[lovich]

It's happening in America right now, just not in the way you think. Everytime a company pays their employees so little they need welfare to live, that's redistributing wealth from society to shareholders

It's also been happening for years with social security redistributing wealth from younger workers to older retirees

[dnautics]

It also happens whenever we do QE or lowering discount window interest rates - that's wealth distribution from everybody (that happens to disproportionately hurt those with lower earning power) to banks and those privileged enough to obtain government grants, and indirectly, away from everyone saving for retirement to publically traded corporations.

[Consultant32452]

>Everytime a company pays their employees so little they need welfare to live, that's redistributing wealth from society to shareholders

I'm curious what you believe would happen if we could magically remove all welfare programs. Do you believe those employers would be forced to raise wages? Or do you believe the lives of the poor would just be that much worse?

[lovich]

I think everyone would be worse off unless companies are forced to pay. I am pro UBI, I just thought the guy was being crazy by hoping for something to never happen in his lifetime that is happening every day and has been for a while

[Consultant32452]

>I think everyone would be worse off

I agree with this, which is why I disagree with your first sentiment:

>Everytime a company pays their employees so little they need welfare to live, that's redistributing wealth from society to shareholders

Since we agree that employers would not pay more if welfare is removed, then the value of those welfare programs must not be subsidizing shareholders.

[lovich]

I don't agree with that conclusion at all. If they didn't subsidize those employees through welfare people would stop working there, either through leaving to other jobs or just dieing. At some point people have to eat and have a place to sleep.

Society is providing a workforce to employers at a wage that is not sustainable without the welfare

[Consultant32452]

>If they didn't subsidize those employees through welfare people would stop working there, either through leaving to other jobs or just dieing.

So then you believe if we eliminate welfare that employers would be forced to raise wages, because employees would be unable or unwilling to work there for their current wages. That is the opposite of what you said before.

[lovich]

I am struggling to understand your train of thought.

I claimed that there is redistributing wealth from society to business owners via welfare for low paid employees. In my understanding of the world the wages that are necessary to sustain the work force are $X and employers are paying $X -$Y. That $Y is the amount covered by welfare and what I am considering to be the wealth redistribution from society to the business owners.

That seems consistent with the idea that if the $Y subsidy is removed, then employers would be forced to raise wages or lose their workforce.

For example: if I have a nice car that my parents cover the lease and they stop covering the lease,I will either have to increase the amount of money I spend on the lease or lose the car. Just because I can respond to the change doesnt mean wealth wasn't being redistributed from my parents to me

Edit: it also appears that we are triggering hn's anti flame war measures as I have to wait some time to reply to you now. This has been a unheated discussion to me, but there will be delays in any responses now

[ChrisLomont]

It's not the purpose of a company to pay enough to completely cover an employees life costs. It is the role of governments to help those in need. Companies pay taxes (profits, part of social security, wages which support taxes, property taxes, and on and on) which helps fund this role of government.

If you require companies to pay enough to support the lifestyles of employees, than any person unable to generate enough value for a company will not get a job, will not have the opportunity to gather job skills to maybe get to that point, and will require full support from the government. And mandated higher wages leads to inflation, which puts the most vulnerable even further behind.

It's fairly reasonable for the least skilled to get a job that pays accordingly, with society picking up the slack. If that person ever increases in skills to move out of this, then they too will pay more in taxes to support the new group in need or least skilled.

[lovich]

I'm pro UBI and think we'd all be better off if everyone got enough to live and then companies could offer a penny a week if they wanted, since employment would not longer be tied to your ability to live.

Regardless of any of those arguments, I was responding to someone who said they hoped wealth redistribution didn't happen in his lifetime, and gave examples of it happening right now

[ChrisLomont]

I'd be pro UBI, but I've never seen the math where it works without violating one of: 1) insane tax rates that traditionally kill economies, 2) lower benefits for those most in need, or 3) simply wanting richer to hand money to poorer so they can not work much.

As such, I'm much more in favor of targeted assistance to make the most use out of limited resources.

And every one I've looked into will suffer from terrible inflation, probably defeating any gains. For example, if a person is willing to work a crap job to pay rent, this will not change no matter the money scaling. Give enough free money, then rents will simply rise (along with all other things for the same reason), to absorb the excess, and the same people will still end having to do the same work to keep their standard of living.

Free money is almost always inflated away by markets.

[lovich]

I don't know that our economy and technology is actually advanced enough to handle full UBI but there are places we could start. A food allowance for everyone would be good for instance and possible. Just no checks, here's x amount of money which will buy you enough food whether or not you use it on food.

Housing is another example. We don't have more empty house than homeless people in America. We don't necessarily have more house in downtown SF or NY but if we could set up a system where you could accept a house, with no real control over where, it would relieve some pressure off of people as a number of the population would accept that offer

I agree on the free markets inflating away free money. University costs are a perfect example where demand was artificially inflated with federal student loans, but the supply was not equally increased so the price just went up. If we started providing basics I'd believe they'd have to be controlled more like a utility. We try not to let market forces control water because weve decided that basic for everyone. So we give a company some garunteed profits in exchange for them not being able to wrong every last dollar out of the economic niche. We lose some efficiency, but gain stability

Targeted assistance might help better, but it's extremely difficult for the government as a single entity to try and provide help on the demand side without constraining the actions on the supply side. The increase in beuracratic costs also eats up much of the benefit

[ChrisLomont]

>A food allowance for everyone would be good for instance and possible.

This would likely just be absorbed into inflation. It's hard to simply give people free money without prices increasing to make the time/work tradeoff for the good simply remain constant.

> you could accept a house,

If you've ever been a landlord, you'd realize people would likely destroy the properties. Many homeless are not homeless because they don't have a dwelling; they're homeless because that have fundamental other issues that make them owning and maintaining any property impossible.

>If we started providing basics I'd believe they'd have to be controlled more like a utility

Any country in history that tried to centrally plan such a large chunk of their economy failed. It's a sure way to get massive shortages and corruption and cronyism.

[lovich]

The houses wouldn't just be for homeless who do have a high incidence of mental illness, it would be for everyone. As for the food money being destroyed by inflation, it might but giving general funds are a lot more likely to stimulate consumption than a targeted stimulus like college loans.

>Any country in history that tried to centrally plan such a large chunk of their economy failed.

There's problems and it wont go perfectly but we should still try to improve everyone's lives. I also disagree that anyone who tried to centrally plan such a large chunk of the economy has failed. Look at water and electricity, those are massive industries that are centrally planned. Central planning is not as efficient as a market based economy and is not the way to grow an industry or develop new technologies. It does work better than a market based economy when it comes to uninterrupted coverage which is why it's used in the utility model

[DoreenMichele]

I'm pro UBI and think we'd all be better off if everyone got enough to live and then companies could offer a penny a week if they wanted, since employment would not longer be tied to your ability to live.

This will never work.

First, it is a myth that X amount of money provides adequately for everyone, in part because there is no standard issue normal person.

Second, money reduces friction in trade, thereby providing valuable efficiencies. But if income is entirely unrelated to creating or husbanding some kind of value, the entire system can rapidly come unraveled.

[frockington]

You should get out and meet real people in America. It will probably change the first half of your post

[lovich]

Not quite sure how. I ended up working at Walmart after college and had to steal food since I couldn't afford rent,student loans, and medicine. Pretty much everyone of my coworkers was in the same boat with student loans being the only difference.

If you think it's not happening I suggest you put all your assets in an account you won't access and then try and live for a few years off a retail job

[Carlton87]

Life Pro Tip: Have better skills and be a better employee.

[hexane360]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

[lovich]

Life Pro Tip: have some empathy

Additionally: No shit, I taught myself programming and I'm an engineer now. Not everyone is capable of doing this, and the fact that I managed was down to just as much luck as it was skill and effort.

It also doesn't change the fact that we are taking money from society and giving it to companies

[frockington]

What did you major in? Was it poorly thought out from the beginning or did college admissions lie to you about job prospects?

[lovich]

I took an easy major to get a high gpa as I was trying to get into the military through ROTC and they care about your grade not your major. Then Obama got voted in on a platform of winding down the war, the ROTC detachments were told they could contract half as many people as they expected before the new president was even sworn in, and I got cut to graduate right after the recession with no real skills.

With the benefit of hindsight I could have done much better for myself,but I would not expect someone at that age to have the foresight to prepare for just how fucked your life plans can get

[frockington]

Don't go to college and then work at Walmart...

[lovich]

Not a lot of choices after the recession. There were people with Masters working there for a few months