Well let's walk that backwards. Computers resulted in people losing jobs. So, let's tax computers. Calculators and typewriters resulted in people losing jobs. So let's tax those as well. Wait Cellular phones meant people lost jobs building modular phones and cost telephone operators jobs. Better tax those as well.
This is ignorant and short sighted. Why not tax cars because horse drivers lost a job.
Many manufacturers which used to employ hundreds of thousands of people ate transitioning to fully automated factories ect, this will leave astronomical vacuums in employment that aren't going to be filled in any feasible way. How exactly do you suggest balancing that massive loss of income? This is the opposite of short sited, in fact your argument is far more shortsited. Because if people don't have jobs they don't have money to spend and economy will suffer in unprecedented ways. BTW, you seem to be confusing tools with automation. Calculators and typewriters didn't cause widespread unemployment. When cellphones came out there was a transition from building one to the other, and the internet and before that phonebooks, had already pretty much phased out live operators. This
The best aspect of basic income for me is, that all the unmotivated incompetent people who do not want to work anyways won't have to work for their living anymore. Their absence will make companies even more efficient. Hasn't it always been a dream of humankind to work as lttle as possible? Horses and wind for milling cereal was a first step in automation. In the future it will be possible not to work at all, and only take care of social and humanitarian issues :)
Exactly, Thats why we need basic income financed through an automation tax... that or another world war. Wars are great against unemployment: arms industry, Soldiers etc. The people who get killed leave jobs behind that need to be filled. And after, as well as during wars there is a great demand for buildings. Wars give the people a shitton of jobs. It may sound cynical, but that is basically how the US economy has been working for at least a 100 years. The USA without wars would look more like South Africa today...
Some people will. But it's not entirely in human nature for all of us to get fat and complacent in the abundance of resources. We have a drive to compete. Otherwise rich people's kids would never get anything done. And while some of them definitely do go that route, there are quite a few who make their own accomplishments on top of their parents'.
@famousone The reservations near here have basic income, from the Seneca casinos. The unemployment rates and poverty rates in the res are awful. Is this similar near you?
Basic income: One more way for the government to subsidize your "correct behavior" with money taken from,others, and punish "wrong behavior" by withholding your money. Sit around and never agitate the status quo? Here's your monthly check. Fail a drug test(including nicotene, can't have smokers driving up society's health care costs)? You get less.
If you think the government doesn't already encourage/discourage certain actions, you haven't ever filled out a 1040. There are tax breaks (deductions and credits) for some actions and extra taxes for others. But yeah, let's get more of that. Let's give more power to Trump or Obama or whichever next one is worse than both.
This is ignorant and short sighted. Why not tax cars because horse drivers lost a job.
If you think the government doesn't already encourage/discourage certain actions, you haven't ever filled out a 1040. There are tax breaks (deductions and credits) for some actions and extra taxes for others. But yeah, let's get more of that. Let's give more power to Trump or Obama or whichever next one is worse than both.