Well, considering I lost huge value in the housing crash and am just coming out of cancer treatment with my wife, I understand. And yet, those are all temporary. Anyone good with money doesn’t enter a state of perpetual lifelong poverty because of that. It just doesn’t happen. If you are good with money, those things listed really shouldn’t be too hard of problems except for some very rare extreme circumstances.
You seem to think that this is some kind of moral judgment on the poor, it isn’t. Being good or bad with money isn’t a moral judgment. You can be bad with money, work hard, be poor, and be a wonderful person. You can be good with money, be lazy, have lots of wealth, and be a horrible person. You can also have a lot of money and be bad with it. I’m not making any moral judgment on people. However, the combination of long term poverty and having the amoral skill of handling money well are virtually mutually exclusive.
That wasn’t your original statement. You spoke in absolutes about passing judgement of someone’s abilities based on their current financial situation. What I was commenting on was that your absolutes don’t come anywhere close to standing up to any form of discussion.
Giving money to the poor is always giving money to people bad with it.
One of the arguments of a UBI’s advantage over current welfare is that it would allow people to pick up part- or full-time work without risking their benefits. The welfare “cycle” seems to trap a lot of people who are able to work but would end up earning less, so they don’t bother.
I absolutely, fundamentally disagree with this. I would also point out that it is not an ‘argument,’ rather, it is simply an assertion. This seems to be your go-to discussion style regarding the topic at hand–you assert your conclusion to be true, then declare the assertion to be an argument in favor of itself. (You are not alone in this–these discussions usually boil down to someone declaring that the absolute right to property is a ‘natural right,’ as if that somehow justifies/explains anything.)
Question. When you lost a large chunk of value in your house with the 07 crash, was that because you were bad with money or would you agree it was forces outside of your control? When you had medical bills from your wife having cancer, was that also directly related to your personal money managing abilities?
I ask because by any reasonable definition of overall wealth (ie poor vs rich) as a view of assets vs debt would put the vast majority of those hit by the 07 housing crash (or medical bills etcetc) into the “poor” category, which by your definition means there’s a 99.9% chance they’re bad with money.
While I agree the premise of what you’re saying applies a decent percent of the time, I keep getting hung up on your absolutes and near absolutes when you yourself are an example of being a victim of things outside your control.
The right to life is synonymous with self ownership. Someone else can’t take your life, because you own it. It’s the same argument.
And I absolutely agree, it is an assertion. However, you misunderstand my argument. I didn’t claim that you have the right to life because it’s a natural right. I actually noted the inverse. If you reject the assertion of natural rights you reject all the rights that use that logic. All natural rights are asserted and claimed, not rationally derived. The bill of rights are out right assertions based exclusively on the justification that they are natural to man. You absolutely can reject the natural rights argument. You cannot however, accept it sometimes and not others unless you are comfortable in hypocrisy. Especially when you are within different aspects of the same natural right (property ownership).
By all means, reject the assertion, but I get to point out you are rejecting the bill of rights and our founding documents.
House thing, was in my control and in part my bad decisions. Cancer was not in my control. However, neither of those things put me in the ballpark of poverty, even temporarily, because I’m not bad with money, even though I don’t make a ton.
And I need some clarification. You’re assertion is that people with a negative net worth who are out buying overpriced houses without a reserve for things like medical emergencies are not bad with money?
Good point. The $/month would have to be low enough to still encourage work of course. 1k/month per adult sounds ok. But like @DoubleDuce said above, if you’re bad with money, you will be just as bad post-UBI…if not worse. Financial literacy courses or something along that line will be a necessity imo. Though, we do know that knowledge=/=understanding or application.
This is an excellent talk that hits the nail on the head. The middle class is the engine that drives the economy. With further erosion of their income/wealth, they will not be able to buy the products and services of the corporations. That bodes well for no one.
My assertion is that the sheer number of factors that could put someone into temporary poverty blows past the .1% of outliers you suggest.
Young people alone destroy your 99.9% as it’s very reasonable for them to have a temporary negative net worth if you consider it to be an investment into their future.
Buying a house will almost always immediately put anyone into negative net worth territory, unless they’re buying so far below their means that the price of the house is insignificant (since I work at a mortgage company currently and have access to industry wide analytics, I can tell you very few people buy that far below their means).
First, why do you feel it’s inevitable? Curious from which direction you’re approaching this. My personal views is that technology will continue to gut manufacturing, next up is driving and, eventually, most other industries. It’s doing a fine taking over the “doing” jobs now; and it’s moving very quickly on to the “thinking” jobs. It will really get out of hand once AI becomes more mainstream.
Second (and I guess this applies only if you agree with my position), what do propose instead?
Ok, I see your point, and my amended statements covered that.
Buying a house only really hurts your net worth if it’s overpriced or the value of the house decreases. And even then the losses would only ever be realized if you sold it.
