this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
324 points (91.8% liked)
Showerthoughts
30892 readers
509 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- If you feel strongly that you want politics back, please volunteer as a mod.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I dislike UBI but not because I'm not for a basic income, I just think Means Testing would be better. I've said this before but now after being the runner-up in my state for debating on this topic I feel more confident talking about it. Ultimately there are many ways of implementing fiscal redistribution but means testing is substantially cheaper than a full UBI (especially in countries with higher populations, e.g. US), while also providing social utility and enabling recipients of the basic income to have more resources. Not only is MT better from this standpoint but a UBI can also worsen inflation by increasing the dollar's velocity (1 dollar changes hands more). I won't deny that most people could use money, especially right now, but a UBI is not the best approach in my mind because of these reasons. Of course I am still in highschool, am not an economics expert, and MT was the plan that we ran in tournament so I'm a bit biased.
ETA: This is all keeping in mind the current political and economic climate of the United States, where realistically neither of these plans will pass but I believe MT has more merit to being passed compared to UBI. If you'd like any sources on what I've said I'd be happy to share!
We already have means testing though and it barely helps anyone compared to how much help ubi would give to people.
The broader US doesn't have a means tested program though, sure you could argue that programs like SNAP etc are MT but they aren't BI programs. According to the LISC Institute for Community Power in 2022, a lot of guaranteed income pilots in the US are targeted to certain groups, or means tested, and show "extra funds are typically spent on food, health care, paying down debt and household needs. Full-time employment among recipients actually increased[...]" This is data from the Stockton pilot, but you can read more from the full source here
If it is means tested it is not basic income
See my other reply and if you want to argue please reply there, but TL;DR, means testing is basic income and arguing about the qualifications of a basic income doesn't help when it comes down to whether or not we should implement one.
Done and done.