Democratic candidate Andrew Yang just promised... to give... $12,000 over a year of UBI

[littlemissmartypants]

Democratic candidate Andrew Yang just promised to give 10 American families $12,000 over a year of 'universal basic income.'

Here's how the radical policy plan would actually work.

Drake Baer and Chris Weller Sep. 13, 2019, 10:28 AM

On Thursday's democratic debate stage, entrepreneur-turned-candidate Andrew Yang announced that his campaign would hold a raffle for ten American families to receive $12,000 over the course of a year.

It's something of a demo for the "Freedom Dividend" that's at the center of his campaign, which essentially is his branded version of universal basic income, or UBI.

"This is how we will get our country working for us again, the American people," Yang said.

Yang, perhaps the most nontraditional candidate still in the mix, has made UBI the key proposal within his campaign. As he told the New York Times, UBI — among other things — is meant as a corrective to the job eliminated that comes with an increase of automation, starting with manufacturing and radiating out through the rest of the economy.

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Yang's idea has a long history — and promising recent results.

An old idea gets newfound interest

UBI is gaining newfound interest, but the system itself stretches back to the 16th century, when Spanish-born humanist Juan Luis Vives praised a system of unconditional welfare. "Even those who have dissipated their fortunes in dissolute living — through gaming, harlots, excessive luxury, gluttony and gambling — should be given food, for no one should die of hunger," Vives wrote in 1526.

Over the next few centuries, political scientists and sociologists honed the idea of a minimum income even further. In 1797, the American revolutionary Thomas Paine advocated for a "national fund" in the pamphlet "Agrarian Justice," for which every American would be awarded fifteen pounds sterling when they turned 21, with another ten pounds per year after age 50.

Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared his support for basic income at a Stanford lecture in 1967.
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Much more at the link: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-basic-income-2016-8

[Newest Reality]

1. I am all for it.

I am all for a UBI and have read up on it a little.

The studies look promising and the dying towns and rural areas desperately need an infusion. Not only that, but we have the specter of increasing automation, (which is not going away) continued outsourcing of jobs to the lowest wage in other countries, and a rapidly aging population.

Things have changed so much that UBI is becoming an essential idea, even a necessity. Relatively flat wages for more than a few decades combined with increased productivity means that, in general, the people are not getting any real dividend for their amassed labor in the system, but rather, a meager means to survive. The investor class has gamed the system for maximum return and it is about profit over people, environment, future generations, etc.

When people argue against it do to cost, they also tend to overlook the fact that there is a circle of consumption. There is the producer, the seller and the buyer. Since we are referred to as consumers now, (rather than citizens) that aspect of the cycle should be considered important.

The people that need it most will be putting it right back into the economy in most cases and that is what I would call a, (non-bank) stimulus. In the process, it could rejuvenate families and communities.

Studies show that a key aspect of many of our current social ills, (mental illness, crime, drugs, abuse, etc.) is poverty, plain and simple. The stress, struggle, desperation and a list of other factors contribute to a cascade of detriments.

The Republican view is, to me, contributes to those ills by foisting various myths that seem to be based on incentives to keep more people destitute and therefore powerless while further enriching those who have power and acquisitions.