We’re not quite there yet. Even with offsets by eliminating virtually all other social programs, including socialized healthcare, and slashing the size of military expenditures to almost nothing, doing every single good idea there is to fund it and increasing taxation on the owner class, there simply isn’t enought GDP to support it without spending your way into inflation… not unless you’re a country with a very small population rich in natural resources.
It’s plausible if we can bring the price of energy down to the point that it’s negligible and multiplies productivity almost for free.
We need scalable commercial fusion power to make it work, basically.
I agree with the goal,l. I don’t think people will contribute less without the threat of being unable to meet basic costs of living. I think a lot of people’s contributions to society aren’t adequately captured and recorded by our economic system.
But I’m not naive enough to believe that it can meet all of a person’s cost of living with current tech.
I doubt this is correct. The argument against universal healthcare was similar and provably, historically wrong.
As UBI is not a lot per person and only goes to very low income people, the burden on the entire country is not great. And it turns out that impoverished people are a burden on the country. Alleviating that burden offsets the costs.
Especially with that single-payer healthcare we have. The unit rates for things like Dr. hours or beds in hospitals are enormous. If we can cut down on the number of visits required because people have somewhere safe to live and aren’t getting injured/sick living on the street, we could save huge amounts of money. Add onto that the cost of policing and/or incarcerating them, plus the economic benefit of having downtown areas feel safer for people, thus encouraging more people to live/work/spend time in those areas.
We’re not quite there yet. Even with offsets by eliminating virtually all other social programs, including socialized healthcare, and slashing the size of military expenditures to almost nothing, doing every single good idea there is to fund it and increasing taxation on the owner class, there simply isn’t enought GDP to support it without spending your way into inflation… not unless you’re a country with a very small population rich in natural resources.
It’s plausible if we can bring the price of energy down to the point that it’s negligible and multiplies productivity almost for free.
We need scalable commercial fusion power to make it work, basically.
I agree with the goal,l. I don’t think people will contribute less without the threat of being unable to meet basic costs of living. I think a lot of people’s contributions to society aren’t adequately captured and recorded by our economic system.
But I’m not naive enough to believe that it can meet all of a person’s cost of living with current tech.
I doubt this is correct. The argument against universal healthcare was similar and provably, historically wrong.
As UBI is not a lot per person and only goes to very low income people, the burden on the entire country is not great. And it turns out that impoverished people are a burden on the country. Alleviating that burden offsets the costs.
Especially with that single-payer healthcare we have. The unit rates for things like Dr. hours or beds in hospitals are enormous. If we can cut down on the number of visits required because people have somewhere safe to live and aren’t getting injured/sick living on the street, we could save huge amounts of money. Add onto that the cost of policing and/or incarcerating them, plus the economic benefit of having downtown areas feel safer for people, thus encouraging more people to live/work/spend time in those areas.
Sounds like Canada. Nationalize our resources and we’re set.