gardenofsound wrote:League Circles and GetBuLLish,
I am a UBI skeptic as well. That said, the income comes from somewhere (increased corporate taxes, etc) as a way to offset the savings they make from automating people out of jobs.
Personally I think increasing corporate taxes is an atrocious idea. Lowering them is maybe the only good thing Donald Trump has done. Why would you tax the effective allocation of resources as opposed to personal accumulation and consumption? IMO corporate taxes should be zero. We currently borrow about 1/3 of what we spend at the federal level, which is a crime against future generations IMO, so to me, I'm open to moving spending around, but not increasing it.
Maybe it's the universal aspect I disagree with. I think people whose jobs have been eliminated due to automation/robots/outsourcing--particularly those who have already reached middle age and have spent their entire careers in this field that no longer has jobs for them.
That doesn't really address inner-city violence, though.
That said, UBI may further people's means to purchase narcotics, but that also minimizes the amount of robbery/pawning/prostitution that may happen when destitute people are looking for their next fix.
I also think we're ignoring the fact that a huge portion of the drug sales--particularly heroin--are suburban (white) folks going into the city to get drugs.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1761118/Crack, not as much, but powder cocaine is still a pretty heavily white/upper-class thing. I've never seen crack at a house party but see cocaine pretty regularly among even my grad school cohort.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4533860/Heroin has the added demand pipeline of opioid prescriptions getting cut off and addicts looking for their next fix. Anecdotally, a good friend of mine from high school had an emergency appendectomy near the end of junior year. During recovery, he had an on-demand morphine drip and, upon release, was prescribed narcotic painkillers. When the prescription ran out, he was already hooked and slid into heroin. The next few years of his life were not great. He stole from his friends to get drug money until he alienated all of them, went to halfway houses and had a long road to recovery. He's doing very well now, but it got bad.
The demand side of the drug trade has to be solved. Limiting supply only amps up the value of territory/supply with those that do still have supply. Lower demand, and the supply lowers with it because it's just not that valuable anymore.
I'm not sure what the color or home address of buyers has to do with anything.(btw that first link didn't work). FWIW, a lot of the problems we're discussing are very, very much present in suburban and rural areas as well. They're just magnified and worse in bad urban areas due to density.
Draconian drug policy might work when that demand doesn't already exist, but when the demand is rampant, it's a lot more difficult. Not to mention,
League Circles, I do agree that the drug trade is a major reason for the violence we see in Chicago. I do believe there needs to be a multi-pronged approach to addressing it, though.
1. Lower demand for illicit drugs. I suggest that the way to remove the black market component is to legalize and regulate it. Pricing should be cut to where black market incentives are no longer viable. This goes a long way towards helping with #2.
2. Minimize the allure of joining the black market, particularly for minors. We've talked at long length about this, but what it comes down to is giving kids hope that there are safer, respectable ways to make money. To this end, I think raising minimum wage beyond subsistence (which is then subsidized by SNAP and other welfare) should be a big deal. Working at McDonalds, Walgreens, or Walmart should not still leave people struggling with basic costs like housing, food, and healthcare.
3. Healthcare shouldn't be tied to your employer/employment, and should be easily accessible and of high quality regardless of your economic situation. M4A helps a lot here. You're right that a crusty sex ed high school teacher isn't going to be that influential, but a one-on-one conversation with a doctor might be.
4. Free community college education for Associates degrees or vocational certificates, and need based scholarships to public four-year institutions.
5. Student loan breaks/credits for community service. Kids in high risk neighborhoods/situations should be exposed to the possibilities beyond their neighborhood. I think orgs like Big Brothers Big Sisters and Teach for America do wonderful work on this front. This type of altruism should be incentivized, though, otherwise the "haves" tend to not have any interest.
I'll leave this here because I think there's a lot of truth in it:
I'm not sure any country with a big drug problem has ever really tried extremely severe penalties as a way to remedy. When I say severe, I don't mean going back to levels we previously had here. I'm talking about the penalties like they have in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Indonesia, etc. We can't pretend like that won't drastically, drastically reduce supply or almost eliminate it.
You can't eliminate the black market incentive while simultaneously "regulating" the drug trade. The demand is too strong. If there's virtually any cost to the regulation (there always is), the black market wil step in to fill the gap. That's why people are still buying weed from their dealers after "legalization and regulation" of herb.
I disagree that working jobs such as you mention has to mean that you will struggle with basics like housing, food and healthcare. I believe, more frequently, that incurring unnecessary debt, insisting on living in a high cost area (all of Chicago), having children that aren't affordable, living beyond means, and taking poor care of one's body lead to such struggles. I think too often, the role of the individual in their struggles is ignored. And I think pop culture puts an absolutely terrible, unrealistic and ill advised picture out there to young people of what their lives should look like. It's disgusting frankly.
I agree healthcare shouldn't be tied to employment, but is it anymore with ACA? Also, is anyone really killing each other over medical expenses? Idk, probably rare IMO.
It may be different in IL because I didn't grow up here, but community college is already pretty darn affordable, especially when you consider federal loans. I'm not really sure I buy the notion that it's beyond the economic reach of anyone who didn't already make a lot of mistakes that they now have to pay for. We already have lots of means based scholarships in this country. Besides, college education is hardly a blanket good choice economically these days IMO.
