this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
1168 points (97.3% liked)

World News

39113 readers
2428 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Wilzax 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How would this be corporate welfare? It's been shown that a UBI is less expensive than what is wasted on the overhead of need-based welfare systems, and eliminates the poverty trap where making more money (such as from overtime or a small raise) disqualifies your household from a higher value of welfare benefits that you would otherwise qualify for.

[–] Windex007 -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Because it allows companies extracting extreme profit from labour, paying their upper management exorbitantly and their labourers starvation wages to just keep doing that.

Edit:

There seems to be a significant misunderstanding of my post.

The question posed was "How could one understand this to be corporate welfare", in conjunction with the previous qualifier of "If the rich aren't subsidizing the program"

I'm not against UBI.

I AM against record profits. Profits are the extraction of surplus value from labour. Profits are unpaid wages.

The fact that we have an environment where a working person can not meet their basic needs while their employers take in record profits is a massive problem.

If the wealth transfer happens by way of increased wages, fine. If it happens by way of government transfers via UBI paid for by those same corporations, fine.

The premise to which I was responding was one where the wealthy were NOT the ones footing the bill.

[–] Wilzax 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not every step that makes it slightly easier to exist as a poor person that doesn't solve capitalism is corporate welfare. Celebrate the steps in the right direction or you'll make progress impossible.

Never say "It's not good enough" when you could say "that's good, what next?"

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Never say "It's not good enough" when you could say "that's good, what next?"

Man, what a beautifully positive outlook

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Employees who have UBI to fall back on aren't forced to accept that starvation wage. UBI gives everyone a small amount of fuck-you money. Employers paying starvation wages would find themselves with a lack of qualified employees because people can afford to quit and look for a better job.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you believe that you must believe all programs to help poor people are corporate welfare. And you're missing three essential other half of the equation that makes UBI possible: increasing taxes in the rich. If a direct transfer of wealth from the upper class to the lower class is corporate welfare, then what isn't corporate welfare?

[–] Windex007 1 points 1 year ago

[email protected] wrote:

Are we going to tax the wealthy to pay for it? Because otherwise [corporate welfare]

[email protected] asked:

How would that be corporate welfare...

The line of questioning was specifically about if the programisn't funded by the wealthy.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If UBI is done right, no one will need to work to survive, so they can just quit that exploitative job.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Correct. In fact, this applies wage pressure upward because employees no longer feel the necessity to stick with a shit-paying job.

[–] Chr0nos1 1 points 1 year ago

So I'm curious, and this is a legitimate concern of mine, but what happens when corporations (and the local mom and pop) raise prices, because you can now afford to pay them more? Should there be a limit enforced by the government to have a freeze on the price of goods? Wouldn't it be equally effective to skip the UBI and just do the freeze?

In line with the freeze on the price of goods, wouldn't it be beneficial for the government to demand lower medical costs as well, since the exact same medical and pharmacy companies are selling their stuff in other countries for cheaper than in the US?