Frustrated over my new "hobby" of ham radio

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Thanks. I live in more of rural, small town area, so it is a bit harder here.

no jobs of any kind out in the sticks where i live.

There are jobs where I live, but they usually aren't very high paying.

the low-skilled jobs are gradually going away. automated kiosks are even making their way out here now. wallyworld did away with their night-shift cashiers.

Yeah, I'm somewhat in the same boat here, most of the time, I'm looking closer to home, even if they pay not quite as much, I save in fuel. Since Mom passed away in 2013, I've driven her car just past the halfway point to the Moon distance wise. I had to drive 90 to 100 miles round trip towards Pittsburgh.

BTW, I've seen some of those Wal*Mart robots take inventory, my cousin sent me a pic from his local store in Florida. I hate to hijack the thread for a sec, but if we keep going this way, we will need some sort of Universal Basic Income at some point. I know I'm a hardcore libertarian/conservative but I'm also a realist, pragmatist and if one side of the equation fails us, meaning lack of jobs, you need to work on it at the other end where we either expand welfare to sky high levels or better yet, enact Universal Basic Income. I know when India was testing their nukes, they did have machines to dig the undergroundholes but they mainly used people with shovels when they were able to just to keep them busy. My grandmother always said that "idle hands are the Devil's (or if you're Hindu, Kali's) Workshop." In the future, with UBI, you might get a part-time job to supplement your income.

there is a relatively simple way to enact UBI and that is amending the existing tax code- you would enact a regime where between 0 and 200% of the poverty level [up to about $25k/annum] with a sliding scale of reduction between 100% and 200%, with a one-time refund replacement of about $12k in lieu of the normal return amount, the sliding scale is necessary to keep it out of the hands of people who likely are not gonna need it as much [people with some education and a semi-pro job]. this is the least expensive iteration of UBI that i have found. those who take extra work for more income would have a 1 dollar out of 3 reduction in their benefit just like they do with social security. no extra bureaucracy is required to implement this plan. and to keep the thread proper, who knows if this could lead to a few more people deciding to become Hams?

Hmmm, yeah, I think to have UBI, to save some money, you'd have to "means test it" like you mentioned. UBI could help people like you and me but not Bill Gates, he does not need it. I think maybe you would have people find their niche and follow their passions if we did have UBI, they would have a good chance to develop skills and so forth if they did not have to work at a drudge job full-time, sure take something part time and the rest of the time, you can invest in your desires, or maybe go to college or tech school or whatever. You'd have UBI plus the money you'd make, you could invest time and money into your ham radio hobby, etc., and maybe it could develop into a career you'd like. I know Milton Friedman liked the idea, he take it from the idea that it wold reduce the need for welfare and the beaucracy. I know if I have UBI, I would consider someplace like Pittsburgh Technical Institute, I'd have enough money to keep a small apartment, unless I can get a dorm room with a bathroom and I could keep my cat, I'd have enough to keep the car running, insured and maintained and have some left to go out to dinner every so often or to buy electronics items I want or need.

we can pray that wise and powerful pols can implement this at least regionally or region-by-region. do you ever talk about such with your fellow radio amateurs?

Not really about this subject, but I think, maybe, this would be a good idea to have in general to have people be able to further their education without worrying about how they are going to live. BTW, there is a good case that can be made from the conservative/libertarian end for this, Milton Friedman made an excellent point where it would reduce or eliminate the beaucracy of the welfare system as well as save money in the long run.

Had no idea this idea had any support from the right.

So if libertarians and conservatives want UBI and democratic socialists want UBI, why haven't we done this already?

because of bloodyminded crooks running things at present who are all in favor of keeping all that money for themselves.

Well, not all of the right, or even the left, supports it, but I'm just saying that there are ideas like this that conservatives can support as Milton Friedman points out.

I don't deny that's a part of it, but between the Borglike parts of some on the right along with just plain inertia, that's why it hasn't really gotten ground. There will or might be a time when this will if and when automation starts taking a lot of jobs, in that case, it is not ideology but necessity that will push it.

here is a boots-on-the-ground observation/prediction- it has already begun- my local wallyworld just sacked their night-shift cashiers, in favor of self-check-out lanes. they are planning to do the same for the day shift, the lanes have already been modified, most of them, with self-check-out equipment.

I've seen that too around here. I keep thinking to the novel version of the 1978 version Battlestar Galactica where the government of the Colonies did outlaw robots, except maybe for dangerous activities (like sending a robot probe into a hot atomic reactor), for labor. Then again there was that war with the Cylons that was an influence too. I don't know how our society will handle it, we might have to go that route. Another possibility is that we will have to license and tax robots and unnecessary automation where it would be cost prohibitive to do it. If we do not, UBI will have to take place, maybe as a way to help fund it, we could use the money from the "robot tax and licensing" along with so much of a percentage of the profits made from robot and automated labor. Sometimes I think we are too smart for our own good, Carl Sagan was one of the liberals I do have respect for even though many times I disagree with him but he made the point that "We love our technology and how to apply it," but the ethics and morals have not quite caught up with it, I gotta give him that one. Getting jobs will be tougher, well getting a good job to pay the living expenses and bills I mean. My father told me, he will be 82 next month, "I'm glad I'm old, retired and could 'kick off' in a few years, I would not want to put up with the job market today. I feel sorry for the young ones out there." He added, "in my day, jobs you could live off of and move up were more plentiful and easier to get."

Conservative, and libertarian, case for UBI, well, Milton Friedman put it this way in a nutshell. It would eliminate, or at least reduce, the need for welfare and the beaucracy, maybe welfare is still needed for people who have children to care for but it will be more of a niche than a blanket approach maybe. It could eliminate Social Security which is UBI for the old and disabled in a way. It could eliminate unemployment insurance and a lion's share of workman's compensation. I'm warming up to the idea, heck, put me in the camp. I used to think that being a libertarian/conservative, you always have to think one way but I learned that it is too "Borglike" and one of the tenants of libertarian, conservative comes from the old classical liberalism of Thomas Jefferson's day where one could think for themselves.

UBI would be means tested, above a certain income, you do not get it. If you make as much money as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, the late T. Boone Pickens, the late H. Ross Perot or Donald Trump, they do not need it. If for some reason, they lose it all and cannot support themselves, they do get it back.

^^^ i suspect it won't happen here in amuuurica as long as the maga crowd runs things. we will have to hit rock bottom first [civilizational collapse]. i put more money on that happening, then the PTB wising up and finally grokking enlightened self-interest.