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Comment by nephihaha | Hacker News Reader

Universal Basic Income is not the panacea it's claimed to be.

UBI gives government more control over individuals' finances, especially those without independent means. Poverty is also the result of unfair taxation, where poor people face onerous taxes while receiving less and less in return, and the wealthy avoid tax at every turn. Or that it is difficult for people to be self-employed due to red tape favouring big business. UBI does not address those issues.

UBI also centralises control at the expense of local self-determination and community engagement.

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I don't think UBI will be enough. All existing debt needs to be erased as well. Otherwise, UBI means nothing if it all goes to repay old debt. If UBI is less than my mortgage, bills and other loan repayments, what good is it?

Debt is a major problem for sure, and a cornerstone of our economic system. There should have been mandatory debt protection during that lockdown but there wasn't.

UBI potentially leads to inflation. If everyone has X amount of income then rents and prices go up accordingly.

Taxation is totally unfair. 20% of most of what we buy here is going into government coffers, raising our cost of living. We get less and less in return as public services are slashed. Add onto that other taxes, and it is the government, not just corporations who are major instigators of debt and the poverty trap...

I assume you're referring to VAT, and in the UK? It feels like they let us keep 20% of what we make these days... Don't get me started on poverty traps. The realisation and reality of all of this has recently hit me like a ton of bricks.

Yeah, it's quite unbelievable people are still repeating the "AI everything -> UBI -> everyone comfortable and well-fed" line.

Who's to say the governments won't just let society continue on the exact same trajectory it was before generative AI: "Lost your job? Too bad for you. Here's a gig economy and maybe some minimal food stamps. Innovation marches on!"

Shallow dismissals are against HN Guidelines, https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The term "shallow" is entirely subjective here. I have edited the comment accordingly because of your reaction.

Thanks for expanding the comment. For downvoters, the original comment was "Universal Basic Income is not the panacea it's claimed to be."

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