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How I Became a Progressive (New Topic 6/15 - Environmentalism) (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter RCon
- Start date
BigSteelThrill
Footballguy
Because you do things in steps that are easy to handle. Then reassess.
*any idiot can tell you not to drink 3 gallons of vodka. or cook your steak at 1,000 degrees. ever overclock a computer? incremental steps. same thing.
That argument is horrible and sophomoric.
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Damn, knew I forgot one. Completely separate from climate change, I really want us to stop destroying nature, in the sense of cutting down the Amazon forest and overfishing particular areas.
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You'll notice I didn't specifically advocate for $15K/year (or $12K/year, or $20K/year, for that matter). I'm arguing in favor of the concept itself, as the most efficient and helpful form of social safety net. Regarding the $/hr minimum wage, you'll notice that most of us are specifically arguing that UBI/BIG would replace minimum wage, such that there would no longer be any minimum wage at all.
If you want to argue against the concept, how about quoting one of the arguments and showing what's wrong with it or how another approach would work better? If you simply don't believe in any social safety net, just say that instead.
Exactly where I was going in the first post on this topic re: government funding research competitions. The government can fund a $5B reward to the first company that figures out X, where X could be something like the method to remove N particles per million of CO2 from the air. John Doe doesn't have to think that X helps climate change to be incentivized to want $5B for inventing X.
To take one more short crack at my "I don't care" point... Instead of the process being 1. Convince everyone that climate change is real, 2. Convince everyone that man is causing climate change (or primarily causing, if you prefer), 3. Start to take action, let's just skip to step 3 using action that everyone will like (A new car! Cash prizes!). Might be quicker.
I think @Bottomfeeder Sports explained it better, though.
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IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Why can't we do both? It seems to me that a good policy on global warming would include carbon taxes along with research funding. Those aren't mutually exclusive.
Bottomfeeder Sports
Footballguy
Right you set specific goals and assign cash rewards to them which are rewarded only when they are achieved. In this case the challenge is agreeing on the goals.
For those not visualizing what we are talking about some real world examples of this think the recent space prizes such as the one the Google Lunar X Prize which the Israeli Beresheet moon landing was trying to win. Or earlier in aviation the Orteig Prize offered about a century ago. Of course this isn't aviation, but the goals are the same - hope the competitive juices get flowing and a bunch of people invest in various ways towards the goal and hopefully at least one achieves the goal. But there are also likely a lot of spin off societal positives from the near misses and outright failures.
dgreen
Footballguy
Keeping track of addresses and account and routing numbers could be quite costly. In general, I’m ok with eliminating the current system and replacing it with UBI. But, I think we are kidding ourselves if we underestimate our ability to stand up programs that are more complicated and inefficient than they need to be.
Government being government, it may well be more complex than needed. But... it has to be less complicated and more efficient than 51 separate unemployment programs run by each state, plus a SNAP program, plus a TANF program, plus who knows how many means-tested welfare programs, right?
We can. I'd be much happier with a straight up carbon tax than carbon credit trading. I'm not opposed to a straight up tax. To me, though, trading and credit solutions seem like a recipe for fraud and rich-get-richer schemes.
Bottomfeeder Sports
Footballguy
I doubt that there are very many Americans that aren't being tracked either by the IRS or SS or TANF or SNAP or whatever today. These are just computer entries. The biggest cost is going to be to keep them secure rather than to gather them. Sure there will be initial snafus like those still waiting for their stimulus checks because they don't file taxes, but once we get past the initial hurdle I doubt this is costly at all relative to having field offices all over the place with case workers deciding who is and who is not eligible for such and such program.
joffer
Footballguy
I’m a big fan of carbon fee & dividend (revenue neutral), but would be happy if we spent part of it in infrastructure. not a fan of cap and trade at all.
joffer
Footballguy
I guess I like it in theory, but that funding has to be voted on by electors who don’t believe in #1. I can’t see them being able to justify spending that money, or explaining it to constituents who don’t believe #1 and will undoubtedly primary them next cycle. Granted, my hope of “convincing” people doesn’t have a much better chance :(.
dgreen
Footballguy
@Rich Conway and @Bottomfeeder Sports
I'm all for UBI unless someone comes up with a better idea that has a chance of being implemented and working reasonably well. I agree it's likely better than our current programs. But, I've worked in government. I've worked in government dealing with data, technology, budgets, and cost estimates. And my experience tells me it wouldn't be nearly as easy as some might think. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, though.
I'm all for UBI unless someone comes up with a better idea that has a chance of being implemented and working reasonably well. I agree it's likely better than our current programs. But, I've worked in government. I've worked in government dealing with data, technology, budgets, and cost estimates. And my experience tells me it wouldn't be nearly as easy as some might think. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, though.
Bottomfeeder Sports
Footballguy
No money is actually spent until the goal is met other than the time and effort to advertise, create criteria for judging claims, and judging the actual claims.
I agree that the tricky part is going to define goals to mask the political implications which is why they would likely need to be very specific. So it is not completely the government getting out of the "picking winners and losers" game, but it is a step away from constantly hearing about government investments in bankrupt companies.
Bottomfeeder Sports
Footballguy
I concede that we will need to allow " treasury and its Bureau of the Fiscal Service" (or UBI equivalent) full access to Social Security death records. I'm old enough to remember when such government inefficiency of different departments not being able to communicate was a feature to limit the ability of government to create a one stop database on Americans. Something worth the cost. But I think this can be an exception. (As a tangent, I've always assumed that this was the real issue with the initial ACA signup web page roll out. Interfacing with a bunch of separate systems specifically designed not to work together 50 years earlier. Suspected, but don't really know this to be a fact.)
I'm guessing that will appear in a Trump thread soon, but for the reasons I gave and because this was a rush job I think we can cut the admin a bit of slack this time.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/25/us-trump-administration-stimulus-payments-dead-people
djmich
Footballguy
While your intent is good and I don’t think the OP framed the question constructively, you’re equally wrong (and I guess should say your argument is horrible and sophomoric as well but that would be horrible and sophomoric).
Any idiot can tell you that drinking vodka is bad, doesn’t matter if 1,2 or 3 gallons. The goal isn’t to start with one gallon because it’s easier to handle but you want to get to three. I have no idea how you see a parallel there.
Theres a balance that is optimal on minimum wage or UBI, smart people will be able to argue for extremes on both ends of the spectrum.
BigSteelThrill
Footballguy
Unless its lots of people who like to drink and have fun together. Like, in the real world. Then a simple drink with 2 or 3 fingers of Vodka is a appropriate and not over reach, like swigging down an entire fifth would be.
jamny
Footballguy
You've always been one of my favorite posters Rich, so I look forward to reading through this thread. While you have noticeably shifted you're leanings, it has always been in a well thought out manner. While I haven't moved as far, I have evolved in many areas and as you stated, this board has influenced many of those changes.
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