Who would be tempted to stop working, reduce their work hours, take longer breaks between jobs, plan gap years from work, or simply retire early if they could count on a UBI check of, say, $1000 a month? Some candidates….
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As if Trump were so bad, it’s okay to downplay the shortcoming of “anyone but Trump”. I don’t share that sentiment. So thank you FactCheck.org for combing through the Democrat debates and calling out candidates who spoke less than the truth.
Per FactCheck.org (and in their own words), here are questionable statements made by Pete Buttigieg during the Democrat debates…
Per FactCheck.org (and in their own words), here are questionable statements made by Elizabeth Warren during the Democrat debates:….
The news media tend to focus on President Trump’s exaggerations, misstatements and false claims - not a hard task, given the president’s tendency for loose talk. No such due diligence with the current crop of Democrat candidates. No ongoing catalogue of lies, ala CNN, of anyone other than Donald J. Trump. As if Trump were so bad, it’s okay to downplay the shortcoming of “anyone but Trump”. I don’t share that sentiment. So thank you FactCheck.org for combing through the Democrat debates and calling out candidates who spoke less than the truth.
FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. According to its website, FactCheck.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. It monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.
The ASBI I’m proposing would cost around $567 billion a year. Unfortunately, “savings” from government programs downsized or eliminated as a result of the ASBI would not be enough to fund the entire $567 billion program. How to fund the balance? Here’s an idea…
May I propose a modest alternative: the Adult Student Basic Income (ASBI). The ASBI would provide a basic income (say, $1,000/month) up to six years total (minimum one month at a time) for adults enrolled at least part-time in postsecondary training and education programs, from ESL classes to apprenticeships to graduate school. Like the UBI, the ASBI benefit would not be means-tested, so recipients could work without jeopardizing their payments. The ASBI would also effectively combat poverty, income volatility, job instability, and lack of social mobility by subsidizing incomes while recipients increase their earning potential. Unlike the UBI, the ASBI is time-limited and would not subsidize a permanent way of life. And while the ASBI is conditional, the required adult education and training is not so onerous as to preclude working at the same time. Plus, it’s affordable.
The Pursuit of Happiness requires a bit more unpacking. The contemporary sense of happiness mixes "lots of positive emotions" with life satisfaction. That's too small, too trivial, for me. I'm looking for a sense of happiness that is less about feeling good and more about having a sense of meaning and purpose. As it turns out, my way of thinking about happiness is pretty close to that of the Founding Fathers….
So what does matter to Americans? That is, what are the essentials of their own version of the American Dream? Allowing that the American Dream means different things to different people, there are some things that most Americans care deeply about: freedom, family, and a comfortable retirement (followed by contributing to the community and then owning a home). That’s according to a survey conducted by Pew Research a couple years ago. Check it out:
This is a Reblog of “The toxic rhetoric of climate change” by Judith Curry. Posted on December 14, 2019 (link here). I highly recommend you check out the comments on original blog and to explore Judith Curry’s other posts.
“Optimism is naively believing that everything will be all right, when we know that reality is far more complex and messy…. Optimism is like a sugar high that quickly fades…” - “Why to choose hope over optimism for 2020” by Kevin O’Brien
Some might object that Study 1 did show a decline in median income. However, the authors of Study 1 were also Study 4 authors and that study (published 15 years after Study 1) showed a substantial increase in median income. Bottom line: US median income has risen a lot over the past 40 years. And, yes, that’s controlling for inflation (no matter how inflation is calculated).
I was speaking recently with a City of Oakland policy director about the negative press the city was getting due to all the luxury housing units being built there. One news article even claimed these new units were increasing the area’s cost of housing, because they were more expensive than the existing luxury housing stock. The policy director explained that the point of all that luxury development was not to lower the cost of luxury housing (although in time it would) but to increase the supply of affordable housing. Say what?!
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Third, despite months of hearings, endless media coverage and the impeachment itself, Americans are cooling on the idea of removing Trump from office…
Gallup has been asking the open-ended question “What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?” every month for decades. And the answers have indeed been revealing. Here are the latest poll results:
Point is, for most Americans, principal residence is the primary sources of wealth. After that: pensions and retirement accounts. But nobody expects younger adults to have much in the way of pensions or retirement accounts. So the question becomes: why are younger adults delaying home ownership? The next two charts tell a big part of that story…
“…it was not until the 1920s, four decades after Thomas Edison’s first power station, that manufacturers embraced [his] killer app for electricity, designing factories to accommodate dynamo-powered assembly lines…. Genuine innovations are inherently difficult to spot in advance. So the game is more about creating the right conditions for companies to press ahead and to seize on breakthroughs when they arrive. Asian-tiger governments are steering their economies with a lighter touch
Economists typically use tax data to determine income distribution in the US, but their results vary widely…Why such a range of estimates? It’s complicated but I’ll try to simplify the issues without misrepresenting them.
Good government seeks to foster conditions conducive to the well-being of its people. This mission is not all that different from that of a parent: provide a secure base while encouraging the child to leave the zone of safety to explore the world. There’s still a secure base to return to in case you lose your way - a solid safety net - but you’re free to wander, experiment, fail, get up again, and pursue happiness on your own terms.
What is a reasonable, humane and safe shelter? At a minimum, a shelter where conditions are conducive to restful sleep: quiet, supervised, with storage space and a place to keep pets. Also, sufficiently clean and uncrowded to protect shelter residents from contagious diseases and criminal victimization. Ideally, all shelters would allow a stay of at least a week.