Why some Oakland residents won't have to worry about rent

You'll get a bell curve of people.....on one end, some will use it to better themselves....on the other end you will have the extreme lazy....in the middle will be those that just use it for it's intended purpose and they will live a normal life. There is always something to spend your money on.

The rich NEED you to spend money.
so they can get more rich?
so they Need you to have money and spend it on stupid things.

a reply to: onequestion

If I did not have to work for my money, I would spend more time writing poetry, spending time outdoors, spend more time with my kid, especially since summer holidays are coming up. I would get some things about my current health and wellness situation sorted out, spend more time with friends, family...

I would spend some time fixing things around the house, and of course get my bass guitar repaired/hotrodded, write some bass lines, form a band for craps and giggles. I would go camping a lot, and most of all, I would sleep. I would sleep far more, right slap bang in the middle of the humid days we have been having lately.

As to what would happen en masse....birthrate increase would be outrageous I think. I know a fair few people out in the states, and many of them barely get to spend time with their wives and husbands, or other significant others, purely because of time pressures relating to working life. The loving would be enormous, I am guessing. Seismograph botheringly so.

I'm wondering what criteria they followed that led them to choose Oakland, CA as a test ground. Plenty of impoverished cities all over the bay and the country, for that matter.
It's really a test of character. I can guarantee, from what I know of Oakland having been born there, that these three things WILL happen, mark my words:

1) As soon as the news of this program gets out, there will be a spontaneous consensus amongst the population on how to get over on this program.
2) Auto sales will spike as much as the drug sales. Many people will come together to consolidate their new liquidity into purchasing a considerable amount of drugs to sell instead of forming legitimate businesses.
3) When the "faucet" finally shuts off, all hell is going break lose for a short period of time.

It would be so nice to believe that something truly positive would come of this, but I predict very few favorable outcomes. Granted, some WILL use the breathing room to catch up on expenses, however most will treat it as a "bonus check" even though no funds will actually be received by anyone directly. THANK GOD.

We might even see people complaining about that even though the basics are covered.

All I can say is good luck.

"Poor people suck with money."
-Ben Shapiro

Amen.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: Edumakated

A basic income would not get rid of any of our current welfare state problems. It would just exacerbate them over the long run.

If you haven't noticed we don't need anymore people in the workforce.

What do you suggest we do with the people that aren't needed?

Making some people lazy might be exactly what we need.

There are certainly some structural issues with the economy, but I think it is a bit of a leap to say we don't need people in the workforce.

A basic income simply will not work. It will be inflationary and do nothing to get people out of poverty. People claiming they will pursue other interests are full of it. After inflation kicks in they still won't have enough money to do anything and will be right back where they were before the basic income was even around. The price of everything would sky rocket.

Where is the money going to come from for a basic income? If you gave every man and woman in America 30,000 that would be $9 trillion per year. We only take in like $3 trillion in taxes. We can argue that we could get rid of social programs but that is simply not going to happen. Liberals are not going to suddenly accept personal responsibility in trade for a basic income. Some dumbass is going to blow his basic income on rims, hookers, and booze and then will be on TV crying about he can't feed his kids. All the bedwetters will come out the wood work demanding welfare on top of the basic income.

The issue our work force has right now is complex but it really boils down to the fact that globalism is destroying the standard of living for many Americans because we cannot compete against cheap third world labor. In addition, our school system is not preparing people for todays job market. We are pushing too many people towards college who simply do not have the intellect for that level of schooling and to compound matters, they are taking on tons of debt to study topics that are pratically worthless in the job market. Many of these people would have been better off learning hard vocational skills like mechanics, plumbing, electricians, etc.

I do agree that the productivity gains from technology may actually wind up being detrimental to society as a whole. Generally, technology advancements create jobs in other places, but I do fear we are about to cross a point where we are eliminating tons of jobs and not really replacing them with anything else. There are entire swaths of the populace that are essentially worthless. They have no skills, no education, and no prospects whatsoever for any kind of productive existence in society.

a reply to: onequestion

I predict a lot of lazy people, with too much time on their hands, causing problems wherever they go.

a reply to: EternalShadow

and then they should issue guns to the same area.

a reply to: onequestion

Funny how easy is it to identify those people whose views have been determined for them by the powers that be. The OP is very symptomatic of this in its anti welfare for individuals theme.

America, like Australia, has a very basic decision to make. Do they want to be a high skilled high paid economy or do they want to be low skilled low paid economy? Unfortunately in the case of the US, this decision was made during the 80' and 90' when American industry was shut down and transported to China.

Of much greater importance is a discussion about incomes for those displaced from the workforce by robots as is beginning to happen now with more automation. Consider the issue of automation within the context of the depopulation agenda.

a reply to: wdkirk

There are no shortage of guns in Oakland... Believe me.