‘universal’ income

[Rufus T. Firefly]

My step-daughter works at a bank...they've done away with tellers and drive-up windows. There's 3 people in the bank to do EVERYTHING!!!

Capitol 1 has been doing this - 2 people inside with 2 desks and a bunch of teller machines -- anything that actually requires a human to do, to sign, paperwork needed - you are out of luck --- you are expected to do everything on-line.

Will this give folks more time to play with their trains ? Golf?? Target shooting???

It's not about giving folks more time - it's about companies cutting costs associated with human employment - if anyone thinks those corporate tax cuts will result in hiring and more job, they need to take off the blinders and join reality - that money will stay inside that company, be held in reserves, be used to buy back stock, and to reward executives and board members.

So what will happen? Will we get paid for simply existing, watching the robots, feeding the dog, or not get paid at all? How will we get the things needed to survive? Will we have to invent new stuff all the time, or maybe pull some of the old "stuff" out of the closets and take a step (or 3) back and take a look at what we've done to ourselves?

Maybe a re-invention of the small town will take place with local people doing local jobs for local people?

Too much free time on our hands will lead to a massive population explosion which will outpace governments responsibility around the world to govern.

Doubt it - younger generations are too busy gaming, doing experiential activities, and living in a virtual reality on the phones to reproduce....might be a good thing,

I predict that space exploration will be the savior of mankind

After decades of stagnation, maybe so -- space exploration positively spurred a considerable economic and social investment. But, I'd rather see immigration to the moon, the other planets, and to the Belt -- long overdue.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

..... California’s own open-border immigration policies, which he said kicks low-skilled American workers out of the labor force and keeps wages down.

Not buying that excuse laden whine for failure at all. Nobody kicks workers out of job except themselves - if they choose to abandon their jobs, let other take them, then they probably deserve what they get while they sit on the thumbs. And when did the conservative Heritage Foundation ever care about or do anything to help low-skilled American workers other than to use them as a crutch to prop up their own rhetoric.

But I thought that the board was under Federal control....at least last time I traveled it was. When did the Federal Gov't cede control of the boarder to CA?

[rogruth]

Is there hope or not?
What will be left for my kids and grandkids?
Anything?

[HONDO74]

CALIFORNIA aka MEXIFORNIA is a Sanctuary State. They protect the illegals from the FEDS......

[robert.]

A little bit of a drift. For 20+ years I have had undocumented workers. The same 3 guys. Every year I give them a w2. Not once have they filed a tax return. State local or federal. I’m willing to bet they are owed $200,000 or more from the IRS

[webenda]

Leave it to California.
BH

"It may surprise you to learn that a partial Universal Basic Income (UBI) has already existed in Alaska since 1982, and that a version of basic income was experimentally tested in the United States in the 1970s. The same is true in Canada, where the town of Dauphin managed to eliminate poverty for five years. Full UBI experiments have been done more recently in places such as Namibia, India and Brazil. Other countries are following suit: Finland, the Netherlands and Canada are carrying out government-funded experiments to compare against existing programmes. Organizations like Y Combinator and GiveDirectly have launched privately funded experiments in the US and East Africa respectively."

Reference: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/ ... sic-income

More from the above reference:
Why we should all have a basic income.

Consider for a moment that from this day forward, on the first day of every month, around $1,000 is deposited into your bank account – because you are a citizen and you deserve it.

World-changing events like Brexit and the election of Donald Trump – are pointing to the need to start permanently guaranteeing everyone at least some income.

The above in italics is paraphrased.

In case you do not know, "Brexit" stands for "Britan's Exit from the European Union."

[webenda]

A Canadian City Once Eliminated Poverty

Between 1974 and 1979, residents of a small Manitoba city were selected to be subjects in a project that ensured basic annual incomes for everyone. For five years, monthly cheques were delivered to the poorest residents of Dauphin, Man. – no strings attached.

And for five years, poverty was completely eliminated.

The project’s original intent was to evaluate if giving cheques to the working poor, enough to top-up their incomes to a living wage, would kill people’s motivation to work. It didn’t.

But the Conservative government that took power provincially in 1977 – and federally in 1979 – had no interest in implementing the project more widely. Researchers were told to pack up the project’s records into 1,800 boxes and place them in storage.

A final report was never released.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/12/23 ... 35682.html

[Rufus T. Firefly]

A Canadian City Once Eliminated Poverty

Between 1974 and 1979, residents of a small Manitoba city were selected to be subjects in a project that ensured basic annual incomes for everyone. For five years, monthly cheques were delivered to the poorest residents of Dauphin, Man. – no strings attached.

And for five years, poverty was completely eliminated.

The project’s original intent was to evaluate if giving cheques to the working poor, enough to top-up their incomes to a living wage, would kill people’s motivation to work. It didn’t.

But the Conservative government that took power provincially in 1977 – and federally in 1979 – had no interest in implementing the project more widely. Researchers were told to pack up the project’s records into 1,800 boxes and place them in storage.

A final report was never released.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/12/23 ... 35682.html

Well, good Gov't never wants to actually do anything that might actually work.......but then again, on a small scale in Canada things could be very different.

[HONDO74]

Sounds like a hell of a good plan for MEXICO,

[HONDO74]

A Canadian City Once Eliminated Poverty

Between 1974 and 1979, residents of a small Manitoba city were selected to be subjects in a project that ensured basic annual incomes for everyone. For five years, monthly cheques were delivered to the poorest residents of Dauphin, Man. – no strings attached.

And for five years, poverty was completely eliminated.

The project’s original intent was to evaluate if giving cheques to the working poor, enough to top-up their incomes to a living wage, would kill people’s motivation to work. It didn’t.

But the Conservative government that took power provincially in 1977 – and federally in 1979 – had no interest in implementing the project more widely. Researchers were told to pack up the project’s records into 1,800 boxes and place them in storage.

A final report was never released.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/12/23 ... 35682.html

Oh my God, From the Huffington post.

From the Article.
“It was a lot of good, but see, the Manitoba government and the federal government both went out of power that year and they ran out of money – so it was just dropped,” Richardson said.

“It was done.”

They ran out of money.

[rogruth]

Aren't the people at the bottom of the income for a given area (town, city, etc.) the ones in poverty?
This idea, like communism, looks good on paper.

If you let the state of Georgia know about it they will try it if it looks good on paper. We try everything that does.
(Universal income, not communism.)
Georgia seems to try anything even if others have and it didn't work.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Aren't the people at the bottom of the income for a given area (town, city, etc.) the ones in poverty?
This idea, like communism, looks good on paper.

Within a small community, it might be doable......in Canada.

I don't know it communism can work on any thing but a small scale executed by people that are motivated by an altruistic sense of being. I can't find more than 2-3 such folks very easily. It's never really be tried anywhere yet - every Gov't that claims to be such has really be an extreme dictatorship of some form. Some truly foolish folks seem to want the latter installed the this country.