[trbvm2]

I'm merely trying to discourage the ambiguous "they" labeling. I think the author is, indeed, a bit to on about the "you should help yourself" mentality. Some people can't or won't even if money is offered and many civilized people want to see those types cared for as well.

Even so, he's basically on your side in the sense that whatever UBI ends up being proposed for law, he would probably vote for it.

Personally, I think we can definitely eliminate the some of the costs of the social programs by giving everyone a flat $30-$40k per year.

The driving difference in thinking being that I believe that the only viable way to make basic income happen is to assess average living expenses across the board and provide that amount to everyone while retaining the former programs at a much smaller scale.

One of the big issues with the current system is that there is a lot of trouble in determining whether a person really needs the assistance of a program or not. UBI helps in that only those who can show a need beyond $30-$40k/yr need apply.

[gizmo]

40,000 * 300 million = 12 trillion. US GDP is 17 trillion. The UBI wouldn't pay for the army, police, healthcare, infrastructure and so on. So the remaining 5 trillion can pay for that as well as for local government. So we're talking about a scenario where every citizen has the same income, regardless of contribution to society. It's an interesting idea, and if we can all work together as a society under these circumstances that would be great. In other words: a 40k UBI implies full communism. Pretty radical.

[trbvm2]

In my opinion, UBI is basically communism as a positive side-effect of kick ass capitalism. I tend to think of it in the Star Trek variety. Not so much radical as a natural result of being really good at personal productivity.

It's not a bad thing to say, "we have gotten so good at being productive that we've made work essentially optional".