bayesianbandit

TL;DR I'm a piece of shit because

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I mean, this is just factually wrong. Usually these days when people refer to liberalism it's shorthand for neoliberalism & understood as such. The only way you can make the reply you just made in good faith is if you are somehow blissfully unaware of the main tenants of the modern liberal movement for at least the past 30-40 years... and even then it's not like classical liberalism was anything other than favourable to free market capitalists.

I always found it funny in the mid-2010s when the central bank was struggling to meet inflation targets why nobody seemed to suggest UBI could help fix that... seems to me that giving people money directly is at least as stimulating to the economy as dropping interest rates. Difference is one benefits capitalists, while the other benefits the working class...

In my opinion, this is an issue that can be avoided by implementing UBI gradually.

Shortages and inflation don't just arise from people having more disposable income. If that were true, inflation would've been worse and supply chains would be facing shortages decades ago when everyone had more disposable income in real terms.

Rather, these issues are more a function of three factors:

• Rate of change in demand
• Price collusion among large companies
• Supply chain disruptions

During COVID, we saw all of the above, for example. Supply chains disrupted, people had more disposable income due to CERB and changed their consumption behaviours dramatically during lockdowns/work from home (rapid shift in demand), while large corporations such as Loblaw's & Sobey's engaged in well publicized price-fixing schemes.

This lead to the inflation crisis we are just now recovering from.

However, there's no inherent reason why UBI needs to include any of these things. You could instead, for example:

• "Boil the frog" when it comes to demand, by starting with small payments and phasing them in so that consumption habits do not change too rapidly
• Promote anti-trust measures against large companies to prevent price fixing (bonus: proceeds can go toward UBI)
• Similar to point one, if you take the boil the frog approach it will be less disruptive to supply chains, as people leave jobs gradually & companies are slowly incentivized to pay their employees more in order to stay competitive

At the end of the day I don't see it as all that different from setting interest rates, for example. Like YES the central bank COULD tank our economy by raising the interest rate 2000 basis points tomorrow. And YES they COULD also drive inflation through the roof by setting the interest rate to 0% as well. But they ain't gonna, because it'd cause... inflation/deflation and supply chain shortages.

If you think democracy is to blame here, you need to educate yourself about how things work down there. Capitalists have bought and paid their way through elections playing both parties for decades & pumping out propaganda from the media networks they own.

There is no party for the working class in the US. Voters largely did NOT vote for Trump. They voted to abstain or held their nose and voted for the least-bad option. And of those who did vote for Trump they did so in protest & a lack of better options. That's why Trump is in office, and the oligarchs are just playing you into believing otherwise lest the working class realizes we outnumber them.

Blaming common folk for the exploits of billionaires is exactly what your owners want you to be doing. Your anger and outrage is important and valuable, but you need to wake up and place the blame where it belongs.

Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

Of course. Anybody who disagrees with your personal narrow sliver of opinion must just be a Russian bot. /s

Thank you for proving to every person reading that you're only commenting in bad faith.

Can you imagine if every time someone pointed out the difference between Democrats & Republicans, we had to sit through endless comments of people speaking up to say things like "don't gatekeep fascism, mom!!" or "not this moneybear twisted logic!!"?

Liberalism and Leftism broadly disagree on their respective core economic tenants. They're ideologically further apart than Democrats and Republicans. And yet, you struggle to comprehend them as distinct entities without getting upset and triggered... if you seriously consider it divisive to understand that diversity of opinion on the left is good and a sign of a healthy democracy, I don't know what to tell you.

You need to take a good long hard look at what you're promoting here. Not everybody needs to think the same or adhere to exactly the same ideology in order to be deserving of respect and work together with others for common causes. We don't need everyone to be grouped under one label for collective action and agreeable democratic reforms to take place. In fact, it's important that we aren't grouped that way... it's detrimental to us all regardless of whether you're liberal or left.

Can you explain what you mean by this? I don't see how recognizing the ideological difference between leftism & liberalism makes someone not a leftist... they differ pretty strongly on their central economic thesis, which is sort of a big deal given how influential the economy is in... like literally every area of our society & political systems...

I don't know these people but even just reading that already made me so tired. I'm so ready for everybody to forget we exist again.

2020-2030 is really making 2000-2010 seem like paradise out here, which is something I never thought I'd say, as a trans woman who barely survived 2000-2010. 🙃

As someone in a high income bracket, I'd gladly pay more in taxes in exchange for a low-overhead direct equalization program such as UBI.

Something that's always bothered me about these discussions, however, is how it always seems to be treated as a binary choice. As if they only two options are to do nothing or flip on the UBI lightswitch. But this is IMHO stupid given the way economies work. Something like UBI would take 3-5 years to fully influence the economy, and anyway, economies tend to do better with stable long-term changes rather than sudden shocks.

So, if it were me, I'd instead implement a UBI program like so:

• Create a crown corporation similar to the Bank of Canada
• Mandate the crown corporation to set UBI rates with an eye out for the health of the economy and the population
• The UBI rate would imply a rate of taxation as well as set forth monthly payments to every Canadian citizen after deducting some (externally audited) operating budget (which should be relatively low given the program will never be means-tested)
• Begin UBI with some small-value sum such as $50/mo per person—enough to look nice hitting people's accounts, enough to make a real difference to the poorest of the poor, but not enough to realistically cause economic problems
• Let the Crown corp adjust the UBI rate yearly and have collection handled by the CRA at tax/paycheck time

In my opinion, if the government did something like this, we'd have a long-lasting program that is agile enough to adapt to economic conditions or things breaking along the way. There is likely a sweet spot for UBI similar to that of an interest rate, and we'd be able to find where that line is empirically, without having to risk serious shocks to the economy, inflation due to supply chain shocks, etc.

I would expect such a program would gradually increase over the span of 10-30 years until basic needs like food and shelter are covered for everybody, but luxuries and "comfortable" lifestyles remain out of reach for those who are out of work. But, if I am wrong, it wouldn't matter anyway... the UBI rate would just wind up settling higher or lower according to the needs of society.

This is one of the best initiatives I've seen from a government in a long-ass time. Such a railway would be a boon for our economy. As a Montrealer, the only thing I can say is I'm pissed it didn't already happen three decades ago.

$80 bn is chump change for something this critical. It will in the long run pay for itself via increased productivity and other benefits to our Canadian economy.

This is a class war, don’t get it twisted. The working class in the US are a bulwark against that shit coming here.

By all means, fuck the Cheeto & large American corpos. But working class is working class. Don’t be selling us out to Loblaws just because you decided some farmer in Minnesota is to blame for the broken system they have down there.