roughly the starting conditions for large parts of America. The
problem is that is isn't very efficient. The people who have the resources to
do this generally have better options and the people for whom this would be
preferable to the lives they are living have neither the knowledge or
resources to do this.

There are certainly groups in the middle, farming cooperatives are still
present in the area where I grew up, but those that exist do so largely for
ideological reasons: family tradition or religion.

------
hirundo
Relative poverty is insoluble without totalitarian levels of redistribution to
a very low common denominator, and that is unlikely to include the inevitable
oligarchs. Absolute poverty is rapidly being solved
([https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen?language=en))
by markets and globalization, and radical redistribution such as a basic
income tends to interfere with that.

~~~
Retric
Many people are still homeless in the US. Calling that 'relative' poverty is
abusing the term enough to become meaningless.

The most enlightening thing about this debate is the idea that we don't care
about peoples basic standards of living and are happy to pretend there is no
problem.

PS: _Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in January
2012 annual point-in-time count found that 633,782 people across the United
States were homeless, other counts vary widely._
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States)

Note: Many people end up homeless temporarily which makes counting complex.

~~~
pavel_lishin
There's probably a significant percentage of homeless people who are homeless
because they have untreated mental illnesses. They'd likely be homeless even
if they weren't monetarily impoverished.

~~~
sgnelson
And what if they could afford health care (or rather the state stepped in) to
help with that addiction/mental illness?

A study just done about a year ago in the City I live in, housed a fairly
large number of the non-temporary homeless people (between 20 and 50 I want to
say, the numbers escape me) in an apartment complex that provided basic social
services and access to health care. They found that in actuality, this helped
solve many of the long term problems (even if it did not solve all the
problems for all the people), as these people now had access to health care,
_AND_ it saved money, because these people were no longer ending up in the
emergency room or the local jail (and a few other cost saving measures as
well)

I'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _I 'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about._

I'm 100% sure I don't know what I'm talking about! That's why I couched my
opinion in all the weasel words like "probably" and "likely".

~~~
sgnelson
Okay. I'm sorry to have gotten on you. There so many comments in this thread I
found to be so completely wrong, and/or unsympathetic, it had really bothered
me, and I took it out on you. Thank you for admitting that you may not fully
understand what is a very serious situation for many. And sadly, at least in
the US, we do a rather poor job of solving the problem, not because we don't
have the resources, but because a large amount of people (and their leaders)
simply ignore or don't wish to fix the problem. It's frustrating, and all the
more frustrating when you read comments about it on HN, which again, tend to
lack sympathy for their fellow human beings. And again, I apologize.

------
skybrian
This article is yet another example of binary thinking.

Basic income could be started at any amount. It won't pay the rent, but an
extra $100 a month makes a difference for people living on the edge. The first
$100/month will make a bigger difference than anything added on top of that.

~~~
1123581321
The problem is that a very small number of people are on that $100/month edge,
a percentage of them will increase their expenses until they are as desperate
as they used to be, and the increased taxes to pay this money will put others
on the edge. When considering BI, or any large money transfer program, you
must consider the entire system, not just the beneficial effects on a small
number of people for the first few months.

~~~
skybrian
I agree with you that a proper study would have to take all that into account.

But since we're just hand-waving here, I'll argue that the point where you're
paying, say, $50/month more in taxes than you get in benefits is likely to be
at a high enough income that $50/month doesn't make nearly as big a difference
to your life.

Also, there is an insurance effect. A guaranteed $100 a month (even if you
lose your job or have to move) provides more financial security than a larger
amount that you can't necessarily rely on. And folks who aren't good at saving
money (for whatever reason) will benefit more from having a bit more financial
security during bad times, even if increased taxes means you don't make quite
as much money in a good year.

Sometimes when people talk about this, it sounds like they think any amount of
financial security is bad for poor people - it provides the wrong incentives.
But that seems backwards to me; when you're desperate, you're more likely to
make decisions you regret later.

~~~
1123581321
I am totally in favor of financial stability for low-income people; I just am
not in favor of initiatives that have bad unintended effects like harming
people and reducing the wealth that makes long-term cash transfers possible.

Theoretically, you can only tax people in such a way that they never fall
below the $75,000 a year happiness threshold and use the money to bring people
closer to $75,000 a year. In practice (and this is not hand-waving, it is the
history of the United States) it's so much easier to pay for social programs
with regressive consumption taxes (food, fuel) that they end up high enough to
cause hardships. $100/month for, say, half the adults in the United States
would be $144 billion, about the size of the federal education budget. Re-
arranging the tax structure to accommodate this would not be easy, and I think
you have to assume that at least some of the additional tax burden would fall
on people who need all the money they currently earn, and on the people who
receive the benefit. Likely, a high percentage of it would. I don't think an
assumption that political capital would be spent to keep the tax progressive,
since there are higher-priority proposals in existence that do this for Social
Security/FICA/Medicare, and even those have side-effects most don't care to
recognize.

------
mamon
UBI won't solve poverty for a very simple reason:

Every time government starts to subsidise something the price of subsidised
goods goes up. I've seen this in Europe with wind farms, "eco" lightbulbs,
farming equipment. etc.

And UBI is equivalent to subsidising all basic goods at the same time. So the
only noticeable effect of UBI will be price increase, so that it would take
your salary + UBI to purchase goods that now can be purchased by your salary
alone.

Net result: increased bureaucracy, increased cash flow for the government
(higher taxes), higher profits for corporations (higher prices), no benefit
for poor, big hit for middle class (which is most heavily taxed).

------
RivieraKid
We already have a basic income, at least in Europe, not sure about the USA.
Unemployed people get welfare. Changing this system to what BI advocates
propose is not a huge change:

\- Simplification of the welfare system, you get money automatically, no need
to ask.

\- In the current system, if you get employed, you lose benefits, so the jump
in your income is small, a disincentive to work. In the BI proposals, income
vs income-plus-welfare curve is smooth. That's the main improvement I think.

\- More money gets redistributed from the wealthy to the poor. Personally I
think the current level of redistribution is fine.

------
snicker7
It doesn't make to tax citizens only to give the money back to them.

Another way to implement a mincome is to have a flat tax rate and give every
citizen a large standard deductible. If one's taxable income is negative, then
one would receive money from the government, which is interpreted as a
negative tax payment.

Furthermore, the purpose of a mincome is not to alleviate poverty, but instead
to to replace current systems of welfare (food stamps, social security, etc).

~~~
pitaj
> replace current systems of welfare

Yes. The broken, trapping, inefficient, bloated, bureaucratic messes that cost
way to much and don't help people nearly enough.

------
MrJagil
I made the same submission here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11806509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11806509)

Maybe they should be merged.

------
ck425
I hope Switzerland votes for UBI, it would be interesting to see actual data
rather than just conjecture. The point about people losing the will to work is
interesting, as he also makes the point that jobs give us purpose and
structure in life. If money is no longer an issue, or less of an issue, people
may choose to do jobs because they provide purpose and structure. It could
also increase innovation. There have been lots of article on HN recently about
the privileges white males have in terms of financial security, that make it
safer to start businesses than non-white and non-males. UBI might allow more
people to do this.

Another interesting aspect would be the economic effect of everyone having a
minimum amount of money. I don't know enough about economic to say what the
impact would be on basis good vs luxury goods and everything in between but I
imagine it would have an effect.

------
cat_plus_plus
This is nuts. Basic income is not to provide extra spending money for 100% of
americans. It's help 10% of the most poor while everyone else ends up paying
back the money in taxes. So we are talking about 300 billion. This is half of
US military budget and will be instead of, instead of in addition to, current
aid programs.

It is true that basic income will not directly improve lifestyle of the middle
class. It can well result in indirect improvement by poor becoming more
productive and government bureaucrats currently running the program getting
more useful jobs. But we probably need to other things as well to improve
lifestyle for the other 90% of the population.

~~~
fixermark
One of the points the author proffers is that displacing more targeted,
conditional aid with UBI may not actually be better. The question of whether
---if you just give people money---they spend it wisely enough to maintain
their needs is an open question.

It's sort of the formalized version of "Don't give that wino a dollar; he's
just going to spend it on more booze."

(The sense I get is economists lean towards "Yes, people generally look after
themselves given the money to do so," but I believe this is an open question
policy-wise).

~~~
cat_plus_plus
So just give money in small daily deposits. If someone spends all money in
beer one day, he/she will be hungry the next day and make better choices.

------
brador
It will absolutely solve poverty, what it won't do is make everyone rich.

~~~
digi_owl
And frankly the world is likely to be better off that way.

research have shown over and over that as economic differences grow, social
structures deteriorate.

------
partycoder
In my country, there was a movement that tried to make education free of
charge. One of their arguments was that it was going to be actually cheaper
for the government.

This is what the logic was: the student loans system has a high interest rate,
and when the loan is defaulted, the government needs to pay. So what the
government ends up paying is not only the actual loan, but the loan with some
accrued interest. Also, the default rate is high. So in this case it makes
sense for the government to just pay directly.

Now, following the same mindset, how much does the government pay if there is
people without a basic income? is it more than just giving away that money
directly to people? If there answer is yes, then probably it's not a bad idea
after all.

Now, of course there will be issues. The food stamps system imposes some
restrictions that you will no longer have if you just receive basic income.
Also some people might just do the minimum required to get that income and
live at the expense of the government. There might be pros and cons that need
to be considered.

------
damptowel
Here's a thought experiment I've been been wrestling with... Imagine a dirty
low skill job. Something that currently doesn't pay much and is generally
considered low status. Assume it's a job no one really wants to do but do
because it pays them a living. What would happen to that job under UBI? I
would assume that due to vacancies demand for people willing to do this work
would go up, and companies would need to lure in applicants by raising pay.
Imagine that would indeed attract workers. How would this affect that company?
It's costs would rise. Will it become less competitive? Will it raise price?
Would the sector have to be subsidized to stay afloat? Would it start some
kind of 'moral revolution'? I imagine new coping mechanisms would need to be
devised and the economy would morph into something quite unlike what we live
under today.

------
aminorex
Of course it will not solve poverty. That's not the point. The point is that
it will solve the self-destruction of social wealth. In particular, it will
prevent the expansion of poverty to include the vast majority of currently
wealthy persons.

------
cousin_it
At a minimum, we need free universal healthcare that shouldn't be replaced
with basic income, because poor sick people often need more expensive
healthcare than a reasonable basic income can pay for. Similar for education,
the current system of loans just sucks compared to universal free education
which was achieved by the frigging USSR.

Also it seems pointless to give basic income to well-off people. On top of
free healthcare and education, why don't we just top up everyone's income to
the equivalent of the minimum wage? Sure, that will disincentivize jobs that
pay close to minimum wage, but such jobs are dying due to automation anyway,
and good riddance.

~~~
robotresearcher
> On top of free healthcare and education, why don't we just top up everyone's
> income to the equivalent of the minimum wage?

That strongly incentivizes under-reporting income. One of the strong points of
universal income is that it is relatively easy to administer.

And well-off people would be taxed more so as to return all or most of their
payments. It's not pointless, since it serves as a safety net the instant the
large salary goes away, with no application or needs-based investigation that
slows the process and costs more money to administer.

~~~
cousin_it
Yes, fair point.

------
weatherlight
The way you fund it, of course, is to further tax the higher end of the income
bracket. It's an innocuous way of redistributing wealth. It helps everyone but
the very wealthiest, which are the ones who need it the least. Jobs are not
the answer, at least in my mind. A universal basic income would allow people
to spend some time possibly developing a passion that they love, not slaving
away at a job which is at best given out of pity, and at worst a waste of time
which they are obligated to attend at a negative cost to everybody. A
universal basic income is upfront and direct about its purpose.

------
grahamburger
The biggest concern that I have with UBI is how do we avoid the Basic Income
Trap? It's pretty widely accepted that we fell prey to the Two Income Trap
[1]. If we institute UBI, how long will it be before a person needs their UBI
_and_ another job (or two, or three) just to scrape by?

[1] [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-
trap](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-trap)

~~~
Grishnakh
If the UBI isn't set high enough to allow someone to survive, then it _by
definition_ is not a "basic income". It has to be set high enough for this.

This may require some kind of extra government programs and legislation to do
things like 1) make sure enough low-cost housing is available, and maybe 2)
help people learn to use it effectively, including maybe moving them to low-
cost locations if necessary.

~~~
chillacy
There is an incredible amount of businesses set out to make money from those
without steady pay, or who live paycheck to paycheck, which includes some UBI
recipients (if they require a large sum today they may borrow money from a
payday loan company, for instance, and the interest is insane). One challenge
is going to be preventing this from becoming the new form of exploitation.
That comes down to education, and there are a lot of americans in debt.

~~~
Grishnakh
There's two things that can be done here:

1) We could definitely use better education in this country. Kids should be
taught in grade/high school how to handle money, personal finance, etc. They
used to have something called "home economics" when I was a kid, but it was
only for girls and probably concentrated more on doing dishes or something.

2) We need to stop electing Democrats like Hillary Clinton and DWS who are big
backers of the payday-loan industry, and enact legislation which severely
clamps down on these practices. Interest rates over some decent number (say,
15%) simply shouldn't be allowed, as they're usurious.

There's really no reason someone on UBI should ever need a large sum of money.
They're not in danger of losing it: that's the whole point of UBI. What would
they need a lot of money for, beyond what their monthly (or biweekly, or
whatever) UBI check gives them? Maybe a deposit for rent, that's the only
thing I can think of. There can probably be some kind of laws or programs set
up to handle this kind of thing without letting payday-loan vulture exploit
these people. If Democrats actually cared about poor people, they'd already be
working on ways of helping them with things like this rather than taking
"campaign contributions" from the payday-loan vultures.

~~~
chillacy
> Kids should be taught in grade/high school how to handle money, personal
> finance, etc

I think that's a pretty swell idea.

> There's really no reason someone on UBI should ever need a large sum of
> money

I don't think that's true. The problem is living paycheck to paycheck without
savings. UBI adds steady income but if the recipient fails to save, then when
large expenses come like bank overdraft fees, medical expenses, and general
rainy day stuff, they'll have to take out loans or credit card debt. Which
goes back to why education is so important.

~~~
Grishnakh
I completely disagree. There is no good reason for these people to need large
sums of money.

>then when large expenses come like bank overdraft fees

Simple: ban them. These should not be allowed, ever. If the bank is too stupid
to prevent you from overdrafting using technical means, then they should eat
the loss. The only reason overdrafting is possible, in this age where no one
uses paper checks any more, is because banks can make money on usurious fees.
Ban them.

>medical expenses

Not needed. We should have single payer healthcare.

>and general rainy day stuff

Like what? The UBI is the safety net. Maybe if their car breaks down or
something. Still, the whole point of UBI is to be a safety net; if someone is
such a mess they need to constantly take out loans to try to get to work, then
maybe they shouldn't be working a regular job at all. Ban payday loans and let
them learn how to live on the UBI. It's not like they're going to lose all
their money and be on the street; that's the whole point of the thing.

------
supergeek133
I'd be interested to hear more about the last part concerning "subsidizing
wages".

Welfare for many in this country basically is a subsidy for their wage (cue
memes of "walmart welfare").

Take for instance when the big layoffs started in the tech/housing sector, you
would hear stories of people staying on unemployment because it paid MORE than
a new job in the same field would pay. And we kept extending benefit
timeframes which just resulted in a vicious cycle.

That's a pretty big incentive to not work.

------
kazinator
> _Almost a quarter of American households make less than $25,000. It would be
> hardly surprising if a $10,000 check each for Mom and Dad sapped their
> desire to work._

Ah, but a transfer payment which _targets the poor_ is worse in this regard. A
$10,000 check _that you lose_ if you work saps your desire to work more than a
$10,000 check that _augments_ your income.

------
mcantelon
To the ruling class, it's not about solving poverty, but about postponing
insurrection due to lack of work.

------
alexchantavy
UBI would also provide entrepreneurs and small business owners with a safety
net so they'd be able to take risks they wouldn't be able to before.

------
anotheryou
Any word about where that money goes? Back in to economy!

------
serge2k
> Where would that money come from? It amounts to nearly all the tax revenue
> collected by the federal government. Nothing in the history of this country
> suggests Americans are ready to add that kind of burden to their current
> taxes

Taxes would have to go up, in some cases drastically. It's an easier sell if
people immediately get a good chunk back.

> A universal basic income has many undesirable features, starting with its
> non-negligible disincentive to work. Almost a quarter of American households
> make less than $25,000. It would be hardly surprising if a $10,000 check
> each for mom and dad sapped their desire to work.

Except if they keep working the money just adds up. I certainly wouldn't want
to stop working and give up my lifestyle.

Maybe instead of working to make enough money to just get by you keep working
and put a chunk of that money into savings, or upgrading your lifestyle a bit.
Maybe moving to a better area, fixing up some stuff around the house, get your
kid a couple toys, etc...

Yeah, people in situations that make working hard might quit but maybe they
should be allowed to. Or maybe they should quit for a while and come back when
it makes more sense.

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russelluresti
In every debate, there are people on the wrong side of history. Mr. Porter,
welcome to that list. Granted, the point that it won't happen today is true
enough, but it is an inevitability (assuming we don't blow ourselves up
beforehand), so it's important to start thinking about it now.

What frustrates me the most with these articles is that they don't base any of
their information on actual fact. Take, for example, the argument of
disincentivizing work. This is one of things that seems "logical" if you're a
pessimist or an asshole, but past experiments with basic income have proven it
to be untrue (look at the "Mincome" experiment in Manitoba for proof).

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jcslzr
letting politicians keep all the money has not worked either

