[ POLL ] An Argument Against Universal Basic Income.

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So why does it always seem that those who demand UBI the most are the unskilled and uneducated? Why do you almost never see skilled, educated workers demanding UBI?

Just asking (see the statement at the bottom of my first post in this thread).

I agree that UBI is a bad idea.

1. If everyone had more money, prices would rise with almost 100 % certainty since people have what to pay with and the owners want more profit, which would eventually render the more usable money useless. Would help a little while, but not in the long run.

2. If everyone got a certain amount of money and actually managed to live with it (the prices not rising too much), who would bother doing the hard but low paid jobs? Sure, it'd be extra money on top of the UBI, but many would probably choose to have more freetime instead of the little extra money, especially if the job was physically taxing, they don't like it or don't like their coworkers.

3. That would mean that the taxes rise. If taxes rise, those paying them will most likely raise the prices of their products to cover their losses, leading to scenario one.

4. Universal as in world wide? That works only if the average cost of things in different countries and areas in taken in to account as some countries are far more expensive to live in than others. For examble, there are countries where you don't need to heat up houses at winter, and countries that you have to do so in, so the later will have to pay more to keep their home warm. They'd need more money than the people in warm countries for that.

5. Even if you give someone enough money to cover their basic needs, who's to say that they will use it in such a way? Maybe they'd waste it to entertainment like music, sports, games or perhaps alcohol and drugs. And then they'd complain that the sum that government gives for living isn't enough, waah waah!

As for lessening the sum the more people earn... that just doesn't work. I mean, let's say someone would find a job, but that job would just barely cover their living expenses and they didn't like it, so why would they take it? Why not just have more free time and let government provide for them? With the same logic, people who are perfectly cabable of fulltime work could only work part time as the government would cover the budget cap anyway.

All that said, I do think that no one should have to starve or have to sleep on the street, but just giving people money that's use isn't supervised isn't an answer.

One solution could be to let people who have nothing to live in government run dorms where they have their own (small) rooms and where they get three meals a day. Medical care as well. Education too, for those who pass tests and behave themselves as the illbehaving ones could cause trouble to other people's studies. (Here I'm assuming we're talking of adults who already have the very basics down, of course.) The place would keep them alive, but no money would be provided. If someone wanted a life with some extra that costs something, they ough to find a job. And if someone actually gets a fulltime job for a longer period of time that's salary is big enough to afford to rent a place close enough to the job, they'd lose the right to be provided for by the government.

Just a rough idea really, but everyone would have a roof over their heads and no one would starve.

I live in Ontario Canada where they did a pilot program a few years ago but our current government cancelled it when they got in power. I think it only ran a year (instead of intended 3 years) so too short to get any usable data. If the program worked it would likely replace social assistance etc and keep down costs from having so many layers of service, and they suspected it would also lead to much better outcomes for peoples health, and in the long run keep those costs down too. But we'll never know. Surprisingly they had trouble finding people to enrol in the program!

I've attached links below - the 2nd one is an actual report regarding outcomes from what data they had.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton ... -1.5485729

https://labourstudies.mcmaster.ca/docum ... rience.pdf

I think that "socialist" UBI is better than "capitalist" "junk contracts" or black economy jobs which exploits people who are weaker in earning money (for example due to mental disorders). I think that help to poorer people should have source in generosity of rich ones who will receive merit and virtue due to their voluntary help for these who have less, not in some sort of coercion which does not help wealth people spiritually. I think it would be good if millions of millionaires would give large help for people who live in conditions similar to ones in which cattle lives, not people by their free will.

My mentality disagrees with the verse from New Testament that says: “Those who don’t work, don’t deserve to eat!” (in Polish I saw it translated as "let someone who does not want to work also does not eat"), but it does not mean that my will accepts it. Mentality thinks that good in existence should be from unconditional grace, not merit for deeds and works. My mentality is "anti-quranic" and "anti-biblical" despite being a monotheist. It may consider monotheists who believe in eternal torment or even annihilation of sentient being worst creatures in entire creation. It hates cruelty and suffering more than anything else. Unconditional love is for it one of the most important and crucial attributes of one and only God.

I'm all for UBI. Here is why! This is all speculation, my opinion, my conjecture and my thoughts!

a. I believe with this that those who did not want to be in the workplace could opt out. Any employees who are employed would be there because they wanted to be not b/c they felt obligated to be there. With this, productivity would rise for individual employers and and businesses with a workforce.

b. From a, employers would be able to cut down on costs (money, time) due to having to fire and hire other candidates employers would contain those who actually wanted to be there.

c. Potential employees who don't feel like they would fit in would not have to fit. They wouldn't have to pretend to be something they're not. More then likely there mental health would go up. In today's world, one has to be employed and pretend and fake whether one wants to or not. With better mental health the suicide rate would decrease thereby decreasing the amount of people having to go to the emergency. With stress lowered as well one would see less heart attacks and other stress induced issues.

d. For those who simply choose to live with the UBI, they would have time to do things they may want to do. Like writing poetry, creating new inventions, etc. Einstein worked at the post office but he had a lot of downtime. He was able to work on his theories while working at the post office. I believe with the UBI group (as I will call it) maybe we can have more innovation.