Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 04:03 PM) The wiki link mentioned that the fact that the study was temporary might have had an affect. If you told people that they would suddenly get $15K every year for the rest of their life, I would think many would quit working or at least reduce their working hours. A higher percentage than what the study showed. Yeah, if you're promising me 30k a year without having to do anything, i'm outta here. I'm building a log cabin in the woods and you won't see me again.

So you're going to pay someone not working the same salary as a teacher or other lower level public employee that IS working. Why would anyone start working? And who is funding this?

What if people aren't working. Do they still get the income? What if they only work part time?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:38 PM) Being poor in this country is expensive. It means never really having enough to cover the basics, and definitely not enough to cover emergencies, which leads to the payday loan/check-cashing/credit card debt spiral. Cash flow is zero or negative basically at all times, and something we'd consider minor and annoying could be devastating. That old beater you have to get to work blows a headgasket and you don't have $1000 to get it fixed? Well, you're probably going to lose your job now unless you can find a way to bum rides. Get sick for a week? Sorry, your employer probably doesn't provide paid sick leave. You're not going to be able to pay your bills this week, and you may even be fired. That's what a UBI could mitigate. A UBI would also incorporate food stamps, housing assistance, etc., not be an additional program. Then you're talking about a lot more than 15k. Here are the equivalents of welfare programs already: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/08/19/...what-pays-more/

Also, let's assume we implement this plan, do we get rid of the rest of welfare? No more public housing, no more food stamps, no medicaid?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:32 PM) A UBI wouldn't be provided by an employer. I know that's 95% of the country. That's a big portion of people globally these days. I know that's "our system," but I believe that systems should work for humanity, not the other way around, and that our current system leads to or at least allows an awful lot of unnecessary human suffering for the benefit of a few. Being forced to take that minimum wage job and still struggling like hell just to get by while having to put up with a s***ty, abusive workplace or a manager who harasses and belittles you is a s***ty system. A UBI would allow people the real option of saying "f*** this job, I don't need it and won't work it until you treat me like a human being." This is where we fundamentally disagree. The current system allows the VAST majority to live amazing lives. It's a relative few who can't jump aboard the train.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:24 PM) I'd be all in favor of a multi-year, stepped phase-in of minimum wage increases to be similar to those 1960's levels, then tie annual increases to a standard market basket measure. I guess that is too easy. And I think that is a heck of a lot better solution then "providing" a minimum income, which I am wholly against. Not to mention, who is providing it? The employer? The government making up the difference?

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:23 PM) Still requires payments for 25 years. On $15k, I'm struggling to see how student loans fit into your budget. 40k loan with a 15k/year job on that plan is a little less than $60/month on student loans. That's doable in my scenario.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:18 PM) $15k might be a good universal basic income level if those numbers are truly representative of an average individual's minimal budget. I don't know why you always assume that I or anyone else actually envisions a luxurious lifestyle as the bare minimum. I support a universal basic income (different from a minimum wage) for a variety of reasons, but the most important is that I don't believe that people should be forced into wage-labor for others' profits as generally their only means of subsistence. The power balance is titled heavily in the favor of the wealthy when you must work for them or live in destitution. A universal basic income would provide for a minimal, spartan life. Because of this, you wouldn't be forced to take a job for a pittance in horrible work conditions with bosses/companies that treat you like disposable garbage. I believe that an overwhelming majority of people would still work and be productive members of society, and there have been studies and experiments that have borne this out. Most people want to feel productive, to be doing something for themselves and for those around them. You don't need the threat of starvation and homelessness to motivate you to work. That's 95% of the country though. That's our system. We work, we get paid, we hopefully can make our income and/purchases make us additional money, and then we die. Whether you make 10 bucks an hour or 40, you generally spend according to what you make and are still a slave to your employment. What's the alternative? Forcing an employer you pay you a base amount isn't going to change that.

Yeah, that'd be the first move - get the f*** out of a major city.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:03 PM) I pay $6k annually to repay my student loan debt. Lots of the unemployed and underemployed have significant student loan debt which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and, if you let the interest get out of hand, will never be paid off... I'm not taking a position on the living wage issue, but I deal with bankruptcy in my professional life and there aren't a lot of people that can actually live on $15k a year... and that's taking the IRS standards of living (which are pretty brutal for debtors as it is) into account. IIRC Obama passed a law that you can pay the income contingent plan for 25 years and then whatever is left just gets wiped off. So pay whatever the government thinks you can afford. Edit: either he did or that's always been the case, but yes, you pay for 25 years and the remainder is forgiven: http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/under...come-contingent

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:02 PM) No, you made the $15k claim. Support your claim. Rent $680/month (i'm sure you could find cheaper) http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/apa/4206018407.html Utilities - $60-80 Food - $100 (could easily be done for less) Cheap healthcare plan - $50/month as we learned today and no deductible What else? Misc expenses, call it $100 bucks. So there's $1000 bucks a month with an extra $250/month for the year to spend on other things (public transit, clothes, whatever). Absolutely doable. As I said about 10 times, this is a LIVING wage, not a luxury lifestyle. Your turn. Give me that number. Back up your claim that a universal base income is the way to go.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 02:00 PM) Please provide an actual budget instead of just assertions about what you think people spend their money on. Please provide me with a number for your "base income" instead of "more than what they get now." HH has a good starting point with his.

I mean she's fine, and when she's all dolled up she looks good, but on a Hollywood scale she's a 6 at best. There are hotter American "women you want to take home to meet the parents" out there. Chopping off her hair did not help either.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 01:19 PM) Ok, you're right I'm conflating the actual minimum wage with the number Rep. Blackburn quoted. Are you on board with a $10.75 minimum wage with an inflation adjustment? Combined with the PPACA I think you've actually come fairly close to a living wage scenario there. Not in one move, and not in this s***ty economy, but yes, it should be increased gradually. I'm fine with that. And btw, as soon as it happens we can all agree that anyone who complains they need more money can just shut up because they have everything society should provide them. Right?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 01:08 PM) From the value it was in the 1960's it'd be nearly $14. It'd nearly double. In terms of purchasing/buying power it's the equivalent of $10.74. I was a little low. In 1968, the supposed high point of minimum wage purchasing power, it was $1.60 http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 01:02 PM) Really? Would you care to write a budget that allows someone to live self sufficiently on $15,000 in America? Don't buy any luxury items that Americans think are rights and it's pretty easy. We're talking about a living wage - what you need to provide you with life essentials. 15k is MORE than enough.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 01:00 PM) I'm sure you'll find this hilarious, but once again, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act thanks you for your support. (In case you haven't paid attention, the requirements that all plans provide no-cost birth control and access to education/support/family planning resources has been the subject of quite a few court cases already. So for a lot of people...it isn't currently available...particularly at low income levels.) This has been around for a while. Obamacare didn't suddenly make that happen. Most planned parenthoods charge by income and/or get their money back from insurance companies or medicaid.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 12:55 PM) How have you established that a higher minimum wage "didn't solve the problem"? We've dramatically cut the minimum wage relative to inflation over the past 40 years or so and thus it shouldn't be surprising that we're judging it to be a much bigger problem now than it was previously. My favorite example of this continues to be the Tennessee congresswoman who said we didn't need to raise the minimum wage because the $2.15 or so she received when she worked a minimum wage job in the late 60's was just fine...and when you adjusted that value for inflation it turned out to be about $14. Adjusting for inflation the minimum wage would be like 10 bucks. It's not a huge leap.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 12:50 PM) This is my solution to the problem, though it encompasses far more than health care. First of all, yes, contraception should be widely available, but find some other way than forcing people who have religious objections to provide it. That's an absolutely terrible way to go about it. Planned Parenthood gets hundreds of millions of dollars in government money and tens of millions more in political donations, so if they're going to continue to get that money, make them responsible for providing it. Secondly, nationwide, but especially in poor areas, we need a dramatic increase in education spending. Getting a kid a basic education and high school graduation is the best way to reduce the chances that he'll be a drain on government resources the rest of his life. Aside from teachers, schools need paraprofessionals whose job it is to be out in the community interacting with parents and making sure kids are at school when they're supposed to be. Also aside from teachers, schools need child care facilities that take kids age 3 and up from 6am to 9pm, so that parents can be free to have jobs without worrying about who will be caring for their kids. Yes, this is going to cost a lot of money, but a combination of cutting pork from the budget, modest tax increases, and the expected decrease in the need for other entitlement spending can cover this. Thirdly, let's pass a law that automatically pegs the minimum wage to the cost of living. Having to have Congress argue about it every couple years doesn't help anybody. There's probably more, but this is a start. I'm pretty sure No. 1 already happens. Birth control is either free or relatively cheap. And usually it's readily available. No. 2 I still don't think is going to work. We've tried throwing money into schools over the last several decades and it's not helping. It's not like a brand new school with Harvard educated teachers in the middle of Austin is going to change those kids. I could get behind the day care stuff, that makes sense and wouldn't cost much in the grand scheme. No. 3 - i still don't know what that means. What lifestyle do you think people should have as a minimum?

QUOTE (Reddy @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 12:38 PM) So that's your argument for doing nothing? It's a sound one. The argument that we've tried it before and it didn't solve the problem so we shouldn't waste a ton of money and make the country/rest of society worse by doing so? Yeah, that's pretty much what i'm saying.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 12:36 PM) Then peg it to inflation, so that it stops "no longer being enough" every couple years. That's a tweak I can get behind, but it's still not going to provide the lifestyle you guys seem to think is a right.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 12:32 PM) Jenks, I've noticed that you frequently express your frustration with people that have kids they can't afford. I share that frustration, but I think you are simplifying the problem. The solution to that problem, however (and, again, I agree that it is a problem), is not to make life more terrible for the kid. Maybe the solution is to make access to basic birth control more readily available (since kids are going to have sex - birth control and condoms aren't cheap). The Conservative wing of this country cares a lot about providing rights to the unborn (and I'm not taking a position on that argument here) and then complain about the kids people can't afford to have. That logic derives from a place that believes people can and will abstain from their impulses to have sex when birth control isn't available. Kids aren't a right, well that's fine. But you can't stop them from having kids. So you punish the kids for the poor decision of that parent? And putting the parents in jail for child abuse (which I assume was made in jest) makes things even WORSE for the kid. I don't know what the solution to that particular problem is, but to me anyway, the solution is not to stand up and say "well, so and so, you just shouldn't have had a kid in the first place!" So what's your solution? I don't know the solution either (i've offered voluntary sterilization programs in the past), but I do know that paying a family a "basic income" or "living wage" isn't going to magically solve the problem either. I don't think the money helps at all. You've raised their standard of living slightly, but not enough to stop the generational problem. And again, as is, before becoming a socialists wet dream, we already take care of those kids. They have every opportunity in the world to get out of those terrible situations and succeed. And why can't we stop them from having kids? I'm 100% serious when I say that if you become a parent and you can't support your kids you should be charged with child abuse. Maybe the kids need to be taken away. If you purposefully choose to be a stay at home mom to have a 3rd kid and then sign up for welfare (as a cousin of mine did recently) you should be charged with a crime. I'm less concerned with the two teenagers that make a stupid mistake than I am with the grown adult working a full time job at mcdonalds with four kids b****ing about how she isn't making enough money.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 12:30 PM) the reason people are never satisfied is because a NATIONAL minimum wage truly makes no sense when one person lives in Iowa and the other NYC. That still doesn't address my issue, which is that whatever number we come up - make a thousand different variations depending on your location - and there will ALWAYS be people arguing that it's not enough.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 10:26 AM) I would do exactly as stated then. I'd write my own novel containing those three women in the first book... Emma Watson, because. Jennifer Lawrence, because she's Americas answer to Emma Watson. And Kate Upton. Because shes Kate Upton. It's a series of 1000 books, btw...book 1 is just the beginning of the story. Disagree. I do not find Jennifer Lawrence that attractive.