California Experiments
with Universal Basic Income, by Martin Armstrong, 7/11/18.
Stockton California,
which was previously one of the bankrupt cities, will now become the first in
the country to participate in a test of Universal Basic Income. Stockton will
give 100 residents $500 a month for 18 months, with no strings attached. This
idea is really braindead. You cannot pay people not to work which is really
what they are doing. The whole idea has been pushed by the likes of Silicon Valley
leaders, including Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Mark Zuckerberg. They
clearly lack any historical understanding of welfare and how it has destroyed
families and actually lowered the standard of living. They think it will
possibly reduce poverty and provide a safeguard against the job disruption as
the economy moves to replace workers with robots and automation.
This is by no means
the first time innovation in technology has displaced workers. You do not pay
people to simply do nothing. You encourage them to be retrained into fields
that will provide employment. The Great Depression was all about the
destruction of agricultural jobs as tractors replaced farm workers and
electricity replace many manual jobs in manufacture. That is why unemployment
rose to 25%. It was not the decline in business activity, it was the shift in
the economic makeup of the economy thanks to innovation. Jobs in technology, as
well as manual labor, are two areas still valid as is soldiering for now.
Instead of increasing
taxes to try this redistribution of income, EXEMPT people from even local
property taxes if their income is below a certain level. If you want to
encourage retaining, then that would be productive. But to just pay people to
not improve themselves is a very destructive process. Already, more than 25% of
children are being raised by a single parent. Post-Depression, the rise of
socialism has resulted in a rise in divorce and single parenting.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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