Business wants a Universal Basic Income. Which party will give it to them?

[The Self]

At least here it's catching like the flu among the business owners I know, most of whom take their marching orders from people like Elon Musk.

I would have said that the Republicans were a shoe-in to write the bill that eventually becomes the UBI programme in America, on the basis that we prefer Republican-crafted policy generally when it comes to social programmes. But Trump has probably made this impossible.

That leaves the Democrats. The Sanders wing can't be allowed to actually draft the UBI, but its support base will be necessary to pass it all the same. Whichever Democrat can thread this particular needle will, I think, be the next President.

[The Self]

What a lazy way to deal with poverty.

We don't want it to deal with poverty. The point is to ensure steady margins during downturns, which are increasingly likely.

[BudgieForce]

Our government couldn't possibly afford UBI unless they tax the living hell out of Musk and company. Something they probably wouldn't support.

[The Self]

Our government couldn't possibly afford UBI unless they tax the living hell out of Musk and company. Something they probably wouldn't support.

Eventually the programme ought to be privatized. Ideally it would include a phase-out provision shifting it entirely into the private-sector, as a consciously designed charity. The purpose of government involvement would be only to legitimize it and to get it through the first few years.

[Beet]

Eventually we will be taken care of cradle to grave by corporations. We will be born in corporate hospitals, get health care through the corporation, live in corporate homes, be driven by corporate cars, retire on corporate pensions (again). Our thoughts, friendships, behavior patterns, relationships, both individual and collective, will be monitored, understood, and predicted by the corporation. The corporations will establish a paradise on earth, with no murder, rape, loneliness, addiction, car accidents, or anything. Our data-driven lives will be healthy eating, healthy living, healthy socializing. And it will be better. It will actually be better than what we have today.

[The Self]

What a lazy way to deal with poverty.

We don't want it to deal with poverty. The point is to ensure steady margins during downturns, which are increasingly likely.

Which is just as well achieved by a stimulus.

As 'shovel ready' showed, stimulus packages are not efficient, and nobody is going to die on that hill after the experience of the last one. The only reason stimulus packages are even necessary is because of institutional short-termism.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Eventually we will be taken care of cradle to grave by corporations. We will be born in corporate hospitals, get health care through the corporation, live in corporate homes, be driven by corporate cars, retire on corporate pensions (again). Oura thoughts, friendships, behavior patterns, relationships, both individual and collective, will be monitored, understood, and predicted by the corporation. The corporations will establish a paradise on earth, with no murder, rape, loneliness, addiction, car accidents, or anything. Our data-driven lives will be healthy eating, healthy living, healthy socializing. And it will be better. It will actually be better than what we hve today.

I've already seen the Matrix and read H.P. Lovecraft. Thanks, though.

[The Self]

I was thinking more of stimulus Bush did, where everyone got a check.

Didn't work, and will be increasingly unpalatable in the coming years politically. A private UBI is the only surefire guarantee for stability during economic downturns.

We want it, and we mean to have it.

[Indy Texas]

"People don't have enough money to buy the stuff we sell. We need to make sure everyone has at least some money so that doesn't happen anymore."

"Okay, will you pay more tax to make that happen?"

"But...but that's our money."

[Nyvin]

What would be the point of having money anymore then?   Isn't money supposed to represent a person's time spent in labor?  

If manufactured goods are made by automation exclusively and the resources for those good are produced by automation as well,  then the whole idea of cash has pretty much run it's course and should be abolished.

....But oh yeah, that would mean no more rich people, and that's not fun.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Eventually we will be taken care of cradle to grave by corporations. We will be born in corporate hospitals, get health care through the corporation, live in corporate homes, be driven by corporate cars, retire on corporate pensions (again). Our thoughts, friendships, behavior patterns, relationships, both individual and collective, will be monitored, understood, and predicted by the corporation. The corporations will establish a paradise on earth, with no murder, rape, loneliness, addiction, car accidents, or anything. Our data-driven lives will be healthy eating, healthy living, healthy socializing. And it will be better. It will actually be better than what we have today.

ayy lmao

[Famous Mortimer]

Probably neither.

If it actually happens, probably the Democrats.

There's certainly a conservative (or non-ideological) case to be made for UBI but the Republican Party is too dogmatically anti-tax to ever embrace it, even if various members of the dissident right make a loud case for it.

The fact that UBI could actually been seen as a capitalist innovation is another reason the Democrats would probably be the ones to pass it.