Would it be all people in all locations or just people in (parts of) the global north? If the global south is included or excluded, how would UBI impact the current unequal transfer of value from the global south to the north? Can the north afford UBI without super-exploiting the south same will a UBI in the south undermine that super-exploitation?

In other words: will the north allow the south to implement any kind of UBI, given the terms and framework of IMF/WTO/World Bank?

The crux of these questions is: what affect will UBI have on global inequality?

Edit: I don’t expect answers to these questions. It would take a book to answer each one. It’s just something to think about.

Would reducing wages by X be as effective as reducing ‘passive’ income from assets (by a proportion of X) or by imposing a wealth cap?

Gary Stevenson (of Garys Economics on YouTube) argues that exactly this happend with the Covid money. With watching if you haven’t seen him already.

He suggests the solution to the problem caused by Covid money is a wealth/asset tax. He’s persuasive. My main critique, which leads to a question I have for you, is that it would take quite a shift in public consciousness to get support for that tax: would an asset/wealth tax ‘fix’ the problems that you identify re: e.g. landlords?

Another suggestion (I didn’t hear this from Stevenson but it’s not my idea and I can’t remember the book) is a UBI ‘credit card’ that allows a maximum savings amount. This is to encourage spending and prevent accumulation. After that, the money disappears. I can’t recall if the amount that can be saved is the same throughout each month. It’s government backed, so it’s ‘money’ but it can’t be hoarded in the same way as ‘money’ money. The idea would be to prevent the picture that you paint. Have you heard of this? Any thoughts?

🤷

It’s such an important topic but a conversation can’t go anywhere if the two speakers are talking about different things and can’t agree on what the topic is.

This is the most appropriate thing you’ve said all day.

I honestly have no idea what you’re on about, except that you forgot the one about making mountains out of molehills.

At least we agree that I didn’t say what I didn’t say.

i never agreed to that

Why are you insisting that I meant what I have said I did not mean? I understand that your interpretation of what I said is one valid interpretation. But I am confirming again that it is not the intended meaning of my words.

I called the US a warmonger. You replied:

and the fact that you call the US a “warmonger” simply for helping Ukraine defend itself …

I confirmed:

I’m calling the US a warmonger because it’s been a warmonger for it’s brief but entire history.

You responded:

now you’re just changing your argument again moving the goalposts to yet another tu quoque fallacy.

But I haven’t changed what I said. There was a misunderstanding and I clarified what I meant. I’ll do so again. My point—the same as it was in my first comment—is that the US is a warmonger. It is a warmonger because it is constantly starting and prosecuting wars. The goalposts are exactly where I left them.

I wrote:

Even if it turns out that this is the one war in which US motivations are good (i.e. not to make profit or further it’s interests), it would still be a warmonger for every other war that it caused and prosecuted.

To which you replied:

so, you even admit that your earlier assertions aren’t necessarily factual

This is a misunderstanding. The words ‘even if’ are conditional. They mean, in case I am wrong about US motivations in this war, the US is still a warmonger for all the other wars it has caused and prosecuted. So I can be wrong about this war and still right about the generalisation. This is the same point, to reiterate, that I have made from the beginning.

you have a grudge about what the US did in the past

The US and it’s allies killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. In my lifetime. Why should I not be bitter and angry at such a crime? At the lack of justice? The people responsible are still free and there have been no apologies. What I have is an accurate description of the US: warmonger.

Yes, I will continue to say this. Until the day the US apologises and finds a way to make reparations. And not just for Iraq but for all the other places it has destroyed in it’s lust for profit. Because until that day, I will refuse to believe that the US has changed it’s ways. And if it has not changed it’s ways, then it remains what it has always been: a warmonger.

At least we agree that I didn’t say what I didn’t say.

I’m calling the US a warmonger because it’s been a warmonger for it’s brief but entire history. Even if it turns out that this is the one war in which US motivations are good (i.e. not to make profit or further it’s interests), it would still be a warmonger for every other war that it caused and prosecuted.

No amount of ‘just war’ will cancel out what the US did to Iraq or Libya or Vietnam or Laos or any number of other military atrocities.

It’s irrelevant who I blame for the war.

I’ll explain.

The are several interpretations of what I said. Yours among them. But I am now confirming, for the second time, that I did not mean what you think I meant.

Two other valid interpretations, which I did intend, include: (1) that the US and it’s executives and diplomats are warmongers; and (2) that Ukrainian demands are for the Ukrainians alone to determine.

The war is now an historical fact. Who started it is a significant issue but is neither here nor there for the point that I’m making. I’ll elaborate on that point so as to put a stop to the evident confusion.

Peace will not be reached for so long as the US seeks profits in (a) selling weapons and (b) the reconstruction of Ukraine. The longer the war and the more destruction it causes, the more profit in it for the US.

The US is interested in Ukraine only insofar as it reaps these profits. I say nothing of ordinary Americans, who are likely genuinely and rightly appalled at the war and hope for the US to end it. Unfortunately, if they hope for this, they do not know their government nor it’s financial interests. That is tragic, because if they did know, they might better help to end this war and many others.

The true ends of those decision makers (in the US and in Europe, too) are clear in statements like those in the linked article. If peace was the aim, the US would not be making demands that it knows Russia will never agree to. Are Russia’s demands acceptable? It’s again beside the point.

The question is, what is the quickest way to end the war? The answer to that question will reveal the steps that must be taken. I struggle to see how inflammatory warmongering statements from a known warmonger state could ever be part of that answer or those steps.

That’s not what I said.

I think you’ve seriously misunderstood what I said.

Warmonger. Don’t the Ukrainians get a say in whether the US can sacrifice so many people for US goals?

The US was involved in WWII from the beginning. They were just on the side of the Nazis. The State only intervened openly in the end to prevent the spread of communism. Then they made sure to rescue as many Nazis as possible and put them in positions of power in West Germany, the EU, and NATO, etc.

Since that war, the US has been doing ‘what they pleased’, exactly what the Nazis and what Japan would’ve done. To this day the US tortures, runs concentration camps, and brutally oppresses billions of people around the world.

Those who argued for the US to stay out were right then, and are still right today.

So that’s why we’re seeing stories about skirmishes between Iran and Afghanistan.

Edit:

The East Turkistan Islamic Movement, a Xinjiang-based separatist group, is also present in Afghanistan.

It’s going to be a lot easier to end these struggles with the yanks gone. And we know that China already has the recipe for success…

Beijing will have its work cut out to bring fruitful negotiations to an area long used to violent arguments and war.

Un/fortunately, all this was caused by the US. With them gone, the task will be a lot easier. The question is, has the US really left or did it just withdraw it’s visible presence?

Wtf is the US playing at?