<story><title>Want Your Country to Thrive? Give Geniuses a Universal Basic Income</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-12-06/your-country-s-geniuses-deserve-a-universal-basic-income</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>GuB-42</author><text>Is it just me or no one seems to get the point of a &lt;i&gt;Universal&lt;/i&gt; Basic Income.&lt;p&gt;Universal, everyone has it, same amount, no condition. Be a genius or an idiot, active or retired, poor or billionaire, hero or criminal, no exception, except maybe for minors.&lt;p&gt;Making it universal has the added bonus of simplifying welfare programs. Subsidized housing and transport, food stamps, unemployment benefits, etc... no need, it is all UBI now. No more fraud because there is no need to: you always qualify, and as a result, no need to fight it. No more rewarding optimization since there is nothing to optimize.&lt;p&gt;In my view, UBI is not generous, there will be losers, and a lot of jobs related to welfare will be made pointless. It may be a problem for those who have trouble managing a budget too: what if you overspend you UBI and have nothing left to eat? I think it won&amp;#x27;t work not because people will stop working, but because it is too big a change and some people will find themselves literally starving, at least during the transition. It is like many solutions to complex problems: clear, simple and wrong.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rbanffy</author><text>A lot of people to resist to the &lt;i&gt;Universal&lt;/i&gt; part is because of some moral judgement about a person &amp;quot;deserving&amp;quot; it or not.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; No more fraud&lt;p&gt;Some people will find a way to take it away from someone else, or to appear to the government as multiple people.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; what if you overspend you UBI and have nothing left to eat?&lt;p&gt;The same if you overspend your salary - you get another job. UBI does not prevent people from working or finding jobs - it just gives workers more flexibility and freedom to pursue better options. Let&amp;#x27;s say you want to move to the middle of the country. You need to consider a lot of things, including leaving your current job and how long it&amp;#x27;d take to find a new one at the destination.&lt;p&gt;With UBI the risk decreases and people will make such moves.&lt;p&gt;What UBI makes it harder is underemployment and labor exploitation - people won&amp;#x27;t work in terrible jobs unless they need to and UBI removes that need.</text></comment>
<story><title>Want Your Country to Thrive? Give Geniuses a Universal Basic Income</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-12-06/your-country-s-geniuses-deserve-a-universal-basic-income</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>GuB-42</author><text>Is it just me or no one seems to get the point of a &lt;i&gt;Universal&lt;/i&gt; Basic Income.&lt;p&gt;Universal, everyone has it, same amount, no condition. Be a genius or an idiot, active or retired, poor or billionaire, hero or criminal, no exception, except maybe for minors.&lt;p&gt;Making it universal has the added bonus of simplifying welfare programs. Subsidized housing and transport, food stamps, unemployment benefits, etc... no need, it is all UBI now. No more fraud because there is no need to: you always qualify, and as a result, no need to fight it. No more rewarding optimization since there is nothing to optimize.&lt;p&gt;In my view, UBI is not generous, there will be losers, and a lot of jobs related to welfare will be made pointless. It may be a problem for those who have trouble managing a budget too: what if you overspend you UBI and have nothing left to eat? I think it won&amp;#x27;t work not because people will stop working, but because it is too big a change and some people will find themselves literally starving, at least during the transition. It is like many solutions to complex problems: clear, simple and wrong.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BitwiseFool</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Making it universal has the added bonus of simplifying welfare programs. Subsidized housing and transport, food stamps, unemployment benefits, etc... no need, it is all UBI now. No more fraud because there is no need to: you always qualify, and as a result, no need to fight it. No more rewarding optimization since there is nothing to optimize.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;In theory, yes. But I do not believe specialized welfare will ever go away. There are people on Social Security &amp;#x2F; Disability that absolutely require more than the most basic amount of money a typical non-handicapped citizen needs. I do not believe UBI supporters, and even society at large, would be so heartless as to tell a paraplegic to make-do because the UBI is &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; they are going to get. So, accommodating them would require some additional administration on top of the UBI to make sure the people with special needs get enough additional money and access to medical care. At which point we would still need to evaluate eligibility, make adjustments, and have a bureaucracy to administer it.</text></comment>