Universal Income.

Belz... said:
70K seems a bit high for an individual, but more power to him.
Click to expand...
I'm guessing most of his employees aren't janitors or what not. I'm reminded of Hewlett Packard and the HP way. That meant treating your employees well. Which they did, when I worked there, most of the people that worked for HP worked for subcontractor's who did not follow the HP way. Not that they treated workers badly but there definitely a difference between the very few folks that actually worked for HP and those that didn't.

Any rate, I digress. Its unclear to me how much of the changes at Gravity Payments are just correlation rather than causation and not sure how much it would apply to say, a grocery store and not a financial services firm.
 
ahhell said:
I'm guessing most of his employees aren't janitors or what not. I'm reminded of Hewlett Packard and the HP way. That meant treating your employees well. Which they did, when I worked there, most of the people that worked for HP worked for subcontractor's who did not follow the HP way. Not that they treated workers badly but there definitely a difference between the very few folks that actually worked for HP and those that didn't.

Any rate, I digress. Its unclear to me how much of the changes at Gravity Payments are just correlation rather than causation and not sure how much it would apply to say, a grocery store and not a financial services firm.
Click to expand...

Yeah, subcontracting likely undercuts a lot of the implied largess of a move like this. But, I have worked at places with "good culture" and I have worked at places with "bad culture" and for the most part I found a correlation based on how the lowest employees were treated.

And "bad culture" is an expensive way to run a business. Acquiring talent is not cheap.
 
lionking said:
Poverty in Australia is being able to afford only one widescreen TV.
Click to expand...

Is this meant to make it sound as if it is an extravagance? I doubt you can buy any new any non-widescreen TV in Australia so what you are saying is that the poor shouldn’t own a TV.

You’d have liked the old days! When the bloke came round and saw you had 4 chairs and there are only three in the family so told you that you can’t get any handouts as you can sell the fourth chair.
 
Darat said:
Is this meant to make it sound as if it is an extravagance? I doubt you can buy any new any non-widescreen TV in Australia so what you are saying is that the poor shouldn’t own a TV.

You’d have liked the old days! When the bloke came round and saw you had 4 chairs and there are only three in the family so told you that you can’t get any handouts as you can sell the fourth chair.
Click to expand...

Oh come off it. Most countries in the world would laugh at Australia’s “relative” poverty.

And where did I say that the poor should not have a TV?
 
lionking said:
Oh come off it. Most countries in the world would laugh at Australia’s “relative” poverty.
Click to expand...

Laughing and making light of poverty... your elitist privilege is showing

There is nothing funny about poverty.

lionking said:
And where did I say that the poor should not have a TV?
Click to expand...

You may not have said it, but you sure implied it here

lionking said:
Poverty in Australia is being able to afford only one widescreen TV.
Click to expand...

To reinforce Darat;s point: It is near impossible to buy any TV in this country that is not widescreen... I am sure that also applies to Australia. Even second hand, they are hard to come by. I have a little sideline repairing video cameras, VHS tape machine and DVD players - I have been looking for a small (about 15") 4:3 TV with composite video/audio inputs and have yet to find one. I have had to settle for an old 4:3 computer monitor and use a composite > VGA converter.
 
lionking said:
Why do we need a UBI in Australia?
Click to expand...
Because it makes good social, humanitarian, and economic sense. Because like everyone else, we have an increasing and aging population, and technology is changing the job market. And because it is good for children not to starve to death.
 
lionking said:
Poverty in Australia is being able to afford only one widescreen TV.
Click to expand...
I work in the middle of Civic. Every day I am passing people who have been sleeping rough. Their sleeping bags can be found in nooks and crannies across the city. I see them pushing everything they own in shopping carts. Sometimes a soup kitchen pops up right outside the front door of my office building. Members of Canberra's homeless community are regularly asking me if I have any spare change. With a UBI, all this will disappear. They will be housed, fed, and they will have access to physical and mental health care. If they choose, they can start contributing to the economy.

You'll see them in every reasonably-sized city in the world. UBI can help them. UBI can save them. Tell me that's not a good idea.
 
arthwollipot said:
I work in the middle of Civic. Every day I am passing people who have been sleeping rough. Their sleeping bags can be found in nooks and crannies across the city. I see them pushing everything they own in shopping carts. Sometimes a soup kitchen pops up right outside the front door of my office building. Members of Canberra's homeless community are regularly asking me if I have any spare change. With a UBI, all this will disappear. They will be housed, fed, and they will have access to physical and mental health care. If they choose, they can start contributing to the economy.

You'll see them in every reasonably-sized city in the world. UBI can help them. UBI can save them. Tell me that's not a good idea.
Click to expand...

Of course it not a good idea... If that happened, certain elitists wouldn't have anyone to look down on and laugh at!
 
arthwollipot said:
I work in the middle of Civic. Every day I am passing people who have been sleeping rough. Their sleeping bags can be found in nooks and crannies across the city. I see them pushing everything they own in shopping carts. Sometimes a soup kitchen pops up right outside the front door of my office building. Members of Canberra's homeless community are regularly asking me if I have any spare change. With a UBI, all this will disappear. They will be housed, fed, and they will have access to physical and mental health care. If they choose, they can start contributing to the economy.

You'll see them in every reasonably-sized city in the world. UBI can help them. UBI can save them. Tell me that's not a good idea.
Click to expand...

For the most part I agree with you. But there are reasons people are homeless other than not having a sufficient income to find housing. Mental health issues are common among the homeless. Sometimes they get evicted from rental housing for being unruly, or causing too many fights, or too many police visits from nuisance calls, sometimes placed by their neighbours and sometimes by themselves. UBI alone won't save these people; they need additional mental health support.

Another concern I have is what happens to the rental market when all the lower end rental units suddenly become occupied by people on UBI? My suspicion is not much: the number of people homeless due to lack of income is, overall, probably pretty low, and there is enough room in the market to house them if they could afford it.

Just this week I got a gift card from a friend of mine for a local book store. In no small part due to this thread, I used it to purchase Basic Income for Canadians: from the COVID-19 Emergency to Financial Security for All by Evelyn Forget. I'm hoping it will provide insights into various questions I and others have.
 
Blue Mountain said:
For the most part I agree with you. But there are reasons people are homeless other than not having a sufficient income to find housing. Mental health issues are common among the homeless. Sometimes they get evicted from rental housing for being unruly, or causing too many fights, or too many police visits from nuisance calls, sometimes placed by their neighbours and sometimes by themselves. UBI alone won't save these people; they need additional mental health support.
Click to expand...
Of course. We absolutely need to improve mental health services across the board, but that's a separate issue. A UBI will simply insure that they don't have to live rough or go hungry.

I don't have sufficient knowledge of the rental market to address the rest of your post.
 
smartcooky said:
Of course it not a good idea... If that happened, certain elitists wouldn't have anyone to look down on and laugh at!
Click to expand...

Elitist?

I have been poor, firstly as a child. We often didn’t have enough food. My parents and my brother died with nothing. There were years when, on one income, my family lived from payday to payday. Elitist? Crap.

I got where I am through education, available to everyone, and a work ethic. No inheritances, no patronage, no free rides.

I have said why I don’t think a UBI will be a reality in Australia. I have also said why it would not be a good idea, with links to massive skill shortages (which you have ignored) and jobs galore.

Are people sleeping rough? Of course. Many of these people actually refuse welfare shelter because of restrictions on behaviour, like alcohol and drug abuse. Much of the current disadvantage results from mental health issues and substance abuse. Should these things be addressed? Of course. Is a UBI the solution? Absolutely not.
 
Blue Mountain said:
For the most part I agree with you. But there are reasons people are homeless other than not having a sufficient income to find housing. Mental health issues are common among the homeless. Sometimes they get evicted from rental housing for being unruly, or causing too many fights, or too many police visits from nuisance calls, sometimes placed by their neighbours and sometimes by themselves. UBI alone won't save these people; they need additional mental health support.

Another concern I have is what happens to the rental market when all the lower end rental units suddenly become occupied by people on UBI? My suspicion is not much: the number of people homeless due to lack of income is, overall, probably pretty low, and there is enough room in the market to house them if they could afford it.

Just this week I got a gift card from a friend of mine for a local book store. In no small part due to this thread, I used it to purchase Basic Income for Canadians: from the COVID-19 Emergency to Financial Security for All by Evelyn Forget. I'm hoping it will provide insights into various questions I and others have.
Click to expand...

I 100% agree.
 
lionking said:
I have been poor, firstly as a child. We often didn’t have enough food. My parents and my brother died with nothing. There were years when, on one income, my family lived from payday to payday. Elitist? Crap.

I got where I am through education, available to everyone, and a work ethic. No inheritances, no patronage, no free rides.
Click to expand...

Now imagine that your family hadn't had to struggle, because there was an adequate safety net. Do you really think that would be worse because someone else has a "pulled myself up by my bootstraps" story?
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Now imagine that your family hadn't had to struggle, because there was an adequate safety net. Do you really think that would be worse because someone else has a "pulled myself up by my bootstraps" story?
Click to expand...

As I said earlier, utopian dreams are fun. Then reality hits.

If my family was in receipt of a UBI in the 1950s and 1960s (what a ridiculous idea) my father (and mother to a lesser extent) would have had more money to piss against the wall on alcohol and gambling.

How do you prevent this in your UBI utopia?
 
lionking said:
As I said earlier, utopian dreams are fun. Then reality hits.

If my family was in receipt of a UBI in the 1950s and 1960s (what a ridiculous idea) my father (and mother to a lesser extent) would have had more money to piss against the wall on alcohol and gambling.

How do you prevent this in your UBI utopia?
Click to expand...

Ah, argument by straw man. Carry on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom