Universal Basic Income. The CA city of Stockton (where else but one of the poorest, most drug infested parts of that failed state) is doing an experiment of giving 125 lucky people $500 a month in UBI to spend however they want.

The lady detailed spent hers on a $150 cell bill, $100 vet bill and to buy potato chips at 7/11 - probably the most over priced place on the planet to buy such things.

When I was poor we didn't have cell phones, we had a dime and a pay phone down the block. If the dog got sick it died.

I bet NONE of them save the $6,000 and invest it for the year so maybe they have $8,000 which is a down payment on a rental property, which could one day make them independently wealthy.

And I guaranty you nobody uses the money to pay for their subsidized rent...

apnews.com/758f8d90cb664ba5bca303f93e46da3a

"Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang wants to give cash to every American each month."

That's the first line of the article.

Candidate Yang obviously never passed high school economics. If you give everyone $1000, then that becomes the new baseline, and prices will rise accordingly. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Any nation-wide version of this plan pushes us that much closer to hyperinflation as federal budget deficits continue to soar. The bright side is up until that time I'll be able to pay off all my mortgages a heck of a lot faster with these higher rents.

The downside will be currency devaluation as more dollars chase the same number of goods and services. People who have worked hard and saved all their lives will see their savings dwindle in purchasing power as the Govt steals from their thrift to fund their endless entitlement.

The majority of Democrat Prez candidates appear to think that goods and services can be conjured into existence as easily as the money to fund this program. Fire up the Fed's endless money printing machine. QE IV...baby!

You can't have it both ways Sid. If everyone "worked hard and saved all their lives" then everyone would have a certain amount of money and that would "become the new baseline and prices will rise accordingly."

And I thought "a rising tide lift all boats" was meant by the trickle-downers to be a good thing!

Mmmmm dunno.

"everyone will have to figure out how to survive without any money"

Robots will take over a lot of lower end jobs...it will happen...it's already happening. The question then becomes, how will people survive without jobs?

And as my son says, "It's cheaper than jail."

Hate to get political but the rich political elites don't think laws or economics apply to them. And to a point, they are right.

Inside the political bubble, most believe that no matter what happens to the country or economy, they will be ok because they are in an elite group, protected by their political connections and wealth.

Look at Venezuela, the socialist inner circle are still dining on lobster and champagne while the common citizens are eating their pets to survive and rioting in the streets.

As long as the elites control the police, army, and wealth, their life changes little.

"A rising tide may lift all boats" but it also drowns those stuck on dry land...just came up with that yesterday.

Hurricanes, don't you know.

I think Yang knows EXACTLY what he's doing: buying votes off people who never learned the law of supply and demand. More $ (rising tide) in everyone's pocket chasing the same supply of housing units = higher rents (ships). Makes it that much more nasty that he knows what he's doing and doing it anyway.

If/when builders are able to catch up with demand, we may see the rate of increase slow down over time, but my rents are going UP as soon as those $1,000 checks start rolling in.

I hereby amend my earlier statement as follows:

$500 a month seems a pretty cheap way to buy votes if only $125 people are going to get the free money. And it is an "experiment".

I suspect that the free goodies go away after the election. Voters are notorious for loving an empty promise and voting for freebies that they will never actually get.

Our prior president ran on the promise to end the war in the middle east within the first year of office. I hope all of his voters are happy with the results of that. Although I suspect they promptly forgot. Everybody, voters, politicians, everybody forgot that the war was going to end.

"We need to pass the bill so we can see what's in it."

Good point CDM. I'm not saying UBI is bad. I think at some point it will become necessary as traditional income sources are removed.

For example robotic checkout at stores, soon (15-40 years) most vehicles will be self driving, with a resulting loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Think auto driving deliveries, big rigs, trains, taxis, airplanes, etc. Our Walmart went from "normal" checkout to two big self serve areas and having one or two manned stations. Every time I go I ask the clerk where the time clock is so I can "punch in" since I'm doing their job.

Journalism is another area in decline since the advent of the internet. I made pretty good money in the 90's when I was a newspaper photojournalist. But by the late 90's and the rise of free "iPictures" the income incentive went away.

The transition to a "moneyless" automated society will require some sort of compensation. Until we reach a "Star Trek" type future where money is unnecessary and you have universal "replicators" where you can throw a shovel full of dirt in and have a steak dinner on china come out the other side, people will need some way to provide for the basics of life, and maybe even an occasional vacation.

At some point humans could become second class citizen / servants to AI. Nobody thinks of that. When computers and robotics are smarter, stronger, faster than humans, why would they need us, except to oil their hinges... Pretty scary.

I think things will get really bad before they get better. We already see it in the insane income disparity. I'm a multi millionaire and I still feel poor. I STILL can't afford to stay in half the hotels in places we visit. While we have a world wide oligarchy with 300 foot yachts and 10,000 acre $40,000,000. ranches in Montana or beach houses in Malibu.

LTD, I hope you know I respect you, enjoy your stories, and think you're a very intelligent caring person.... because I'm calling BS on that whole gloom and doom picture of income inequality.

Income is more equal NOW than it ever has been in the history of the World.

Every great civilization of the past from the Ancient Assyrians up thru 18th Century Empires has had super concentrated wealth at the very top. The 1% today was more like the 0.001% back then. Rome at it's height had only about 400 senators, the likes of which would be multi-billionaires today. Middle class? Hah, not really! If you were military or a successful merchant you had a chance, but that was about it.

Most people throughout history haven't been albe to legally own them selves, nor the product of their work. A few exceptions, but mostly slavery was the norm.

Even "freedmen" in the Middle Ages worked for the Lord of the Manor and could not legally move away and deprive the Lord of their labor. It took a plague that wiped out 1/3 of Europe to end feudalism, which gave rise to mercantilism and power of a true oligopoly where the very few connected held very LEGAL monopolies over the commerce of the seas.

Then along came this great thing called the USA. I won't wax eloquent here about how moral capitalism gave birth to the first true broad based middle class in history; we should all know that. But there are more free, wealthy people today in the world by percentage than at any other time in history. In general, more people are educated today, healthier, living longer, having access to more goods and services, information, and leisure than ever before. The 14 hour work day became 12, then 10, then 8. Now there are more people "retired" in their 50s, 40s, and even 30s than ever.

And we all find time to b*tch about it online. On our smart phones/devices that have 100,000,00 x the power of the Apollo spacecraft.

Is there a bit a lull and uncertainly now? Yeah, I get that. Will automation kill a ton of jobs? You bet. Such is history and the rise of technology. Yet in spite of having the highest population in the history of our country, our unemployment rate is at RECORD lows. How can that be, if all the jobs are going away as the unions and worry warts have prophesied since the 1960s? 50 years of explosive growth...isn't that enough evidence to suggest that people invent new ways or working, new goods and services?

Or are we going to throw away the back hoes and computers and go back to shovels and slide rules? Well, maybe the gold plated shovel will stay strong in AZ. ;-) Still love ya, LTD!

The job I do may not exist in 10 years. I kind of hope it doesn't. RPG coding is nuts! ;-) Someone need to invent a tool that translates that into Java....oh wait, they already did. For a decade, there have been conversion tools that translate the dinosaur-language I program into 4th generation object-oriented code. Did my job disappear? No. In fact, my company has hired over 100 new developers just THIS YEAR. We had to train them in RPG since universities don't teach that any more. How can that be, if "the machines" (code translators) are taking all our jobs?

I simply believe that there is more wealth and opportunity now than ever before. The old ways are gone. The ways of the future are before us. We will see fewer people doing basic, menial, tiring tasks and focusing more on problem solving and quality-of-life enhancing tasks. Less scrambling for basic survival and more exploring new technologies and new uses for existing technology.

I could be wrong, though. Maybe 40% of us will be automated out of the work force soon. Perhaps the hordes of unemployed truck drivers will have no other choice than to sit at home waiting for their checks and watching reality TV. Maybe that is our future. I dunno. But if it is, it sounds kinda suck-tacular to me, and I want no part of encouraging or financing that kind of future. My 2 cents and $4.98 will buy you a pint at any one of the 8 micro pubs open in my town. Don't forget to tip your bartender.

Hammer:

" That is why all these rich capitalists somehow become socialists when they get wealthy. They want to be in control and consolidate their positions of power. "

Not quite. They don't turn socialist, they use it as a weapon to attack their weaker competitors because they know they're well off enough to survive and the heck with what happens to the country as a result. I'm not as mad at them as I am the politicians that take the bribes to make the rules unfair.

The biggest issue with governmental "experiments" is that they aren't controlled. Going into an experiment you need to know what success and failure looks like, you need to have a control group, you have to assure that bias is removed from data collection and analysis. There are literally dozens of process controls that have to be followed to claim success with integrity.

LLofthe flies

I agree, the elites & uber rich aren't really becoming socialists. They are bullies who want power and control and hide it behind "fairness" and socialism. Kinda like putting sprinkles on a turd and calling it a donut.

CDM,

"testing" UBI is a false promise. If you give a certain group of people $100 and not everybody, you have skewed the results of your test as the money only affects that select group. It avoids the inherent flaw of UBI....Inflation.

The test is flawed by design and I suspect on purpose to achieve a predetermined result. Those false positives will then be used to push UBI more broadly.

Great commentary Sid, the only flaw I can see is... Rome fell.

And yes, absolutely right regarding slavery. What we have today for many is virtual slavery. Rather than living in provided quarters, wearing rags and eating the masters food, we are paid meager wages, which we use to procure the necessities with little to nothing left over. If we don't "slave" for the Lord of the Manor soon we are cast out of the castle into the street.

I don't see how we can have government supported UBI. It would have to come from some sort of private avenue. Like if a robot replaced your job, you still got your salary, just didn't have to go to work, or something like that. To keep the economy moving.

At some point I do think that money as we know it will go away. If the fools supposedly in charge don't blow us all up or asphyxiate us all first by destroying the rain forests. Sigh. I'm going swimming, have a nice evening. LOL :)

Pete

The problem with these rich socialists is that they want to give our money away and not their own. It's always easier to give away (after confiscating) other folks money while holding on to your own.

Live the dream...you are wrong.

there are many dozens of jobs now that were not even in existence 20 years ago. computer programmers work in more trades now than we might have ever imagined. the industry of land surveying is still very much alive but the practices are 100% NEW in the last decades. the modern day auto mechanic is a well paid and technical wizard that requires many skills his shade tree progenitor had no knowledge of. any kid seeking a solid future today need only learn the skills around home security and automation...those are 100% new as of this decade. we survived the decimation of the buggy industry, the downfall of the elevator operators union, the elimination of the cassette tape as a product line. we no longer rent a phone from ma bell. we have cars that start reliably EVERY DAY. remember when they didn't? i do.