I already explained why using the IPD makes no sense. There's also a possibility that the IPD is simply biased downward because it doesn't include import prices.

How about no pay.

Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces Workers to Toil Off the Clock

There's no way you should be this desperate to sell copies of your book.

I'm grunching but IDGAF if a stipend of some kind goes to people unwilling to work. First off, those people are fewer in number than Republicans are willing to acknowledge. Secondly, governments have an obligation to help the unfortunate rather than allowing them to br stigmatized by society and suffer in silence. The secondary benefits of minimizing poverty are very much worthy of a significant income tax increase to pay for it.

People (with no other legal and ethical means to sustain their expenses) unwilling to work even minimally if not in some mental health trouble or some other reasonable argument situation are aholes.

First of all finding work if allowed to work (because you need to be able to be employed for example and not be illegal) is not entirely difficult. It is of course not enough always to cover expenses.

So yes an artist or some person that wants to focus on things that are not financially rewarding initially is justified to not be willing to work like most people daily for several hours but they should provide evidence that they do something with their time that is reasonable. Otherwise they are selfish aholes and they will create and sustain their future depression and addictions into a downward spiral. Also they can work minimally part time.

Its possible to work part time for so few hours per week to not be tired or completely decoupled from what activity you enjoy that is not rewarding financially. That minimum effort should be rewarded by society with assistance to find better more enjoyable employment options and skill building and chances to improve the income. Then for that very effort and participating in it a supplementary income is reasonable for a caring society.

A society must not reward irresponsible behavior unless it can afford it because something more important is protected (like the healthy chance to discover yourself) .

However a scientific society like what i have been proposing would provide a base standard of living to all citizens unconditionally. But it will be so much lower in non essentials than the one obtained by reasonable employment, to be completely ridiculous to settle for it.


Most people unwilling to work are irrational, not educated on how to find employment and have patience, and cowardly unwilling to find out that they can be good at certain things that are producing income and improve society at the same time. Working 10h per week will not solve your problems but will make you feel better about your condition and keep you active away from troubling activities that are constantly finding their way to the lives of people with endlessly boring free time and an existence of no higher purpose.

Not being productive in some sense maintains a low self esteem (or some pretentious arrogant rejection of its acknowledgment), it sustains and enhances depression that prevents them from finding out how to be happy with even minimal effort and care. Surely of course many people need support and guidance to discover they can be happier when working a little and seeing some positive outcome for their efforts. Also many people are depressed and afraid to risk rejection or failure. It is true that currently society is not the friendliest of places when it comes to teaching or helping its members how to improve their lives or restart their lives with reasonable responsible behavior that is not exhausting or intimidating.

There's an NPO called GiveDirectly that I donate to on a monthly basis. You give them money and they send it directly to families in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda via mobile phone transactions. They provide each family they help $1,000 to spend as they wish. This differs from charities who decide for themselves what poor people need.

A conservative would believe that giving money to people for doing nothing would make them lazy. They think that they would just spend it on drugs and booze. That really says more about what they would do with the money rather than what poor people would actually do with it. Truth is that people want to improve their lives and want to have a purpose on this planet. Providing them money with no strings attached allows them to do just that.

This is really a precursor to a basic minimum income plan. I'm excited to see what the outcome of this will be.

Depends on the variety of conservative. Many libertarians, especially economically-oriented ones, favor this kind of charity because it is not paternalistic.

One other thing on wage growth that I don't think has been mentioned is that demographics in the US are serving to suppress any wage metric despite U3 and U6 being so low. Most new jobs being created right now are of the lower wage/lower skilled variety while most people retiring or leaving the work force voluntarily are higher paying/higher skilled. Give the boomer generation will be retiring for at least another decade, we should expect this effect to continue to suppress wage growth metrics outside of some major technological change/invention that creates multiple high paying industries.

You are right about people. In Africa.

Sure. Trial runs need to be done in the developed world too.

But your response tells me what you think of basic minimum income. Like most conservatives, you think that giving money to poor people will lead to spending money on booze and drugs. That's because those people think that poverty and homelessness is the fault of the individual and not a strutctural problem with numerous causes.

But in my case you can't say that I think that because I would use booze and drugs if I was given a basic income as you like to say. Of course a decent percent of people are in bad shape because of things that were their choice. And many are in bad shape through no fault of their own. I just wonder whether you put people who don't exercise, take durs, don't read books, watch situation comedies instead of PBS and Nova, and eat junk food are in the second category or the first.

I may be a bit biased since I spent most of my adult life in Vegas. But I can tell you that my lack of sympathy for white people with 110 IQs who are doing badly is based on what I see everyday rather than some theoretical thought experiment.

That's your choice (assuming determinism is false). Same for them.