Tag: UBI

The Only Way We’re Getting Meaningful UBI Is To ‘Bribe’ The Elites

As automation accelerates and artificial intelligence reshapes entire industries, we’re rapidly approaching what feels like an inevitable crossroads: a future where traditional employment simply can’t provide for everyone. In this landscape, Universal Basic Income (UBI) isn’t just an idealistic policy proposal—it’s becoming an economic necessity. But if the pandemic taught us anything about large-scale government payouts, it’s that UBI won’t come without strings attached, and those strings might fundamentally transform how America collects taxes.

The Automation Avalanche

We’re not just talking about robots taking factory jobs anymore. AI is poised to disrupt everything from legal research to creative writing, from medical diagnostics to financial analysis. When ChatGPT can draft contracts, when autonomous vehicles threaten millions of driving jobs, and when machine learning algorithms can outperform humans at pattern recognition across countless fields, we’re looking at unemployment levels that could make the Great Depression seem manageable.

The math is stark: if technology continues advancing at its current pace while productivity gains don’t translate into proportional job creation, we’ll need a new economic model. UBI represents the most straightforward solution—a direct cash transfer that provides everyone with basic economic security regardless of employment status.

Lessons from the Pandemic: The Political Economy of Stimulus

But here’s where it gets complicated. The COVID-19 stimulus payments offer a revealing preview of how UBI might actually come to pass—and it’s not through progressive idealism.

Remember how we got those stimulus checks? It wasn’t because Congress suddenly embraced wealth redistribution. The “stimmies” were politically viable only because they came packaged with the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—a system that ultimately funneled hundreds of billions to business owners, many of whom didn’t actually need the money. For every $1,400 check that went to working families, multiples of that amount flowed to corporations and high earners through PPP loans that were largely forgiven.

This pattern reveals something crucial about American political economy: major redistributive programs require buy-in from powerful interests, and that buy-in typically comes at a steep price.

The Tax System Trade-Off

Here’s my prediction: when UBI finally arrives, it will come with a radical restructuring of our tax system. The wealthy and powerful will extract their pound of flesh, and that extraction will likely take the form of eliminating the complex, progressive tax code in favor of something much simpler—and much more regressive.

Imagine this scenario: The IRS, that bureaucratic behemoth that the wealthy have always despised, gets largely dismantled. In its place, we implement a single 30% Value Added Tax (VAT) on all goods and services. Suddenly, tax compliance becomes automatic—embedded in every transaction rather than requiring annual filings, audits, and the massive enforcement apparatus that currently exists.

For the wealthy, this represents a dream scenario. No more worrying about capital gains rates, estate taxes, or complex loopholes. No more audits, no more tax lawyers, no more IRS. Just a flat consumption tax that, while nominally affecting everyone equally, actually represents a massive tax cut for high earners who save and invest large portions of their income.

Why This Trade-Off Makes Sense (Unfortunately)

From a purely political perspective, this bargain has an almost inevitable logic:

For the wealthy: They get to eliminate the progressive tax system they’ve spent decades trying to dismantle. A 30% VAT might sound high, but for someone currently paying 37% income tax plus state taxes plus capital gains, it represents significant savings—especially since the wealthy consume a smaller percentage of their income than the poor.

For the middle class: They get economic security through UBI, even as they face higher consumption taxes. For many, this could still be a net positive if the UBI amount exceeds their VAT burden.

For the poor: They get a guaranteed income floor, which could be life-changing even if they pay more in consumption taxes.

For politicians: They get to claim they’ve solved both unemployment and tax complexity in one fell swoop.

The Regressive Reality

Of course, this system would be fundamentally regressive. VATs hit the poor hardest because they spend nearly all their income on consumption, while the wealthy save and invest significant portions of theirs. A person spending $30,000 annually would pay $9,000 in VAT (30% of their consumption), while a wealthy person spending $100,000 but earning $1 million would pay only $30,000—just 3% of their total income.

But here’s the political genius of coupling this with UBI: if the universal payment is large enough, it could offset the regressive effects for lower-income Americans while still delivering massive tax savings to the wealthy.

The Inevitability Factor

The more I think about it, the more this feels inevitable. Not because it’s the best policy outcome, but because it’s the only politically viable path to UBI in America. Our system simply doesn’t allow for large-scale progressive redistribution without providing even larger benefits to those who already have the most.

We saw this dynamic with pandemic relief, with the bank bailouts of 2008, and with virtually every major economic intervention in recent decades. The pattern is consistent: help for ordinary Americans comes only when it’s packaged with even greater help for the wealthy and powerful.

What This Means for the Future

If this prediction proves correct, we’re heading toward a profound economic transformation. UBI would provide unprecedented economic security for millions of Americans, potentially eliminating poverty and giving workers the freedom to take risks, pursue education, or care for family members without fear of destitution.

But it would come at the cost of permanently entrenching a less progressive tax system, potentially increasing wealth inequality even as it provides a social safety net. The rich would get richer faster, but everyone would have a guaranteed minimum.

The Questions We Should Be Asking

As we hurtle toward this potential future, we need to grapple with some difficult questions:

  • Is a regressive-but-universal system better than our current progressive-but-incomplete one?
  • Can UBI be large enough to offset the regressive effects of VAT for those who need it most?
  • What happens to public services when we shift from progressive taxation to consumption taxes?
  • Will this bargain actually deliver on its promises, or will it simply be another way for the wealthy to extract more from the system?

Preparing for the Inevitable

Whether this scenario plays out exactly as I’ve described, some version of it feels increasingly likely. The combination of technological displacement and political economy suggests that UBI will come, but it will come with trade-offs that progressive advocates might find uncomfortable.

Rather than fighting this reality, perhaps we should be preparing for it. How do we ensure that a UBI-VAT system actually serves working people? How do we prevent it from becoming just another wealth transfer upward disguised as social policy?

The answers to these questions will shape whether the coming economic transformation represents genuine progress or just another iteration of America’s long tradition of socializing costs while privatizing benefits. One way or another, change is coming. The question is whether we’ll be ready for it.

We’re All Going To Have To Contemplate UBI in the 2028-2032 Timeframe

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitively seems as though at some point in the near future, probably between 2028 and 2032, the idea of implementing a Universal Basic Income will go mainstream.

I say this because it’s clear that LLM minds are going to android bodies as quickly as possible. But, come to think of it, for paper-pusher jobs, their downfall could happen even sooner.

It’s very amusing to me how all these computer science nerds want the fucking Singularity to arrive as fast as possible when, by definition, there’s a good chance that they will all lose their jobs — everyone will lose their jobs, full stop. Given how smug “coders” have been towards people like me, I sometimes get angry and wish they would all lose their jobs en masse and be required to pick up liberal arts as their token of apology.

But that will never happen.

Yet I do think that UBI is going to become really popular pretty soon. We could save so much money — especially on administrative costs — if we just sent out a check to everyone in the country instead of having some sort of elaborate social safety net.

Am I An ‘AI Doomer?’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because of what I engage with on Twitter, I’m being fed a growing amount of AI community content. What gets me is so many users — young men, presumably — are obsessed with accelerating AI development until we reach Artificial General Intelligence.

AGI would be much like Sam in the movie “Her.” But, given current advancements in robotics, it’s very possible that sexbots will become affordable enough within a decade that Incels will have absolute no reason to ever get anywhere near a living, breathing, biological woman. Ugh!

Before I go any further, I remember what it was like to be a young man transfixed by technology. In my instance, it was the Internet. I was very, very obsessed with every twitch of the Internet revolution when I was in college. It was that obsession that would ultimately lead me to have a very misguided time as a technology manager in the late 1990s.

Anyway, the key thing for me is that there is a good chance that AI will revolutionize humanity’s existence in much the same way that the Internet did, only far, far quicker. Instead of decades of gradual change, it could be years — or months! — of very, very fast change that will be looked back upon as something akin to a Petite Singularity.

As an Old, I just don’t see how anything like AGI being developed is going to help humanity. All these people touting the life of prosperity, luxury and surplus seem to be oblivious to the hateful, cruel nature of capitalism. The only way anyone my have any money in the future is if there’s a Universal Basic Income.

There is a real chance that AGI will cause either massive political and economic disruption or, in the end, there will just be the Poors and the Very Wealthy and that’s it. I continue to believe that MAGA may evolve into an anti-tech movement at some point in the near future.

‘Carveouts’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems clear to me that we’re going to need legal carveouts for humans in the near future when it comes to much of the jobs that are available. Or we’re going to have to implement a Universal Basic Income.

One of the two.

The natural progression of capitalism is to economically screw over as many people as possible and what could be better — for a select few plutocrats — than for there to be NO jobs because a combination of AI and robotics made (humans) doing the jobs moot.

I am know to be hysterical and I’m not known for being able to predict the future. So, lulz, who knows. But the point is — we need to start thinking NOW about what we’re going to do when AI and robotics take all our jobs.

I still believe it’s possible that the far Left and the far Right may fuse into the next stage of MAGA, which would be anti-technology — a neo-Luddite movement, if you will. One thing is for sure — things are moving really, really fast.

The Rise Of The Agents

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though within 18 months the “Knowledge Navigator” shown above will finally — at last — be a reality. It seems possible that just as we reach the so-called “Fourth Turning” we will also reach something akin to a Petite Singularity in the sense that Agents will consume huge portions of the economy.

Add into the mix advances in robotics and, welp, I just don’t see what jobs will be left for humans to do, period. All of this — MIGHT — happen so fast that even ding-dong Trump might to address the notion of UBI as part of the 2024 election cycle.

It’s possible, but not probable. It could be that even if things advance as quickly as I suspect / fear, it will just all happen to fast for the slow-moving American political system to adapt and address it directly.

All I know is 2024 is shaping up to be a crazy year, one way or another. We’re now less than a year away from all the insane post-Election Night 2024 shenanigans that I fear might happen the moment it’s clear Trump is going to be re-elected.

But it’s possible that I’m over thinking things. Trump *may* lose and it won’t matter. We’ll punt our problems down the road another four years and it won’t be until 2029 that all of my dystopian hellscape predictions begin to come true.

At least I will — hopefully — be able to get a few of the six novels I want to write as part of this project done if that is the case.

But if agents really do take over sooner rather than later, the economic disruption could be astonishing. If we have AGI or something akin to “proxy humans” at our beck and call, then that’s millions and millions of jobs that will become moot overnight.

Pondering The Potential Impact of Google’s Coming Gemini AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though the next 18 months may be pretty fucking historic on both a technological and political basis. On the tech side, Google is set to release a new AI called Gemini. Given how impressive today’s first generation AI is, I’m a bit unnerved by what Gemini may bring.

It definitely seems as though 2024 will be the year when AI reaches the “just good enough” stage. This means we’ll be one severe recession away from the entire knowledge economy being upended and transformed. It could be that the 2024 presidential cycle will be the first time we start to take the notion of Universal Basic Income seriously.

I’m coming to believe that UBI is inevitable — a lot sooner than anyone might think. But I also think it will come at a price — probably all taxes will be replaced by a 30% VAT. Also, I think we’ll pay for a UBI by taxing the economic output of non-human actors.

If Gemini is anywhere near as powerful as is suggested, then we are probably in for some severe economic and social upheaval just as we careen towards the “Fourth Turning” of late 2024, early 2025.

I continue to believe that it’s at least possible that neo-Ludditism is the next logical evolution of MAGA. It makes a lot of sense if even blue collar jobs are not spared by AI. I suspect that soon enough something akin to androids will begin to take all the service jobs that aren’t knowledge economy jobs being taken by LLMs.

Regardless, things are very much up the air.

The Fusion Of AI & AR Will Spark A $1 Trillion Service Industry

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While we may have to suffer through a fucking “Fourth Turning” first, I do believe once that’s all sorted out that Augmented Reality paired with Artificial Intelligence with create exponential growth.

Of course, this exponential growth will happen in the context of a Petite Singularity where there may be a dwindling number of jobs for humans to actually work. It could be that we’ll have a “Her” future in the context of having a Her-like AI walk us through our AR-lives as we all sit around trying to write the Great American Novel because we’re all living off UBI.

Again, the issue for me is there is a real possibility that the Western world may be about to “go through some things” starting in late 2024, early 2025. It could be that “those things” are the United States not having a civil war, but rather becoming an inward-looking America First autocracy. That, in turn will spark WW3 that will leave about 1 billion people dead.

And, if you wanted to get all Black Mirror about it, it could be that we’ll all wake up one day, put on our AR/AI vizors and walk around the world being berated by an AI demanding we not have “woke” thoughts.

Yikes.

So, I don’t know the specifics of how this will all sort itself out, but I do know that we’re in for some pretty significant technology-driven cultural and political changes very, very soon.

We Have To Have A Frank Discussion As Society About The Looming Need For a #UBI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With the release of ChatGPT 4.0, it is yet even more apparent that there is a risk that huge swaths of the American economy may be eaten by AI far sooner than we would like. The first test of this will be, of course, the coming Hollywood writers’ strike.

If studios can successfully write professional-grade scripts using ChatGPT, then, well, there you go. Before you know it, instead of subscribing to a streaming service, we’ll all just pay $15 a month to access to the body scans of Hollywood stars so an AI can pump out very, very specific entertainment to us on a regular basis.

The end of mass media will have arrived.

But I’m really growing alarmed that a lot of high end, white collar jobs may goo poof within a few years as AI grows better and better. And we’re just not prepared for what happens when everyone from semi-drivers to tech bros simply don’t have any jobs available to them anymore.

As such, we need to start thinking about how we might implement a Universal Basic Income. The obvious way to me seems we “bribe” plutocrats by replacing the entire tax system with a 30% VAT while also having some sort of montified UBI deployed.

That seems to be the type of thing that might allow us to get a UBI.

But there is the darker scenario where we, well, have a civil war / WW3 and it’s not until after THAT is all sorted out that things like AI really begin to take off, much like TV and WW2.

Who knows.

Thinking Seriously About Implementing A UBI Because Of The Chatbot Revolution

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Up until now I’ve been cool to the idea of a Universal Basic Income outside of using it to replace the social safety net. I’ve been reluctant to embrace UBI because on one hand everyone is really lazy while on the other there are ambitious people who would rather burn the country down than be limited in what they could earn.

But now, with the advent of the looming Chatbot Revolution, I find myself reviewing the need for a UBI.

The use of UBI may be forced upon us a lot sooner than we might otherwise expect, if a “Petite Singularity” happens at some point between now and, say, early 2025. Everything is happening so fast that it could be that the 2024 presidential election is the first in which the use of a UBI becomes something we all talk about.

One way I could maybe see a UBI happening is if we bribed rich people by replacing the Federal Income Tax with a massive 30% VAT. Once fucking plutocrats get what they want, then the UBI can be instituted. But, even then, there would have to be some sort of exceptions so Type A personality people could do their thing.

Maybe, if you had some sort of job that couldn’t be replaced by a chatbot or android, you would get the right to make money over and above whatever the UBI might be? It’s a very curious situation.

I still think it’s possible that all of this may be moot for the time being as we sot out of we’re going to have a civil war, turn into an autocracy or have a military junta. It could be the late 2020s, or early 2030s before we figure out some pretty existential political issues in the United States.