“Down With Tyranny” (DWT) asks What Sounds Better To You– Guaranteed Basic Income Or Federal Job Guarantee?
That’s a lot like asking: Would you rather lose your left leg or right arm to cancer?
Striving for “Full Employment”
DWT claims defines full employment as “everyone seeking a job gets one.”
“Federal jobs could provide socially useful goods and services,” says the socialist website. The claim is debatable. Someone with no skills to do anything certainly cannot do anything useful.
Moreover, DWT never bothers to ask, “At what cost?”
To give everyone a job who wants one, government will be employing millions of totally useless people including unstable drug addicts or worse. And the costs will mount with training and transportation costs.
Fewer Poor Americans?
DWT claims “A Job Guarantee Means Fewer Poor Americans”. Once again that is debatable. Socialist programs never work as advertised.
The expense of paying people some “basic income” has to come from somewhere. And the only place it can come from is from the productive segments of society.
Right now the push is for $15. If such a program actually was implemented, the push would be for $20, then $25, then higher.
Socialist silliness and MMT often go hand-in-hand. These MMTers believe there is no cost to government taking over industry and creating jobs.
If the free market is unable to provide the function, the job isn’t needed.
Support for Communism
The communists and economic illiterates were out in full force praising DWT’s idea.
“Support for UBI is properly grounded on the idea of shared common resources that we should all benefit from,” claims responder Pyradius.
That sounds suspiciously like Karl Marx’s communist manifesto: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
UBI a Libertarian Idea?
Here’s a funny comment by Mainstreeter: “UBI is a scam by the libertarians to eliminate social security, Medicare and the like.”
The fact of the matter is no one supporting UBI can rightly call himself a Libertarian.
MMT Nonsense
Here’s another one that’s a real hoot. Reader Dan stated, “MMT is not your friend, unless you are a pro-capitalism elitist.”
Once again the commenter could not possibly be further off base. No pro-capitalist can possibly believe in something as foolish as MMT.
Something for Nothing, from Nothing
You cannot get something from nothing, at no cost, no matter how hard you try.
The idea that government can just print the money and give it away has been proven false time and time again.
One must be trained to believe such nonsense. Unfortunately, nonsense is precisely what most colleges and universities teach. Many academics have never had a job in the real world.
Productivity, already a huge concern, would collapse on these foolish schemes. Carried to extreme, hyperinflation would eventually result.
Venezuela
la inflación para este año en Venezuela cierra en 2.594%” https://t.co/nJALDWjX23 @steve_hanke pic.twitter.com/vbQmXpA36v
— El Bufete (@elbufetenet) December 31, 2017
Venezuela provides a nice example of socialism in action. So does Zimbabwe.
Yet, these absurd idea go on and on and on. Socialist fools never learn.
Related Articles
For further reading, please consider Debunking MMT, Keynesianism, Monetarism: Reader asks “What theories do you believe?”
Some of these ideas also came up in UK High School Student Asks Mish About “Life As an Investment Advisor”
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
“To give everyone a job who wants one, government will be employing millions of totally useless people” . Looks to me like government already does that.
If you tie monetary policy in the form of a rebated discount to prices to the point in time that inflation is expressed, namely retail sale….you can not only eliminate any possibility of consumer price inflation, but integrate price deflation painlessly and beneficially into profit making systems.
Bingo Carl who says “If you make work, and tell someone they have to work, but they are guaranteed a job, what do you do when they don’t do the work you made, or don’t do it well? You can’t fire them, as they are guaranteed the job, and the income. If so, why would you think they would bother to do the work well? Thus you end up right back where you started, paying them to not work.”
Remember this with regards to make-work. If you make work, and tell someone they have to work, but they are guaranteed a job, what do you do when they don’t do the work you made, or don’t do it well? You can’t fire them, as they are guaranteed the job, and the income. If so, why would you think they would bother to do the work well? Thus you end up right back where you started, paying them to not work.
In fact, that’s a major reason why the VA has the issues they do. Federal employees are difficult, if not impossible to fire, in many cases. At that point, they no longer actually have the same motivation to actually do the job, and the quality and quantity of work suffers. But, it’s OK, we pay them well, and they can spend. To boost the economy, we should all work for the government, and then we’ll have plenty of income to go around. With no one actually making stuff, of course, we’ll have to buy everything from overseas, and that will work fine until the whole system implodes, as it always does.
If sitting at home is a job then guaranteed jobs already exist in most or all of Europe.
@Sechel So if someone were to build a machine that was more efficient than human power for street cleaning you’d be against it? Pushing a broom doesn’t require the same skillset as running a street cleaning machine. If all someone is capable of is pushing a broom are they willing to do the job for the same cost as running the street cleaning machine? Because if my tax dollars are squandered on a human sweeper when there could be a more efficient and therefore less expensive alternative I’d be pretty upset with my elected officials.
@Sechel All well and good, but what value is the make-work? Is someone who comes in and sleeps in the break room all day working? Should they be fired? Then what? Do we just shun them and let them starve and die? Like it or not, there are people who don’t want work, don’t want to get ahead and have no interest at all in improving their lot in life. This group crosses all races, genders and economic levels. Economists and politicians can’t seem to figure out this group’s motivation, because they have none.
And what about the incompetent? Should someone who constantly screws up even the most simple task (requiring someone to come in and fix the mess, thereby creating negative productivity) be kept around just because we’re somehow getting “something” for our taxes? Do we just need to continuously shuttle them around until they find something that they can manage to do? Are you willing to use the bridge built by the village idiot?
This is one answer, when I look around I see people doing things. Often they do things and get no pay, they are volunteers, some are officially recognized, most are not. At the same time the money this army of volunteers needs has to come from somewhere. To put it another way GDP is pretty low, while all these people are working, what if you recognized their work, paid them, and then made them taxpayers.
“This touches on a heated debate on the Left. But for now, there is no doubt that people want jobs, but they want good jobs that provide flexibility and opportunity. They want to contribute, to have a purpose, to participate in the economy and, most importantly, in society. Nevertheless, the private sector continues to leave millions without work, even during supposed “strong” economic times.”
I really don’t want a job, at least not one working on infrastructure. I’d much rather have a “job” that involves something like what Harvey Weinstein had (not really, but a private jet would be nice). Don’t actually do any work, just dole out the cash to others and be a destroyer of careers. Can I have one of those jobs? In fact, just give me the private jet and enough income to use/maintain it and I’ll be happy.
@Top-GUN on a Mac it is shift-return. I think it is the same on a PC
see?
I don’t know Mish. The Koch brothers have had guaranteed jos and incomes their whole lives and they seem to have turned out ok. And Hayek was an advocate of a GBI because he didnt believe people should be coerced into taking a job they don’t want. Anyhow, I have no problem with with a guaranteed job. Men should be able to support their families. And as you’ve noted, capitalism has failed to do that. As for the money, it isn’t a stock, it’s a flow.
A series of what would have at one time been considered outlandish ideas, such as a war on cash, forgiving debt through a debt jubilee, giving everyone a guaranteed income, and even injecting money into the economic system by dropping it from a helicopter have all found their way into conversations about ways to keep this economy going. This should be a reason for concern.
An example of just how delusional we have become as to the fragility of our financial system is that many people have taken comfort in the efforts to control the banking sector through legislation following the 2008 crisis. The Dodd Frank Act of over 2,300 pages and still growing, is the longest and most complicated bill ever passed by the U.S. legislature. The article below makes a case that claims of economic stability are just an illusion.
link to brucewilds.blogspot.com
@Realist, “Socialism is certainly not the answer to all economic problems. But then, neither is Capitalism.” Not capitalism as practiced now where government, politicians and central bankers intervene. Allow companies to pay the price for their sins and go bankrupt, whatever the disruptions to society and allow capitalists capable of picking up the debris, do not allow central bankers to distort the price of money, then you will see proper allocation of capital. That is way capitalism should be practiced not the way it is practiced now. The present system just makes a mockery of capitalism…. It is crony capitalism like allowing Hank Paulson to steal from tax-payers in the guise of helping main street … BS
Certain work has negative productivity. All involved in creating the Iraq war could have been given a chunk of the two trillion cost of the occupation to stay home sitting on a couch drinking beer instead of their work promoting and executing the war. The USA would be more secure and the people of Iraq would be better off as well. Bankers paid to stay home and drink still more beer instead of loaning money to people who can’t repay. The economy would be better off as well. The problem is focusing the work free income to those with the dumbest ideas to prevent them from being in a position to implement them
Is it possible to do paragraphs,,, it’s Secret Knowledge, which I also have asked about,,,, for sure if you hit return you won’t be doing a paragraph… makes you wonder what super duper all smart techie designed this site,,, by by hitting return and I’m done
Universal Basic Income & Guaranteed Jobs are clearly very bad ideas. But as we move forward with robotic production, there might be a case for an “Employer of Last Resort”. After all, Big Finance is already protected by a Lender of Last Resort Big points would have to be (a) major cut-back in welfare programs to pay for the Employer of Last Resort, and (b) Employer of Last Resort should be able to fire under-performers. Look at the problems in public schools because schools effectively cannot get rid of troublemakers. Employer of Last Resort could reasonably be a State or County function — since they should know where labor could be productively empoloyed in their communities, whether carrying groceries for old ladies or picking up trash. The foundation of any economy is Production, not consumption. Everyone would be better off if more people are part of the Production side of the economy. (Side note — is it possible to do paragraphs on this comment engine?)
I’d rather taxes pay people to do something (a job) than to do nothing (welfare). So since welfare realistically is not going away these deadbeats should at least have to do something for their benefits.
In time, the US will end the way the founding fathers predicted. They feared an elite class of politicians, who continually get re-elected by voting to give things to people, making people dependent on government. Eventually the country then goes bankrupt, and is unable to fulfill the promises, and everything collapses in violence. That will happen to the US, just as is has happened to other democracies throughout history. My guess is that it will come in 2036-40, and be replaced by a socialist dictatorship. I expect to live long enough to see if i’m right.
This sort of idea has been around forever. Remember when George McGovern proposed a negative income tax? The problem is that sooner or later the non-working class, combined with liberal elitists, will get it passed in some form. With each generation (starting in 1937, when “a switch in time saved 9”), we have increased the burden of government on private enterprise, particularly on small businesses. As we do, private enterprise becomes increasingly unable to improve the standard of living, and thus it has stagnated. This will motivate people to try “something new”, and the trends are there for the gradual turn to socialism. We almost saw a fully socialist candidate for President this last year, in Sanders.
I guess we should only provide socialism for large banks and company.
aren’t we already there?how many folks get a check from big gov’t every month/,handout from big gov’t?subsidy from big gov’t?depend solely on gov’t contracts,gov’t loans,gov’t paychecks ?Let me guess?ALOT!!us is the most socialist/marxist gov’t dependent country maybe in history.
Make taxes voluntary and we;ll get the size of government we deserve 🙂
I would like to attribute this insanity to a fringe element, because anyone with the slightest experience in the real world knows that capitalism survives naturally because we try to deliver our best performance to get our best compensation, which means that the society is full of people providing their best performance. The concept that a guaranteed job will generate the same result is preposterous. Incentives are the essence of a successful society. Fear of poverty and the desire for a better life are what can drive humans to produce things which are useful to others. Nothing else can do that, and the idea that government can mandate it and print money to pay for it should identify the promoters as incompetents.