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Could A Robot Tax Win the War on Poverty? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of My
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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
1:10
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
1:13
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry and this is stuff you should know
1:16
Speaker 1: the podcast about universal basic income on the podcast that's right,
1:24
Speaker 1: you be I baby, Yeah, it's it's like the most
1:28
Speaker 1: blamed set of words I've ever seen strung together in
1:32
Speaker 1: my life. But they have a big, big punch if
1:35
Speaker 1: you really dig into them. Yeah, I found myself kind
1:38
Speaker 1: of it was. It was cool reading all this stuff
1:40
Speaker 1: and researching it because I I don't think I had
1:45
Speaker 1: much of an opinion on it before, and I'm going
1:49
Speaker 1: to try to not get too opinionated this time. But
1:52
Speaker 1: now you're like, well, all poor people can just die
1:54
Speaker 1: off for all I care. A lot of this, A
1:57
Speaker 1: lot of this made sense to me. Yeah, especially when
2:00
Speaker 1: you're talking about replacing a bloated, kind of broken system. Anyway,
2:07
Speaker 1: because my first thought was like, universal basic income in
2:10
Speaker 1: addition to um, you know, welfare and food stamps and
2:14
Speaker 1: all the other social safety nets, but like replacing it
2:17
Speaker 1: with something that's a little more straightforward kind of spoke
2:20
Speaker 1: to me a little bit. Yeah, And I think that
2:22
Speaker 1: speaks to a lot of people too. And we'll kind
2:24
Speaker 1: of explain a little more obviously what we're talking about.
2:27
Speaker 1: But one thing that stuck out to me about that
2:28
Speaker 1: Chuck was what about people who are physically incapable of working,
2:34
Speaker 1: of making a living, and that this would be their
2:37
Speaker 1: only means of support, or who have aged out of
2:42
Speaker 1: working and and don't have a way to support themselves anymore.
2:45
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you still need some sort of social safety net
2:48
Speaker 1: in addition to that for those people. I don't know
2:50
Speaker 1: if this would replace disability or would it. I guess
2:54
Speaker 1: it depends on who whose plan. You know. Some people
2:57
Speaker 1: there's a conservative economists who will talk about later on
3:00
Speaker 1: named Charles Murray who's like, get rid of everything, this
3:03
Speaker 1: is it okay? And he goes on to say, like,
3:06
Speaker 1: while he wrote like a whole book about it, but
3:07
Speaker 1: I read kind of his synopsis of the book, but
3:10
Speaker 1: he he kind of explains, like, here's how this could
3:13
Speaker 1: actually work. Um, he doesn't just say that, but there
3:16
Speaker 1: is a sense of there's definitely a real disdain for
3:21
Speaker 1: the bloated bureaucracy that that is the entitlement or welfare
3:27
Speaker 1: system in the United States, for sure, And I get
3:30
Speaker 1: the sense that it's on both sides. So that is
3:32
Speaker 1: kind of an appealing part of this, that this could
3:35
Speaker 1: conceivably replace it under the right circumstances. Yeah, and this
3:38
Speaker 1: also made me think a little bit about the push
3:41
Speaker 1: for a flat tax that happens every so often, where
3:45
Speaker 1: it's like, we've got such a convoluted tax system, can
3:49
Speaker 1: we just settle on a very fair percentage that everyone
3:53
Speaker 1: pays across the board. The problem with that one, it's
3:57
Speaker 1: a great idea on his face, sure, a lot of problems. Problem.
4:00
Speaker 1: The basic problem that I have with it is that
4:03
Speaker 1: automatically makes it aggressive. If you're a millionaire and you
4:06
Speaker 1: pay ten percent, that ten percent is going to mean
4:09
Speaker 1: a lot less to you than if you're a person
4:12
Speaker 1: living near the poverty line and that ten percent means
4:16
Speaker 1: rent or food or something like that, you know what
4:19
Speaker 1: I mean. So therefore it's a regressive tax. And I've
4:23
Speaker 1: never heard a good way to kind of um set
4:28
Speaker 1: up that flat text, uh, to make it non regressive,
4:32
Speaker 1: so that that that doesn't just automatically introduce this other
4:36
Speaker 1: new convoluted tax code to you know what I mean. Yeah,
4:38
Speaker 1: And it's if you look back at the history of
4:41
Speaker 1: flat tax proposals, it's usually some super rich, old white
4:44
Speaker 1: guy that proposes it. So that makes you kind of
4:47
Speaker 1: want to go like, well, wait a minute, right, can
4:49
Speaker 1: you loophole your way out of that too? Yeah? Well no,
4:52
Speaker 1: I mean it's not a loophole, it's more just it's
4:54
Speaker 1: just super aggressive. Um, but that's a different episode. We've
4:58
Speaker 1: never done a flat tax up, so right, I think
5:01
Speaker 1: we should do it. Yeah, we totally should. I'm actually
5:03
Speaker 1: kind of surprised we haven't. But yeah, so that's a
5:06
Speaker 1: totally different episode. But um, what we're talking about instead
5:09
Speaker 1: is called universal basic income. The universal is really important
5:14
Speaker 1: because there's different proposals. But in a universal basic income scheme,
5:18
Speaker 1: the government takes X number of dollars, say a thousand
5:24
Speaker 1: dollars a month, and mails that check out to every adult,
5:29
Speaker 1: say eighteen and over in the United States, everybody, no
5:33
Speaker 1: questions asked, no strings attached. You don't have to be poor.
5:37
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you're rich. It doesn't matter what
5:39
Speaker 1: you do with that money. You can go spend it
5:40
Speaker 1: all on crack if you want to. It's your money. Like,
5:44
Speaker 1: the cops may bust you for buying crack or smoking
5:47
Speaker 1: crack or whatever, but you can use it for crack
5:50
Speaker 1: or ideally you would use it. Um in in myriad
5:55
Speaker 1: other beneficial ways. But I guess I'm just trying to
5:58
Speaker 1: point out there's no there's no guidance on how you're
6:02
Speaker 1: to use that money. That's your money, and because it's
6:06
Speaker 1: coming from the federal government and it's guaranteed basic income,
6:11
Speaker 1: you can rely on that every month, and so you
6:14
Speaker 1: can start to build your life around knowing that at
6:17
Speaker 1: the very least you're gonna have a thousand dollars tax free.
6:21
Speaker 1: From what I understand from the government, that would be
6:24
Speaker 1: so United States to give you a thousand dollars a
6:27
Speaker 1: month and then take back like three right exactly. So
6:32
Speaker 1: this was if you were a fan of Andrew Yang
6:35
Speaker 1: during his UM I don't want to say brief presidential bid,
6:39
Speaker 1: not long enough. I'll tell you that you like Yang,
6:42
Speaker 1: I like Yang. Hu was crazy for Yang, but I
6:44
Speaker 1: just thought his idea, his ideas were very level headed,
6:48
Speaker 1: were very a political. I just thought he was I
6:52
Speaker 1: thought he was great. Yeah, he spoke to me too, um.
6:55
Speaker 1: But he called it the freedom dividend, And that's what
6:57
Speaker 1: we're talking about. A thousand bucks a month, no questions ask.
7:00
Speaker 1: If you're Bill Gates, you get a thousand dollars if
7:03
Speaker 1: you don't have two pennies to rub together. You get
7:05
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars and we'll talk. This is one of
7:08
Speaker 1: the few episodes I think we're the history. Uh. Addressing
7:12
Speaker 1: that later kind of works, UM, But there is some
7:15
Speaker 1: history beyond him, and he's not the only person there.
7:19
Speaker 1: A lot of the Bill Gates is and the Zuckerberg's
7:21
Speaker 1: and the Musk's of the world. It's huge and Silicon
7:24
Speaker 1: Valley right now. It is in Silicon Valley, as we
7:27
Speaker 1: will learn, is one of the areas that they would
7:30
Speaker 1: that's in the cross here's for providing uh this money
7:35
Speaker 1: to a large degree through taxes because uh, one of
7:39
Speaker 1: the fears is and it's a legit fear. And I
7:42
Speaker 1: know in your Existential Risks UH podcast series, you talk
7:47
Speaker 1: about automation and robots, robots and things. But the fact
7:51
Speaker 1: is we are automating more and more. Uh. Some say
7:55
Speaker 1: that uh in the next twelve and twelve years that
7:59
Speaker 1: about thirty of all working Americans will lose their jobs
8:03
Speaker 1: to robots. Do you realize what an increase in unemployment
8:10
Speaker 1: that is, Huget. I think right now we're at somewhere
8:15
Speaker 1: around three percent unemployment, which is really low. It's close,
8:18
Speaker 1: very close to full employment, if not like statistically full
8:21
Speaker 1: employment all of a sudden and how many years did
8:25
Speaker 1: you say? It? Said? Twelve? I mean that's an estimation.
8:28
Speaker 1: So that's probably like a sky is falling kind of scenario.
8:32
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of smart people out there
8:34
Speaker 1: who say, Okay, maybe twelve years is a little soon,
8:37
Speaker 1: maybe that percentage is a little high. Definitely some people
8:40
Speaker 1: will be put out of work in that time. But
8:42
Speaker 1: let's say let's expand that window to thirty years or
8:45
Speaker 1: fifty years, then we might start getting into some really
8:48
Speaker 1: high percentages of people who are being put out of
8:51
Speaker 1: work and not like you know, you could go over
8:55
Speaker 1: to company B. Your job's just gone, because we develop
9:00
Speaker 1: machines that are way better and way more efficient and
9:03
Speaker 1: way cheaper at doing that, uh than you are. And
9:06
Speaker 1: so what do you do with those people? And it's
9:08
Speaker 1: not just a question for governments, um of what do
9:13
Speaker 1: you do with that physical person who's now poverty stricken
9:16
Speaker 1: because they their job doesn't exist any longer for for people,
9:20
Speaker 1: But all of these social safety nets and a lot
9:23
Speaker 1: of other stuff that um that we have in this
9:26
Speaker 1: country that those people would need to participate in, those
9:29
Speaker 1: are funded by payroll taxes and unemployment tax and stuff
9:33
Speaker 1: that is a tax on labor and employment. And so
9:37
Speaker 1: if you have a person whose job doesn't exist anymore,
9:40
Speaker 1: you can't tax that labor, you can't tax that employment.
9:43
Speaker 1: So now you have the problem of somebody who says,
9:47
Speaker 1: I need this assistance, and then they're the way of
9:50
Speaker 1: providing that assistance has just been removed because we automated
9:54
Speaker 1: that job away, right, And there are some people like
9:57
Speaker 1: Bill Gates that are saying, hey, companies that are automating
10:01
Speaker 1: all this stuff, you're avoiding all these payroll taxes. Now, um,
10:05
Speaker 1: you should pay it on the robot as well, which
10:08
Speaker 1: what I didn't see necessarily was whether or not that's
10:11
Speaker 1: and I assume it is. One of the big benefits
10:13
Speaker 1: of automation is that you don't have to pay those
10:15
Speaker 1: payroll taxes any longer. If you're in a business, yeah,
10:21
Speaker 1: that'd be a huge Yeah, if you can get rid
10:23
Speaker 1: of people. People are generally expensive, and if you're just
10:26
Speaker 1: strictly a utilitarian business owner, it was it's very much
10:30
Speaker 1: in your in your favor of automating whatever jobs you can. Yeah,
10:34
Speaker 1: you're not paying payroll tax, you're not having to pay
10:36
Speaker 1: for that person the portion of their health care. You
10:38
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about union striking people getting sick. Right, So,
10:43
Speaker 1: as we become more automated, there are people speaking up
10:46
Speaker 1: and saying sure, there's also a lot of job creation
10:50
Speaker 1: that happens with automating things. But the person that is
10:54
Speaker 1: taking care of your sanitation every week, if that was
10:58
Speaker 1: replaced by a robot off driving truck and clamper that
11:02
Speaker 1: dumps the garbage in there, clamper trademark wind COO, that
11:08
Speaker 1: person is not necessarily going to be the person that
11:10
Speaker 1: can be like, hey, I'll just get a job building
11:12
Speaker 1: these robots too, right, right, right, yeah, Yeah, which is
11:16
Speaker 1: ultimately kind of a it's a supplementary part to this
11:20
Speaker 1: whole discussion of you know, we're still going to need
11:23
Speaker 1: people to do things like build robots, So how much
11:26
Speaker 1: of this should really be how much of this attention
11:28
Speaker 1: and effort should be directed towards training people for this
11:31
Speaker 1: new economy. Yeah, And it's the same idea when you
11:35
Speaker 1: talk about alternative energy. Teach the coal miner to build
11:39
Speaker 1: wind turbines and an ideal world. All that happens very seamlessly,
11:44
Speaker 1: and they're just like, well, let's just take all these
11:46
Speaker 1: people that are out those jobs and give them the
11:48
Speaker 1: new jobs. It just doesn't work that way all the time,
11:53
Speaker 1: right right, and and yeah, and I mean idealize that. No,
11:56
Speaker 1: you can't and you shouldn't like this is these need
11:59
Speaker 1: to be like Frank Stark, sober discussions that we have
12:02
Speaker 1: about this because we're a little bit we're talking about
12:05
Speaker 1: it doesn't hurt. Maybe some nice maybe some nice homemade
12:10
Speaker 1: thumb print cookies with the hers she's kissing there, um,
12:15
Speaker 1: but the but yeah, you do. We do need to
12:17
Speaker 1: talk about the stuff because we're talking about human beings
12:20
Speaker 1: and who who are gainfully employed now who maybe again
12:25
Speaker 1: poverty stricken because their job doesn't exist in the next
12:28
Speaker 1: decade or so. And yes, we need to be thinking
12:30
Speaker 1: about this now. And then other people chuck say, Okay,
12:34
Speaker 1: that's the real possibilities robot this robot Texas automated economy
12:38
Speaker 1: that we're clearly moving toward. We don't know when it's
12:41
Speaker 1: going to really kick in. Is it's gonna be twelve years,
12:44
Speaker 1: Is it gonna be thirty, is it gonna be fifty.
12:45
Speaker 1: We don't know, But basically everybody agrees that that is
12:49
Speaker 1: the direction that we're heading you could have to be
12:52
Speaker 1: basically cuckoo to argue against that. Right, It's just when
12:55
Speaker 1: are the effects really going to be felt? Other people say, yeah,
12:58
Speaker 1: that's a big problem, and I'm glad we're thinking about it.
13:01
Speaker 1: But we have had poor people in the United States
13:04
Speaker 1: and a huge inequality gap basically since World War Two.
13:08
Speaker 1: It's a national blemish of shame on our character, our
13:13
Speaker 1: country's character that there are people that are just gobsmackingly
13:18
Speaker 1: rich and other people who are gobsmackingly poor, and they
13:22
Speaker 1: deserve to not live in poverty because because they are
13:26
Speaker 1: citizens of the world's wealthiest economy. Just the fact that
13:31
Speaker 1: they are Americans says that they shouldn't have a life
13:36
Speaker 1: of poverty because we can provide for them at least
13:39
Speaker 1: enough so that they don't have to be poverty stricken.
13:42
Speaker 1: And that's another argument for universal basic income as well,
13:46
Speaker 1: one that was championed by Martin Luther King. Look, we
13:49
Speaker 1: can take care of people, and we should. We have
13:52
Speaker 1: a moral obligation to. And I've just realized I suddenly
13:56
Speaker 1: started just talking like Bernie Sanders. Did you catch that
13:59
Speaker 1: that like stammering kind of delivery? That was weird? My
14:04
Speaker 1: hair turned white. Just now, didn't it? And shaggy Yeah,
14:07
Speaker 1: I hope it grows back to normal. So, uh, maybe
14:11
Speaker 1: we should take a break here in a minute. Wait,
14:13
Speaker 1: what's what my hair? Do you think it's going to
14:15
Speaker 1: go back to normal? Let's take a break now, Okay,
14:19
Speaker 1: Bernie and uh because that was a good setup, and
14:22
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit about what exactly is in
14:25
Speaker 1: some of the pros and cons right after this large
14:44
Speaker 1: sk Alright, so we talked about the Freedom Dividend from
14:51
Speaker 1: Andrew Yang and his his team and where you get
14:55
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars a month, whether you're working or not,
14:58
Speaker 1: whether your ridge or poor, and it the idea is
15:01
Speaker 1: is that it would replace the safety net programs that
15:06
Speaker 1: all have strings attached. Right, So, if you are a
15:11
Speaker 1: part of the SNAP program and you get food stamps,
15:13
Speaker 1: you need to prove that you are below a certain
15:15
Speaker 1: income level. Uh. If you're getting unemployment, you have to
15:18
Speaker 1: show you're looking for work. If you're getting Social Security,
15:20
Speaker 1: then you have paid into that for a number of years.
15:24
Speaker 1: If you have disability, then that you have a doctor
15:26
Speaker 1: vouching for you. This is no questions asked, which is
15:29
Speaker 1: a you know, sounds radical to some people, but other
15:33
Speaker 1: people say, just makes perfect sense. Yeah, And and Yank's
15:37
Speaker 1: not the only one to um to to address this,
15:40
Speaker 1: Like you said, you know, it's kind of a hot
15:42
Speaker 1: topic in Silicon valiant has been for the last five, six,
15:45
Speaker 1: seven years, UM to the point now where it's probably
15:49
Speaker 1: like old news and everybody's moved on to something else,
15:52
Speaker 1: like um, debtors prisons are the new thing in Silicon Valley. UM.
15:56
Speaker 1: But one of the co founders of Facebook named Chris Hughes,
16:00
Speaker 1: he wrote a book. UM. I can't remember what it's called.
16:03
Speaker 1: It's like I read that it was half memoir half
16:06
Speaker 1: basically policy. Um uh lay out what I would like
16:12
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, and it was basically arguing in favor
16:15
Speaker 1: of a universal basic income. And this guy put his
16:18
Speaker 1: money where his mouth is. He actually funded a pilot
16:20
Speaker 1: program in uh Stockton. I think the UM he said, here,
16:24
Speaker 1: take four families, right, five dollars each a month. Know,
16:30
Speaker 1: his was five dollars a month. But he hit on
16:33
Speaker 1: something that I saw other people have hit on. Two
16:35
Speaker 1: that in addition to universal basic basic income, that's pretty good,
16:39
Speaker 1: but you have to go a little further, and UM,
16:41
Speaker 1: people would need to have at least catastrophic health insurance
16:47
Speaker 1: to where if they needed surgery or long term care
16:50
Speaker 1: or something like that, they had insurance that covered it.
16:52
Speaker 1: That those two things would probably help people get by UM.
16:56
Speaker 1: And then there's plenty of other people running experiments on
16:59
Speaker 1: the stuff that we'll talk about later, But the general
17:01
Speaker 1: idea is that that yes, you just no questions asked,
17:05
Speaker 1: no strings attached you, you get some amount per month
17:09
Speaker 1: just for being an adult. Some other plans say maybe
17:12
Speaker 1: per household would be a good way to cut it down,
17:15
Speaker 1: maybe if you make less than a certain amount of money. Sure,
17:18
Speaker 1: but one of the things that about universal basic income
17:21
Speaker 1: typically is that there's no cut off for wealth. Everybody
17:26
Speaker 1: gets it just for being an American, and that it
17:29
Speaker 1: isn't per household, it's per individual, which UM really is
17:34
Speaker 1: beneficial for a whole segment of society, which are unpaid caregivers,
17:39
Speaker 1: everybody from stay at home moms to people who are
17:42
Speaker 1: caring for their UM, their their parents with Alzheimer's. Those
17:46
Speaker 1: people get a thousand dollars themselves. So now, all of
17:50
Speaker 1: a sudden, a household with two adults in it UM
17:53
Speaker 1: who pool their resources, has you know, twenty four thousand
17:56
Speaker 1: dollars a year rather than just twelve. So that's one
18:00
Speaker 1: of the pros um Another is, you know, if you
18:05
Speaker 1: are poverty stricken, if you live, if you're one of
18:07
Speaker 1: the one and eight Americans, which is striking that lives
18:12
Speaker 1: below the poverty line, um, you are probably not doing
18:16
Speaker 1: a lot of things to meet your health needs. You're
18:18
Speaker 1: probably not getting up every day and saying I need
18:20
Speaker 1: to I need to work out and eat really healthy.
18:23
Speaker 1: We've talked about the problem, the food problem in this
18:26
Speaker 1: country and how the poorest people eat the biggest garbage
18:29
Speaker 1: diets because it's cheap. Um, you're not thinking, you're not
18:33
Speaker 1: eating well, you're not exercising, you're not uh, you know,
18:36
Speaker 1: paying as much attention to your kids doing homework. Sure,
18:40
Speaker 1: if you want to idealize everything, you should be doing
18:42
Speaker 1: all those things. But if you're struggling day to day
18:45
Speaker 1: just to to live and survive, a lot of these
18:48
Speaker 1: things go by the wayside. So the idea is that
18:52
Speaker 1: a universal basic income would provide you with enough of
18:56
Speaker 1: a buffer to where you can tackle some of these
18:59
Speaker 1: other things. Or you can maybe go back to school
19:03
Speaker 1: and get that degree or start your own business, right,
19:06
Speaker 1: you know. And another another thing for the very like
19:10
Speaker 1: the poverty stricken working class. Um, they would be given
19:15
Speaker 1: this buffer or this this check that everybody gets for
19:19
Speaker 1: them would be like a floor that would allow them
19:22
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, I don't have to take
19:24
Speaker 1: this job because I'm not desperate any longer to put
19:27
Speaker 1: food on the table, so I can hold out for
19:29
Speaker 1: a better job that affords me more dignity or that
19:32
Speaker 1: isn't actually dangerous to do because the working conditions are
19:36
Speaker 1: so poor. So there's there's a whole um uh, employer
19:41
Speaker 1: exploitation that would largely dissolve when because the working class,
19:47
Speaker 1: that the really right around the poverty level working class
19:51
Speaker 1: would have this kind of buffer that they could use
19:53
Speaker 1: to negotiate better working conditions and higher higher wages. Yeah,
19:58
Speaker 1: and we should point out everything we're saying here. We
20:00
Speaker 1: should have this term in front of it is this
20:04
Speaker 1: is the idea that these things will happen, right, This
20:06
Speaker 1: is all the in theory, right exactly. Um. The one
20:10
Speaker 1: thing I didn't see listed as a pro which I
20:14
Speaker 1: think is an obvious one, is if you make a
20:17
Speaker 1: certain amount of money, then I imagine a lot of
20:20
Speaker 1: people would treat this twelve grand year as something that
20:23
Speaker 1: they could just spend, thus propping up the economy, or donate, right. Yeah,
20:30
Speaker 1: I would hope that if you were very wealthy, that
20:32
Speaker 1: it would become kind of trendy to just donate this part. Yeah,
20:35
Speaker 1: I haven't seen people talking about that in anything that
20:38
Speaker 1: I've read, and that just seems like a real obvious
20:40
Speaker 1: one to me. That, uh, you know, because a lot
20:43
Speaker 1: of people that are doing pretty well and they might
20:44
Speaker 1: get a tax return and that's like TV time or whatever,
20:48
Speaker 1: let me go buy that flat screen. Well, actually, if
20:52
Speaker 1: if we can throw out one of the cons um
20:55
Speaker 1: actually dovetails with what you're talking about that there's a
20:58
Speaker 1: concern among economists that if all of a sudden, every
21:02
Speaker 1: adult over eighteen in America was getting a thousand dollars
21:05
Speaker 1: a month, they would be like, heck, yeah, I'm going
21:07
Speaker 1: to get a TV this month. Next month, I'm gonna
21:09
Speaker 1: go get some clothes, or I'm gonna save up a
21:11
Speaker 1: few months and get a car sooner than I normally
21:15
Speaker 1: would have. Yes, because if all of a sudden, a
21:18
Speaker 1: couple of hundred million Americans are all doing this, spending
21:21
Speaker 1: more money, way more than we have been before where
21:24
Speaker 1: this is going, that we would outstrips. Demand would outstrip supply,
21:29
Speaker 1: and so the prices of goods would go up inflation,
21:33
Speaker 1: and so it would cancel out any benefit there was
21:36
Speaker 1: from the universal basic income because we would have all
21:40
Speaker 1: caused inflation to make prices rise in the cost of
21:42
Speaker 1: goods increase. D Oh, totally, it's very valid. But what's
21:47
Speaker 1: great about it is people are thinking about it, you
21:49
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. The other thing I like about
21:51
Speaker 1: this too is, um, it's not just liberals who are
21:54
Speaker 1: crazy about this, libertarians too, and um, some conservatives as
21:59
Speaker 1: well are totally cool with it too. For a number
22:02
Speaker 1: of reasons. Um, Libertarians like the idea that it would
22:05
Speaker 1: conceivably replace that bloated welfare state because libertarians are not
22:10
Speaker 1: ones for big giant government bureaucracies. And also in the
22:15
Speaker 1: same vein that thing about the universal basic income, just
22:19
Speaker 1: being like, here's your money, go do what you want
22:21
Speaker 1: with it. Not here's some money. You have to spend
22:24
Speaker 1: it on food and wait, wait, wait, you have to
22:26
Speaker 1: spend it on specifically these types of food. But libertarians
22:30
Speaker 1: love it so because you're all you're just saying like,
22:32
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm the government, and I'm telling you how
22:35
Speaker 1: to spend this money on this particular kind of food.
22:38
Speaker 1: It's here's your money, you know, do what you want
22:40
Speaker 1: with it, which is just libertarian dream kind of stuff. Yeah.
22:44
Speaker 1: And that economist Charles Murray said he was a conservative economist.
22:48
Speaker 1: He's the one that's like, man, this is would cost
22:51
Speaker 1: less than Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the SNAP program, right,
22:56
Speaker 1: and the entire welfare state. We could get rid of it,
22:59
Speaker 1: and this would actually be better for us in the
23:01
Speaker 1: long run. Yeah, and cut down on just the the
23:04
Speaker 1: bureaucracy and the paperwork, and uh, it's just it's a
23:08
Speaker 1: much cleaner system. Yeah. Just the fact that the bureaucracy
23:12
Speaker 1: itself would be slim down, which ironically would put a
23:16
Speaker 1: bunch of people out of work. Um, that in and
23:19
Speaker 1: of itself would be a cost efficiency savings right. Um.
23:24
Speaker 1: And I guess there's a I was looking. I was like, well,
23:27
Speaker 1: how much do we spend on entitlement programs in the
23:29
Speaker 1: United States? And no one knows. Apparently there's like some
23:33
Speaker 1: I saw a Heritage report, which I believe is the
23:37
Speaker 1: conservative think tank. They were saying it actually there's like
23:40
Speaker 1: a shadow um welfare program budget that's like a trillion
23:46
Speaker 1: dollars in addition to the other trillion and a half
23:49
Speaker 1: dollars that's on the books or whatever, um. So if
23:52
Speaker 1: that's all correct, then this is about the same because
23:55
Speaker 1: the rough estimates are that it cost about two point
23:58
Speaker 1: three trillion dollars a year to mail a thousand dollar
24:03
Speaker 1: check every month to every adult over eighteen in the
24:05
Speaker 1: United States, roughly two million adults two point three trillion
24:09
Speaker 1: dollars a year. But again, you're sending the same check
24:12
Speaker 1: out to every single person over age eighteen, and that
24:16
Speaker 1: in and of itself could be very easily automated, so
24:19
Speaker 1: it would be cheaper to actually do even if the
24:22
Speaker 1: actual amount of money you're shelling out is roughly the same. Yeah,
24:27
Speaker 1: and another one of the pros, and we'll talk about
24:30
Speaker 1: some of the limited studies they've done on this, but
24:32
Speaker 1: an interesting one in Kenya is they had a lot
24:36
Speaker 1: of malnourishment due to drought, and so the government said,
24:40
Speaker 1: you know what, instead of giving food aid to vulnerable households,
24:45
Speaker 1: let's do a direct cash test basically, and they found
24:49
Speaker 1: that about nine of these people they bought some food,
24:52
Speaker 1: but nine of them also used it to launch small
24:56
Speaker 1: businesses or to h to restock their heard of goats
25:00
Speaker 1: or whatever kind of reinvest in themselves. And that's one
25:04
Speaker 1: of the again, uh, the idealized version is people use
25:08
Speaker 1: this money, um and in an entrepreneurial way. Yeah, and
25:13
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's these little pilot programs are just
25:16
Speaker 1: coming back with really mixed results. But one of the
25:19
Speaker 1: ones I saw, I think it was like a Nathan
25:22
Speaker 1: Heller piece in New Yorker from a couple of years ago,
25:25
Speaker 1: and he was talking about that Kenya experiment and he's
25:28
Speaker 1: he pointed out one like one heavy drinking um resident,
25:33
Speaker 1: uh use that money not to go on a bender,
25:36
Speaker 1: but instead to buy like a taxicab and start his
25:40
Speaker 1: own taxicab business. Bought a couple of like milk cows
25:43
Speaker 1: and um and did a couple of other things that
25:46
Speaker 1: that we're fairly surprising, considering most people would expect that
25:49
Speaker 1: he would he would just um squandered it all on
25:53
Speaker 1: booze or gambling or whatever whatever you might expect somebody
25:57
Speaker 1: like that to do. That's one of the big fears
25:59
Speaker 1: and of the big arguments against it is, I mean,
26:02
Speaker 1: is it really a good idea to just give a
26:04
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month? No, strings attached to absolutely everybody,
26:08
Speaker 1: including people who are addicted to whatever, including people who
26:13
Speaker 1: um are terrible with money, including people who um are
26:17
Speaker 1: are con artists, you know, like just because they're Americans.
26:21
Speaker 1: And that's the I don't know if like that's a
26:25
Speaker 1: one of the flaws, but also simultaneously one of the
26:29
Speaker 1: benefits of it. Is yes, the answer is yes, everybody
26:31
Speaker 1: gets it, and then it's up to that person to
26:33
Speaker 1: to spend it in the best possible way. All right,
26:37
Speaker 1: should we take another break? Sure? Man, Alright, we'll take
26:39
Speaker 1: another break and talk about the criticisms and more like
26:42
Speaker 1: how are they gonna pay for this? Right after this
26:53
Speaker 1: definition sk Alright, so if you are against this, that
27:08
Speaker 1: you probably fall into one of two camps or both.
27:11
Speaker 1: One is that it's expensive and how you're gonna pay
27:14
Speaker 1: for this, and the other is sort of combined with
27:19
Speaker 1: a lot of ways that certain Americans think, which is like,
27:23
Speaker 1: you shouldn't get anything for free. There are no free lunches,
27:26
Speaker 1: and if you do that, then people aren't gonna work.
27:29
Speaker 1: They'll just find a way to live on that twelve
27:31
Speaker 1: grand a year, and um, it won't change anything for them. Yeah,
27:36
Speaker 1: which is you know, apparently some of the data that's
27:39
Speaker 1: coming back from these trials are, like I said, they're mixed.
27:43
Speaker 1: So some people, um, spend it on a taxi cab
27:47
Speaker 1: and start their own business, and other people are like,
27:50
Speaker 1: I'm I don't have to work at all. This is great,
27:52
Speaker 1: And that's that's a big problem. You don't. You don't
27:55
Speaker 1: in a in a productive economy that relies on human labor.
28:00
Speaker 1: A government program that basically pays people not to work
28:04
Speaker 1: is disastrous, right, And that's one of the big the
28:08
Speaker 1: big criticisms of the current welfare system is that it
28:11
Speaker 1: traps people into cycle of poverty by disincentivizing them from
28:15
Speaker 1: from working. Where if you reach a certain point with
28:19
Speaker 1: your wages, you lose all of your safety net. You know,
28:22
Speaker 1: you lose your food stamps, you lose your healthcare, you
28:25
Speaker 1: lose unemployment checks, you lose all that stuff because you
28:30
Speaker 1: now are employed. And on the one hand, it makes
28:33
Speaker 1: sense because you don't need support supposedly, but the problem
28:37
Speaker 1: is when it really washes out into practicality, you still
28:40
Speaker 1: do need that support. But you've just been um booted
28:42
Speaker 1: off of this stuff for working, So it's actually better
28:46
Speaker 1: for you to not work. Um that's that's people say
28:50
Speaker 1: they're worried about the same thing with universal basic income. Yeah,
28:53
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess what's important is the overall picture,
28:57
Speaker 1: because there's the idealized version air You give people twelve
29:02
Speaker 1: dollars a year and they're like, man, I was laid off.
29:04
Speaker 1: Now can afford to go back to school and make
29:07
Speaker 1: my rent every month and get a better job. Or
29:09
Speaker 1: now I can concentrate on health and wellness and invest
29:13
Speaker 1: in my children. Or I can care for my my,
29:17
Speaker 1: my mother or my you know, family member who's old.
29:21
Speaker 1: Or I can be a stay at home parent, or
29:23
Speaker 1: just just live less stressed. Yeah, I mean those are
29:26
Speaker 1: the idealized versions. There are also, of course, going to
29:29
Speaker 1: be people that gambled a little away, or drink it
29:32
Speaker 1: away or drug it away. Uh So the idea is
29:37
Speaker 1: you look at the overall picture, does the good outweigh
29:39
Speaker 1: the bad or vice versa, vice versa. I can't believe
29:43
Speaker 1: I just said that. I like it. It's got a
29:46
Speaker 1: little on yap to it, you know what I'm saying.
29:49
Speaker 1: So it's that overall picture. But I think we need
29:51
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about how it would be
29:54
Speaker 1: paid for. We talked a little bit about it. Redirecting
29:57
Speaker 1: those safety net UH programs right now would be part
30:01
Speaker 1: of it. Um. And this is like one of Yang's
30:04
Speaker 1: proposals are a bunch of different ones. Um a value
30:08
Speaker 1: added tax of ten which I read up on that
30:11
Speaker 1: a little bit. It's a little bit confusing to me. Yeah, Um,
30:16
Speaker 1: what should we talk about it? What it is? Well, yeah,
30:18
Speaker 1: I think just a little bit essentially, so from what
30:21
Speaker 1: I gathered, and just correct me if I'm wrong. You
30:23
Speaker 1: have a different understanding. But at each stage of production, um,
30:29
Speaker 1: the thing is taxed. So as like a raw material
30:33
Speaker 1: is sold to a manufacturer to make candy. I think
30:37
Speaker 1: I saw that coco and all that stuff is taxed
30:41
Speaker 1: at ten percent, right, Well then well then the manufacturer
30:45
Speaker 1: turns that cocoa into candy and they sell it to
30:47
Speaker 1: a retailer, it's taxed at ten percent. Then the retailer
30:50
Speaker 1: sell it to the consumer, it's tax at timbercent. And
30:53
Speaker 1: the government doesn't get ten percent tem percent, tem percent
30:56
Speaker 1: like thirty of the total value. They get overall ten
30:59
Speaker 1: percent of the total value. And that that's this value
31:02
Speaker 1: add tax. And it's like they use it in Europe
31:05
Speaker 1: and have for decades now. Basically everyone but the US
31:08
Speaker 1: has a value added tax. The great part about it
31:13
Speaker 1: is there's no way around it. You can't hire from
31:16
Speaker 1: what I saw, you can't hire um a really great
31:19
Speaker 1: accountant to find loopholes in the text code, like you're
31:22
Speaker 1: going to pay this ten percent tax. It's a sales
31:25
Speaker 1: tax for every stage of a product's life. So companies
31:29
Speaker 1: can't get away with not paying any corporate taxes because
31:33
Speaker 1: they're paying this consumption tax. The problem with it is you,
31:37
Speaker 1: the consumer, are still paying that ultimate ten percent tax
31:40
Speaker 1: on the end that's coming out of your pocket, even
31:43
Speaker 1: if some of it's going to the business and some
31:45
Speaker 1: of it's going to the government, and you're still paying that. Right,
31:49
Speaker 1: I don't know if I think, okay, it might it
31:52
Speaker 1: might be in addition to but the thing that Yang's plan,
31:56
Speaker 1: this was his big thing to use a value added
31:59
Speaker 1: tax to pay for this um the basic income, was
32:03
Speaker 1: that this would be mostly on luxury goods and that
32:06
Speaker 1: basic staples and necessities would be exempted from this value
32:09
Speaker 1: added tax, which would prevent it from being a regressive tax.
32:13
Speaker 1: All right, that makes sense. So Yang also said, let's
32:16
Speaker 1: tax um investment income, which would obviously target a certain
32:21
Speaker 1: very small percentage of the country. Um, how about we
32:25
Speaker 1: tax carbon polluters? Put a carbon tax? Right? Um? Some people,
32:30
Speaker 1: like Bill Gates I think I mentioned earlier, He's like, Hey,
32:34
Speaker 1: all these companies that are replacing people with robots, uh
32:38
Speaker 1: and skirting payroll taxes and and medical insurance and stuff
32:43
Speaker 1: like that, why don't you tax them with a robot tax?
32:47
Speaker 1: Right that every every robot that they replace a human
32:50
Speaker 1: being with or several human beings with tact have to
32:53
Speaker 1: pay a tax for every single one, or software or
32:55
Speaker 1: something like that. The problem that I saw with that
32:57
Speaker 1: is that no one has any idea how to actually
33:00
Speaker 1: quantify it. Like you can say, this robot replaced five
33:03
Speaker 1: factory workers on the factory floor. That's easy enough. But
33:07
Speaker 1: what is like software that helps you know, transfer phone
33:11
Speaker 1: calls or something like that. How many people does that
33:14
Speaker 1: this place? It's really hard to say, which is from
33:17
Speaker 1: what I can tell at least on the Reddit Yang
33:20
Speaker 1: Gang thread. Um, they explained it that like that's why
33:23
Speaker 1: Yang went with a value added text because corporations can't
33:27
Speaker 1: get around it. There's no way to loophole your way
33:28
Speaker 1: out of it. And it's much more quantifiable than you know,
33:32
Speaker 1: taxing software. So but that is so the But the
33:36
Speaker 1: robot text still captures that same sentiment right there, that
33:40
Speaker 1: the people who are the ones who are automating away
33:43
Speaker 1: jobs are the ones who need to pay for the
33:45
Speaker 1: people who are being put out of jobs. That's kind
33:48
Speaker 1: of the spirit of the robot text, right. Um. As
33:51
Speaker 1: far as studies, you know, it's sort of been all
33:53
Speaker 1: over the place, there haven't been. I mean, there have
33:56
Speaker 1: been some studies in Canada and the US and in
33:59
Speaker 1: Europe that seem to indicate that the hey, these people
34:03
Speaker 1: just won't want to work isn't really going to be
34:06
Speaker 1: a problem. Like I said, some people will, of course,
34:09
Speaker 1: but overall, these studies are coming back saying, now people
34:12
Speaker 1: are going to use this in the spirit as it
34:16
Speaker 1: is intended generally. Yeah, Um, so Ruse helped us put
34:21
Speaker 1: this together. He he pointed to um the Alaska Permanent Fund.
34:24
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where he saw that, But that's so
34:26
Speaker 1: small though, it's kind of a tough. It's not exactly
34:29
Speaker 1: apples to apples dollars a resident a year. In two
34:33
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen, each resident of Alaska received sixteen hundred dollars,
34:37
Speaker 1: and it is just such a small amount that you
34:40
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly, you know, really work less because of that.
34:45
Speaker 1: So hip Rob would find a way to get by
34:47
Speaker 1: on six some some people would for sure. Right, you know,
34:50
Speaker 1: you can go fish with your bare hands in Alaska,
34:53
Speaker 1: so maybe that could supplement things. But but um, the
34:56
Speaker 1: big question is, yeah, what really happens when you give
35:00
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of people, a large group of people,
35:02
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars a year? You know, would that mean
35:06
Speaker 1: that they would stop working and not even necessarily stop working,
35:10
Speaker 1: but work less? And from what I saw, uh, it
35:14
Speaker 1: seems to be on both sides of the aisle, or
35:17
Speaker 1: both political stripes for economists that yeah, there probably will
35:22
Speaker 1: be a reduction in um worked hours, but that it
35:27
Speaker 1: would be nothing that would stall the economy out. People
35:30
Speaker 1: are not going to just quit jobs and droves. They
35:32
Speaker 1: just might work a little less. But is that necessarily
35:36
Speaker 1: a bad thing? Like what are they doing with that time?
35:38
Speaker 1: That's kind of what is the key factor? Are they volunteering?
35:42
Speaker 1: Are they sitting around playing PlayStation games? Uh? That's some
35:46
Speaker 1: Some other economists said that there, I can't remember which
35:49
Speaker 1: one I said. There was a Technology Review article I
35:52
Speaker 1: think I saw that really kind of they didn't poop
35:54
Speaker 1: poo the concept. They just pooh pooed some points of it.
35:58
Speaker 1: But one of the things they pointed to is that
36:01
Speaker 1: there are plenty of studies out there that show that
36:03
Speaker 1: when people reduce work hours, they just sit around and
36:05
Speaker 1: watch TV. You know, you know, but um, the that's
36:13
Speaker 1: not really what you want to do. But again, if
36:14
Speaker 1: you're a libertarian economist, you would say, well, you know,
36:17
Speaker 1: that's that's that's what people That is your right. But
36:21
Speaker 1: then you should probably turn in your economist shield, because
36:25
Speaker 1: if you're an economist, you kind of want people working.
36:28
Speaker 1: Unless you're John Maynard Keynes, um he wrote. We've talked
36:34
Speaker 1: about him before. Kanesie and economics the usually the super
36:37
Speaker 1: like government spend can spend its way out of a
36:40
Speaker 1: session kind of stuff that all came from Kanes and
36:42
Speaker 1: and I think nineteen thirty three, Kanes wrote this essay.
36:47
Speaker 1: Oh man, I can't remember the name of it, but
36:49
Speaker 1: some something about you know, work in our grandchildren, something
36:52
Speaker 1: about team Yang. He said he basically predicted in a
36:57
Speaker 1: hundred years back in nineteen thirty three that we would
36:59
Speaker 1: not be working any longer because we would have automated
37:02
Speaker 1: all our jobs away. But everybody would be living a
37:04
Speaker 1: life of leisure, and we missed that mark big time
37:08
Speaker 1: for all all manner of reasons. But you could you
37:11
Speaker 1: could kind of look at Kanes's prediction and say, well,
37:14
Speaker 1: maybe he was off by fifty years. Maybe it's not
37:17
Speaker 1: a hundred years, but the same thing is going to
37:19
Speaker 1: happen fifty years or a hundred and fifty years from
37:21
Speaker 1: when he predicted it back in nine And so some
37:24
Speaker 1: people say, Okay, this robot tax idea in principle works
37:31
Speaker 1: really well, or it could work really well, but we
37:34
Speaker 1: are way premature with this, that this is something we
37:38
Speaker 1: need to start doing thirty years from now, not now,
37:41
Speaker 1: and that it would actually harmor economy if we do
37:43
Speaker 1: it now because there are people who will stop working.
37:47
Speaker 1: We would be paying some people to not work anymore.
37:49
Speaker 1: And we still are adding hundreds of thousands of jobs
37:52
Speaker 1: a quarter in the United States alone. We still need
37:56
Speaker 1: human labor. So we don't want to prevent people from
38:00
Speaker 1: doing it. But when when we do automate jobs like Gangbusters, um,
38:07
Speaker 1: then yeah, we should take a significant amount of that
38:10
Speaker 1: wealth that's going to be generated by these robots and
38:14
Speaker 1: not only make sure that people have their basic necessities
38:16
Speaker 1: provided for why not just make it so every single
38:20
Speaker 1: person in America is wealthy compared to our standards here today,
38:25
Speaker 1: just because we we have robots doing all this work
38:29
Speaker 1: and generating all this wealth for us, why not just
38:31
Speaker 1: share it for everybody. Why should just a handful of
38:34
Speaker 1: people who own the robots have all the wealth while
38:39
Speaker 1: everybody else has been put out of work? Why not
38:41
Speaker 1: just make it so everybody's wealthy because the robots are
38:44
Speaker 1: doing all the work for us, right, I agree? WHOA
38:48
Speaker 1: And that has caused some people to say, well, wait
38:51
Speaker 1: a minute. It makes you wonder why Silicon Valley is
38:54
Speaker 1: into this whole thing as much as they are right now.
38:57
Speaker 1: Have they seen like that this may be a road
38:59
Speaker 1: that we follow in the next twenty thirty years. And
39:02
Speaker 1: they're trying to stem the tide now and say, hey,
39:05
Speaker 1: how about we give you guys ten thousand dollars a year, Actually,
39:09
Speaker 1: how about the federal government gives you guys ten thousands
39:11
Speaker 1: of flush money just to basically get to be bought
39:14
Speaker 1: off now cheaper now than we would be in the
39:17
Speaker 1: future when the real problem starts to come along. And
39:20
Speaker 1: so there are some people who say it's a good
39:21
Speaker 1: idea in principle, but it it's too soon, and we
39:25
Speaker 1: need to be wary of people who come bearing gifts
39:27
Speaker 1: of ten thousand dollars a year today. Yeah, interesting, I
39:31
Speaker 1: thought so too. We talked to we promised a little
39:34
Speaker 1: history this UM. I think you mentioned Canes, But in
39:38
Speaker 1: the late nineteen thirties there was a free market economist
39:41
Speaker 1: named Milton Milton Friedman, I'm sorry, Milton Milton Friedman who
39:46
Speaker 1: had an idea sort of like this UM to ensure
39:50
Speaker 1: that people had a minimum standard of living. But this
39:52
Speaker 1: was through it was called a negative income tax. So
39:55
Speaker 1: it essentially works kind of the same way. Once you
39:57
Speaker 1: do your taxes, if you were below a certain threshold,
40:00
Speaker 1: then you would actually get money from the i R.
40:03
Speaker 1: S Uh. We mentioned Martin Luther King. What might surprise
40:07
Speaker 1: you is that a little guy name Tricky Dick Nixon
40:13
Speaker 1: in this surprising, very surprising. We were surprised by some
40:16
Speaker 1: of these recently. What was that he was the first
40:19
Speaker 1: president that had the first African American guest in the
40:22
Speaker 1: Lincoln bedroom, who was Sammy Davis Jr. That's right. So
40:27
Speaker 1: in nineteen nine Nixon said, hey, how about this, Why
40:30
Speaker 1: don't we start a program where UM it's the equivalent
40:34
Speaker 1: of about eleven eleven grand a year today, where we
40:37
Speaker 1: pay people six hundred dollars a year plus food stamps
40:41
Speaker 1: if you, um are a family of four that doesn't
40:45
Speaker 1: have an income. Basically, I mean, here's a quote that says,
40:49
Speaker 1: what I'm proposing is that the federal government build the
40:51
Speaker 1: foundation under the income of every American family that cannot
40:55
Speaker 1: care for itself, and wherever in America that family may live.
40:58
Speaker 1: This was Richard x In saying this. Yeah, and then
41:01
Speaker 1: that's universal basic income to a uh, to a certain degree.
41:05
Speaker 1: It's not everybody, but he's saying, hey, if you don't
41:08
Speaker 1: have any money and you're an American, then we'll give
41:11
Speaker 1: some to you, because you have a right to have
41:13
Speaker 1: a very basic level of income. Yeah. It was called
41:16
Speaker 1: the Family Assistance Plan that that UM actor was, or
41:20
Speaker 1: that bill was, and it went and made its way
41:22
Speaker 1: through Congress, and Congress said no, but they there was
41:27
Speaker 1: a um There was one part of it that the Senate,
41:31
Speaker 1: I guess said, oh, we like this though. It was
41:34
Speaker 1: a work requirement, and so from that point on, if
41:37
Speaker 1: you wanted federal assistance, you had to prove that you
41:40
Speaker 1: were working. And that still survives today, and it's been
41:42
Speaker 1: upheld by you know, not just GOP presidents, but Bill
41:46
Speaker 1: Clinton made sure that that was part of his welfare
41:49
Speaker 1: reforms as well. Sure, and it came from that. So
41:52
Speaker 1: they said, now we're going to do away with this
41:54
Speaker 1: guaranteed minimum income, but we like the work requirement part,
41:57
Speaker 1: and that was the legacy of it. Yeah, I mean,
41:59
Speaker 1: one thing is for sure, if this has any traction
42:02
Speaker 1: in the United States, there's going to have to be
42:04
Speaker 1: a lot more data behind these trial programs. And even
42:09
Speaker 1: if that data comes back in the positive that this
42:12
Speaker 1: would be a good thing, there would need to be
42:15
Speaker 1: a sea change of of of thought change with a
42:19
Speaker 1: lot of Americans about giving people money. Yeah, we would
42:23
Speaker 1: basically have to say, like the point of life is
42:27
Speaker 1: not work, which is not the way Americans think these days.
42:32
Speaker 1: I mean we might say that we don't, but no,
42:34
Speaker 1: we actually act differently. Like working is largely the purpose
42:39
Speaker 1: of life, and there's a lot of like pleasure to
42:42
Speaker 1: be gained from, like feeling productive. And I think even
42:45
Speaker 1: if everybody did have it was able to just stop
42:48
Speaker 1: working and be wealthy, people would still find stuff to do.
42:51
Speaker 1: You'd still go like garden or learned to to paint.
42:56
Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't just lay around and smoke opium all
42:58
Speaker 1: day or anything like that. Most of wouldn't write. So, um,
43:02
Speaker 1: I think there is like a lot of value to work.
43:05
Speaker 1: But um, the I forgot where what started this off?
43:09
Speaker 1: What did you say? Uh? When I was saying there
43:12
Speaker 1: would need to be a sea change of the government
43:15
Speaker 1: is giving handouts to people right right, and that that
43:18
Speaker 1: the value of work was divorced from the right to
43:22
Speaker 1: to live life wealthy or cared for. That it would
43:25
Speaker 1: it would require an enormous change. Although there are programs
43:29
Speaker 1: in place right now that kind of kind of resemble this,
43:32
Speaker 1: and some some people say, hey, there's this thing called
43:35
Speaker 1: the earned income tax credit that um that where it's
43:39
Speaker 1: basically Melton Freedman's negative income tax thing. And you you
43:43
Speaker 1: know Freeman, he was basically one of the architects of neoliberalism. Um,
43:47
Speaker 1: so this negative income tax planning came up with kind
43:51
Speaker 1: of became the earned income tax which is, um, there
43:55
Speaker 1: earned income tax credit, which is if you're below a
43:57
Speaker 1: certain level of income, not only do you not have
44:00
Speaker 1: to pay tax, this tax credit actually pays you back
44:04
Speaker 1: like you can get a check from the I R
44:05
Speaker 1: S rather than vice versa, and then it fades out
44:08
Speaker 1: as you go, you know, you get further along the
44:10
Speaker 1: scale of wealth until it's you don't get anything and
44:14
Speaker 1: you're paying lots of taxes. So that's when you've got
44:17
Speaker 1: all those great loopholes, right exactly. No, that's after that part,
44:21
Speaker 1: you know, that's beyond like a middle class and upper class.
44:24
Speaker 1: That's that point one percent stuff right. So, um, some
44:28
Speaker 1: people are saying, forget this universal basic income. We've already
44:31
Speaker 1: got this earned income tax credit. Let's expand that. Let's
44:34
Speaker 1: make it so more people are are able to get it. Um.
44:38
Speaker 1: One of the big criticisms is that it uh incentivizes
44:42
Speaker 1: people to have children that they might not otherwise have. Well, yes,
44:49
Speaker 1: I think it is from what I from what I've
44:51
Speaker 1: seen that it is at the very least if you're
44:56
Speaker 1: talking in hypotheticals like we were talking about the idealized version,
45:00
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's at least as real as that. So, like,
45:03
Speaker 1: there are people that are like, man, let's go have
45:05
Speaker 1: a few more kids to get those sweet rite offs.
45:08
Speaker 1: Well here's the thing. Let me put it to you
45:10
Speaker 1: like this, if you're a family with three or more kids,
45:13
Speaker 1: your maximum earned income tax credit is eighteen dollars. If
45:19
Speaker 1: you have zero kids, your maximum is five and ten dollars. Right,
45:24
Speaker 1: kids are nothing but a money drain. Totally true. And
45:28
Speaker 1: so you remember that conservative the conservative economists what was
45:32
Speaker 1: his name, Um, Charles what Murray, Yeah, Charles Murray. He
45:38
Speaker 1: but he pointed out that under the current entitlement welfare system, UM,
45:43
Speaker 1: there are programs where you get additional benefits if you
45:48
Speaker 1: have kids, which theoretically, um, and can incentivize somebody to
45:54
Speaker 1: have a kid that they might not otherwise have. Right.
45:57
Speaker 1: One of the things that he said, this is a
45:59
Speaker 1: great thing about your basic income is it does away
46:01
Speaker 1: with those entitlement programs and replaces it with that money.
46:05
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, you're disincentivised to have
46:07
Speaker 1: a kid you wouldn't otherwise have because all you have
46:09
Speaker 1: is that ten grand and you can keep it all yourself,
46:12
Speaker 1: or you can have a kid and have to support
46:14
Speaker 1: your kid with that ten grand because nobody else is
46:16
Speaker 1: going to help you support the kid. Right, there's no benefits.
46:20
Speaker 1: You don't get ten grand plus two grand for having
46:22
Speaker 1: a kid. Do you get ten grand? No matter if
46:25
Speaker 1: you have zero kids or ten kids. Right, so on
46:28
Speaker 1: that in that sense, it kind of disincentivizes people from
46:31
Speaker 1: having kids where they otherwise wouldn't. But and this is
46:34
Speaker 1: why some GOOP people love it, like that whole focus
46:37
Speaker 1: on the family thing. Although the GOP doesn't have the
46:40
Speaker 1: market cornered on families, that's not what I mean to say,
46:43
Speaker 1: but there is a bit of a focus on like
46:44
Speaker 1: traditional families and family values. And this is I think
46:48
Speaker 1: who he was kind of speaking to was if you
46:51
Speaker 1: are a couple and you pull your your ten thousand
46:55
Speaker 1: dollars together a year, you've got twenty tho dollars, but
46:58
Speaker 1: you're also just having to pay a rent, wants pay
47:01
Speaker 1: for you know, maybe a car, maybe two um groceries
47:04
Speaker 1: for the whole house. Like, like, there's an economy of
47:07
Speaker 1: scale to building a family, and so now it makes
47:10
Speaker 1: sense to have kids more than it does just by
47:12
Speaker 1: yourself with that ten grand you know what I'm saying.
47:15
Speaker 1: But if you want to save all your money, don't
47:19
Speaker 1: have kids or pets, right right, that's just basic economy
47:23
Speaker 1: one O one, keep all that sweet dough for yourself. Yeah, exactly.
47:28
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know if if like you were asking,
47:30
Speaker 1: if that's like if that actually does happen in real life,
47:34
Speaker 1: and to what degree. I don't know, Man, I just
47:37
Speaker 1: have a hard time believing that there's that much like
47:42
Speaker 1: planning of Like, well, let me think here, if I
47:44
Speaker 1: have three kids, I could get back all this tax
47:46
Speaker 1: money and they would cost me this much, and here's
47:49
Speaker 1: what the difference would be. So I'm coming out ahead
47:52
Speaker 1: by like a thousand dollars a year, right, And even
47:55
Speaker 1: if there are people doing that, like what proportion of
47:58
Speaker 1: the general population do they present, and is it really
48:01
Speaker 1: enough to prevent you know, taking uh risks that could
48:05
Speaker 1: have huge payoffs, like something like a universal basic income,
48:08
Speaker 1: just because a few people are going to do it wrong,
48:11
Speaker 1: you know, I I would for me the answers no,
48:14
Speaker 1: But I'm not fully sold on the universal basic income
48:16
Speaker 1: now right, I'm not either. And I'm also for someone
48:20
Speaker 1: who just said keep all that sweet money for yourself.
48:22
Speaker 1: This is coming from someone who has four pets and
48:26
Speaker 1: an adopted child, right, So I'm I'm the biggest chump
48:30
Speaker 1: in the history of jumps. And well and also if
48:33
Speaker 1: we're getting all like, you know, self perspective and all
48:36
Speaker 1: that stuff, we should probably say it's a lot easier
48:38
Speaker 1: for us to be like, we don't need that universal
48:40
Speaker 1: basic income now because you and I don't necessarily need it,
48:44
Speaker 1: but there are plenty of people who really do need it.
48:46
Speaker 1: Suld put it to give you, So maybe we should
48:48
Speaker 1: just keep our fat mouth shut. Well. I would like
48:51
Speaker 1: to think that if this kind of thing came along,
48:53
Speaker 1: I can pay my bills and I would donate that money.
48:56
Speaker 1: There you go, just starting out, Chuck, Chuck, what a
49:01
Speaker 1: great guy. You know you got anything? Else? What I
49:05
Speaker 1: feel guilty about is not doating enough time. Oh yeah,
49:09
Speaker 1: you know, because like donating money is great, but feed
49:13
Speaker 1: on the ground. Volunteer work is is very valuable, valuable
49:17
Speaker 1: and valued, and the best thing you can possibly do
49:20
Speaker 1: is walk around volunteering and throwing money, tossing it just
49:25
Speaker 1: like Hey, I'm here to uh clean up the dog
49:27
Speaker 1: kennels and here's a wad of cash, exactly, But you
49:32
Speaker 1: have to do it like de Niro, Like, you know,
49:33
Speaker 1: you shake somebody's hand and all of a sudden you
49:35
Speaker 1: got like happen, right, and where a suit while you're
49:39
Speaker 1: cleaning up the dog kennels. Oh man, I wish I
49:41
Speaker 1: was cool enough to palm a fifty dollar bill without
49:44
Speaker 1: noticing all it takes is practice. It's right. Um. Okay, Well,
49:48
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about universal basic income,
49:51
Speaker 1: just moved to Silicon Valley and start talking to people.
49:53
Speaker 1: Although I am curious if it's not hot any longer,
49:57
Speaker 1: what's the new thing? Let me know Silicon Value. Okay,
50:00
Speaker 1: let us know. And since I said let us know
50:02
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna
50:07
Speaker 1: call this from a listener I met in person. Recently.
50:10
Speaker 1: I've been doing, as you know, a little bit of
50:12
Speaker 1: alumnus work with the University of Georgia. Uh, doing some
50:18
Speaker 1: a little speaking thing the other night. Nice, how did
50:20
Speaker 1: it go? It went great? You know, it went really
50:22
Speaker 1: really great. I had a lot of fun and I
50:24
Speaker 1: was able to speak to about seventy five semi recent
50:28
Speaker 1: graduates about podcasting and everyone was super cool. There were
50:32
Speaker 1: a lot of uh, a lot of stuff. You should
50:35
Speaker 1: know people in the audience that were just delighted to
50:38
Speaker 1: get in a small room at a whiskey distillery. Oh
50:41
Speaker 1: that's a great place for it. Big shout out to
50:42
Speaker 1: the A. S W Distillery. Another alumnus. Nice. Uh, make
50:46
Speaker 1: they make some good stuff, you know what, something you'll
50:49
Speaker 1: get a kick out of is. During the Q and A,
50:51
Speaker 1: one of the first questions they said was what was
50:54
Speaker 1: your reaction when you were first asked to come back
50:57
Speaker 1: and talk to the university students and stuff like that.
51:00
Speaker 1: And I said, my first reaction, honestly, was what took
51:03
Speaker 1: you so long? I think I've been waiting for years
51:06
Speaker 1: for U g A too, you know, show me a
51:08
Speaker 1: little love stick it to him, Chuck, And they laughed.
51:11
Speaker 1: They thought it was funny you put him on the spot.
51:14
Speaker 1: I did. I like, uh, but this was from Greg Bell.
51:18
Speaker 1: And I met Greg afterward and he told me a
51:20
Speaker 1: great story and I was like, you know what, send
51:21
Speaker 1: that in an email and I'll and I'll read it.
51:23
Speaker 1: So he said, hey, Chuck, had a great pleasure of
51:26
Speaker 1: meeting you at the Young Alumni event about ten years ago.
51:30
Speaker 1: I was about six months away from graduating high school
51:33
Speaker 1: and had big plans to become a long haul truck driver.
51:36
Speaker 1: I stumbled across your podcast while looking for things to
51:38
Speaker 1: listen to on the road and was hooked. Your show
51:41
Speaker 1: was incredible to me because I didn't think I liked learning,
51:44
Speaker 1: but every Tuesday and Thursday morning I found myself refreshing
51:46
Speaker 1: my podcast speed just to see what you guys would
51:49
Speaker 1: be talking about over the next few months. Back then,
51:51
Speaker 1: I came to realize that I loved learning and I
51:53
Speaker 1: love telling other people about the things I was learning from.
51:56
Speaker 1: You both talked about you so much that I got
51:58
Speaker 1: my dad and my wife to both start listening, And
52:01
Speaker 1: now we have conversations every time we're together about what
52:04
Speaker 1: episodes we've been listening to. Um, we love this stuff.
52:07
Speaker 1: When families, I'll eat this up all day. Yeah, man,
52:10
Speaker 1: family that listens Stuff you Should Know together rarely argues sure.
52:17
Speaker 1: I think that's the same. You were both a major
52:19
Speaker 1: factor and me ultimately making a decision to stay in
52:22
Speaker 1: school and get my undergrad degree in history. Today, I
52:26
Speaker 1: am an educator at an art museum in North Georgia,
52:28
Speaker 1: and I seriously can't imagine how much different my life
52:30
Speaker 1: would be if I hadn't found Stuff you Should Know
52:32
Speaker 1: when I did. Thank you both so much for the
52:35
Speaker 1: work that you do in the impact you have on
52:36
Speaker 1: so many people around the world. If you ever find
52:38
Speaker 1: yourselves in Cartersville, would like a tour at the booth
52:41
Speaker 1: Western Art Museum. Oh, that's a good one. I would
52:44
Speaker 1: be more than happy to make that happen, and that
52:46
Speaker 1: is from Greg Bell. And I met Greg and his
52:47
Speaker 1: wife and they were just great, super super cool. Greg
52:51
Speaker 1: Bell is one of the most U g A names
52:53
Speaker 1: I've ever heard in my life, you think, aside from
52:56
Speaker 1: maybe Tucker Carlson, and I don't think he went to
52:58
Speaker 1: U g A. But that's a the different side of
53:00
Speaker 1: you g A. Greg Bell is like straight ahead, you
53:03
Speaker 1: g A name. I like it, Greg Bell Freshman. I
53:07
Speaker 1: think I might take them up on that um that
53:10
Speaker 1: museum tour. You love your museums, I do, I do.
53:14
Speaker 1: I just gotta make it up to Cartersville. That's the downside.
53:17
Speaker 1: Oh that'd be great. Uh, well, if you want to
53:20
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, like Greg did apparently show
53:22
Speaker 1: up at Chuck speaking gigs at Whiskey Distilleries. Yeah, there's
53:26
Speaker 1: some more of those coming up. If you're a ug alumnus,
53:28
Speaker 1: pay attention. That's awesome, Chuck, seriously, pay attention to everybody. UM.
53:33
Speaker 1: And if you are not a U g A alumnus
53:35
Speaker 1: or you can't make it out to one of these things,
53:36
Speaker 1: you can also get in touch with this via email.
53:39
Speaker 1: Wrap your email up, spank it on the bottom, and
53:42
Speaker 1: send it off to stuff podcast that iHeart radio dot com.
53:49
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