Governments are focusing on the general populations not just the fat cats. How will this turn out? Has something like this ever happened before? — Athena

Nope. It's unprecedented by the look of the unemployment rate in the US hovering around 13 percent!

But, in economic terms we are experiencing the most Keynesian form of economic theory possible. I suspect Universal Basic Income will become a hot topic soon.

I am surprised the unemployment level is that low.

Hum, it has been a long time since anyone has mentioned Universal Basic Income. What do you have to say about that? I don't think I am in favor of it. Perhaps that is because I do not know enough about it. But it is my observation that we need our lives to be organized and if we could eat for free some of us would become very unorganized and unmotivated to do anything more than act on our urges at the moment and I do not think that leads to enjoying life.

I am surprised the unemployment level is that low. — Athena

Historically unemployment applications have NEVER in comparison been so effin high. It's really bothering me.

What do you have to say about that? — Athena

It only makes sense if you eliminate all other entitlement benefits. At least, economically.

As to whether people will become lazy or apathetic is irrelevant really. As if some Protestant work ethic were an all good or categorical imperative.

Hum, it has been a long time since anyone has mentioned Universal Basic Income. What do you have to say about that? I don't think I am in favor of it. Perhaps that is because I do not know enough about it. — Athena

Universal income is just one check in a larger picture. Basically a "cradle to the grave" social welfare system that pays your rent for a small home, gives you unemployment benefits that you can live and has universal free health care does have positive and negative aspects. First, you don't have beggars on the streets. Or at least, the beggars aren't citizens of your country. You do have a safety network and you won't find yourself living out of your car or on the street. You have also lower crime rates. Criminals really want to be criminals, hardly anybody is forced to crime.

All those are great things. But there are really negative things too. The biggest problem is this kind of system can alienate people from the society. It really spreads apathy and low self esteem. Think about it. Imagine growing up in a family that were both of your parents haven't actually worked in their lives and your grandparents haven't worked either. It is really difficult then for you to educate yourself and get that job. And if the job is working at McDonalds or as a cleaner, you'll notice that actually you won't have much more money to spend than before when being unemployed, only now you have to spend a lot of time in work. The stay home and play with your X-box, surf in the social media or hangout with your other unemployed friends is a "real" option. And when people all around you are unemployed, you get accustomed to it. Many will opt for that. Usually people look for jobs only so long, but once your too old, don't have that great CV, your done.

Would I take a society with the welfare option to one without it even if it has negative consequences? Yes, but then my society works and there's not much corruption. How the system works in reality and not just on paper is very important also.

But we are not stupid. — Athena

I'm not sure about that. Your government just gave every taxpayer a $1200 dollar check while taking an average of $1500 of each taxpayer's tax dollars to give to corporations, including corporations that deliberately avoid paying the taxes that are now being used to shower them with money. So, your government "helped" you in your greatest time of need by taking a net $300 from each of you to give to its donors, who will give a proportion back to these con artists, which they will spend at the next election convincing you none of this ever happened. And that will work. So...

Oh, and the Fed just dumped $1.5 trillion into the stockmarket to keep it afloat. But... it's crazy to think you could ever afford a proper health care system. :chin:

www.wsj.com/amp/articles/fed-to-inject-1-5-trillion-in-bid-to-prevent-unusual-disruptions-in-markets-11584033537

We'll probably have to take your country down the toilet with us.

I know... :mask:

Holy shit, it's good to be poor in America for some strange reason. Middle class just keeps on getting fucked over.

It's a simple but ingenious system. Rich people pay politicians to keep them rich and politicians pay advertisers and PR agencies to make them look like they're on your side. A fully bipartisan agreement.

it has been a long time since anyone has mentioned Universal Basic Income. — Athena

Did you not notice POTUS candidate Yang talking about UBI?

Nope. It's unprecedented by the look of the unemployment rate in the US hovering around 13 percent! — Shawn

It will most likely go higher, and it won't be spread evenly across the population. It's too early to see how the economic shutdown will affect businesses (especially small ones) that were doing well on February 15, 2020. A lot of the small businesses will probably fold. Minorities will get screwed more than whites, maybe women more than men. Routine and customary, of course. The least advantaged can least stand cutbacks.

I'm thinking it will take quite a while (in years, not months) to recover -- and that's assuming something else major doesn't go haywire, or that SARS-CoV-2 doesn't re-emerge with enough mutations to reinfect everyone again.

Lefebvre thought Marxism is like Newtonian physics: accurate at a certain scale, but insufficient for a broader understanding of the modern world.

The state is simultaneously a facade for the global market, dominated by global corporations, and a potent organizing ideology. We think of both civilization and civil relations in terms of the state.

Since economic growth is essential to the autonomy and power of states, rational economic planning has become foundational to them. Marx predicted this?

The state is a component of individual identity. It's by way of the machinery of statehood that a society expresses its greatest potential.

But identity is, by nature, a dead end. The more power the image of the state exerts in the collective imagination a population, the more pressure there is to escape and revolt. This sentiment is often expressed most maturely in art, which draws on the well of the primal and the unanalyzed: the surreal. Enter Nietzsche.

The idea of an economic collapse puzzles me a lot. I hear a lot of how Capitalism, doing nothing more than glorifying wealth, single-handedly led to the downfall of Communism; I believe it's written in history books as well. The underlying message therein is that Capitalism or what people seem to refer to as a free market economy is what people prefer for reasons I'm completely in the dark about.

How does one reconcile the positive impression Capitalism and free market economy has with the ease with which such an economic system collapses? Isn't a good economy one that's resistant or even immune to downturns from within or without?

It only makes sense if you eliminate all other entitlement benefits. At least, economically.

As to whether people will become lazy or apathetic is irrelevant really. As if some Protestant work ethic were an all good or categorical imperative. — Shawn

:love: Okay love we have to talk about that Protestant work ethic. It isn't just the work ethic. :lol: It can be a real pain in the ass if the husband is home all day. :gasp: I suppose I should get serious, but really, It might not be good if our days are unstructured and we have too much time on our hands. On the other hand, when I was in high school and the dinosaurs still walked the earth, a teacher warned us we should start planning for a time when technology made it unnecessary for us to work. Please, don't tell me jobs have increased. Living wage jobs have not increased for those who are not specialized in high tech and that technology has removed jobs. We no longer have a labor-intense economy but we continue to function as though we need human labor.

We used to tax the land when incomes depended on owning land. Taxing people's income is relatively new and even when we started doing this, most working people didn't pay taxes. Not until after WWII did just about everyone have to pay income taxes. If we go back to taxing the source of income, that means taxing the technology that has replaced human labor. Does that sound right?

If we figure out how to have a low labor-intense economy, I think we still need to consider how we will structure our lives.

Universal income is just one check in a larger picture. Basically a "cradle to the grave" social welfare system that pays your rent for a small home, gives you unemployment benefits that you can live and has universal free health care does have positive and negative aspects. First, you don't have beggars on the streets. Or at least, the beggars aren't citizens of your country. You do have a safety network and you won't find yourself living out of your car or on the street. You have also lower crime rates. Criminals really want to be criminals, hardly anybody is forced to crime.

All those are great things. But there are really negative things too. The biggest problem is this kind of system can alienate people from the society. It really spreads apathy and low self esteem. Think about it. Imagine growing up in a family that were both of your parents haven't actually worked in their lives and your grandparents haven't worked either. It is really difficult then for you to educate yourself and get that job. And if the job is working at McDonalds or as a cleaner, you'll notice that actually you won't have much more money to spend than before when being unemployed, only now you have to spend a lot of time in work. The stay home and play with your X-box, surf in the social media or hangout with your other unemployed friends is a "real" option. And when people all around you are unemployed, you get accustomed to it. Many will opt for that. Usually people look for jobs only so long, but once your too old, don't have that great CV, your done.

Would I take a society with the welfare option to one without it even if it has negative consequences? Yes, but then my society works and there's not much corruption. How the system works in reality and not just on paper is very important also. — ssu

Reality check. Who provides that housing? We have just gone through a housing crisis and the fat cats bought up the housing dirt cheap and have sent the cost of housing sky high. Homelessness increases when the economy gets better because the cost of living increases. In many places there is no longer available land and cities are forced to shift from single-unit housing to multiunit housing. From experience, we know bad housing planning can lead to hell for those who have to live in it. Giving people an income does not exactly resolve the housing problem.

As for criminals, yes, that is my concern about not having structured lives. Yes, :love: I am very concerned about people being alienated! Oh YES, apathy and on self-esteem! YOU REALLY HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. :cheer:

Has everyone seen or read Brave New World? Our best efforts for Utopia tend to lead to hell. But, :grin: with what we know now, we might do better?

How does one reconcile the positive impression Capitalism and free market economy has with the ease with which such an economic system collapses? Isn't a good economy one that's resistant or even immune to downturns from within or without? — TheMadFool

:love: I am so loving this discussion! You guys are great!

Hitler gave German prosperity when all industrial economies had collapsed. Many believed fascism is the answer to economic collapse and the US adopted fascism. With that said, I hope you all remain cool and don't freak out on me. We need to be analytical about this not hysterical.

↪Baden We'll probably have to take your country down the toilet with us. — frank

:lol: Yes, but when properly treated, shit makes good manure and can grow wonderful vegetables.

Oh, and the Fed just dumped $1.5 trillion into the stockmarket to keep it afloat. But... it's crazy to think you could ever afford a proper health care system. :chin: — Baden

Oh yeah. Maybe we will change our minds about that. :lol:

What is the rule about politics in this forum? I like the way Joe Biden keeps referring to the importance of paying attention to science and pointing out the problem of ignoring it.

I'm not sure about that. Your government just gave every taxpayer a $1200 dollar check while taking an average of $1500 of each taxpayer's tax dollars to give to corporations, including corporations that deliberately avoid paying the taxes that are now being used to shower them with money. So, your government "helped" you in your greatest time of need by taking a net $300 from each of you to give to its donors, who will give a proportion back to these con artists, which they will spend at the next election convincing you none of this ever happened. And that will work. So... — Baden

That sounds like Bernie Sander's point. We have corporate welfare and some may say this is fascist.
I don't think it is wrong but we need to be honest about it. Oh dear, I feel myself going off on a moral tirade. CEO's should not be paid outrageous salaries. We should replace the autocratic model of industry with the democratic model. We need to get back to our past understanding of human dignity and worth, and put an abrupt halt to the Wrestlemania mentality that has taken over. The place to make the change is public education.

When I say the US adopted fascism, I want to talk about what public education has to do with this. Having a Wrestlemania superstar in the White House is not a good thing but we have educated for this. The German people are awesome, and the US imitated them for good reasons that I would defend, but we should not have replaced our model of education for democracy with the German model of education for technology. I don't mean German education is wrong, but what we did with the German model is not right. We took our culture for granted and that is a mistake. Germany is now a leader in the democratic model for industry and they seem to understand government and the power of the people better the US. Do not leave moral training to the church!
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↪Athena The idea of an economic collapse puzzles me a lot. I hear a lot of how Capitalism, doing nothing more than glorifying wealth, single-handedly led to the downfall of Communism; I believe it's written in history books as well. The underlying message therein is that Capitalism or what people seem to refer to as a free market economy is what people prefer for reasons I'm completely in the dark about.

How does one reconcile the positive impression Capitalism and free market economy has with the ease with which such an economic system collapses? Isn't a good economy one that's resistant or even immune to downturns from within or without? — TheMadFool

Sparta is my favorite example of a controlled economy that we do not want! Sparta used an enslaved population to provide all its needs, while all Spartan males lived in a barrack with other men, and women lived in homes. The purpose of women was to breed more Spartan males. But they all eat a terrible diet that was healthy but not good-tasting and had no choice of things to buy or things to do. Except for music. Sparta used music to keep their fighting movements in perfect coordination. I get carried away, the point is we love having a variety of things to buy and do and Sparta didn't have this.

While Athens had a free market and encouraging creativity and the arts. Following the war with Persia, Athens created jobs for people without land, so they could have an income and still have time to participate in government. Athena's temple was a tourist attraction and it was decorated to teach of democracy. Athens had a university that drew people from the known world and commerce increases knowledge as well as the economy. Many small businesses could develop as Athens attracted more people. I don't think Pythagoras realized the music scale but I think he learned of it from someone from China. For sure Pythagoras studied math in Egypt. Point is, commerce and an open economy advance civilization far better than communism.

However, we might want to consider regulating banks and the stock market to improve the stability of our open economy? Wouldn't you be more interested in investing if your investment was less likely to disappear overnight? Some people understand using money to vote with and invest in companies that are good for the environment and do not invest in companies that are bad for the environment. I also think we could shift taxes to the technology that has replaced human labor. Those are wild ideas and may not work, but I don't think what we have today is working. I have been through too many recessions to believe this is the best way to go.