ive been thinking about legalization and universal basic income

a reply to: TinySickTears

I think.. It's a nice concept. But;; and I'm talking a big but; that would be like giving up your rights. They might not tell you that now, but it would surely come later on while everyone was out enjoying their 'freedom'. Remember man, they want a Society they control including a universal police state.

I wouldn't trust it.

Good thread

I support legal cannabis and Universal basic income. Here in Finland we have a UBI trial period going on, here is what The Guardian has to say about that:

www.theguardian.com...

UBI would greatly reduce welfare bureaucracy. Here at least. Both OP ideas, when well thought out, would cause more positive than negative effects on an individual's life and society as a whole.

This came to mind also, where I work, there used to be a mass exodus every year around income tax refund time. Some folks that I knew personally got a check for 8,000-nearly 10,000. In my household, currently, there are 4 adults, soon to be 5 so that would be about 40-50 grand a year and although that is not an awful lot of money it would certainly take care of most things and what would be the incentive for some of those people to work? Who would do the jobs that people have quit? It used to be a struggle to fill those positions every spring and there is already about a 60% turnover in the field. Or, folks would just opt for part time employment...
In this part of the world a family could do 'okay' with 50 grand yearly. No new cars or vacations or whatever I would imagine but they would survive well enough.

originally posted by: amicktd

originally posted by: burgerbuddy

originally posted by: amicktd
There is a lot of lower income families that buy MJ at the current street prices. Obviously I don’t have percentages, but I think if they just legalized it and allowed people to grow their own pot. It would save lower income families a ton of money with minimal gov intervention.

Sure, give em all a lic to sell it and what could go wrong?

That wasn’t my point. I grew up extremely poor and watched not only my parents but most people’s parents openly smoke marijuana. Yet they could barely pay the bills. My point was if they weren’t spending hundreds of dollars a month on MJ and was allowed to just grow it on their own it would probably be more effective than some UBi. Plus what would the difference be with alcohol. You can legally make alcohol in your own home to a certain extent, yet we don’t have millions of people dealing alcohol. So I’m unsure what effect if any the licensing thing you mention would change.

I thought the UBI was based on pot sales.

My grandma made booze in the 20's and 30's but sold it. Not for her own stash.

Anyway, if people don't have to spend money buying their habit, what good is that gonna do for anyone else?

a reply to: TinySickTears

Where does this ridiculous idea come from that the government is there to take care of everyone?

It's your responsibility to take care of yourself.
If you can't, that's where friends and family, charity and churches come in.

It's the government's responsibility to provide for the common defense, regulate immigration and interstate commerce, ensure states aren't violating our rights and that should be about it.

originally posted by: TinySickTears
at work yesterday i started to think about universal basic income. now i know basically nothing about it other than the premise of a money for citizens.

so i started to think that if MJ was legalized federally and taxed there would be money to support this universal income for all adult citizens.

again i know nothing about it so in my thoughts i was thinking like 10 grand a year to every adults. or to every household. the exact particulars are not important at this time.
so lets go with 10 grand per household per year.

that would help so many people. that would pay my rent and a couple bills for the entire year.

i think this would go a long way to relieving stress from a lot of people. it would also give people more disposable income that they could put into the economy and pay taxes at local levels.

people would buy vehicles that otherwise wouldnt be able to. things like that.

i was thinking the trade off could be since all households are getting 10 grand a hear then no more food stamps. no more welfare checks. no more WIC program.

this all sounds great and i think it could be great but we have the human factor.

the human factor is a great deal of people are just going to piss that money away and be in the same shape they were. needing public assistance.

so on that end what to do?
the idea is cut those programs cause people will not need it. reality is people will still need it

can/should the government tell people to # off. you got your 10 grand. not my problem till next year when you get your next 10?

they probably should. but can they really?
there is a level of responsibility to take care of its citizens.

then we get in a situation where people get the 10 large and are still on the programs.... that is not the way to go.

so in a perfect world i think legalization to fund universal basic income among other things is a great idea. i think it would relieve huge amounts of stress on people. it would go a long way to putting a dent in people being homeless. it would put money into the economy cause people would have more to spend.

in our world i think people are gonna # that up.
not all of course but a lot are just gonna piss it away and then still need public assistance.

i want universal basic income to work but i dont think it would.

what do you think?

I believe every citizen in Alaska now gets a yearly payment of $1,000 every year from the oil industry... So your idea is a realistic one!

In this fantasy world does a UBI apply to everyone?

I mean lets say you make $150k or more a year are you entitled to a handout payment also?

a reply to: mysterioustranger

You do know that Alaska ranks 47 in population density with less than 800k total people in the state right?

a reply to: TinySickTears


You make some very good points, but the truth is that with pot, anybody can grow their own. That suggests that while tax revenues will be real, they may not be significant if the tax scheme is not realistic.

originally posted by: burgerbuddy

originally posted by: amicktd

originally posted by: burgerbuddy

originally posted by: amicktd
There is a lot of lower income families that buy MJ at the current street prices. Obviously I don’t have percentages, but I think if they just legalized it and allowed people to grow their own pot. It would save lower income families a ton of money with minimal gov intervention.

Sure, give em all a lic to sell it and what could go wrong?

That wasn’t my point. I grew up extremely poor and watched not only my parents but most people’s parents openly smoke marijuana. Yet they could barely pay the bills. My point was if they weren’t spending hundreds of dollars a month on MJ and was allowed to just grow it on their own it would probably be more effective than some UBi. Plus what would the difference be with alcohol. You can legally make alcohol in your own home to a certain extent, yet we don’t have millions of people dealing alcohol. So I’m unsure what effect if any the licensing thing you mention would change.

I thought the UBI was based on pot sales.

My grandma made booze in the 20's and 30's but sold it. Not for her own stash.

Anyway, if people don't have to spend money buying their habit, what good is that gonna do for anyone else?

I don’t think pot sales would cover the UBI the op discussed. I also feel a large percentage of lower income families spend money they don’t have on MJ from personal experience. That’s the reasoning for what I’ve posted. You’re being very vague on your posts, so I’ll just bow out of this discussion for now. I’ve said my peace, but obviously it’s all opinion based.

There are about 126 million households in the US. Your plan would cost $1.2 trillion dollars which is almost exactly the amount of the entire federal budget (just passed). There’s no way to tax anything that would generate that amount of money.

Legalize cannabis on a federal level, and on all state/local levels, and use that money to fix these #ing roads (particularly in Illinois).

Just lost yet another tire after hitting a pothole, and I'm pissed. The state is paying for it, the roads here are arguably the worst I've seen throughout many states I've been to.

Also, call it "Project Pothole," it's actually a pretty good idea.

But Derrr Leader and company want to execute potheads and throw billions at a wall... so, there's that.

Free money for everyone!
Puff and pass, Bogart.

Ubi will never work because of inflation and human behavior. Inflation will make the money worthless and human behavior will still result in some people not being able to take care of themselves. Progressives will still be calling for government to provide welfare to those who loss away their UNI out of compassion.

Let me get this straight. Legalizing and taxing pot is enough to give everyone $10K per year??? What are you smoking?

a reply to: RomeByFire

the roads here are arguably the worst I've seen throughout many states

You've probably never been to Rhode Island.

a reply to: TinySickTears

I think it could work and maybe you tell your bank to only allow you to take out a certain amount each week unless you phone in to tell them to release more to you that week for something. Lets say you make arrangement where you can only take out £100 per week and you're fine with that amount until one week you want to go on holiday or buy something extra, you can call your bank and ask for £500 for that week and then knock it back down to £100. Maybe you can put a limit on your withdrawals just like you can ask casinos to put a limit on your deposits.

That could work and of course it would be upto the individual.

Anyways I think Universalcredit would help out a lot of people. At the moment the amounts aren't enough. The people handing out the cheque have never had to live on the cheque so how do they come up with this 'basic amount you need to live on' rubbish In the first place. they don't know what each individual spends per week, each person spends differently to the next.

originally posted by: skunkape23
Free money for everyone!
Puff and pass, Bogart.

It should be free anyway. Don't forget where it comes from in the first place.

THIN AIR.

If the banksters can print it, why can't everyone else? that's my question to you.

Maybe they should just make everything free, then we would be much happier as a human being.

originally posted by: schuyler
Let me get this straight. Legalizing and taxing pot is enough to give everyone $10K per year??? What are you smoking?

im just spit balling and using random numbers. UBI is not my plan.
people have talked about it before.

where was the money to come from before?

and just in talking out loud i would think that legalization plus the cuts from welfare and food stamps would leave enough to give people a certain amount of money.

en.wikipedia.org...,_United_States

Food and nutrition assistance programs ($108 billion) and temporary assistance for needy families ($17 billion) is removed.
Likewise the following are also replaced with basic income: The earned income credit ($73 billion), the child tax credit ($56 billion), home ownership tax expenditures ($340 billion), married filing jointly preferential tax treatment ($70 billion), the tax break on pensions ($160 billion), fossil fuel subsidies ($33 billion), and treating capital gains differently than ordinary income ($160 billion).

so all that plus legalization...