Universal basic income trials being considered in Scotland

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abucs said:
No you are not entitled to more money if you have money. If you have wealth you can invest it, and if done intelligently, it will create more wealth.
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OK, then I can say if you have wealth, you are entitled to more wealth.
No this is incorrect. The government prints extra money each year which devalues citizens money. You have to increase the money value by 3-4% just to stay even with regards to how much wealth you have. This is the difference between wealth and the money value. Many pensioners put their ‘money’ in conservative strategies with the understanding that it gets devalued each year because of government printing money (inflation). There are times of low interest rates where conservative approaches regularly underperform inflation. This is a loss in wealth terms. Add to this that you spend money, that there are divorces or medical expenses or that children and other beneficiaries receive money in inheritance. It is not a pot of gold that if invested in conservative strategies will last forever. Investors have to be pro-active otherwise it will go. This in part is an explanation why wealth is more likely to be created in private hands rather than government hands.
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All this shows is that people who do not earn interest fall behind. It does not justify the entitlement for those with wealth to stay even or at least not fall behind as much as those without wealth.

More to come tomorrow…Have to quit for now.
 
It is not an entitlement Leaf. It provides an opportunity.

If i create a printing company i have the opportunity to make money, not an entitlement.

If i work and create wealth (which is represented as money) i can invest that wealth into a printing company. This gives the investor the opportunity to make money (by creating wealth). It in no way is an entitlement to more money.
 
=LeafByNiggle;14379336]Yes, really. Investors are necessary, but they do no work. If you entrust your money to a financial advisor, you don’t even have to know what investment decisions are made on your behalf.
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These are based on private, consensual contracts. It’s terrible policy for the government to come in and “save” everyone from bad decisions.
You can literally forget all about your investment. The money can just keep rolling in year after year, while you relax on the beach and others do the work. I don’t propose that we change this.
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And what of it? Then resorts, hotels and people who service their beachfront property have a chance to make some money.
But I do propose that we keep this in mind whenever the suggestion is made that poor people without a job do not deserve an income unless they start working.
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There’s a difference between people who can’t work and people who simply choose not to work.
 
Creating wealth does not need any justification whatsoever for people to try and recover the wealth the government has taken through inflation and then create more wealth above and beyond what they had previously. In fact it is good for people to do this.

If i plough a field, tender the garden and sell tomatoes i create wealth that others may desire and we can swap wealth by exchanging money, which represents wealth. But my creating wealth through the tomato field does not take wealth off anyone else. The more people that create wealth the more opportunity there is for everyone. There is no justification needed for that.

Because i have gained wealth by creating a tomato field, i now have more opportunity than someone who didn’t. So i have made the world a little bit more unequal in respect to myself and the person who did not create the field.

This is a fundamentally good thing. The socialist view says the world is a little bit more unequal and so that is a bad thing. This is one reason why the socialist ‘equality’ vision is inherently bad and leads to economic decline.

The Christian view of charity is not the same as the socialist vision of equality.

Now the modern state in the west is largely the continuation of Christian culture and taxation is part of that. The socialist view is to put the state at the middle of economic progress and justice. That is wrong and proved to be so in countless examples.

Wealth has to be continually created because it is continually destroyed - clothes, houses, tomatoes, toaster ovens, cars etc. The more wealth that is created the more wealth in total there is. Stopping people from creating wealth such as ploughing tomato fields is a bad thing.

Stopping people investing in things like tomato fields is a bad thing.

The socialists are mistaken when they assert there should be equality between the person who invests in the tomato field and those that do not. Sure there should be Christian charity which develops friendships and personal obligation but the socialist rallying cry of Government mandated equality is not a good thing.

As the recently retired financial commentator Thomas Sowel has said - we were once all cavemen and dirt poor with no manufactured property. We were all equal back then and in some respects this is the natural state of man. The question is not why some people have so little today, but why do others have what they have. They had to create wealth because it wasn’t always there. Creating wealth is the key. Governments in general retard the creation of wealth. Sure the Christian can support taxation to help the poor but this is not a long term solution and every time we implement reforms we tend to stop people creating more wealth which is not a good thing.

Yes, in Christian culture there should be mechanisms to help our fellow man. Socialism has resoundedly proved itself not to be that mechanism because it retards the creation of wealth under the false pretense of social justice…
 
abucs said:
Creating wealth does not need any justification whatsoever for people to try and recover the wealth the government has taken through inflation and then create more wealth above and beyond what they had previously. In fact it is good for people to do this.

If i plough a field, tender the garden and sell tomatoes i create wealth that others may desire and we can swap wealth by exchanging money, which represents wealth. But my creating wealth through the tomato field does not take wealth off anyone else. The more people that create wealth the more opportunity there is for everyone. There is no justification needed for that.

Because i have gained wealth by creating a tomato field, i now have more opportunity than someone who didn’t. So i have made the world a little bit more unequal in respect to myself and the person who did not create the field.

This is a fundamentally good thing. The socialist view says the world is a little bit more unequal and so that is a bad thing. This is one reason why the socialist ‘equality’ vision is inherently bad and leads to economic decline.

The Christian view of charity is not the same as the socialist vision of equality.

Now the modern state in the west is largely the continuation of Christian culture and taxation is part of that. The socialist view is to put the state at the middle of economic progress and justice. That is wrong and proved to be so in countless examples.

Wealth has to be continually created because it is continually destroyed - clothes, houses, tomatoes, toaster, cars etc. The more wealth that is created the more wealth in total there is. Stopping people from creating wealth such as ploughing tomato fields is a bad thing.

Stopping people investing in things like tomato fields is a bad thing.

It is wrong to assert there should be equality between the person who invests in the tomato field and those that do not. Sure their should be Christian charity which develops friendships and personal obligation but the socialist rallying cry of equality is not a good thing.

As the recently retired financial commentator Thomas Sowel has said - we were once all cavemen and dirt poor with no manufactured property. We were all equal back then and in some respects this is the natural state of man. The question is not why some people have little, but why do others have what they have. They had to create wealth because it wasn’t always there. Creating wealth is the key. Governments in general retard the creation of wealth.

Yes, in Christian culture there should be mechanisms to help our fellow man. Socialism has resoundedly proved itself not to be that mechanism because it retards the creation of wealth under the false pretense of social justice…
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The thing is the government cannot create wealth. As Jason Lewis used to say “the government can only tax, print money or borrow…government is a zero-sum game at best”. Taxes are taken with the use of force, printing money just means our money buys less and borrowing is repaid with interest.

The best example in American is AmTrak. This was created as a for-profit business by the government. Instead, it has cost the taxpayers over $33 billion to keep it afloat nationally.

And these fears of automation are nothing new. They’ve been around for over 100 years if not more and are unjustified to say the least.

Humanity (especially if what I hear about Gen Z is true) is not willing (nor able) to hand over everything to AI and robots.

Even the most advanced AI—Watson----really is not as sophisticated as some think. And as an engineer and scientist, I can assure everyone that maintenance is a big area.
 
SuperLuigi said:
The best example in American is AmTrak. This was created as a for-profit business by the government. Instead, it has cost the taxpayers over $33 billion to keep it afloat nationally.
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:eek:
SuperLuigi said:
Even the most advanced AI—Watson----really is not as sophisticated as some think. And as an engineer and scientist, I can assure everyone that maintenance is a big area.
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We have a similar background and i am sure you are right. I think people are also very resourceful in creating new technologies and industries if the government lets them.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
People living on the edge only have pennies to invest. They cannot earn much interest on pennies. But someone with $1,500K to invest can possibly stop working entirely and live off the income of those investments.
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And in your world this would be wrong. But the average worker can invest in their 401’s and once retired can have a much more comfortable retirement than relying on SS. Just because they don’t do it doesn’t mean they cant. You seems to be against people investing for tomorrow, why?
 
LeafByNiggle said:
That is not necessary to make my point. If only 50 cents can be invested, the investor will not earn enough to be able to stop working.
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So they save up that 50 cents, and keep saving. They work harder and earn more, so they can save more. They learn to budget, and cut out frivolous spending, and save even more.

And eventually, they have saved up some funds that can generate some income. It probably won’t be enough to retire off of, but it will be better than nothing, and better than waiting on the government to provide “free” stuff.
 
philipl said:
And in your world this would be wrong.
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I didn’t say it was wrong for someone with huge investments to stop working and enjoy life. I just want you to keep in mind when you come down hard on welfare loafers that not working is not necessarily a terrible thing.
But the average worker can invest in their 401’s and once retired can have a much more comfortable retirement than relying on SS. Just because they don’t do it doesn’t mean they cant.
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The ones I am speaking for are not the “average worker.”
 
zz912 said:
So they save up that 50 cents, and keep saving. They work harder and earn more, so they can save more. They learn to budget, and cut out frivolous spending, and save even more.

And eventually, they have saved up some funds that can generate some income. It probably won’t be enough to retire off of, but it will be better than nothing, and better than waiting on the government to provide “free” stuff.
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In your opinion, having a few pennies saved on your own is better than having free stuff from the government. I admit there is a certain satisfaction in doing for one’s self. But before you declare with certainty that it is always better to do that, don’t you think you should ask some of the people who are in that position what they think?
 
ucfengr said:
Seems like a great way to create a class of people completely dependent on the beneficence of government for their needs.
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Scotland already has that. People who live on council estates. Teenage girls who get housing if they become single mums. Things like that. They are an underclass, cut of from the rest of society and are called ‘neds’, which stands for non educated delinquents.
 
zz912 said:
So they save up that 50 cents, and keep saving. They work harder and earn more, so they can save more. They learn to budget, and cut out frivolous spending, and save even more.

And eventually, they have saved up some funds that can generate some income. It probably won’t be enough to retire off of, but it will be better than nothing, and better than waiting on the government to provide “free” stuff.
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The miracle of compound interest.
You could settle for a dependence upon a government or you could set yourself up for unlimited income growth.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
When social security was implemented the labor force participation rate of those over 65 plummeted. Just goes to show that if you give people money for doing nothing, there are those who are going to take it.
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It could be a chicken or egg thing.

There is such a thing as age discrimination and people over 65 rarely get hired since it assumed they will just depend on SS income and not work.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
Which group do rich investors fall into? Seems like they simply choose not to work.
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If I own a computer that does computational figures for me, how does that mean I am not working because I do not use paper and pencil?
If I invest my money into a company that builds computers instead of sitting in my garage building them by hand, how does that mean I am not working?

In both cases, I am using my tools to work more efficiently. In both cases, I am indeed working.
 
JonNC said:
If I own a computer that does computational figures for me, how does that mean I am not working because I do not use paper and pencil?
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You are working because you are making repeated decisions on how to use the computer.
If I invest my money into a company that builds computers instead of sitting in my garage building them by hand, how does that mean I am not working?
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If you were actively investigating companies and picking ones that your expertise tell you have a good chance of success, that is working. If you turn your wealth over to a financial advisor who makes conservative investment decisions for you while you relax in a hammock, the financial advisor is working, but you are not. Yet you get nearly guaranteed money.
 
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