lastyearman

Given that life quality is quite high in the Nordics and they are happiest countries on earth I'm not so sure it's a bad system.

Why not take money from payroll and give directly to retirees like they do in the Nordics.

Here's real world ranges of various EV's in just about any weather: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzv...

He is a far-right, pro-russia, anti-vax troll. We shouldn't.

I have the same theory. Only competive advantage Toyota has right now is thin margins through massive scale (and thus relatively cheap prices) and reliability. First point is not yet possible with EVs and reliability may not be as big of an issue anymore with EVs.

More complicated the drivetrain the better for Toyota since not many can make it reliably at scale. EVs seem to be fairly easy to make given how many startups are popping up.

But would you ever invest in an idea that could be easily copied?

Just cache all images in apple's servers (even if the user doesn't open the mail) by default and tracking is useless.

If productivity stays the same, then all we can ever do is to shift wealth around. That is all there is to it.

So the important questions are: does UBI increase or decrease productivity and how is wealth divided after UBI.

What happens when consumers learn that they might have ended in a high price segment? Can they trust any seller to give them a good price anymore? You have to start comparing every item with a dozen web sites to make sure you're not being gamed. Seems like a huge waste of time and trust for everyone involved.

Whatever his motivations may be, we couldn't possibly allow any one person to decide over our finite resources. So, how to stop that from happening? Should there be a some kind of cap? Or maybe take some progressive amount from everyone based on some rules? And so forth.

How could that be? Suppose Musk controlled all the resources in the world. What motivation would he have to allocate them fairly?

Every time I have to glue together pieces of SQL at runtime I have to agree. It seems crazy to me that there is no "native" way to query relational DB's (yes, there are some SQL factories for certain languages)

Debt is new currency. If everyone is buying their cars with credit, soon nobody can afford to buy with cash. Around here even if you have decent wage right now, but not a stable job, you can't get credit to buy a house, while someone with a low pay but stable job can, you're effectively poorer than them.

I was making software for Nokia phones when the first iPhone came out. As an outsider, it seemed to me that they realised iPhones were going to be the future, went full panic-mode and never recovered. N96 was already dead by the time it came out and N97 seemed like something cobbled together in a hurry. Released version had none of the screen animations/interactions they were hoping and overall was quite laggy in my opinion. After that they were basically just poking around on every possible direction.

This is outside of Helsinki but student benefit is 460e per month and I know many who can live without taking on debt or working part time.

Also If you manage to buy a (small) condo, the interest is basically below zero right now, so 560e could easily cover basic expenses.

What if it turns out that having more equal society and less of these demeaning jobs is better for everyone, including the productive people?

Well, there is limited amount of resources. So when someone buys a big house, someone else must have a smaller house.

Except you can just barely live on student benefit. Either you take debt or work, so I don't think the two can be compared.

For me I was bumping on the limits while on receiving student benefit, so it made no sense for me to work any more hours than I did. Had I worked any more, the pay would have been effectively zero, which is crazy in my opinion.

Not entirely related to the original point, but I believe in the case of scenario 0 vs 1 market benefits by having more rational actors. That is, if you're not dirt poor, you're able to make better decisions and that makes markets work in a more optimal way.

Few reasons come to mind:

The way capitalism is designed is that not everyone can have a job. So you pay the poor not to starve and come loot your house.

Also, I believe, there was a study suggesting that more equal society is better for everyone involved, including you.

Poverty also inhibits education and I suppose you can figure out why uneducated or lowly educated society is bad.

But surely, on average, you end up paying one way or the other? That money has to come somewhere, right? Either you end up paying by buying the advertised products or paying the site directly. Why not just cut the middle men?

There is no such thing as free money. If you're not creating more work (or more productive work) then it is simply taking from someone and giving to someone else.

However, the point is that through automation we're creating more work and from who we're taking is the robots. If there are no new automation or robots to take from, then it is most likely that we're going to take from middle class, either directly or indirectly.

Look at Scandinavia. Generous welfare, not exactly known for high crime.

But one could say that he does not own the "means of production" but instead it is owned by community, which has democratic control (for example a fork might become more popular). I'd say that is a trait of socialism and perhaps anti-capitalist.

In Scandinavia everyone is already guaranteed a certain amount of income by law. If you can't get it by working, then it is provided by welfare. I don't see UBI being any different.

But you're right. I don't know how people in the US would react. Maybe they would see it as an evil tax from rich to poor and never accept it. However, I'm arguing that it doesn't have to come with any extra tax burden.

There is an UBI experiment starting in Finland in 2017. If it proves to be successful, then I have no doubt that it will be implemented elsewhere too.

The rich have nothing to do with UBI. It's the middle class, or new machines/automation, that we can only take from. Lets do a little thought experiment. Lets forget money and make some assumptions.

First, lets assume that after UBI the total amount of work done does not change. Then lets assume that after UBI the poor does not work any harder and certainly neither does the rich (do the rich even work at all?). So if poor were to come out ahead from this deal, then it must be either the middle class, or the new machines (automation), that are now working harder.

And thus if we come up with new automation, or a way for the poor to work more, then UBI does not have to come at anyones expense.

Afaik income inequality has been rising despite the fact that markets have been deregulated. Of course the two may have no correlation, but if the current trajectory continues, then I suppose it's inevitable that something has to be done. As far as I can tell, if we must do something, then we can either deregulate more or implement socialistic schemes such as UBI.

What if it were true that free market nor capitalism no longer benefit the poor, what do we do then? I think this can be argued since all markets are already regulated (thus not entirely free) nor is capitalism taken to its logical extreme anywhere in the world.

Have you ever done the math of much taxes you actually pay (hint: products you buy include a ton of taxes)?

Anyway, taxes don't matter. All taxes return to circulation (unless government is radically changing economic policy). What people are really saying is that they want to be better off than some other group of people.

Everyone benefits from a strong middle class and not-too-poor class. Including you. Also I believe there is an argument to be made that more equal society is better for everyone involved.