Universal Basic Income Study Findings Released

In reply to RX Reven' :

I think we are measuring our wealth wrong. We are wealthier than we have been Vs. any time in human history. The mechanisms that led to that have also led to an increase in the disparity of wealth between the top and bottom. The "problem" is that many are too focused on that disparity to see the big picture of increased wealth for all. They want an equal increase of wealth, but the math doesn't work that way. The disparity was closer in the past because the overall wealth was lower. It's like if you were to measure variance over different distances when building something. Say you build a corner that's not perfectly square. One foot out, you may only be off 1/8 of an inch, not really noticeable. But 100' out, the variance is over a foot. That it doesn't make the corner any less square than it was at 1', but it looks like a bigger problem. Just like things weren't "more fair" or "more equal" when overall wealth was lower. We need to measure wealth by improvements to standard of living. Access AND quality of food, information, entertainment, medical care, housing, transportation, education, etc.. I'd also heavily factor in access to opportunity, of which we appear to be in a golden age right now. Low unemployment, and access to endless self employment opportunities if one so chooses. But we also need to keep in mind human nature as we discussed above. As the average person's standard of living becomes more comfortable, they are less likely to actually take advantage of the opportunities. There is a point for almost everyone where the increased wealth is not worth the increased time required, and that point often changes throughout one's life. AI and automation could wreck the current balance and lower standard of living by reducing opportunities. Or it could increase the opportunities in ways that we never had before. It will likely do both. 

03Panther said:

Mr_Asa 

Honestly, that feels like a pretty damned bleak outlook on life

That's the thing. LIFE IS that bleak! What we do to overcome that makes the difference!

A "economic" discussion of communism, socialism, or the new phrase democratic socialism, or UBI, they all depend on the premise that EVERYONE is honest, nice, and will do the "right thing".
Nice on paper.

But my life has shown me that there ARE a lot of good people. As well as a lot that are not. 

Note: communism (as an "economic discussion," of course) on paper is beautiful. Communism in practice is a whole 'Nother ball of wax (see previous comment about human nature)

Part of that is because there never has been a true communism on any scale larger than small communities, because the state will, the operating theory goes, wither away.

This is the exact opposite of what happened, if not entirely subverted at the get-go.

I work for a big publicly traded medical device company and got promoted to Principle Engineer the day before my 47th birthday.

I turned 60 last month and I'm still in the same role by design as the next level up is Director of Engineering which just doesn't pay enough more after taxes to justify the additional time, stress, & risk of being held accountable.

Mr_Asa said:

Duke said:

Mr_Asa said:

Edit: also, that line says nothing about what a man owes his fellows.  Just says who will be rich and who will be poor.

And there it is.

What does a man owe his fellows?

Nothing, except to not interfere with their lives.  Nor is he owed anything different by his fellows.

Honestly, that feels like a pretty damned bleak outlook on life

Being born owing something to every other person on earth seems bleak to me.

Knowing that every other person "owes" me something too doesn't relieve that bleakness much.

I'm happy to have lots of voluntary, cooperative, mutually beneficial relationships.  Not happy about undefined debt to infinite debtors.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

We're objectively not at a high point of wealth or opportunity, affordability of housing and education has been decreasing for recent generations to a degree that more than offsets any increase in wages, and access to opportunity has been decreasing as well - higher inequality means more opportunity for a few but less opportunity for most. A smaller number of bigger prizes.

Yes, we are. Maybe not at the exact peak as it changes from month to month, year to year- without digging deeper I'd say 2019-2020 pre pandemic was the peak. But the general trend is a steep upward rise. The pandemic and the choices society made to deal with it is an anomaly, in the process of correcting itself. The flaw in your comparison to some bygone days is assuming the same products. Just because we still call it "housing, education, or medical care," doesn't mean that the past and present products are directly comparable. Say you got into a bad car accident, and demanded 1970's level of care. If that were possible, it would be cheaper. You might not live to see the lower bill, but your family might appreciate it. Inequity DOES NOT mean less opportunity for most. If everyone had the exact same opportunity, we would have great inequity, because each person has a unique blend of ability, skill, and motivation. The only way to reduce inequity is to reduce opportunity to the point that none of those things matter much anymore. 

Unemployment isn't particularly low either and getting a job has become massively more difficult over the last year or so. I wouldn't be so sure that self-employment options are very good now either with so many giant megacorporations to compete with. Anyone starting a small retail store needs to compete with no only Wal-Mart but also Amazon (and Aliexpress) now. Giant cloud services have massively reduced opportunities to do IT or software development work outside of a megacorporation in recent years.

The U.S. unemployment rate last month was 4.1 percent. That is considered low. SOME professions have high unemployment rates, while others can't fill open positions. If you can't find work in your field, it may be time for a change. That's life, that's how many people succeed. I know lots of successful people who are on their 3rd or 4th careers. The excuses you are making are no different than those made by people decades ago. "Why bother, I can never compete with Sears or Kmart." "AOL is untouchable, I'll do something else." "I spent good money on TV repair school, where did all of my customers go?" 

I recently saw a video on YouTube about the company that sells "Liquid Death." They entered a market- bottled water- completely dominated by Coca Cola, and built it into close to a billion dollar company. Yes, close to a $billion selling water. Good thing they didn't think "why bother." 

In reply to GameboyRMH :

The amount of self employed people starting or running retail businesses is low.

Small business owners mostly provide a specialized, in-demand product or service that big companies can't or won't compete with.

There was a guy in B.C. running a business, collecting dog waste from yards. I gather he did ok because he had staff and a fleet of professional looking trucks.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Exactly. Human nature. Seems obvious, but...

I try to stay out on anything not car related, these days.  I better stop there.  

ShawnG said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

The amount of self employed people starting or running retail businesses is low.

Small business owners mostly provide a specialized, in-demand product or service that big companies can't or won't compete with.

There was a guy in B.C. running a business, collecting dog waste from yards. I gather he did ok because he had staff and a fleet of professional looking trucks.

I keep checking the "Doodie Calls" website to see if there's someone in my area yet. 

Sometimes I wonder if it could be a opportunity to start an independent local business doing that on my lunch break, couple evenings, and maybe a few hours in the weekend. 

On edit: Frachise fee in their FAQ is 49k (plus vehicle, equipment, etc), and then the had this about revenue:

In reply to No Time :

That's pretty cheap for a franchise but there may be other costs. From what I've heard, Subway is the cheapest franchise at roughly $30k.

Problem with a franchise, as told to me by a friend who owned a Ricky's franchise.  You get the benefit of the name and advertising and all that but you're locked into using their stuff. Say plain, white napkins cost $5 per thousand. Ricky's napkins which you must use cost $25 per thousand. 

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Is there some reason you won't tell us what this idea was? What's the harm if it was as big a failure as you make it out to be?

Maybe it was just marketed poorly. 

In reply to ShawnG :

I try not to publicly dox myself, you can DM me if you're interested (this will also help avoid derailing the thread).

I'm pretty sure it's not marketing because after I got some initial interest and a few sales, at the second sales event I got less instead of more. And I've only got any sales from one group of customers out of the three I've tried to sell to. Even had what should've been a marketing bonanza on IG with 1k+ views right in the ideal target market between the first round of sales and the second, didn't help.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Good for them but I'm not sure what good selling the exact same product as the competition with different marketing does for anyone else. Especially when it's still producing plastic bottles for the product that has the least reason to be in a disposable plastic bottle.

Earlier this year I dropped a big chunk of my net worth into starting a company offering an innovative product where the competition was locked out by regulation, and the market reacted with the sound of crickets chirping. It would be plainly unwise to try sinking even more into an idea as risky as taking on a dominant megacorporation with a materially undifferentiated product. They made a dumb gamble on a dumb product and got very lucky. There's nothing really good or inspirational about that.
 

You said  there is no point trying to compete with the mega corporations. I give you an example off the top of my head, where a company is successful selling one of the most basic products out there, water. Your response- they were lucky with a dumb idea. No, they were berkeleying brilliant. They were at a concert and noticed people refilling energy drink cans with water. There is only so much of that stuff you can drink, but people didn't want to look like weenies so they disguised the water with their energy drink cans. That gave them the idea to make water "cool." They could have just gave up and left it to the mega corps- you can't lose if you don't try in the first place, right? Luckily, they missed your course on de-motivational speaking. They sold their water at a premium in cans that looked like energy drinks, with an over the top name, "Liquid Death." They then sold  merchandise promoting their product, which wasn't really the water, but the brand and the marketing. No different than shoes or clothing lines. The fact that you can't see any of that just shows that you are blinded by your inability to see anything that you don't want to see. 
 

Edit: I  reread your first comment, and I didn't fully  realize the gravity of what you wrote at first-

Good for them but I'm not sure what good selling the exact same product as the competition with different marketing does for anyone else.
 

You aren't sure what good it was? You constantly complain about inequity, lack of opportunity, and the difficulty in building wealth- IT MADE THEM MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. If you can't see the good in that, it would explain your struggle understanding our economic system. 

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Your contributions to this topic have been on fire. 🔥 Making me think. Thank you - and please keep it up!

For me a 💡 recently turned on. It is the term "working for".

I "work for" a big corporation therefore my earning power from "work" is good but limited. While I get paid a wage, the corporation exists to make money off of my labor.

If want to own more risk and work "for me" I can likely make similar money. If I chose to leverage the labor of others working "for me" then my income potential is limitless.

But I also know it will be a lot harder. So I keep doing the "safer" or "easier" or "risk averse" thing and work for the man.

GameboyRMH said:

In reply to ShawnG :

I try not to publicly dox myself, you can DM me if you're interested (this will also help avoid derailing the thread).

I'm pretty sure it's not marketing because after I got some initial interest and a few sales, at the second sales event I got less instead of more. And I've only got any sales from one group of customers out of the three I've tried to sell to. Even had what should've been a marketing bonanza on IG with 1k+ views right in the ideal target market between the first round of sales and the second, didn't help.

I think you may be misinterpreting the interest for successful marketing. Yes you generated interest, but not with the people who would purchase the service.

How many times have you seen something (car, tech, etc) and thought "That looks like something I might want, I should to check that out", only to find it want what you expected (or hoped for) and lost interest ? 

How many time have you avoided making a change because what you have does what you need well enough to make the change require more effort that dealing with the current issue? 

I think you need someone independent of the concept to provide feedback. Have you followed up with any of the people that showed initial interest but didn't act on that interest? Why did they not purchase the services?

Here's a couple articles that may be useful for a different perspective:

What customers want

Customer input

Hopefully this doesn't derail this thread too far. 

One last note, accept the constructive conflict (critique, challenges, and questioning) and use it to improve your business concept. Just because people question/challenge your approach doesn't meant they are looking to make you fail. A good concept will stand up to questioning and challenges, and the challenges can improve concepts that have gaps or weaknesses. 

If it's going to be truly universal basic income, I'm not sure how the Central Planets like Persephone will feel about subsidizing the ruffians that inhabit bleak, dystopian places like Earth.

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Save your time typing. He will always have a reason something can't be done. He's an expert at it. 

maschinenbau said:

If it's going to be truly universal basic income, I'm not sure how the Central Planets like Persephone will feel about subsidizing the ruffians that inhabit bleak, dystopian places like Earth.

Maybe a good question for the next Miss Universe Pagent contestants?

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Marketing is absolutely everything.

Red Bull doesn't make energy drinks.  Like, literally, they don't make them, they subcontract that.  What they make is "an experience", in that they host festivals and games and promote, promote, promote.  

It's the difference between "NASCAR 500 sponsored by Coca-Cola" and "Coca-Cola fest featuring a NASCAR race if you're into that sort of thing".  They aren't the sponsors, they are the promoters.

In reply to OHSCrifle :

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Your contributions to this topic have been on fire. 🔥 Making me think. Thank you - and please keep it up!

For me a 💡 recently turned on. It is the term "working for".

I "work for" a big corporation therefore my earning power from "work" is good but limited. While I get paid a wage, the corporation exists to make money off of my labor.

If want to own more risk and work "for me" I can likely make similar money. If I chose to leverage the labor of others working "for me" then my income potential is limitless.

But I also know it will be a lot harder. So I keep doing the "safer" or "easier" or "risk averse" thing and work for the man.

Exactly. Everyone gets to choose the amount of work they want to put in and the amount of risk they want to take. We get to choose where we prefer to live, how long we are willing to commute, how much time and money we invest in our education. We get to choose how much importance we put on enjoying our work vs. how much we make. We get to choose to stay on our current path or go a different direction. Our individual skills, abilities, motivation, risk adversity, personalities, etc. can influence how many of the above factors we get to choose. There is no right answer, just a right answer for you. If you are there, that's great. No need to compare yourself to others, do what makes you happy. If you are not happy with where you are at, you can wait for the world to change and fix your situation for you. Or you can make changes yourself. 

ShawnG said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

The amount of self employed people starting or running retail businesses is low.

Small business owners mostly provide a specialized, in-demand product or service that big companies can't or won't compete with.

There was a guy in B.C. running a business, collecting dog waste from yards. I gather he did ok because he had staff and a fleet of professional looking trucks.

This needs to be read again. 

I left a company with a current value of over $13 billion and went into direct competition with them. While they always win on price, they never win on quality of service. Customers who are solely price-driven are customers you don't want. You want quality-driven customers. 

Small business is all about finding a niche and filling it. The hard part is there is no such thing as instant success. It's a long row to hoe. 

Gameboy, give your business idea time. Put in the effort but understand the ROI for the first year or so will probably suck. In my first year, we grossed $120k and didn't net enough to draw a paycheck. My second year wasn't much better. 19 years later, we should gross just under $2m this year. Starting a business is not an instant thing. It's a long, hard, and frequently disheartening process. It's also a learning process. Be willing to objectively look at what you are doing and recognize what didn't work. Then move on and try a different method. 

I've spent about $25k this year trying to break into the automatic gate business. It's not working for a couple of reasons. Mostly because there are so many cheap gate and fence contractors that we can't compete on price and residential work always seems to go to the lowest bid. Trading nickels for nickels is a sure way to not have any nickels. It's time to move on and try something different.