Universal Basic Income

Update another interesting UBI post in favour here.
Preamble:
The 2 most convincing arguments around UBI I've seen so far
Dangers Of Universal Basic Income
Libertarian Case for Basic Income

I'm still opposed to it, essentially it comes down to these points.
People need encouragement to develop, it's often said that the greatest developments come from war, it's not necessarily war but the act of competition, some of the greatest innovations in road safety come from races, the space race was a dick measuring contest between the US and Russia, whilst part of the cold war it wasn't a conflict, so on that a competitive wage market or even a lack of money are major contributing factors to people to do something. Personally I would never have gotten interested in process development and analytics if I hadn't ended up in role that paid more. Some will end up working in science or medicine to make things better but most end up disillusioned through the college process and crippling debts.


Not pushing people into a state where they need to work could be unhealthy, leaving them complacent, watching drivel, reading some rambling ranty blog or playing video games. Taking away there routine and allowing people to slip into an unnatural sleep cycle and poor diet will cause depression.

Where does the money come from before you say "gummerment", back to my usual point, where do they get there money from? Taxes, what's the largest source tax? Income tax. As you reduce the number of people employed or having to be employed you reduce the number of people who can be taxed, so that leads to higher VAT (sales taxes) and/or higher income tax on the few left working. You might think it can come from corporate tax, some sort of automation tax but like how Ireland gets companies into the country, we risk losing them to countries with lower automation tax and looser environmental laws.

In favour there's a simple argument for UBI it should be a single payment unlike our multi-payment system we have now, a fairly simple payment to all citizens cutting back on the bureaucracy needed to issue social welfare.

Further to that it should leave people free to develop as they want, study what they want and work a lot less if not at all. As I said above I don't see it working like that for the vast majority.