That’s exactly why a basic minimum income is a terrible idea. When a town becomes non-viable because its only industry closes, the proper response is to leave, or to innovate and build some new industry. If instead we just pay people to sit there, you will just create another group of angry people who after a time are permanently unemployable. This is not theoretical: it happened to natives on reservations, it happened to people in the inner city, it happened to fishermen in Atlantic Canada, etc.
Something like 60% of all jobs that existed in 1900 were destroyed by the mechanization of agriculture. What happened to all those people, many of whom were uneducated and lived in rural areas? Well, they suffered a lot of hardship for quite a long time, but over time they created new industries or moved to the city. If we had had a basic income back then, we might still have a crisis of tens of millions of people living in near poverty on non-functioning farms, living off of basic assistance.
This seems like wishful thinking. Junker said “Europe’s duty is to say: it’s not like that. The Americans can’t just leave the climate protection agreement” but I think he’s wrong. Maybe you could explain to me how you think the pen and the phone of the past president bind the hands of the current one? What stops President Trump from just crumbling it up, throwing it in the trash can, and forgetting about it? Something he is going to be required to do? Would there be some penalties if he didn’t?
There’s much more to it than that, though. The pullout, taken along with his roving boor act on the foreign trip and his continuing harangues against NATO, are serving notice to European nations at the very least that they can’t count on the US to accord with their interests (or act in their favor) anymore. Merkel said as much just after the G7 summit, while Macron is actively flipping Trump the bird, something which is guaranteed to put the Adolescent-in-Chief into a foul mood (not that that’s uncommon in the slightest).
Do you have a cite that those people have a basic income?
In any case, I already said that there should be some strings attached, and of course the sons and daughters of the families affected are not going to get it, so they will move if nothing new comes along.
For the ones that know that free commerce actually benefits more people it does mean also that this expense should be paid by them in the form of taxes. There should be a price to prevent the total destruction of the few communities that are negatively affected by free trade.
The point IMO is that a Basic Income should be set to allow time to attract the development of new industry that otherwise would be in catch 22, when new businesses would have a less developed or depleted base to start anew.
Trump seems to want to remake America in his image (his concept of greatness). Like his Presidency, he seems to want America to have the prestige of being the most powerful nation in the world but he has no interest in the responsibilities that come with that position.
We may be closer in opinion then. I thought you were making an argument for a universal, no strings attached badic income for everyone. That seems to be all the rage these days.
I think that would be a horrible idea, but targeted, temporary aid for relocation, job training, and living expenses in a new location might be something Incould get behind.
I have illustrated what the penalty may be to the US in the long term:
In the short term, the penalty to Trump is that he looks an incompetent ass to the rest of the world and gives America a black eye in doing so. Not that Trump supporters see the short and long term implications. They’ve had their eyes shut and ears plugged to facts and anything that contradicts their views since they chose to support the orange buffoon.
Leader of the free world is a holdover from the Cold War when the world was divided into free, communist, and non-aligned. It was a political and military alliance designed to thwart an aggressive foreign threat. When that threat went away so did the reason behind the alliance. It is anachronistic to talk about the free world having a leader.
For an article that claims to be fact-checking, this seems out of place -
It is hard to take into considerations things that don’t exist, and aren’t developed yet.
Maybe we will develop a magic solution that makes solar power (or whatever) cheaper than current forms of energy. Or maybe we won’t.
Obviously one can’t predict the future state of technology, but “maybe we won’t lose trillions of dollars and 6% of our GDP and millions of jobs because of unspecified innovations in technology” is not a terribly convincing argument. If any technical problem could be fixed with enough determination and funding, we’d have an AIDS vaccine by now.
Since it’s a non-binding agreement, it shouldn’t matter if any of the members even bother to show up. Country A does whatever it wants to. Country B does whatever it wants. Country C does whatever it wants. Once a year they all get together to party in Paris.
Of course, some nation’s memberships are required. Those would be the nations who can afford to pay the bill for the whole show. The less wealthy nations still get to party in Paris.
Sure. Trump could very well give everybody the middle finger and simply refuse to comply with any terms of the agreement. Including the clauses that describe that a every nation must remain within the agreement (and its terms) for 3 years after it signs on (May 2016), then give a 1 year notice of withdrawal, allowing it to formally withdraw by 2020.
If you’re good with that sort of F.U. then more power to you. But the rest of the world understands that these kinds of actions have consequences as far as standing and reputation with allies and those you’re trying to make alliances with.
I too long for the simplicity of the cold war days. It’s more complicated now. The clash of ideologies and its leading advocates has not magically evaporated.
There is a sane middle ground between assuming no technology will change in 40 years and assuming that technology will completely obviate all costs. Both assumptions are false, and you shouldn’t use any study that makes one of those assumptions.
It’s impossible to incur all of the costs from the changes foreseen by this study without simultaneously incentivizing the development of other technologies. The bedrock rule of economics is that if you incentivize something, you get more of it, on balance. It’s perfectly appropriate to be cynical or skeptical about how effective or efficient or morally desirably such incentive structures are, but it’s economically illiterate to think they don’t make a difference at all. Intelligent predictions attempt to take into account such issues using conservative assumptions.
(Of course, the main criticism is that the study didn’t take into account any benefits, some of which are undeniable. If you shut down a coal plant, for example, you get less air-pollution-related death.)
I sincerely hope that other nations do everything in their power to reduce trade with the US to the greatest degree possible. I think it is high time that Americans discover that they need the world a lot more than the world needs the USA.
You seem smarter than the average bear, or Trump supporter. I think you understand that giving the world the middle finger isn’t good from a geo-political and economic/trade policy stand point. America isn’t alone in the world and it doesn’t make sense to pretend that it is by insisting that every trade and alliance is a zero sum game with America winning and everyone else losing.
Help me understand your continued defense of that incompetent orange con artist.
Because it’s a silly fantasy, without the tiniest realistic possibility of coming to pass.
Thanks for the kind words. I suppose it looks like a full-throated defense around here. Truthfully, I don’t much like Trump. He wasn’t my preferred Republican candidate, and I’m not one of the true believers that think Trump is playing 87-dimension chess with everyone. I think he’s very much what he appears to me to be: an inexperienced politician making rookie mistakes from time to time while he figures out how things work in Washington. That being said, (what I see as) the liberal hyper-ventilating over his every action has gotten old, and annoying, so I’ve taken particular delight in bursting liberal fantasies lately.
There also seems to be a lot of misunderstanding in liberal circles between what President Trump can do and what they think he ought to do. My original post in this thread (#42) was to clarify that withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is something that Trump definitely can do (thanks, in large part, to the way Obama got us into it - without Senate ratification). In this thread at least, I haven’t offered any particularly strong support for President Trump’s decision, so much as clarifying that it’s well within his powers to do so.
To your larger point about “America isn’t alone in the world …” I largely agree. There are lots of international agreements that are win-win situations, where both we and our allies benefit. I’m not convinced the Paris Agreement was one of those, but even then, I can understand the concern / imprudence of flipping the bird to Western Europe, and don’t recommend it as a standard operating procedure / routine practice.
But the basic premise you were discussing is just wishful thinking. The rest of the world needs the US as much or more than the US needs them. The rest of the world is not going to reduce their trade with the US any more than they are going to reduce their trade with, say, China, because of the myriad human rights violations as well as ecological disasters China has going on. It’s wishful thinking that somehow, because of the Paris Accords, The World™ is going to decide not to do business with the US.
I’m in no way defending the incompetent orange con artist in saying HD was right to point this out, at least. But someone needs to keep this discussion real here…the US backing out of the Paris Accords, while not great, is nothing like what it would take for countries to stop trading with the US or even ramping down their trade, either buying or selling goods or services.
Now, if you want to talk about unilateral tariffs that the IOCA™ is babbling about, I’ll buy that THIS might have the effect BeepKillBeep and you were describing…