• psvrh@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Are we going to tax the wealthy to pay for it?

    Because otherwise this is basically corporate welfare at best, and inflationary at worst.

    • Wilzax@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      How would this be corporate welfare? It’s been shown that a UBI is less expensive than what is wasted on the overhead of need-based welfare systems, and eliminates the poverty trap where making more money (such as from overtime or a small raise) disqualifies your household from a higher value of welfare benefits that you would otherwise qualify for.

      • Windex007@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Because it allows companies extracting extreme profit from labour, paying their upper management exorbitantly and their labourers starvation wages to just keep doing that.

        • Wilzax@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Not every step that makes it slightly easier to exist as a poor person that doesn’t solve capitalism is corporate welfare. Celebrate the steps in the right direction or you’ll make progress impossible.

          Never say “It’s not good enough” when you could say “that’s good, what next?”

          • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Never say “It’s not good enough” when you could say “that’s good, what next?”

            Man, what a beautifully positive outlook

        • SHOW_ME_YOUR_ASSHOLE@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Employees who have UBI to fall back on aren’t forced to accept that starvation wage. UBI gives everyone a small amount of fuck-you money. Employers paying starvation wages would find themselves with a lack of qualified employees because people can afford to quit and look for a better job.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          If you believe that you must believe all programs to help poor people are corporate welfare. And you’re missing three essential other half of the equation that makes UBI possible: increasing taxes in the rich. If a direct transfer of wealth from the upper class to the lower class is corporate welfare, then what isn’t corporate welfare?

          • Windex007@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            pvsrh@lemmy.ca wrote:

            Are we going to tax the wealthy to pay for it? Because otherwise [corporate welfare]

            Wilzax@Lemmy.world asked:

            How would that be corporate welfare…

            The line of questioning was specifically about if the programisn’t funded by the wealthy.

          • bookmeat@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Correct. In fact, this applies wage pressure upward because employees no longer feel the necessity to stick with a shit-paying job.

          • Chr0nos1@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            So I’m curious, and this is a legitimate concern of mine, but what happens when corporations (and the local mom and pop) raise prices, because you can now afford to pay them more? Should there be a limit enforced by the government to have a freeze on the price of goods? Wouldn’t it be equally effective to skip the UBI and just do the freeze?

            In line with the freeze on the price of goods, wouldn’t it be beneficial for the government to demand lower medical costs as well, since the exact same medical and pharmacy companies are selling their stuff in other countries for cheaper than in the US?

    • metaStatic@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      if the capitalist class isn’t up in arms about all this then there’s a very good, very profitable, reason.

      • Nahdahar@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is just another way to keep up the mythical “infinite” growth. Just a little bump as things are starting to stagnate. More money to people = more business = growth.

        I think this is the reason why capitalism will keep working properly. Can’t keep growing if you can’t find more people who can pay for your goods or services.

        Or maybe I’m just too naive.

    • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      How on earth is this corporate welfare?

      The only possible way I can see someone interpreting this as corporate welfare is if you’re already so corpo pilled that you think a corporation should be required to pay for an employee’s social services instead of thinking that a human’s basic needs shouldn’t be tied to their employment.

      • psvrh@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I’ll try to explain my concern with UBI, because I’m genuinely curious:

        • It seems like it lets employers off the hook for paying a living wage; in this sense, it’s like food stamps in the US: we’re socializing the costs of underpaying people
        • If it isn’t paid for by increasing taxes on the top earners, this would be even more the case, since everyone but the wealthy is pooling the cost?
        • I’m also confused as to how it isn’t inflationary: without either price controls on necessary goods and/or public options for housing, wouldn’t this result in companies raising the floor on prices and eating up the benefits of UBI?
        • And this is the part that worries me, as someone who knows people on ODSP (Ontario, Canada’s disability-payments system): what’s to stop some jackass right-wing politician from freezing, means-testing or cutting UBI when they want to “balance the budget”?

        I like the idea of UBI in principle, but my concern is that it–especially without curbing runaway inequality on the top-end and a pivot away from neoliberal “the market does everything” policies–it doesn’t really solve much at best, and at worst it’s yet another way to transfer money to the wealthy and absolve government of actually providing services.

    • superguy@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Probably not.

      It would be the solution, though. Redistribute excess to those who have less because there is no egregious excess without egregious poverty.