Some crimes should not be on the books, but most crimes definitely should be and should be prosecuted and punished. You are indifferent to theft and robbery and do not want such behavior punished. I think it should be.
i'm sorry, when did i ever say that?
in fact i'm completely opposed to theft and robbery, though 'do not want such behavior punished' is contextually... inaccurate, though not completely wrong.
i find that punishment is an absurdly ineffective way to stop theft and robbery, and so i have thought of alternate means by which i think theft and robbery could more effectively be stopped.
furthermore i find that most theft and robbery are acts of necessity instead of whim, though that's a fine point that would need to be expanded on because i consider "necessity" to cover a lot of things i expect you disagree with - for example, i consider it a basic essence of human nature to want 'stuff', and so would include the resources for a moderate amount of 'stuff' to be part of the basic minimum standard for living.
That did not answer my question.
i kinda feel like it does, but it's contextual - i feel that the removal of the socioeconomic factors that most heavily contribute to that sort of crime is the more effective means of stopping that kind of crime.
But somebody has to make those goods. Somebody has to provide those services. You give everybody $50k or whatever in free money, and you have more dollars chasing the same amount of goods and services, i.e. inflation. And maybe you get even less especially services because people will quit because they got $50k for not doing any work so why should they cut hair or do nails or whatever. So the prices would have to rise to make it worthwhile for service providers. So again, inflation.
and that is indeed a potential outcome and no denying it - but i don't think it's an assured one.
as i've admitted up front several times, anecdotal evidence is incredibly weak even rhetorically and it's all that i have for this, but i simply don't think most people would stop working if the need to work for survival security were removed.
so yes that is possible, and if any society ever tried this little experiment and that was the outcome i'd be the first to admit i was wrong.
This is way too simplistic. A major reason why Nike shoes are considered so desirable is that it is not a trivial thing to acquire them. Supply and demand. Everybody in the hood wants them, not everybody can get them, esp. limited editions and the like. You give everybody Nike Suchandsuch and they lose their status, replaced by something else.
this basically presumes an endless cycle of wanting more, of enough never being enough - and it's an assumption that i don't agree with.
i've seen enough people spend part of their life in some state of poverty, and i've seen the way that when you have nothing you want everything and especially want particular things that are deemed desirable but out of reach.
but i've seen those same people attain economic stability and that endless pattern of always wanting more and more of increasingly ridiculous things go away once they're in a position to be able to reasonably accommodate the acquisition of 'stuff' in their life.
i'll concede it's a difference in viewpoint about a basic function of human nature, and that i could be wrong about it.
Understood. But that can be used as an average of what your plan would cost. $50k (on average) times 330M = $16.5T. Every single year.
true if you gave 50k to every living human in the country, but that's already two factors which don't enter into it.
firstly there's the question of age, you don't need to give every baby money. secondly there's the point about '50k' just being a number of equivalence, since more places in the US than not would require less money.
so 209M times let's say 35k = 7.3 trillion, off a GDP of about 21 trillion.
And that's a big and highly questionable assumption, given human nature. You yourself admitted that people always want more. So your guy has $50k. If he can rob $10k from someone, he has $60k. So why not? If he is robbing now, I do not see why he would stop.
there will always be some of that, yes - some number of people will always psychotically want more, as clearly evidenced by how common the rich commit crime to get more rich.
but since the overwhelmingly vast middle bulk of humanity seems to settle down and be pretty content with how things are when they are stable and comfortable without the impulse to become opulent i think a good argument can be made for there being a middle ground that stabilizes the human psyche.
There will always be people that have more and people that have less, unless you use an oppressively government to make sure they don't - and even in those societies you have the Politbüro or the Inner Party etc. So there will be social envy even with your Mega-UBI.
of course there will, but 'social envy' is a very different animal to rampant street crime, and i don't think the one necessarily correlates to the other because of the observed reduction in crime when 'social envy' is merely a product of passive greed and not a function of basic survival.
It most certainly is not.
it is within the current GDP.
now of course, how much the GDP would drop if this were instituted is another question entirely, and one that i will continue to concede is up for debate.
That's a big fraction of the total budget. And it ignores that there is no reason for people say making $40k to quit their jobs to make $50k for doing nothing. One way around that would be to make it universal, but then it would cost $16.5T.
broadly speaking from a moral standpoint i have no problem with spending 2/3rd of the GDP on human welfare, but i don't see the point of having GDP in the first place if not for that.
the issue is how much the GDP would drop, and we have nothing but speculation for that.
What data? There has been an experiment with giving people $50k a year?
i'd prefer to not stick to that number so rigidly, but...
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/universal-basic-income-ubi-map
this is small scale and only 'some income' instead of what i guess we could call 'income replacement', but the results are pretty consistent across several different countries, cultures, and economies.
Mugging yes. People don't usually carry that much on their persons. Burglaries can clear a much higher value though.
but you'll still never burgle enough to retire on, so the point remains that the incentive for theft is economic gain.
if you have "less than the resources needed to sustain basic necessities" (keeping in mind my use of "necessities" includes enough money for "stuff") and there is an activity that short-term provides the resources required, that's a pretty easy logic to follow.
Sounds like a utopia to me. In reality, people rarely rob and steal for basic necessities.
i'm guessing that by "basic necessities" you're using a much stricter definition than i do, and that difference in definition causes a rather huge gap in context.
i'd put drugs, shoes, phones, and bling under "basic necessities" with no hesitation, because despite them not being required to maintain biological function they are culturally and existentially necessary in order to maintain mental stability.
We have a social safety net after all. They rob for wants and they will still have wants under your plan.
except that we really don't have a social safety net, we have at best a social "series of branches that somewhat break your fall on the way down", and that does not sufficiently address the core issues which cause property crime.
Which means your plan will be a colossally expensive failure.
i disagree, but i'm also far less obsessed with the idea of "utopia" than you seem to be.
the goal is to reduce a particular type of crime by reducing or eliminating the external factors which make that kind of crime happen.
the goal isn't to wave a wand made out of money and make star trek happen.
Oh, so you want 40 years of very expensive program before it even has a chance of working? LMAO!
i won't bother with this because something that disingenuous isn't worth the intellectual notice.
So weather hyperinflation for 40 years in addition to there still being street crime for 40 years. And that's IF your plan works as you expect it to work?
again this is so disingenuous to the point being made it's not worth bothering with it.
i've noted your point, your point is just stupid.
US GDP: 21 trillion, give or take a trillion.
US federal budget: 4.5 trillion, give or take a trillion
US state budgets: 3.2 trillion, give or take a half trillion
US consumer spending: 13 trillion, give or take
US institutional savings total: 9ish trillion, fluctuates a lot per year
US private savings total: estimated around 5 trillion.
so total created vs. government spending and consumer spending and you have about a trillion left over, and another 10-16 trillion in savings.
this doesn't even count money sitting in funds and investments, this is just the loose change left over after basic outputs.
i would say that 11-17 trillion dollars not in use easily falls under the category of "trillions and trillions"
But that's without much money. You propose to give them $50k. Although, to be fair, that will end up not being much money when the hyperinflation hits.
50k in denver is not much money, first of all.
25k in buttsweat indiana is not much money either.
it's enough for all basic living costs to be covered without having to scrimp or sacrifice on anything, and to have enough money you can afford a moderate amount of "stuff" throughout the year.
if you're like me and you play video games and don't socialize, it's enough to also save up a few thousand a year. if you're not like me and your sanity depends on going out and doing things, you could still do that but you'd be very close to breaking even.
And yes, sure, many people will work. Those that have fulfilling jobs. But what about people doing unpleasant or simply boring, menial jobs. How many of them would stay if they don't have to?
i would expect and hope that few if any of them would, because those jobs are not fit for human beings - and certainly not with the current system in place where those are low paying jobs that the desperate are forced into at the threat of being homeless.
So your plan will ruin restaurants and retail. Great! Any other brilliant ideas?
yeah! bringing a minimum standard of living and decency to every living human being instead of perpetuating an economy of desperation and slave labor in order to prop up a failed business model!
the amount of pearl clutching that you do at every instance of a "business" failing or flagging or suffering any kind of harm puts the falsehood to this denial.
A business is not entitled to a profit but neither are people entitled to a middle class salary simply for existing.
well, we disagree on that point.
No, we do not, as I have already calculated and you have repeatedly ignored.
i'm not ignoring it, i'm disagreeing with you on it.
both of our arguments are purely hypothetical and based on speculation so i'm just not engaging in a protracted "uh huh!" "nuh uh!" with you over it.
What you are proposing is not a capitalist economic structure but a weird socialism in anything but name.
oh jesus god damn pig fucking christ, you too?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
socialism is an economic structure where means of production and centers of capital are controlled by collectives of individuals instead of individuals.
socialism means the company is owned by the employees and not a single founder, and the output of profit is decided collectively.
"public good" and "social programs" and "the function of society being for the benefit of all instead of funneling all available resource to an elite few" is not socialism.
stop using the word wrong, it makes you look like a fucking tit.
It's a reference to how your plan is much more extensive that serious proposals for UBI. For example, Andrew Yang proposed $1k/month, which is $12k/a, a far cry from $50k.
yes well that's what happens in a country full of at best center-right politicians - you get shitty half assed proposals for social change.
No, we do not! Spending 2/3 of the GDP on a Mega-UBI is not feasible in the least.
eehh, "legalizing prostitution is not feasible in the least" could also be an argument, and it would be just as weak.
Leave most of it to people who actually worked for it and earned it?
that seems completely stupid and counter productive to me, much like making prostitution illegal seems stupid and counter productive.
"leave it to who earned it" makes as much sense to me as "to protect them from trafficking" does as a justification. it's an argument that is only valid if predicated on a very specific narrow world view that is outdated and no longer useful to society.
oh well holy fucking shit, you pointed out a homophone error well there goes the entirety of my house of cards.
I guess your idea of billionaires is this:
god no, that would at least be something entertaining, and actually material.
my idea of a billionaire is an amount of capital resource in numbers which are practically unfathomable to the human mind not being used for the only thing that has any truly universal moral value: improving the living conditions on human beings.
In reality, their wealth is mostly in stock, and this very much working. They can also invest their wealth in other ventures. Elon Musk made his money with PayPal and then invested his wealth in SpaceX and Tesla.
neither of those things are valid arguments. the first can be divested, the second is meaningless to the point.
How would that "softcap" look like?
like how taxes in the US were prior to 1986, when top tax rates were dropped from 70% to 33%, or prior to 1963 when it dropped from 90% to 70%.
this question dips a toe into my personal beliefs about the world which you will consider absurdly extreme, and that's OK - i'm one of if not the most left-leaning posters on this board and i don't shy away from that.
i see no possible rational explanation for any single human to own more than about 3 million dollars in total resources across all aspects of individual ownership and would be fine with anything over that being allocated to the common good at a 99.9% rate.
And we only have to spend $16.5T a year to find out which it is. What a bargain!
so? what, are we going to run out of the existence of money?
i'll consider this, but would need evidence to support it.
commission of low level economic crime tends to drop drastically by those in comfortable socioeconomic strata, so you'd need to prove that muggings and burglaries are highly prevalent within the middle class (as in committed by those within the middle class, not committed on those in the middle class) to support that.
If nobody works, all that money is chasing no goods and no services. It would be as worthless as several of ancient Earth's deciduous forests (worth about one peanut).
i disagree, as i see an abundant wealth of goods and services that are chased after by those of moderate means.
I would say more white collar crime than street crime.
i see no evidence to support that, in fact the opposite - white collar crime is more evidence of your theory of psychotic wealth chasing, in fact.
too little or too much money seems to make people insane and antisocial, equalizing people in the middle would logically stabilize things.
That is your assumption. And "get more stuff" is not limited to the upper class for sure.
a distinction has to be made between "get more stuff" and "get any stuff" - one is gratuitous, one is a function of basic living.
