A universal basic income to the ultra wealthy would be perceived by them as being given a couple pennies every month

3volver@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 159 points –

The way someone with $100,000,000 would perceive $1000 is how someone with $100,000 would perceive $1.

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Back in the day, a local New York City humor magazine decided to find the cheapest rich person in New York.

They set up a bank account and mailed a bunch of rich people a check for about $2.50. Half didn't bother to cash it, and were eliminated.

They kept lowering the amount, until it was 13 cents. Only Donald Trump and an arms dealer cashed a check worth a dime and three pennies.

A banana still costs $10 for everyone

Where tf do you live that a banana is $10?

They probably live in the Bananas Stand.

There's always money in the Banana Stand.

I burned the banana stand down for the insurance money.

Why would you do that?! How much clearer can I say, there’s always money in the banana stand!!!

It's a pretty famous joke from the old show 'Arrested Development.' A rich matron asks 'how much can a banana cost? $10?'

I'm bracing for all the memes when bananas actually cost ten bucks soon.

I read/watch a lot of old mysteries. Up until about 1980, it's common for writers to put exact amounts of money in the dialogue. They stopped doing that because something that seemed like a lot of money would eventually seem cheap. For instance, Jim Rockford's $200.00 a day plus expenses doesn't seem like a lot of money when minimum wage is $120.00 a day. Or the famous $5.00 milkshake in 'Pulp Fiction.'

Whoosh?

I guess so lmao

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw

TIL this quote was from this show. I always attributed to that time Michael Jackson was allowed to walk around in a closed grocery store for the "experience".

Did you mean: $1000 to someone with 100M in their bank is like $1 to someone with 100k?

1 more...

$1000 to someone with $100,000 is like $1,000,000 to someone with $100,000,000. To make your point you'd have to do it backwards: $1000 to someone with $100,000,000 is like $1 to someone with $100,000.

The way someone with $100,000,000 would perceive $1000 is how someone with $100,000 would perceive $1.

Yea, I rewrote it in a way that makes more sense.

Except that's only how it works mathematically, not in practice due to human nature. Perceived value of money would be something really interesting to study as there's just so many variables of which wealth is one, but I'm not even sure it's the most important when compared to upbringinging, source of money (do you work for it, even if you're overpaid, vs winning the lottery/being a parasite like selling mineral rights or buying properties and getting a management company you're not involved in to rent them out etc.) and others

A universal basic income to the ultra wealthy would be perceived by them as being given a couple pennies every month

A couple pennies...

0.02 * 336,000,000 = 6,720,000 a month. There are not that many "Ultra wealthy" individuals who could sustain that for any significant amount of time. $80,640,000 a year.

The top 25 richest according to wikipedia range from 30.7 - 251 billion as of September 2023.

I don't think that's going to feel like "a couple pennies"... Especially since the ask is actually $1000 a month.So $336,000,000,000 per month... or $4,032,000,000,000 per year. Or about double all top 25 put together ($2,045,700,000,000). Source on net worth.

Strictly taking from the rich to create UBI will not work. UBI in general will devalue the dollar to nothing on the global market since the only way to do it is to print $$$ at an enormous scale. And we can validate this by looking at the COVID stimulus money. $1,800,000,000,000 of the $5 trillion went to individuals and families. Which was ~3200 for each adult? So about 3 months worth of UBI proposed? Which is about half of what I would expect given the numbers... And after COVID we all see rampant inflation, making everything worse off overall!

You misread the post

So I did. Oh well. Thanks for letting me know.

Edit: I still think some of it is relevant discussion and I'm okay with leaving my flaws out there so I'm not going to delete it. But I sincerely do appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I don't know why I assumed this post was the other way around. I think I read a comment that switched the logic in my head for some reason. I dunno.

Can we keep this kind of political rhetoric off of shower thoughts please?

Not sure when poor people being able to survive had become politics, but you do you

You are literally extracting the political token of why universal basic income is helpful, and then claiming that it's "not political"...?

Oh my god, helping people! How political!

Helping people via the government is political.

Political isn't some word for "government action that's controversial" or "government action that you don't like." It's just the discussion of government actions.

It's inherently political to discuss universal basic income and acting as if it isn't, is intellectually dishonest.

When it involves terms like "universal basic income" it becomes political.

I just don't like seeing left propaganda all over Lemmy. If you want to create community fine as I believe in free speech but don't pollute other communities with your beliefs. I've noticed that Lemmy has gotten a less political overall but I still have noticed bad moderators for time to time.

"left propaganda" BAHAHAHA that's like complaining about seeing people using science in their daily lives or talking about science and calling it science propoganda

being right-wing is inherently irrational and anti-science, there is no room to complain about "left propoganda" especially when UBI isn't even inherently leftist, UBI still exists solely to prop up a broken capitalist system making it live on the right of the political spectrum. left propaganda would be advocating for socialism or something, this is just advocating for welfare capitalism (which has been proven to be far better for the populace than other forms of capitalism in use).

this post doesn't even state an opinion on UBI though, so it's weird that you took it as "propoganda", or even "political". it's literally just proportions. it's really hard to take someone who's saying "the objective truth is just political propaganda" seriously.

That would have been one of my points too, how can you claim UBI is leftist when ideally you wouldn't need it under a working left-wing system in the first place. I'm not very knowledgeable about politics, but "this is leftist propaganda" isn't it, chief

Better living standards for everyone is "left propaganda?"

So, you support free speech... as long as you don't see it. Feeling cognitive dissonance yet?

I agree. As much as I agree with the idea of universal basic income - because I think supporting society while reducing the work necessary is something we should aim for, because it's the best way to ensure everyone gets a fair lot in life and because I think it's a necessity with the direction the labour market is heading - this isn't really the kind of thing I want to see in this community, personally. Hell, UBI doesn't really have much to do with the thought of "if X is Y% of Z then 1000X is Y% of 1000Z" - it's just basic maths really (and OP seems to have got the maths wrong, too).

I got it backwards, and rewrote it very clearly,

The way someone with $100,000,000 would perceive $1000 is how someone with $100,000 would perceive $1.

Which is one of the reasons I actually oppose UBI. Also, in practice, it will be used to replace SSI, not enhance it. At least in the USA, a better answer is fixing and expanding the SSI and Social Security system. People making 6 figures don’t need an extra $1k a month or whatever figure people want to suggest. But giving very poor people an extra $2k, moderately poor people $1k, etc. would be a bigger help. And the idea would be if you make $2 or $3 more dollars, you lose $1 in support

Edit: it would have to taper more slowly, maybe $10 you lose $1. It’s funny to see the downvotes, I don’t often see Lemmy folks defending ideas from conservative economists like Friedman.

What is the cutoff point, where someone making more than that amount can use an extra $1k, but not someone making that amount?

It decreases with income, as I said. If we give $2,000 to everyone making under $60k, for example, then decrease it for every few bucks you make. You’d probably have to do something like a 10:1 ratio where is you make $60,010, you’d get $1999 and so on. That would mean people making $80k or more don’t get anything. And they don’t really need it anyway.

But regardless, UBI, even under Yang, is always an attempt to destroy and replace our current welfare system. Poor people would barely get any more than they currently do under SSI

Your assumption that SSI would be somehow removed or replaced is shit. Universal basic income should never be based on income, it goes against the entire point. Universal basic income would be on top of any existing benefits and wouldn't impact any other benefits.

Except that was Yang’s plan. That’s how it works when it’s been attempted at a federal level. Not to mention that’s the only way it would pass. It’s not BS when that’s literally how it’s been proposed in US law. Some proposals even remove SNAP along with SSI.

There is no assumption being made here.

Edit: here’s an excellent explanation of why it won’t work: https://www.rebelnews.ie/2021/07/05/universal-basic-income-socialist-case-against/