- California Optimistic: When 20,000 people move to LA each year to become famous actors and only 5 of them really make it, it suggests a special kind of optimism, an outlook so extreme that it actually becomes gloomy. California Optimism is an admixture of this hope and desperation. LA weather fits the ethos: Sunshine every day, as they say, makes a desert.
I broadly agree with the points made by the author but I still wish he hadn't written them. Where rhetoric, examples and logic would do the trick, he resorts to snark, hyperbole and personal attack. If he wanted to be a paper-tiger villain for fans of UBI, he succeeded admirably because every argument he's made can be shot down by inspection. Which is not to say there aren't plenty of arguments to be made. He just resorted to name-calling and fantasy instead.
Exactly. All you need is basic math. To quote myself: What else does anyone need to know, except maybe that we just passed a bill including tax exemptions on purchases of private jets? The rich aren't forking over a damn dime, and they're unquestionably holding the reigns right now. Let's promote universal basic skepticism.$12,000 per person (for every U.S. citizen) = $3.8 trillion (annually).
On the other hand, UBI is fairly market orientated. Here's some economy points, go forth and spend as you will while we stigmatize you for it is a damn sight more American than let's organize consumers into a massive state backed bloc and drive down costs.
Well on the other other hand, the stigma alone could make it politically infeasble and societally unacceptable. Ezra Klein made the point that even if someone figures out a workable and affordable UBI system, it will take a long time before people are willing to accept large swaths of people leeching off the government in something that isn't retirement.