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RE: My Thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard Commencement Speech And Universal Basic Income || Some Calculations

in #life8 years ago

Not every individual person would require this basic income. Infants, children, or those under care of others, etc. And I don't think Zuckerberg is advocating guys like him are paid a UBI. In the speech he mentions "people like me" should pay for some of these things he's discussing. So you're math is probably off - not that this wouldn't be extremely costly, don't get me wrong, but you're probably looking at maybe 200 million working age people. If you also take him at face value that "people like him" should pay for these things, I also imagine anybody who is gainfully employed and making it on their own wouldn't qualify. So that number likely drops significantly.

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At that point it's not universal. It's just welfare, no?

But you're right in making the point that the entire population (children) would not be eligible.

Yeah, I agree it is more like welfare and not universal if I'm understanding what he was saying. Seemed odd, but makes more sense than Zuckerberg taking a basic income. Plus, they'd have a heck of a time funding it as you point out. Taxation seems to be the only real way in a capitalist society so ultimately, those who didn't need it and were in a position to pay taxes would essentially be paying for it for those who did need it. (Zuckerberg might get his UBI but his taxes would need to go up in this odd, self defeating sorta way.)