~*Official Utterly Useless Old Woman, AOC, and UBI Thread*~

[Jason]

2 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

 

So basically your opinions are fake news.

[mclumber1]

Just now, Jason said:

 

So basically your opinions are fake news.

 

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The inherently significant power imbalance present in at-will employment makes an utter laughingstock of any "benefit" that accrues to the worker due to their ability to quit at anytime without penalty.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

The one thing that does put a bit of a check on at will employers is their HR department. While they could legally fire you for any reason, their goal is to protect the company from civil liability too. The result ends up being employers don’t fire employees without cause. 

[mclumber1]

1 minute ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

The one thing that does put a bit of a check on at will employers is their HR department. While they could legally fire you for any reason, their goal is to protect the company from civil liability too. The result ends up being employers don’t fire employees without cause. 

 

That's true, but usually only for larger white collar companies, no?  I doubt McDonalds HR employs the same sort of strategy as Microsoft when it comes to terminating employees. 

[Joe]

30 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

That's true, but usually only for larger white collar companies, no?  I doubt McDonalds HR employs the same sort of strategy as Microsoft when it comes to terminating employees. 

 

Don't know about fast food, but I know for a fact big-ish NYC restaurants are VERY careful when firing employees.

[legend]

2 hours ago, SFLUFAN said:

The problem with UBI is that it's being wielded as the libertarian's dream come true to utterly gut the social safety net.

 

That sounds like a problem of a specific policy that involves UBI rather than a problem with any policy involving UBI. I explicitly mentioned same thing with health care precisely because I'm not saying "UBI and no other safety nets."

 

2 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

"let's try something new and unproven at mass scale anywhere in the world because forcing employers to treat the most vulnerable employees with anything resembling dignity is just too much of a cross to bear"

 

If this was a reaction to my post, that's not at all the motivation I used.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

3 minutes ago, legend said:

If this was a reaction to my post, that's not at all the motivation I used

I was nipping the ubi bug in the bud. It's a favorite policy of the crypto-libertarians but isn't tested in any serious manner.

[legend]

3 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

I was nipping the ubi bug in the bud. It's a favorite policy of the crypto-libertarians but isn't tested in any serious manner.

 

So if crypto-libertarians have a shitty policy involving UBI, that means any policy involving UBI is bad?

 

That kind of reaction strikes me a lot like the right-wing clutching their pearls any time a social program is suggested because Venezuela socialism sucked.

[Jason]

17 minutes ago, Jose said:

 

Don't know about fast food, but I know for a fact big-ish NYC restaurants are VERY careful when firing employees.

 

I'm totally sure a McDonald's franchisee who owns a single location is as careful about how they fire people as McDonald's corporate or a high-end NYC restaurant. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

@legend - Finland's two-year long experiment with UBI is the only study of which I am aware and the results were largely inconclusive.

[legend]

6 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

@legend - Finland's two-year long experiment with UBI is the only study of which I am aware and the results were largely inconclusive.

 

I appreciate the link. Indeed, as my "speaking from ass" preface hoped to imply, I really don't know if UBI will work out (I'm not an economist). It seems we still have a lot to investigate about it.

 

But I don't think the indirect minimum wage approach is ideal and I'm also concerned that automation is going to make its limitations even worse. I would hope then that we don't discard exploring new ideas just because some jerkoffs online have a shit plan involving some form of it  

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

24 minutes ago, legend said:

 

So if crypto-libertarians have a shitty policy involving UBI, that means any policy involving UBI is bad?

 

That kind of reaction strikes me a lot like the right-wing clutching their pearls any time a social program is suggested because Venezuela socialism sucked.

It's almost exclusively those that want to gut social programs that advocate for UBI. And, unlike social programs generally, my disparagement of UBI has to do with it's lack of history and any proven benefit over traditional safety net programs. This is unlike the example of right wingers w.r.t. social programs, where context of history and what is actually being advocated for is routinely ignored and a straw man example (Venezuela) is put up to argue against.

 

 

All this especially since a simpler way to get something like UBI (traditional cash benefit welfare) already exists.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

1 hour ago, mclumber1 said:

 

That's true, but usually only for larger white collar companies, no?  I doubt McDonalds HR employs the same sort of strategy as Microsoft when it comes to terminating employees. 

I’ll be honest, I don’t know for sure with McDonalds. The individual stores could be more free to terminate without cause, due to many of them franchise vs corporate owned.  

 

I worked in retail ail when I was younger, Blockbuster to be precise, and I can tell you that they (and others) have rules out down from HR corporate on how and when an employee can be terminated. At one time at BB it took a verbal, a written, and a final write up before an employee could be terminated outside of something like theft. It then changed to 3 disciplinary actions for the same behavior before an employee could be terminated. 

 

A store ore manager could not just fire an employee without reason, because they didn’t like them. 

[Jason]

5 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

I worked in retail ail when I was younger, Blockbuster to be precise, and I can tell you that they (and others) have rules out down from HR corporate on how and when an employee can be terminated. At one time at BB it took a verbal, a written, and a final write up before an employee could be terminated outside of something like theft. It then changed to 3 disciplinary actions for the same behavior before an employee could be terminated. 

 

Except that's not really a protection because if the manager doesn't like you they'll just start writing you up for petty shit.

[Joe]

41 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

I'm totally sure a McDonald's franchisee who owns a single location is as careful about how they fire people as McDonald's corporate or a high-end NYC restaurant. 

 

I was responding to the white collar claim sparky.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The Best Welfare Reform: Give Cash to Poor People (The Atlantic, 2015)

Quote

The United States, for its part, tried an unconditional cash-transfer program 40 years ago and found it worked, too. The “negative income tax” provided cash to low-income recipients across five states in four different experiments between 1968 and 1980. As in the developing world, the payments were associated with reduced child malnutrition, improved school attendance, and growth in household assets. The transfers also had significant effects on children’s test scores. Unlike outcomes in Kenya and India, the results in the U.S. indicated a small decline in household working hours among beneficiaries. But this occurred primarily among second- and third-earners in a family rather than the primary (usually male) worker, and was concentrated among women who responded to the transfers by taking more time to return to the workforce after having a child.

 

[Jason]

2 minutes ago, Jose said:

I was responding to the white collar claim sparky.

 

I'm not your sparky, hermano.

[legend]

19 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

It's almost exclusively those that want to gut social programs that advocate for UBI.

How did you measure this? I know a lot of people who are interested in UBI and are not by any stretch people who want to gut social programs. The Finland experiment of it apparently had no intentions of that either.

 

But maybe you don't need to answer that because I'm not sure it's relevant, because I wasn't advocating to take libterarian policy and implement it and I explicitly wasn't advocating gutting other social programs--I highlighted the similarity to health care precisely because I think that should also have a real safety net.

 

To articulate my interest more: minimum wage is not actually a safety net. A guaranteed income is, and providing that with other explicit safety nets like health care (and maybe even shelter!) seems* like it might be better than trying to indirectly make things work out so that you don't need a safety need.

 

 

* Again, I'm not asserting this as truth because I realize I have very little expertise to make such a confident statement

 

Quote

And, unlike social programs generally, my disparagement of UBI has to do with it's lack of history and any proven benefit over traditional safety net programs. This is unlike the example of right wingers w.r.t. social programs, where context of history and what is actually being advocated for is routinely ignored and a straw man example (Venezuela) is put up to argue against.

 

All this especially since a simpler way to get something like UBI (traditional cash benefit welfare) already exists.

 

I won't fault for you saying we shouldn't just all of sudden implement any arbitrary UBI policy at a national level. That would be crazy. But are you opposed to exploring the idea and working out possible policies with it? Would you be opposed to any implementation of it being tried and evaluated at say the state level? If not, maybe we don't really disagree?

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Reasons to be Skeptical of UBI

Quote

 

According to 2017 federal guidelines, the poverty level for a single-person household is about $12,000 per year. Let’s assume we’re intent on paying each American $1,000 per month in order to bring them to that level of income.

 

Distributing that much money to all 320 million Americans would cost $3.84 trillion, approximately the entire 2015 federal budget and far greater than the $3.18 trillion of tax revenue the federal government collected in the same year. Even if we immediately eliminated all other entitlement payments, as libertarians tend to imagine, such a program would still require the federal government to increase its income by $1.3 trillion to resist increasing the debt any further.

 

Speaking of eliminating those entitlement programs, hopes of doing so are probably far-fetched without a massive increase in taxation. A $1,000 monthly payment to every American — which again, would consume the entire federal budget — would require a lot of people currently benefiting from government transfers to take a painful cut. For example, the average monthly social security check is a little over $1,300. Are we really going to create a program that cuts benefits for the poor and spends a lot of money giving them to the middle class and affluent?

 

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

I oppose it because most people, and this is anecdotal and not at all calling you out, I've found who are proponents of it are the types that have no problem cutting off money for the poor. We see it right now with food stamps and wic and every other program that primarily benefits the poor. 

 

And here's how it happens if UBI goes through, regardless of the situation of other social programs if UBI goes to pass. They will be cut. Food stamps gone, and only some portion of that money is moved from food stamps to the UBI column. It's an overall cut, but the UBI is increased. Then Medicaid, same thing. Then housing assistance, and minimum wage, and cold weather heating assistance, then social security, etc. The order and specific programs is really irrelevant. Just look at the past decade in Republican states, and with what Republicans advocate for. And if you don't think this won't happen you're out of your goddamn mind. They'd be lauded by their supporters for getting rid of food stamps once and for all, while still giving the poor the "help they need". 

 

Again, I'm not trying to single you out here. But introducing UBI in any form is a Trojan horse to gut all social programs, because it gives a generic bucket to give overall cuts to programs while looking like a benefit is being increased, "making government more streamlined/efficient/etc". Add in not indexing to inflation, or using metrics which cause it to lose purchasing power with time, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

 

Republicans already advocate this stuff for social security. This is being realistic.

[Guest]

UBI or other guaranteed income policy is about a world where traditional social safety nets can’t work because joblessness is perpetual for a large percentage of the population. Maybe we haven’t figured out how to do it, but it will be necessary by the end of our lifetimes.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

9 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

UBI or other guaranteed income policy is about a world where traditional social safety nets can’t work because joblessness is perpetual for a large percentage of the population. Maybe we haven’t figured out how to do it, but it will be necessary by the end of our lifetimes.

That could probably be addressed by taxing "automated workers" at higher social tax rates than human ones.  This can probably be accomplished by the development of strong efficiency metrics which would translate automated efficiencies into "lost human output" equivalents based on the assumption that the revenue increase and/or cost reduction per automated worker is higher than that of a human worker.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

An OECD study found that UBI implementation as a substitute for means-tested targeted transfers would increase inequality/poverty.

[Chris-]

4 hours ago, mclumber1 said:

Flipping burgers is not worth $20 an hour.  

 

What the hell does this even mean? Fast food restaurants make, on average, over $50,000 per employee. It is more physically demanding than a white collar desk job. The utility it serves society is arguably just as great as any other company (who has more customers worldwide, McDonald's or Oracle?) And what if some enterprising restaurateur out there thinks it *is* worth paying his burger flippers $20/hour? Ascribing 'worth' is largely arbitrary and capricious, and basing it solely on requisite talent and/or education is bad both economically and morally. The world needs burger flippers and grave diggers.

[Jason]

3 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

An OECD study found that UBI implementation as a substitute for means-tested targeted transfers would increase inequality/poverty.

 

Quote

UBI proponents might argue that the OECD’s hypothetical is an unfair test. Most supporters believe a reasonable UBI would almost certainly have to be funded by increased taxes or cuts to other government programs, like the military or old age pensions, and that analyzing the impacts of a paltry UBI only funded by cash and tax benefits fundamentally misses the point.

Duke University economist Mike Munger told Quartz that the OECD report also doesn’t take into account one of the major possible benefits of a UBI: improving incentives for the poor who want to work. Currently, the design of social programs in some countries provides a disincentive to work (pdf) by taking away benefits once an individual or household reaches a certain income threshold—economists refer to this as the “cliff effect.” There is no cliff under a UBI because both employed and unemployed receive the cash.

Still, Munger believes the OECD’s report is useful for showing that funding a large UBI will be politically challenging because someone is going to have to pay for it. In other words, as economists are fond of saying, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

 

I'm also not seeing any consideration of all the administrative costs you get rid of by just giving a flat amount of money to everyone.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

1 hour ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

I’ll be honest, I don’t know for sure with McDonalds. The individual stores could be more free to terminate without cause, due to many of them franchise vs corporate owned.  

 

I worked in retail ail when I was younger, Blockbuster to be precise, and I can tell you that they (and others) have rules out down from HR corporate on how and when an employee can be terminated. At one time at BB it took a verbal, a written, and a final write up before an employee could be terminated outside of something like theft. It then changed to 3 disciplinary actions for the same behavior before an employee could be terminated. 

 

A store ore manager could not just fire an employee without reason, because they didn’t like them. 

I worked at Subway for about six months right out of high school and going into college. They fired me on the spot because I was horribly sick with a stomach virus and had to call in one day out of my six months there. Just like that. I walked in for my next shift and they told me I was out. 

 

Pretty sure they actually fired me because I complained to corporate about their son(who managed the store with them) being a serial sexual harasser, but yeah. Obviously no standards. We called some labor organization in the state at the time and I was basically told this was an at will employment state and they could fire me for whatever reason they wanted to, so t hat was a dead end. Plus, I was only 18 and it was Subway, so I didn't feel like fighting it too hard.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

4 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I worked at Subway for about six months right out of high school and going into college. They fired me on the spot because I was horribly sick with a stomach virus and had to call in one day out of my six months there. Just like that. I walked in for my next shift and they told me I was out. 

 

Pretty sure they actually fired me because I complained to corporate about their son(who managed the store with them) being a serial sexual harasser, but yeah. Obviously no standards. We called some labor organization in the state at the time and I was basically told this was an at will employment state and they could fire me for whatever reason they wanted to, so t hat was a dead end. Plus, I was only 18 and it was Subway, so I didn't feel like fighting it too hard.

Honestly I’m not that surprised when it comes to franchise locations in at Will states. I also would not be surprised if not all locations were as draconian. I’d bet a company like GameStop and Best Buy, as horrible as they are, are less likely to fire somebody seemingly in a whim like that and having more of an HR mandated disciplinary process to follow. 

 

Subway can can always pass the buck to the franchise, leaving all liability with them as the employer. This also makes a civil suit less likely to get a large payout settlement. Best Buy on the other hand is more vulnerable to a civil suit over the termination, costing them 6 figures worth of a settlement. 

 

Managers are are just as at risk in an at Will state. If they are firing people without cause and opening the company to possible liability, they can, and I’ve even witnessed, be fired for putting the company at risk. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

1 minute ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

Honestly I’m not that surprised when it comes to franchise locations in at Will states. I also would not be surprised if not all locations were as draconian. I’d bet a company like GameStop and Best Buy, as horrible as they are, are less likely to fire somebody seemingly in a whim like that and having more of an HR mandated disciplinary process to follow. 

 

Subway can can always pass the buck to the franchise, leaving all liability with them as the employer. This also makes a civil suit less likely to get a large payout settlement. Best Buy on the other hand is more vulnerable to a civil suit over the termination, costing them 6 figures worth of a settlement. 

 

Managers are are just as at risk in an at Will state. If they are firing people without cause and opening the company to possible liability, they can, and I’ve even witnessed, be fired for putting the company at risk. 

I later went to Walmart and stayed there for 3 years, until shortly before graduating college and I felt far more secure there because they actually had clear rules and there was HR and a process to go through before you were fired. So I didn't feel like I'd be fired if I had to miss a day and if someone were breaking code of conduct(like being a fucking pervert) you had an avenue to address it.

 

Walmart is far from perfect, but you had that much at least.

[CitizenVectron]

2 hours ago, SFLUFAN said:

@legend - Finland's two-year long experiment with UBI is the only study of which I am aware and the results were largely inconclusive.

 

2 hours ago, legend said:

 

I appreciate the link. Indeed, as my "speaking from ass" preface hoped to imply, I really don't know if UBI will work out (I'm not an economist). It seems we still have a lot to investigate about it.

 

But I don't think the indirect minimum wage approach is ideal and I'm also concerned that automation is going to make its limitations even worse. I would hope then that we don't discard exploring new ideas just because some jerkoffs online have a shit plan involving some form of it  

 

A UBI pilot was done in Canada for 5 years in the 70s, called Mincome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome. Another similar experiment was started in Ontario in the 2010s. Both programs were cancelled by successive (conservative) governments and no reports were ever issued.

[legend]

2 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

I oppose it because most people, and this is anecdotal and not at all calling you out, I've found who are proponents of it are the types that have no problem cutting off money for the poor. We see it right now with food stamps and wic and every other program that primarily benefits the poor. 

 

And here's how it happens if UBI goes through, regardless of the situation of other social programs if UBI goes to pass. They will be cut. Food stamps gone, and only some portion of that money is moved from food stamps to the UBI column. It's an overall cut, but the UBI is increased. Then Medicaid, same thing. Then housing assistance, and minimum wage, and cold weather heating assistance, then social security, etc. The order and specific programs is really irrelevant. Just look at the past decade in Republican states, and with what Republicans advocate for. And if you don't think this won't happen you're out of your goddamn mind. They'd be lauded by their supporters for getting rid of food stamps once and for all, while still giving the poor the "help they need". 

 

Again, I'm not trying to single you out here. But introducing UBI in any form is a Trojan horse to gut all social programs, because it gives a generic bucket to give overall cuts to programs while looking like a benefit is being increased, "making government more streamlined/efficient/etc". Add in not indexing to inflation, or using metrics which cause it to lose purchasing power with time, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

 

Republicans already advocate this stuff for social security. This is being realistic.

 

If we don't try to do anything because the opposition might try to make a shitty outcome of it, we're kind of fucked no matter what we do. Personally, I'd rather we try and sort things out than just give up immediately.

[legend]

1 hour ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

 

A UBI pilot was done in Canada for 5 years in the 70s, called Mincome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome. Another similar experiment was started in Ontario in the 2010s. Both programs were cancelled by successive (conservative) governments and no reports were ever issued.

 

Unfortunate!

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

14 minutes ago, legend said:

 

If we don't try to do anything because the opposition might try to make a shitty outcome of it, we're kind of fucked no matter what we do. Personally, I'd rather we try and sort things out than just give up immediately.

I'm not advocating nothing--I'm advocating reinforcing what we know already works, a hard enough job as it is, rather than reinvent the wheel for a future that is by no means likely in our, or our children's, lifetimes. 

 

And not taking into account how the system would be dismantled leaving us in a worse off position than before is a fools errand. The hand waving that futurists do at this point of the discussion is irresponsible.

 

How is UBI different, or better, than a robust safety net, especially if you don't eliminate existing safety net protections?

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Anyway, let's talk about issues that are actually popular and have a chance of passing sometime before we die

 

 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

2 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I later went to Walmart and stayed there for 3 years, until shortly before graduating college and I felt far more secure there because they actually had clear rules and there was HR and a process to go through before you were fired. So I didn't feel like I'd be fired if I had to miss a day and if someone were breaking code of conduct(like being a fucking pervert) you had an avenue to address it.

 

Walmart is far from perfect, but you had that much at least.

Yeah, I think this is actually the norm in at Will states. Food/beverage industry maybe more like your subway experience, and even some other small business. But last couple of places I’ve worked had around 1k total employees across the entire company. So technically small businesses. They have pretty significant HR procedures when it comes to firing. My place before my current job, a supervisor needed to get HR to sign off on a termination, and the manager wanted at least a heads up. Managers I don’t think needed to get HR approval, but often did, and they needed to give their director a heads up. 

 

HR was not likely to sign off if there was not a significant paper trail showing many attempts to allow the employee to correct their behavior. At this was a place that started and had its headquarters in Texas. So it’s not like they needed to meet some other state’s employment standards.