Money for nothing and the chicks are free.

[Mr Mannn]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/111677566#post2

eridani (50,774 posts)

The Panama Papers Prove It: America Can Afford a Universal Basic Income
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/08/panama-papers-prove-it-america-can-afford-universal-basic-income

We should all be able to agree: no one should be poor in a nation as wealthy as the US. Yet nearly 15% of Americans live below the poverty line. Perhaps one of the best solutions is also one of the oldest and simplest ideas: everyone should be guaranteed a small income, free from conditions.

Called a universal basic income by supporters, the idea has has attracted support throughout American history, from Thomas Paine to Martin Luther King Jr. But it has also faced unending criticism for one particular reason: the advocates of “austerity” say we simply can’t afford it – or any other dramatic spending on social security.

That argument dissolved this week with the release of the Panama Papers, which reveal the elaborate methods used by the wealthy to avoid paying back the societies that helped them to gain their wealth in the first place.

Blah blah blah. more freebie talk, but you get the idea.

Sancho (5,057 posts)
2. What makes you think all that money should go to Americans?

Wouldn't the universal income go first to Africa, Central America, and China?

Your assumption of American privilege is the foundation of social injustice.

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”
― Benjamin Franklin

[Carl]

 

[landofconfusion80]

It's never explored how much of poverty is self inflicted, but by all means, let's give a drunk another drink

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[SVPete]

It's never explored how much of poverty is self inflicted, but by all means, let's give a drunk another drink

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Nor how a guaranteed income for doing nothing perpetuates that doing nothing. Nor how the inflationary effect of that guaranteed income would leave recipients of that guaranteed income as bad off as - or, more likely, worse than - before.

Re that latter point, the $15/hour minimum wage is proving to do just that - jobs are being lost like flies in a DDT cloud, and various businesses' price increase are making their goods and services as unaffordable to minimum wage earners as before.