£10,000 proposed for everyone under 55
The government should give £10,000 to every citizen under 55, a report suggests.
The Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) said it could pave the way to everyone getting a basic state wage.
The idea sees two payments of £5,000 paid over two years, but certain state benefits and tax reliefs would be removed at the same time.
The RSA said it would compensate workers for the way jobs are changing.
The money would help to steer UK citizens through the 2020s, "as automation replaces many jobs, climate change hits and more people face balancing employment with social care", the report said.
Also at The Guardian and CNBC.
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UK's Royal Society of Arts Proposes £10,000, 2-Year Basic Income
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(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:49AM (48 children)
Chavs on the dole already get all the benefits of a welfare state: council housing, jobseekers allowance, national health. Now you want to give them a basic income as well?
I see how it goes. Rich get richer, poor get poorer, lazy get lazier.
Fuck it, mate. I hear Doctor Who is a hot chick now. Pay me to sit alone in the darkness whilst I have a wank.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:56AM (3 children)
Everyone is an artist! Society owes them for their artistic expression of leeches and parasites!!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:06AM (2 children)
Where's my compensation for all my GitHub contributions? I bust my ass coding open source! Where's my fucking income, bro?
Nationalize GitHub now and collect a Software Tax like your communist hero Richard Stallman fucking told you to do!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:33AM (1 child)
"Read my lips: No new taxes!" (c)
The problem with taxes is that the people can only approve them. That's all. There is hardly any way to prevent their misuse. And good luck trying to cancel them when 500+ politicians are dead against.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:56AM
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! My fetid, disease-ridden little friend has already entered your rectal womb. What! What is that!? That's a feces baby, but... it's ovulating! I'm going to impregnate its tiny womb and force it to give birth! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! My cockpoles are going to rape your feces baby's egg! Get pregnant!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:11AM (42 children)
TFS says that "certain state benefits and tax reliefs would be removed at the same time."
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:22AM (41 children)
Do you seriously believe benefits recipients will be denied healthcare and evicted from council estates, be paid a basic income instead, and be told to fuck off and fend for themselves with a wad of cash?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:39AM (32 children)
Does anyone seriously believe there's enough cash in the UK for everyone to get 5000 pounds a year ?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by aristarchus on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:47AM (31 children)
Frojack, frojack, are you one of those goldbugs that thinks that money is something real and has absolute qualitites, so that we can "run out of it"? I thought better of you, froj. Are you going to support Ayn Paul Rand Ryan when he argues next year, that since Republicans have cut taxes, and revenues are down, we no longer have enough money to pay for Social Security?
And besides, the Fricking Queen is one of the richest persons in the world. If she cannot pony up enough to keep the average obsequious British subject in Shark and Taties and that stuff they call "beer", well maybe it is time, finally, for a bit of the old Marie Antoinette treatment. Not enough cash! She's got the fricking Star of India, for God's sake!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:53AM (8 children)
Fuck off, mate. Paul Ryan and Rand Paul are at least as far off as Kim Il-Sung and Lenin.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:40AM (6 children)
If two men both read Ayn Rand, they become one in the spirit! The spirit is rather dumb, almost Alan Greenspan dumb, but they are one in it. So while there may be things that Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Paul Rand, opps, Paul Ryan? disagree about, they are united in the worship of the goddess of radical individualism, because the Soviet Revolution meant, she did not get a pony for her birthday. So spin me another one, Oh AC of infinite fuck offs, about how it is not the case that the American Asshole Republicans are not going to first act to reduce revenue, and then use that same lack of revenue that they have created, to argue that social entitlement spending is too expensive? This is their plan, and all the racist Trump voters will be quite astounded when they are screwed over by exactly what they elected. And, libertarians can go suck something, usually their own. . . we leave it at that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:45AM (5 children)
Nah, it takes much more than one book or even a dozen to teach people to be morons. You really need at least thirteen years just for baseline idiocy. For the desired level of stupidity you need at least four more years on top of that but at least they're stupid enough by then that you can get them to pay you a lot of money to finish up their intelligence removal.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:53PM (4 children)
Its funny how someone who is so frequently proven wrong and doesn't have the balls to admit they were likes to mock people who went through school. You are truly a monument to idiocy, I bet you could get Trump to make you a national treasure, y'know, like enshrine the total embodiment of this four year shitshow.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:58PM (3 children)
Point me to an argument in recent history that I've lost, if you would. Keep in mind, losing an argument does not mean disagreeing with you; it means being presented with a point of logic and reason that I do not have a logical and rational rebuttal of.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @05:30AM (2 children)
Point me to an argument in recent history that I've lost
I'm reminded of the song|movie "Ride the Wild Surf".
The nitwit who wrote the lyrics|script seems to think that the last guy who continues to surf after the waves have broken up and gotten just plain dangerous is the best surfer.
(That nitwit had clearly never witnessed a surfing competition.)
Relating this to you:
Insisting on getting the last comment in a (sub)thread is not the same thing as winning the argument.
Often, your lack of knowledge and lame opinions simply become wearisome.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:18PM (1 child)
Interesting. I ask for evidence and get ad hom in response. Thank you for handing me that victory.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday February 19 2018, @11:06AM
To help him out a little, I'm still awaiting a rebuttal to my observation that you consider hypothetical and potentially harmful species more valuable than extant ones [soylentnews.org] (my first 3 paragraphs) although I appreciate that was a long discussion we were drawing to a close and I know you're quite a busy Buzzard.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday February 17 2018, @10:10PM
Oh, dear! Seem to have touched a Limey in a tender spot! Apologies, Guv'ner!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:53AM (20 children)
Money is finite only if tied to something that is finite.
Seems the whole world uses Gold as a reference, as its worth represents the labor to mine and process it. It can't be instantiated at a whim.
Now, the USDollar is in infinite supply. The bankers play with interest rates so as to steer inflation rates to a target of about 4 percent per year from what I can tell.
The bankers create the dollars about like we instantiate a C++ object. Written into existence. Once loaned into existence, they get to collect usury on it, until that loan is paid off - but here's the knacker - yet more loans must be written into existence to get the "dollars" to pay off the underlying debt! How's that for job security?
In return, they offer us a universally exchangeable currency, along with providing governments a convenient way of collecting tax, so they won't get paid in whatever the taxee has to offer... the government probably does not want a box of chickens as tax payment.
However, when you follow the math, the banking class will inevitably end up "owning" everything, while building nothing. All they did was sign loan papers and collect usury - payable only in that which they issued.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:33AM (16 children)
I won't argue about rates but take a moment to consider how it would affect things if it weren't mathematically possible to get a loan when you needed one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday February 17 2018, @12:13PM (15 children)
The guys who keep raising the price will quickly find their thingie won't sell!
Stuff would have to be priced right if the seller wants to unload any.
Probably stop this real-estate flipping in the bud. Flipper buys it... now its his onus to sell it to someone who actually has the money to afford it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @12:34PM (13 children)
When I say think about something, I generally mean from angles that you haven't already. Preferably even some that would contradict your position. It's really not painful if you prefer being correct to not having to change your mind.
In this case, I'd specifically like you to consider what an average person might take out loans for during their life and what reshaping would occur within our society if they were no longer able to.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:36PM (10 children)
Well generally the way loans are positively promoted is as a way of helping someone to get started in life, the best example perhaps being starting their own business. If loans weren't available, the person wanting to start their own business would instead need to wait a few years, working for someone else whilst saving what they earned. Once they had saved up enough, they could still start the business. The difference would be that the initial investment in their business would depend on what they could earn working for someone else as opposed to what a bank would be willing to lend them (perhaps based on some perceived future value of their new business).
It would probably slow up the growth of businesses but it would also reduce risk taking. Prices would generally have to fall to accomodate people living within their means. After a few decades it should all stabilize though into a new kind of economy.
Disclaimer: I am not an economist. (IANAE?)
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:38PM
Loans allow, on the basic level, capital to flow from where it's stored to where it's needed.
In pre-monetary days, this was a huge problem. Vassals paid food rent all the way up the chain, to the top where the king pretty much sat on a vast hoard of food. (Well, Saxon England here.)
There's a lot of research into this. Floating currencies are pretty much the way to go - what we need to do is rein in abuses.
Most of those abuses don't even depend on cash as a concept, so that by itself isn't helpful as an argument for doing away with our present monetary system.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:20PM (8 children)
I was actually thinking car, home, and student loans. They're a lot more popular than small business loans, so they'd cause a much bigger change in the economic landscape if they were removed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:26PM (7 children)
Well it just means people would be a lot more dependent on the bank of Mom and Dad for a fair few years. It could possibly stop houses and cars becoming overvalued as well, or you'd end up with generations of people living under the same roof which historically has been the norm anyway.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:00AM (6 children)
Indeed but in the short term it would absolutely destroy the housing and automotive industries.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday February 18 2018, @02:05PM (5 children)
Yes it would be kinder if it were a slow and gradual adjustment rather than an overnight cutting off of credit. Although economies can be very resistant to attempts at changing things smoothly so the policies would probably still cause some confidence and some overextended corporations to collapse. Houses are something people are always going to need. To a lesser extent, it's also true for cars. So the industries wouldn't die out completely. Hey, the extinction of the less fit industries might even free up some niches for new businesses that are more useful to humanity. ;)
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 18 2018, @02:31PM (4 children)
My primary concern would be that people have been trained by easy credit to be utterly unable to save and home ownership would just go away for your average citizen while rents would soar making the path to home ownership even more difficult.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday February 18 2018, @02:49PM (3 children)
Yeah saving would need to be made cool. Up till now the advertising was all about getting people to borrow, not save. Of course if you pay interest on savings then loans still exist because you're loaning the bank (or the state) money.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 19 2018, @02:54AM (2 children)
I see a pretty big problem there though. If the banks can't loan money, they have no source of income to pay you any interest from.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday February 19 2018, @10:55AM (1 child)
Yeah they'd have to invest the money in equities instead.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:12AM
What precisely do you think an equity is, other than a loan dressed up in other trappings?
On that level, co-ownership really amounts to a security behind a loan. Oh, sure, nominally you have a vote and all that, but it turns out that even muslim economics have effectively dressed up their anti-usury attitude to that of packaging things in terms effectively identical to those of loans.
The reality of the matter is that loans are, as a structure, not inherently pernicious. They make for an easy political target, because the average person is more familiar with being a debtor than a creditor, but they're basically not evil.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:24PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:24PM
You really might want to check into the economic history of the USSR before you go advocating for that path. I'm a big fan of people smart enough not to use credit but if you don't have a healthy supply of people who aren't smart enough then the credit will not be available when you eventually end up needing it; you'll just be proper fucked.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:36PM
Actually, this is a good example of what TMB wanted. It's a symptom of labor deflation. Because one can no longer borrow against their future labor, their labor becomes less valuable overall.
Here due to the shock of suddenly losing the ability to borrow money, the purchasing power of the typical person greatly declines. So businesses have to lower their prices on their "thingies". Costs, like labor, have to be cut. It's a vicious cycle that over a few years plays out with the end result being a significant lower ability to buy things with labor.
So is making most people poorer due to declining value of labor a desirable goal of ending banks?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday February 18 2018, @08:21PM (2 children)
Willy-nilly on the heap with no regard as to when and how it should be reclaimed or indeed what it is for and who should be using it.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Tuesday February 20 2018, @07:17AM (1 child)
Money = Debt;
debtor* Charlie = new Money( loan_amt);
New money has just been created. Charlie now owes it back. Plus interest. Denominated in dollars.
Dollars which only a Bank can create.
There aren't enough dollars to cancel the debt. This forces yet more to be created. More debt.
This goes on long enough, everything is in debt one way or the other.
And the smiling face wagging his pen and loan papers in your face owns everything.
Right now, the bankers smile on the USA because we have the guns to keep the inevitable flood of pitchforks at bay.
Nothing says that under the "new world order", they can't "raise the rates" to crash the system, just like they did a few years ago, so ownership of everything defaults to them for failure to pay debt. The only thing we have going for us - again - is having the physical means of deterring pitchforks.
Why do you think we are having such a loss of privacy? There are those who have made it their business to know where the pitchforks are and make sure that threat is kept at bay before it grows big enough to cause trouble, as it has been shown all through history that an indebted populace is unstable.
It won't stop the inevitable pitchforks, but it will delay it... maybe for a few generations. There look to me to be three ways of normalizing the system : taxation, jubilee ( consult the Bible as to how this worked ), or war.
And yes, TMB, I consider all these loans to be the reason my folks bought their house for about $8K. Nice house. On the waterfront. On a bayou in Florida. That same house sold for almost $500K. Mostly loan proceeds. It was customary when my parents bought that one saved for a house. Now its customary to take out huge loans. This has provided great profits for house flippers and the real-estate and banking businesses, but has been a real drag for young families who now start off life deep in a debthole. All created by stroke-of-pen that permits banks to loan money they do not have. Everything up-prices as the banks magically make money appear to buy it anyway. I do not believe most of understand what is really going on, and just see the illusion presented by the financial prestidigitators running a "buy-it NOW" show that appears to be for our benefit.
As far as I am concerned, the "666" Beast the Bible refers to is the Bankers. With Fractional Reserve Banking / usury being the devil in the detail, as it sets up a mathematical certainity that the do-er of these things ends up with the wealth of the world, without actually having to *do* anything!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:18AM
Your understanding is broken, because it's based on discredited zero-sum thinking.
I'm too tired to bother going through it all again, and I assume you're smart enough to actually work it out yourself, so here's a central key: the amount of money available to repay a loan NOW does not settle the amount of money available to repay it LATER.
The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @02:43PM
And, fuck off again, mate. Brits make decent brew, which is more than can be said for Greeks. Except, you're probably an Americanized Greek, and you think pilsener piss water is "real beer". Fuck off again, and keep fucking off!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:47AM (7 children)
They propose scrapping some benefits and replacing them with the basic income. If it instead gets implemented as another benefit on top of everything else... too bad for the taxpayer I guess.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:05AM (6 children)
But they propose Everyone in the UK gets the money.
So who's left to pay those taxes? There are far fewer tax payers than citizens.
You can't even just print more money like some idiots suggest, unless the plan was to inflate the currency so that 5000 pounds could buy a single small potato.. It's possible the UK is solvent when measured in potatoes.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:00PM (5 children)
Ugggh, progressive tax brackets you dolt!!!!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:37PM (4 children)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:56PM (3 children)
Wow, what a creative way to do a French revolution. Not sure its great for the kiddies in the crib, but sure is innovative. Forget fake boogie-men, hang the heads of the real ones so the lesson sinks in from birth!
You sir are a sick sick person.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:23AM (2 children)
You mean where the rich people flee the country and the leaders of revolution then turn on anyone that they can conveniently blame in order to secure their positions? That's real creative.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday February 20 2018, @07:25AM (1 child)
What country are they going to flee to?
This "Globalization", "World is flat ( in the economic sense )", "One World Order"... the whole bofangled world is caught up in the debt mess.
Most of us simply can't pass up living "beyond our means" when "easy credit" is available.
I believe very few of us know how this "magic trick" works, and end up spending far more than we think for things.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 20 2018, @02:18PM
The rest of the developed world and most of the developing world, for example.
Except, of course, when your country is in the midst of a self-destructive revolution, and almost everybody else is not.
Such a person is easy to evade by anyone who does even a bit of planning.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @12:16PM
Actually you don't get easy dole in the UK anymore. Jobseekers are forced to jump through a series of increasingly difficult and humiliating hoops including menial work for businesses (taking away the opportunity for someone to actually be employed in that position) otherwise they get sanctioned which means their benefits are stopped and they potentially starve (sometimes saved by charity) and in some cases end their own lives. Similarly many genuinely disabled people are denied benefits due to humiliating quota based assessments.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:29AM (1 child)
I met @theresa_may [twitter.com] at #WEF18 [twitter.com]. In #Davos [twitter.com]. And I encouraged her to look at ways to take bold action in the United Kingdom with an eye toward changing business as usual and not being beholden to ways of the past which were not working.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:33PM
She's getting the NHS ready to sell off cheap to American healthcare corporations at this very moment, as part of the massive trade deal we're going to do with you in March 2019 when we Brexit. There's going to be a hospital firesale bonanza and a huge windfall for the public purse. National Insurance and Income Tax will no longer make UK healthcare free at the point of use, but we'll all have the opportunity to chose which corporation we use for treatment and which insurance company we use to fund some of the extra charges. In fact, you won't even need to have insurance. You'll be able to spend your money on beer, cigarettes, fizzy sugary drinks, chocolate, fried chicken - whatever you like - or save it up for when you get cancer. Brexit: Britain Farced. Make America Grate Again.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:29AM (28 children)
I mean, I never would have guessed that artistic types leaned communist.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:46AM (3 children)
Not all of us.
Here's my take on it:
If you're worth watching/hearing/experiencing, then do your marketing and build a career.
If not, fuck off until you are, and let the rest of us get on without subsidies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @06:20AM (2 children)
When you're being creative, do you have a separate Ownership Class that makes all the decisions about e.g. how you produce and what will be done with the profits?
Would such an arrangement make you crazy when you do all the work?
If so, I would call you Anti-Capitalist.
An Anti-Capitalist is a Leftist.
N.B. Profit, markets, growth, and ownership of stuff are NOT exclusive to Capitalism;
top-down economic systems|ownership models are exactly what Capitalism is.
...and a 1-man operation with no employees is not Capitalist.
A defining feature of Capitalism is exploiting the labor of others.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:26AM
If you're truly creative, then you are part of that "Ownership Class" rather than just whining about the "Ownership Class".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:44AM
There are people who call the tune. They are those who pay the piper.
In olden times, if you were a galant composer stroking the egos of the big knobs, they were the local king, or duke, or cardinal, or whatever. If you were a more demotic type, they were the people holding weddings and parties and funerals. The same applies, with a few modifications, to painters and poets, potters and players. Some artists had independent means of support, which meant that they then were paying for their own art's creation.
The question of an Ownership Class doesn't enter into it. The existence of an Ownership Class is the wrong model for this situation. What you're talking about is patronage, and the audience, whether they're pontiffs or peasants.
Zooming forward in time, it goes the same way with different faces. Artists do billboards for faceless corporations and filthy lucre, or they smear themselves with blood on their own dime (or the public's, if the NEA has a blood smearing grant going).
I can't speak for anyone else, but I take commissions cheerfully, and do my best. I'm quite happy with this, even when it means that someone is paying me to do what they want. So call me a capitalist stooge.
However, you seem to be confused about what capitalism is. You may be better off checking your definitions so that you can get in touch with what other people are actually talking about, because all those mom-and-pop shops trying to accumulate capital are pretty darned capitalist.
... wait, reading some other crap you apparently posted, forget it. You don't want to know, and you don't care how wrong you are. It's cool, bro. We all do our own performance art called Life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:51AM (23 children)
Surely you can agree a universal basic income is the least bad welfare system currently proposed, even if rightly thinking all welfare is ultimately harmful. This, however, will probably still be full of inefficiency and corruption.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:07AM (20 children)
That's like arguing in favor of the least bad kick in the sack. The only way I'd ever agree to UBI is if it were voluntary and those accepting it forfeited their right to vote during any year they accepted so much as a dime of it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:33AM (2 children)
That's like something Paul Weyrich would come up with. Brilliant guy! He was always thinking of ways to have the FEWEST people voting. Because that's tremendous for the Republican Party! Have you ever thought of joining?
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:41AM (1 child)
Sorry but you're not the Donald that I wrote in several times on my ballot last time around. The one I voted for wears a little sailor hat and shirt but no pants.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:08PM
I miss Hugh Hefner, he did so much to make America great. I made so many sexy tapes for him, for Playboy. But I always, always kept my pants on. Very classy!
But a lot of our Dem politicians get caught with their pants down. Gerry Studds, Barney Frank, both queers, I can see them in a sailor outfit, that sounds a little queer (no offense to Runaway1956). Both from Massachusetts. Ted Kennedy, the Chappaquiddick guy, he was another from Massachusetts, they said his cousin did a rape. They charged him with rape, the jury acquitted him. But I think he was GUILTY AS HELL.
Just like the Central Park 5. Different but the same. They were convicted of rape but it got "vacated." Unbelievable! I spent $100,000 of my own money, I took out ads in all the papers, I said "criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!" Law & Order is so important. Protecting our precious, precious women, so important.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:11AM (3 children)
> The only way I'd ever agree to UBI is if it were voluntary
So you'd be okay with UBI if was neither U nor B.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:37AM (2 children)
I'd be okay with us having an amendment to the effect of "neither private citizens nor elected officials can vote themselves more money". It's as plain as the deep, deep hole we're standing in where that road leads to.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:58PM (1 child)
Cause welfare is why we're in massive debt. God DAMN you so duuuuumb
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:02AM
Yeah, I've actually looked at what percentages of the budget and tax revenues entitlement spending comes to. You might want to do the same before you look like an even bigger idiot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday February 17 2018, @01:27PM (12 children)
Ah, so only the richest can afford to vote? What could possibly go wrong?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:16PM (8 children)
I'm far from rich and seem to get by just fine without a dime of government handouts. If you're having difficulty, I suggest you talk to a CPA about setting you up a thing called a "budget" and then follow it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:16PM (7 children)
Or you could stop making assumptions and being condescending, and see how your idea disenfranchises the worst-off in society.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:05AM (6 children)
Yes, because all those rights in the constitution and amendments are far less important than the right to live comfortably on money you've done fuck-all to earn.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:03AM (3 children)
Fuck you.
Welfare is not "live comfortably" money, it's "basic survival" money. You're arguing against your own illusions. My family has occasionally been on welfare--in the "socialist" Europe, at that--and I gotta tell you, your imagination is ridiculous. With two or three types of welfare and both parents working off-the-book, it's still barely enough to support a family.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:20PM (2 children)
Of course it is. You're in a socialist nation. Did you expect something other than abject poverty for all?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:58PM (1 child)
Completely missing the point, as usual. I guess this is where you declare the debate "won".
We were *not* in abject poverty. We were poor, sure, but never in danger of starving. We had health insurance. When we couldn't pay essential bills, we could go to the town hall and ask them to cover that. Free education -- me and my siblings all finished a good high-school. Even the bus passes were free.
I'm refuting your point that being on welfare is "comfortable living", you idiot. It's NOT. You're imagining some lavish lifestyle, having fun all day, waiting for the checks to arrive and spending them on luxury items. Sure, there's an occasional exception that manages to cheat the system to live like that, but that's what it is -- an *exception*. Most people on welfare either work hard and just need a little help, or are unable to work at all due to disabilities or something.
But living on welfare is not terrible either, in a socialist country. I'm extremely grateful I wasn't born in the US -- if I was, I'd likely be digging through trash looking for food scraps instead of doing my PhD.
I still fail to understand how you reconcile "abject poverty for all" with "live comfortably on money you've done fuck-all to earn", but I'm sure that's one of those logical arguments you brag about using to win every single debate you're in.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 18 2018, @01:27PM
See, this is where the place you're speaking of is important. In the US, our benefits are structured in such a way as to make it far more financially viable to exist on government handouts (if you're eligible) than to work unless you make significantly more than average [learnliberty.org]. It's been that way for long enough that I can only assume that it is a deliberate attempt to keep people dependent on government handouts and thus voting for whoever promises them the most.
In Europe, you're significantly farther down the communist rabbit hole and feeling the effects that communism always brings to any nation it touches. If you want to know your future, have a look at Greece.
Next time do please try to understand that different situations are going to have different circumstances and thus results. You'll sound less foolish.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:44PM (1 child)
I can't work out what you're trying to say here.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 19 2018, @02:59AM
Beats me. I've slept since then. Looks like I was addressing the ludicrousness of him using the word "disenfranchisement" non-ironically. You know, as if being able to dip your fingers into the pockets of others was in the bill of rights or something.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday February 18 2018, @08:15PM (2 children)
We used to have that system here in the UK. Only male land owners above a certain age were allowed to vote.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 19 2018, @03:02AM (1 child)
Big difference. I'm saying let everyone vote unless they're sucking the government tit. Franklin warned us about this shit a couple hundred years and change ago:
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Monday February 19 2018, @07:33PM
It hasn't stopped the richest getting themselves some tasty tax breaks.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @02:02PM
Can by very harmful if it attracts muslims
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:53PM
No, I can't agree on that. In addition to the problem that one could end up with the needs-based welfare system anyway (after all, how far again is UBI going to go with someone who has expensive, long term health problems?), we also have a huge conflict of interest with the people receiving the UBI for little cost to themselves: who get to decide, because they vote, between more UBI now and a better society tomorrow. It's not enough to pay lip service to these problems.
Without some incentive to align those interests with those of general society, it's just more lunch for the Free Lunch crowd.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:44AM (4 children)
Every phone booth is litter with business cards. Every such card promises stern discipline for naughty little boys
When in a foreign land I purchased the wares of a lady who advertised that she "speaks English". I will never ever again visit an English speaker
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:31AM (2 children)
Why would you want to in the first place? You don't go to a hooker for conversation. And it's rude to talk with your mouth full anyway.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by MostCynical on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:04AM (1 child)
Is that how male dentists learn to understand what their patients are saying?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @10:35AM
My problem in the dentists' chair is gagging.
I can't say a word.
I erupt.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:01PM
Does the UK still have phone booths? WTF for? How many phone booths have you seen in the past year? They are history, man. http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/01/03/why-people-fear-guns.html [foxnews.com]