There is no way to implement a UBI policy that is not inflationary.
Our current inflation cycle was catalyzed by all the various COVID stimulus checks and other transfer payments. UBI payments would be an amplification of that.
There is no way to implement a UBI policy that is not inflationary.
Our current inflation cycle was catalyzed by all the various COVID stimulus checks and other transfer payments. UBI payments would be an amplification of that.
I’ve been trying to find a scenario where mass numbers of workers do not fall into homelessness or be forced into slums in the coming technocracy . By technocracy I mean a society where many jobs are lost due to automation and AI, inflation stays too high to afford housing and EVs, and millions of laid off unskilled and middle class workers compete for fewer jobs. It seems obvious that unemployment will rise as the energy transition and technological changes continue. Not everyone can “learn to code” and if they did it wouldn’t help because AI can write code. Everyone knows the jobs are disappearing. Free market people seem to have hopes for not-yet-figured-out market solutions and optimistic young entrepreneurs living off startup capital seem to be unaware that half the population lives paycheck to paycheck already . I was starting to think UBI might be the only solution but then I remembered inflation. In time these things might settle out due to decreasing population, but the interim period looks bleak.
Unfortunately, there is such a scenario but it's not a pretty one.
Anyone foolish enough to work towards implementing technocracy and the economic disenfranchisement of millions if not tens of millions of working folk will have failed to understand an essential element in the downfall of established aristocratic societies: the unrest of the masses.
The sans-culottes in revolutionary France were the impetus for the overthrow of the monarchy and the rise of the Jacobins.
The dispossessed plebeians in the ancient Roman Republic were the foundation of Julius Caesar's political support and what allowed him to successfully march on Rome with a single legion.
The peasants in Tsarist Russia empowered the Bolsheviks to take over that country in the October Revolution.
Once a critical mass of people are effectively thrust out productive society by the technological innovations you cite, that is a critical mass of people who will have nothing to lose, and considerable reason to be angry towards the elites who dispossessed them.
Revolutions and reigns of terror are the inevitable result.
What the elitists who promote technocratic ideals forget is the basic math of the situation: the poor will always outnumber the rich. The poor are also who will make up the bulk of any country's military. Technology is never that overwhelming an advantage against sheer numbers.
Anyone not scared at what a legion of dispossessed, disenfranchised, and discarded modern-day sans-culottes might do has not been reading their history.
These foolish and arrogant people always think they have a way to keep history from repeating itself. They have a plan. You’ll own nothing and be happy! But the strikes, protests , and riots are already happening around the world and we are barely getting started. I think this is why the Fed is trying so hard to lower inflation, but as long as they keep closing down power plants and making new laws for “net zero” that cost people jobs and raise the cost of farming and other businesses, they (global elites) are not going to be able to keep up with the unrest . I think mass protests will actually enable them to enact martial law and arrest and kill people. Another “ pandemic” would also help cull the angry masses . But there’s no scenario where everyone wins.
There is no way to implement a UBI policy that is not inflationary.
Our current inflation cycle was catalyzed by all the various COVID stimulus checks and other transfer payments. UBI payments would be an amplification of that.
I’ve been trying to find a scenario where mass numbers of workers do not fall into homelessness or be forced into slums in the coming technocracy . By technocracy I mean a society where many jobs are lost due to automation and AI, inflation stays too high to afford housing and EVs, and millions of laid off unskilled and middle class workers compete for fewer jobs. It seems obvious that unemployment will rise as the energy transition and technological changes continue. Not everyone can “learn to code” and if they did it wouldn’t help because AI can write code. Everyone knows the jobs are disappearing. Free market people seem to have hopes for not-yet-figured-out market solutions and optimistic young entrepreneurs living off startup capital seem to be unaware that half the population lives paycheck to paycheck already . I was starting to think UBI might be the only solution but then I remembered inflation. In time these things might settle out due to decreasing population, but the interim period looks bleak.
Unfortunately, there is such a scenario but it's not a pretty one.
Anyone foolish enough to work towards implementing technocracy and the economic disenfranchisement of millions if not tens of millions of working folk will have failed to understand an essential element in the downfall of established aristocratic societies: the unrest of the masses.
The sans-culottes in revolutionary France were the impetus for the overthrow of the monarchy and the rise of the Jacobins.
The dispossessed plebeians in the ancient Roman Republic were the foundation of Julius Caesar's political support and what allowed him to successfully march on Rome with a single legion.
The peasants in Tsarist Russia empowered the Bolsheviks to take over that country in the October Revolution.
Once a critical mass of people are effectively thrust out productive society by the technological innovations you cite, that is a critical mass of people who will have nothing to lose, and considerable reason to be angry towards the elites who dispossessed them.
Revolutions and reigns of terror are the inevitable result.
What the elitists who promote technocratic ideals forget is the basic math of the situation: the poor will always outnumber the rich. The poor are also who will make up the bulk of any country's military. Technology is never that overwhelming an advantage against sheer numbers.
Anyone not scared at what a legion of dispossessed, disenfranchised, and discarded modern-day sans-culottes might do has not been reading their history.
These foolish and arrogant people always think they have a way to keep history from repeating itself. They have a plan. You’ll own nothing and be happy! But the strikes, protests , and riots are already happening around the world and we are barely getting started. I think this is why the Fed is trying so hard to lower inflation, but as long as they keep closing down power plants and making new laws for “net zero” that cost people jobs and raise the cost of farming and other businesses, they (global elites) are not going to be able to keep up with the unrest . I think mass protests will actually enable them to enact martial law and arrest and kill people. Another “ pandemic” would also help cull the angry masses . But there’s no scenario where everyone wins.