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Freakazoid_ posted:Remember those free checks we got from covid relief? Were you on unemployment at the time? But that brings up another issue, market manipulation by big corporations. I know at least one company suddenly experienced sudden, severe inflation of the prices of their products right around the time people started to have some spendable money that they had saved up thanks to those checks. For some, that money vanished far quicker than it might have otherwise as a result. There's even evidence that some companies used COVID 19 itself to jack prices up and make a quick buck off of people's suffering despite an actual real lack of issues with their own supply networks like they claimed. You can't really have an effective UBI without also having tight controls on capitalists and businesses in general that want to exploit the situation to maximize their own profit at the expense of everyone else. Otherwise you'll get situations where there is price gouging according to the standards of the UBI. This also would go along with the attendant bigotry that comes with a situation where people are effectively enslaved to a lovely life by debt and/or bound to their location due to their circumstances. As an example of this, just look at how some minority communities have to deal with large companies opening up restaurants and fast food locales in their area with prices jacked up to the nines compared to elsewhere due to the ease of exploiting the community, often with little recourse for the victims. From what I remember, in that situation the pricing is usually gauged to be around what would maximize exploiting/extracting the wealth of the people living in the area. Given that we won't even hold companies to a form of punishment that will actually hurt them when they pull poo poo like this (At best it's usually a fine that nowhere near takes away the funds they stole by careful manipulation of prices.) i'm not sure how we can have an effective UBI in America. Doubly so when you consider how infiltrated politics is by billionaires and other big money types that got where they were by exploiting the system. Any across the board jump in the amount of available money a person, family, or community has would inevitably be preyed upon (if not economically, then institutionally, but more on that in a few) by vulture capitalists that want to extract that wealth into their own pockets for their own gain. At worst, somehow not qualifying for UBI (Which contradictory as it sounds is exactly a thing that could end up happening. Just look at how many decent initiatives get means tested by centrists and right wing Democrats into oblivion. Then factor in racism, bigotry from non-religious types, "religious And then there's the issue of the Republicans as a political entity, along with the sort of people that actively push policies and back them. Factor in that the Republicans would absolutely be on board with this* form of profiteering/exploitive sabotage to gently caress over the Democrats or just to make a quick buck (similar to how Rick Scott basically laundered money into his family members pockets by mandating that people on various social service/welfare oriented programs had to take mandatory drug tests) even without the influence of big money donors and it seems like it could end up poisoning the well at best if done without some massive changes in how our country operates and tolerates the worst of us trying to gently caress with the rest of us.  At the very least there would need to be a lot of ground work done before a proper UBI wouldn't just get dragged down and slaughtered by bad (or in some of the above examples, straight up parasitic) actors to effectively make it impossible for anyone to pitch it or anything like it for the next decade or two. That ground work would have to come long before the issue of UBI was being pushed for by the public at large for it to have a chance at all in practice. *As they currently are literally trying to get votes by spite as policy, are increasingly listening to groups that pursue efforts for anti democracy/minority rule, and in some states like Texas have literally made laws that go after groups like LGBT minorities by stealing/abusing children in a way that has long since been known by the medical community at large to incentivize suicidal ideation either immediately or later on in life as an actual election strategy and matter of general policy itself. I'm not sure how you can work with people like that when it comes to any sort of humanistic endeavor like a UBI. To be frank, i'm not even certain people should. That sort of thinking is straight up beyond being cruel and (in the case of trying to get as many trans kids killed as possible either now or later) is literally going into the realm of attempted genocide by way of institutional proxy. Which is incidentally something the LGBT community familiar with the AIDS epidemic experienced back in the 80's from right wingers and right wing christianity too. So it's not like those views are new or a fad. How do you ensure everyone gets into this system of UBI when you've got an entire political party and attendant propaganda apparatus that actively works for monstrous poo poo like that? And don't get me started with the fear mongering about immigrants or foreigners whenever it's convenient,. Something that for all intents and purposes might as well translate to justifying persecution of people whose skin is a shade darker than milk for whatever excuse is politically convenient at the time. Just look at the way the law was often circumvented during the Trump admin to see how a UBI could get selectively sabotaged under a Republican administration. Really, a whole lot of stuff could be listed here to demonstrate the ways, angles, and methods the Republicans would try to or have the means to sabotage a UBI either before, during the policy making process, or after the fact. Pretty much all of which would need to be fought against to avoid a sort of New Deal situation where some get these benefits and others get nothing or burdens. Unfortunately, doing so would turn this into a dissertation so.
Archonex fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 18:28
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