RE: Universal basic income and true economic stimulus.
If money grows on trees, won't it's value go down?
If people get money for nothing, won't a large part of the population continue to do nothing?
What happens when you disagree with the administration who is currently giving you the UBI?
If you get what you put your attention on -- what happens when you reward non-production?
I believe production is the basis of morale -- if people don't feel useful, they'll degrade very quickly. Take away a man's right to work, and you break his spirit.
Educating people in things that have value, would yield much better results.
People are only what you allow them to be -- if you assume they're all incapable of producing, they won't disappoint. Get the government out of the way, and let new businesses come to life, and train people in those businesses, and you'll have a happy person, a happy business, and a happy society.
Giving a person some change on the street, encourages them to continue begging. Giving them a job, allows them to provide for themselves, and eventually, to provide for others.
That's my opinion.
I do agree with you to an extent but not fully. So the way to not devalue the currency is to have a sales tax on everything so the money (in theory )will continue to circulate within the realm of consumers. Secondly, this would dramatically reduce the government in general by reducing the sections that would be encompassed by UBI implementation. Third, I think that if you make it mandatory to do the previously suggested (ongoing continued education, military service, etc) people might find something they do like or are good at thus making them once again a productive member of society (in addition to the consumption factor). And finally, a lot of the current homeless have mental disabilities including the impairment of believing that it is completely acceptable to be homeless, and in general I think this will solve this issue in a number of ways. There will be casualties because if you give an addict money, what do they do? Overall I think this will be worth the total gains and could be considered utilitarian.
Governments are slow, ineffective and non-responsive for the most part. You do not vote for most of the government. Governments, as institutions, will continue to expand their size, power and reach. I doubt you'll be able to shrink any government, other than by bypassing them using cryptos.
If you look at Venezuela, they have more than 50% of the country working for the government. A body that doesn't have to make a profit -- they can just print cash -- and they're not doing so well.
As long as money is controlled by a central authority, they'll continue to be able to manipulate and control/destroy economies.
The current state of affairs around the world, the current suffering is not by accident... it's by design. It's a very old trick. Create a problem and then offer a solution.
Government IS the problem. The Central Bankers ARE the problem. UBI would come from them, and therefore, it's naive to think it's intended to fix anything,
You can research Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
You can also research the effects of keeping the Federal Funds Rate at or near zero for as long as we've had it.
Then you can research the impact of all Central Bankers printing cash endlessly to keep up with the US.
And you can research the end of the Petrodollar, and the effects that will have.
Governments did all that. They are not there to help you. They answer to the Big Money who win them elections.
Finally, you may want to research #pizzagate and #pedoring to uncover just how much of our government is involved in molesting little children.
Is that the kind of people you want giving you UBI?
As certain as the Sun rises in the East, there will be people who cannot care for themselves... there are charities, and churches who take care of that, and do a much better job than a cold, black and white, government program with no accountability.
The facade is fixing to fall in the coming months. Over 1,000 sealed indictments have been sent out. You've already seen the sex scandals coming out of Hollywood, and starting to spill over into government... it's going to get messier.
I believe in people, like you and me, not in a faceless "government" who's too distant from the people, from the truth.
Lastly, the moment you turn your "power" to someone else, you lose it. If you say, "I can't fend for myself, and need big government to do it," will relinquish your personal responsibility, and lose your power.
We are plenty capable people. We just need to assume personal responsibility.
I'll have a read of the study you mention :)
Also here is a recent article you might be interested in....
https://futurism.com/experts-universal-basic-income-boost-us-economy-staggering-2-5-trillion/
You understand that by a UBI, they mean money-printing, of course. The Fed has already "boosted" the US economy by a few Trillion... with little to show for it:
These are the people who'll give you UBI. What could they possibly have in mind?
I suggest you look up Austrian economics, because where the Fed doesn't understand inflation or how to fix the economy, in the words of Janet Yellen, Ludwig Von Mises and Murray Rothbard give you a play by play, and an analysis of prior attempts by governments to create wealth by printing money.
A basic analogy is: if you and I live in a vacuum and start printing money, it'll have no value. There's nothing to exchange it for. And I can't offer any services, because there's nothing to service. It takes the creation of a product by one of us, which the other can buy. That product is the value (so long as you desire it). You then, must create a product I want, or we can develop "money" to exchange for the goods, instead of barter.
You may also want to read up on Hyperinflation, and what happened in places like Weimar, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Zimbabwe, even Venezuela. UBI will lead down the same path, IMHO. There have been 55 instances of hyperinflation in our history. Why would this time be different?
Yet, we are free men of free will. I have no problem with you wanting UBI or thinking it's a good idea. As a Libertarian, I believe in Live and Let Live. Both philosophies may work simultaneously, and if one fails, we should always be free to change our minds, countries, and economic philosophies.
I feel that automation will completely wreck your vacuum analogy. If AI and automation are the ones producing something that is desired, how much will it cost? What happens when the cycle is complete with solar or fusion power and the labor value approaches zero.
I think the current economic model will have to be radically altered. Especially when space travel is factored in and resources become post scarcity. Furthermore, digital assets are already approaching post scarcity with nearly limitless information, education and entertainment being open source. Even the block chain technology that allowed this platform to arise is open source! I feel Austrian economics was good for a less technologically developed time.
Those are very interesting questions! I have only partially thought about them, but I would guess the laws of exchange would remain the same. When we eventually get to the point where everyone has a food replicator, and a free energy generation device, you'll still need technicians to create and maintain. You'll still need scientists and specialists in many fields to evolve things. AI is grossly overstated. It's just an expert system (IF THEN ELSE), and that's all that it'll ever be. It won't generate new technology or software.
I have no doubts we'll have to evolve a new economic system, however, my only claim here is that UBI won't work, and will just turn us more into SLAVES.
Can you explain what you mean by "approaching post scarcity"?
I don't think you and I will be around for space travel (much to my chagrin) so that's not part of our current equation.
Please don't misconstrue this as a challenge. I've heard people bring up this idea before of free food and energy, but I can't wrap my head around it.
That's a bold statement. What grounds do you have to predict the future of a technology that isn't even mature yet?
I'm a software engineer. I know that electricity only has 2 states. Off and On. And it can't become self-aware and create things for which is wasn't developed to do.
Sure, you can fool people into thinking they're talking to a person instead of a computer for so long (the Turing Test), but code isn't self-aware, and it won't ever be.
It makes for great sci-fi and scary doomsday scenarios like the Matrix, but even that film is a metaphor for the current state of our world. Not for self-aware software that takes over the world.
Not to say the technology isn't useful and amazing. I just want to clarify that it's not going to spring to life and replace human creativity, nor conquer the world.
You do realise that human consciousness is just electrical signals, yeah? To presuppose that humans can do it but machines can't, has to involve some sort of magical thinking about "souls" or the like.