Guaranteed Minimum Income

[ER]

I'm referring to the programs wherein people receive a set amount of "free money" to spend, courtesy of government social programs that exclude no one.

Not a loaded question, I'm not going to critique any replies, I'm just curious if there are thoughts on this concept.

Thanks!

[RCMerchant]

What 'free money' programs? Name ONE.

That hasn't happened in decades.

I'm poor. No one has ever gave me 'free money'. I had to quit my job after 4 heart surgeries, and it took me 3 + years to collect my SSI, which I paid into since 1978. But in those 3 years all I got from the government was a food stamp card, which allowed me to by $198 a month. Cant't buy nothing but food. That was it.
Many years ago, like back in the 70's, Michigan was called the Welfare Wonderland, because your rent got paid, you got food stamps, plus money! That was looong ago.
Where did you hear folks getting "free money"?  
Where do you live? Ohio or Indiana I think. If they got a 'free money" thing going on there, well dam! I should move there!

[ER]

It's a concept you hear about out there that's being discussed a bit by Democrats, even some Presidential candidates, and I was reading of a few small communities that are giving something like five hundred dollars a month to test the results.

My thoughts are first off how would this be funded on a national level when Bill Gates' entire fortune would give 300,000,000 people about thirty dollars each one time, and he's the wealthiest American, I believe. A sales tax would never begin to cover the amount, and how else could it be funded? Also if people got free money, would many stop working?

The concept very much puzzles me as to how it could ever begin to function.

[RCMerchant]

It's not going on right now. Just some s**t that the used car salesmen that run this country talk about? Bulls**t. Folks get into power- they ain't gonna give away s**t. No matter what party it is. So don't worry too much, dear.

BUT-yeah, I agree. It's an impossible stupid hippy idea. I don't think anything should be free. I know folks dumb as rocks work their asses off and some of the smartest people I ever met who worked their asses off. All at the the canning company. For real low pay too.

If us bunch of drunks and idiots can hold a job, any one can.

[Gabriel Knight]

We have plenty of those programs in Argentina. Without going into much detail, just let me say that those systems, combined with plenty others that are related, sucked our country dry, and are giving us the second highest inflation in the world.

Without proper control of the destination of this money and places to invest it (read: good jobs), it's nothing but a populist tool that does nothing but harm.

[Allhallowsday]

Where do I sign up for free money?    

[Alex]

Many countries have a welfare state of some kind that pays people money when they don't have a job.

Of course, there is always a fine balancing act between giving money to support someone having a tough time and people who, well in some places you have generations of people where no one in the family has ever had a job and are often not only quite proud of this, but are also openly contemptuous of people who do work for a living. There was a show in the UK called Shameless (I believe they did a remake in the US, but I have no idea how similar it is to the original), that was a fictional account of such a family but was fairly accurate.

[RCMerchant]

Where do I sign up for free money?    

That's what I wanna know! 

http://youtu.be/_mX7Y0h4wfc

[Rev. Powell]

It's not going to happen anytime soon, but it's actually a good idea and may be practical in the future.

Automation is increasingly taking over in all fields of labor---especially with AI improving exponentially---and there will be fewer and fewer jobs for actual people to do.

Someday relatively soon the only jobs that will be available will be for the people who design and repair the robots who repair other robots, until they put themselves out of a job by programming the robots to do it.

It's not practical now, but it's not too early to start putting the idea out there.

[Svengoolie 3]

The late science fiction author Mack Reynolds wrote a series of sf novels about a future sure most people lived on "negative income tax",  aka the dole.

It was due to automation mostly.

His works were quite prophetic in some ways. He had wrist tv,  phones, radio and credit cards all in one device back in the 70's and had TV screens a person could  access educational services of his choice.

"The towers of utopia" was a novel of his I read that I recommend. 'Sattelite city',  'the galactic medal of honor" and "the 5 way secret agent" are others.

Today his works seem naively optimistic as he assumed a certain level of civility would be maintained.

I recommend his books to anyone interested in the matter this post raises,  he made some valid points.

[ER]

This is an example of what I was talking about, in this case the concept is being tried on a small scale.

http://www.huffpost.com/entry/stockton-california-universal-basic-income_n_5c697700e4b05c889d20203a

[Svengoolie 3]

The fact is that modern technology has reduced the need for many jobs but has not reduced the need for employment. The 18-mid 20th  century paradigm has been permanently altered but we have yet to deal with the effects of the altered paradigm.