Government had been shutting down businesses / schools etc for last 2 years. Disrupting lives and incomes. Now the people have had enough so they gather and shut down traffic and now the government is upset for essentially doing the same thing.

All Trudeau needs to do is end the the restrictions, which are not even needed anymore.

Ok. I admit that’s unnecessary and confusing.

A bit more than a rewording, a complete overhaul from the current American system. Never expect us to be reasonable or simple in our plans like our northern cousins can be.

I agree, without a means test, income limits for participation, assistance programs can’t be funded enough to actually help the needy and hand out the same amount to the well off. Those plans are nuts IMO.

I understand your issue with UBI. I support it in the sense of a safety net, no one should be forced to live on less than $X and IMO there should be no requirement besides no/low income….but to function that requires those who already make over $X to get nothing and just be happy they won’t be mugged for food money. I don’t support the “here’s a free $500 for everybody”, inflation would make it meaningless in a year, more circulating dollars with no more in the treasury/total value = inflation on top of your valid points.

Yeah, the crutch of it for me is the UBI moniker.

What you describe at the end of your post, minimum income, is really just a rewording of the existing social security and welfare systems across the western world. I know they look different in each, but here in Canada what you describe is more or less our already existing system's design goal. Welfare money exists for those that straight up can not work, and an employment insurance system exists to protect those inbetween jobs, meanwhile other multiple programs are aimed at distributing financial assistance to the lower income groups.

Despite all of that already existing, UBI is still being heralded up here in trials as well as a replacement. The problem being that for the needy the UBI pitches are generally a step backwards.

Eg. $500/month is the UBI pitch, and they say it'll be great because everyone gets it no matter what so it's simple and fair and nobody is left behind. The trouble though is that the reality is the truly in need people were already benefitting more than the $500/month under the existing systems, and the cost was much less because it was targeted.

I here UBI and get very worried about folks just selling snake oil 'solutions' that in the end are just a demand to adopt their own particular flavor of wealth redistribution.

Did they offer that in the program, or was it only random individuals….or are you extrapolating, assuming the program became universal? I thought this plan was just for the indigent.

$500 each for 4 works out to more than my wife brought home for 40 hours a week after 15 years at her last job…..barely livable for 4 anywhere in California, a nice income in some states. Not a huge amount to provide for 6 months. How much does temporary housing, services, extra law enforcement, etc cost over that time for 4 people? I assume they’re close.

Yes, universal income is costly, but most on the right won’t consider giving the destitute money if they don’t get a handout too, that likely multiplies the amount by over 10 times. With a means test, it would be billions, maybe under $100 billion. We spent nearly $6 trillion on bad Covid response in 2020, including trillions to corporate welfare handouts with no strings attached and they still fired millions of workers. I think if that’s ok we can afford to invest in making people productive again instead of drains on society (of course, not everyone will benefit, but 75% success must be a win overall). If not, socialize any corporation that took a bailout, we bought em, we should own them.

…Or taking on more debt like every government project, but the increase in gdp from turning costs into profits likely pays for the program without a dime in new taxes, just a reduction in costs of handling the homeless and new taxes from their incomes….especially if you have a means test and not universal income.

Yes, they convoluted by calling it universal income but focusing on homeless. It should be UMI. Universal Minimum Income….under employed get less than unemployed up to a certain minimum livable combined income, fully employed (with living wages) get nothing….IMO. Sadly, a large portion of people can’t see what’s in that plan for them (no homeless, less crime dumbshits) so won’t consider it unless they also get $500 even though that’s not even a noticeable amount to them….one more ivory backscratcher.

I'm gonna have to be that guy. $500 a month for a family of four is $2k, which is a very good chunk of money to drop in your lap.

That works out the same as it they were on a single income, working 40 hour weeks at $10/hr, so almost equivalent to a full time job. No doubt that's gonna be a big deal and noticeable financial improvement to the recipient(s).

As always with UBI schemes, the devil is in how you pay for it. If it's truly universal, paying $500/month to ~330 million Americans would cost $1.98 Trillion dollars, meanwhile the current entire US gov budget for 2022 is estimated at $1.2 Trillion.

So, to implement $500/month universally in America would require not only increasing overall tax revenues by almost 50% it would also require the cancellation of 100% of every single other expenditure. That not includes military spending going to zero, but even cancelling the jobs of everyone that collects taxes and would presumably have been responsible for distributing the $500 checks.

If the 'fix' is to just tax the pants off anyone earning more than the $500/month, or limiting who we give it to, then it ceases to be a UBI scheme, and is instead just a mundane modification of the existing social security scheme by shuffling more money back and forth between different folks.

The issue is the wrong guy, a dishonest blowhard trying to cover his own failures, claimed this early on with absolutely zero evidence. It was a clear dodge, his normal MO. Refusing any responsibility for ending the international pandemic response team that would have been able to actually say when and where the outbreak started, and likely be able to keep it relegated to one small area in China. By blaming it on a Chinese lab, actually saying it was intentional, he deflects from his abject failure to protect America from a clear, obvious, incontrovertibly deadly threat on the horizon….or any time after it’s discovery.
Were the Chinese studying Covid, yes, so were we. That’s not an indication of where it came from. There’s no evidence it came from any lab, only supposition at best.

Edit:Even if the guess that it came from a Chinese lab is correct, it doesn’t excuse one second of Trump’s (lack of) response and outright denials for months-years. The origin has nothing to do with the danger level, in fact, if it WERE enhanced/created in a lab as he claimed, that’s more reason to consider it MORE dangerous, not reason to claim it’s just a cold or mild flu and will disappear like magic in a few weeks. Granted, it was fun to see him (only after his trade deal fell apart) blame this deadly virus on the Chinese as an unforgivable deliberate act of germ warfare and accuse them of minimizing the danger and hiding the size and severity of the outbreak and in the same breath claim it’s nothing to worry about, not dangerous, probably not deadly, not worth any action to protect against, and just a minimal annoyance soon to disappear….but also disappointing to see how easily so many Americans glossed over the two faced hypocritical responsibility shirking stance he took.

This guy claims most, nearly all viruses can’t both infect people and be transmitted….what utter nonsense. If that were true, there would have never been epidemics, pandemics, not even outbreaks. Credibility destroyed.

I guess he didn’t hear about swine flu, or bird flu, or flu, or colds, or any transmittable virus. 🤦‍♂️
I guess they haven’t heard new mutations are far less deadly (but more transmittable) than earlier versions, so they are getting less dangerous, contrary to his claim.

Not transmitting well outdoors means it’s not natural?! Bullshit, animals nest together. Many natural viruses require close contact to transmit.

DNA testing proved early on that this is not a man made virus. Is it possible a Chinese lab made a natural virus more dangerous, then a lab mistake released it? Yes, but there’s no evidence that’s the case, even these people who’s livelihood relies on people accepting “the lab hypothesis” (hypothesis=guess) admit it’s all conjecture, there’s no evidence, certainly no proof. It’s not the lab theory because it’s unproven.

Duh.

BTW, this couple are married, anti vaxers, Ivermectin proponents, and were thrown out of Evergreen College, and are now both now discredited and disgraced. Their main source of income is now their anti vax, pro Ivermectin, Covid isn’t dangerous podcasts loved by morons like Joe Rogan, and a source of much of his misinformation that’s getting him removed from his platform.
“Bret Weinstein is one of the foremost purveyors of COVID-19 disinformation out there,” says Dr. David Gorski, a surgical oncologist and professor at Wayne State University who also debunks quack remedies as managing editor at a website called Science-Based Medicine. “Weinstein can be ‘credited’ with playing a large role in popularizing the belief that ivermectin is a miracle cure or preventative for COVID-19, that the vaccines are dangerous, and that the disease itself is not. Why are Rogan and Maher attracted to his messages? Contrarians and conspiracy theorists tend to be attracted to each other.”
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/09/16/bret-weinstein-and-heather-heying-go-unvaccinated-take-ivermectin/

Downvote discredited shills who profit from misinformation. No surprise at all, considering who posted this dishonest propaganda from discredited propagandists.

Mate, if those two got any closer together, that LIGO would be detecting the birth of a new black hole somewhere in the Sol system.

I used to love Church: a dinner of Taco Bell burritos, a wooden pew, and the word of Christ. Clench, lean 15 degrees to the left, relax your sphincter and PUSH! The silence that is golden will last about 10 seconds before the retching and piling out the doors brings an end to today's sermon. That's when you snatch the collection plate and bolt out the back door.

I lost a major source of income when I became an atheist.

Did you know Taco Bell delivers? At least in Seattle they do. I have to wonder what life choices lead to the terminus of hauling two dollar food between source and the customer 25 miles away. Yeah, that $5 tip will more than pay for gas, upkeep, insurance and oil changes on that riced-out K car you've been driving since The Pet Shop Boys were still popular.

Also, "...blahblah whining and such..." -- look, if I want unfair criticism of a job well-done, I'll ask my clients to pay up. That's primo Gonzo humor you're tut-tutting and you paid exactly nothing to enjoy it. Y'know who else was a cheap ingrate? HITLER! Why ya gotta by like Hitler, Moonsammy -- IF THAT IS YOUR REAL NAME. I have my doubts on this topic, by the way.

Hey, what's Bob up to? I always enjoy a cheap laugh at the expense of the less fortunate.

(seriously dude -- I can hold 1:1 with a Clydesdale for an hour and have enough left in the tank to draw a standing ovation at Centurylink Field.)

I would rather be thought an elitist by middle school dropouts who think they know everything but in reality are 100% wrong >98% of the time and partially wrong the rest of the time than be one of them.
Elitist!?! Lol. Are we back in 2016!? What do you think that word means?
Elitist: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elitist
a: giving special treatment and advantages to wealthy and powerful people
b: regarding other people as inferior because they lack power, wealth, or status
That hardly fits, I think the rich should pay MORE by percentage of income, not LESS. Technically "special treatment", but definitely not more advantages.

Q: Do you think Trump is elitist? Explain your answer. (Pretty sure you just decided elitism is good).

If you would read, and not just insanity that agrees with your preconceptions, if you weren't so smarmy and dismissive whenever you THINK you have some point to make or gotcha tidbit of data, acting like a third grader who just took the last desert at lunch taunting the next in line, your bad grammar wouldn't get you ridiculed so often and you would be far less aggressive about making your mistaken points, and would again receive less ridicule.

But instead you swing nonsense with vitriol and hate like a club, clearly trying to do damage, but your club is a fake made of foam rubber lies, making it impossible to not smack you down every time you try to knock someone out with it and stand dumbstruck that it bounced back into your face.
If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough.-Jackass

This time you're again wrong about what you claim, you backed yourself into a corner by claiming this IS your area of expertise and by deriding others without personal hands on experience in the field, then you got the facts completely backwards....as usual...then hid from your mistakes....as usual.

Again, I'll ask for 3 examples of that 1/3 of what I say that's wrong. I post enough that you should be able to find 3 from yesterday alone. I don't really expect you'll answer, because I don't think you can.

You mean like Trump's last year in office when he spent well over the conservative estimates of $6.55 Trillion and collected only $3.4 Trillion in total income?
($1.6 trillion of which came from personal income taxes, $212 billion from corporate taxes...sure, that seems fair and proper)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/216928/us-government-revenues-by-category/

So essentially a tax Holliday year with the money going back to all citizens? What a major improvement that would be....and with the economy coming back after the Trump recession/depression, Biden doesn't have to put everything on credit, he can pay for his spending, and maybe pay for some of Trump's massive debts he left.

Trump came in with under $19.5 Trillion and left with over $28.5 Trillion in debt and his last year yielded a $5.2 Trillion deficit and the worst unemployment and biggest GDP drop EVER!!! Obama shrank the deficit to below $500 BILLION! Clinton had a surplus!!! Bush turned that into a deficit within one year and a near $1.5 Trillion deficit and depression when he left.

BTW, it should be a comma after "matter", not a period and double spacing. It's only one complete sentence. Even just 8th grade English class would have taught you that....also "let's" has an apostrophe, it means "let us"....are you sure you really graduated middle school? I can't see someone passing third grade with these English skills.

@bobknight33 ohhhhh shit
Lol and I just learned trump signed the checks for that income stashing.


Let me ask you. What would the irs do to YOU if you didn't pay 1.7 million in taxes?

I want to know how after 19 years on the force with a $100000 car, rental homes, $90+ a year at his second job, and who under reported his yearly income by almost $500000 repeatedly can get away with claiming he's broke.

Just like being housed in special high profile (larger nicer single inmate cells, but not solitary) areas of prison with all non white employees barred from the entire floor and white female officers allowed alone in his cell, actually in his bed, to comfort him, even letting him use their cell phones, that's some serious bullshit.

The murderous pig is a millionaire.

Wiki-On July 22, 2020, after the murder charges were brought against him, Chauvin and his then-wife were separately charged in Washington County, Minnesota, on nine felony counts of tax evasion[88][89] related to allegedly fraudulent state income tax returns from 2014 to 2019.[90] Prosecutors state the couple under-reported their joint income by $464,433, including more than $95,000 from Chauvin's off-duty security work.[89][91] The complaint also alleges failure to pay proper sales tax on a $100,000 BMW purchased in Minnesota in 2018, failure to declare income from Chauvin's wife's business, and improper deductions on a rental home.

Fact check.....
3,500,000 child cases * .008 mortality = 28000 dead children you fucking inhuman monster.
3,500,000 * 10% who have long term disabilities = 350,000 children disabled for life.
Pay up, your ilk being obstinately unsafe caused their disabilities, you should pay to support them for life just as if you were driving blindfolded because Trump said car bumpers make them safe in accidents and you ran over a few, leaving them to die in the streets because getting hurt by a car is fake news.



Well over 570000 dead Americans you Anti American enemy of the people.
32000000 cases * 10% long term side effects like severe permanent heart, lung, brain damage = 3,200,000 disabled people created.

I think it's fair to say most readers here hope you're next. No one is more deserving of infection, no one is more deserving of severe permanent disabilities, no one is less deserving of a vaccine or hospitalization. I hope your children bring it home day 1 when school restarts.

Ask Brazil how following your plan has worked....better yet, put your money where your mouth is and move there, unvaccinated, and let us know.

Fake news made too many ignorant morons fight against public health measures, costing us over 1/2 million deaths and well over $5 Trillion in unnecessary expenses that could ALL have been avoided with adult, serious leadership we sorely lacked for a full year plus until January.

Bob, you ARE fake news. Dangerous, deadly, and costly fake news.

BTW, it costs about an extra $2.2 million to raise a child with disabilities, and an EXTRA $3,175 to $5,853 per month for adults - keep in mind they mostly have no income and don't add to the gdp, so add the average $61,224 cost of living in the US and you have over $120000 per year per person (3200000 disabled so far) you get a recurring yearly cost of your "ignore the danger and get to work/school" plan cost of up to $3.84 e11 ($384,000,000,000) per year so far....an impossible cost to bear. Granted, not every person with permanent damage is totally disabled, so being generous assume only 10% are....still $38,400,000,000 PER YEAR at current average cost not including children. That doesn't include direct cost of hospitalization for covid, from $51,000 to $78,000, nor the loss in gdp from 3.2 million earners gone.
Fuck your $5 Trillion....most of which went to businesses.

"What on earth are you talking about?"
-newt

The rules for property and income when one or both parties decide they no longer want to be in the relationship.




"not having a marriage means you almost certainly will pay for them for 18+ years but won't have many rights to be in their lives"
-newt

Incorrect. If you are on birth certificate, you have the same rights and obligations.
The only pitfalls are that :
- Child support is calculated from the income of the parent with less custody (rather than from the true cost of raising a child).
- Women almost always get custody if the choice is between two parents (like when they live far apart and child can only be at one or the other).



"and may lose your rights to any assets if she grabs first"
-newt

Negative. Co-parenting does not conflate property.

Shared assets when not married are divided either by percentage of purchase price contribution, or by percentage stated in a contract.




"My brother paid well over a hundred thousand dollars for his divorce in Texas"
-newt

"My brother won."
-newt

Won by your own definition. Hence I congratulate.




"You assume women take off time to raise the kids"
-newt

No assumptions. Although afaik they still do it more often.




"You start from a false position that men work both harder and better, but you have no data to back that up. "
-newt

Top result from a zero effort google of "men working hours vs women working hours"

https://towardsdatascience.com/is-the-difference-in-work-hours-the-real-reason-for-the-gender-wage-gap-interactive-infographic-6051dff3a041




"Um...so since you admit many women outearn men and the trend reinforces that"
-newt

I admit that women [as a group] under 35 out earn men under 35 because of preferential admittance (such as to higher education) and preferential hiring (such as to managerial positions).

I did not say that women earn more in the same position for the same hours worked. Young men are simply getting shut out of opportunities, so their incomes are lower. As by design.

It does however highlight how affirmative action is being poorly controlled.
The target statistic is based on overall population at all ages.
The adjustment is skewed to younger ages (school admission is typically for younger people).
So the system is trying to balance out incomes of older men by trimming up incomes of younger women, with no accounting for the effects on younger men or consequences of older men retiring.
The situation is doomed to overshoot with time.

A natural result is the popularity of people like Jordan Peterson, with messages like : "Young men, nobody will help you, stop waiting for someone to help you, stop lamenting your situation, you gotta pull yourself up by your boot straps. Start by cleaning your room, then go make something of yourself".






"Bullshit. You said you would immediately dismiss any woman who has...
"Long dating history? Too much risk[etc]" -scheherazade "
-newt

Straw man argument.

You know I stated that those marriageability criteria exist specifically due to risk of consequences of divorce.

I never stated that I have personal issues with those attributes.
I have dated women on that list. I didn't /marry/ them.

My only criteria for a relationship that I am happy being in is :
- We are mutually attracted
- We like each other
- We are nice to each other
I don't care what your religion is, your politics, your family status, whatever. It's all just noise to me.





" And again, prenuptial. Do you not know what they are?"
-newt

Prenups can be negated by these simple words :

"I did not understand what I was signing"
or
"My lawyer was not present".

Poof. Prenup thrown out.




"their husbands are more likely to break their vows first"
-newt

A woman to cheat needs a willing man (easy)
A man to cheat needs a willing woman (hard)

Times have changed. Online dating made chatting someone up in person and make an impression uncommon, and even considered creepy/unusual. Now people are picked on their online profile based on looks/height/social-media-game.

Dating apps and sites publish their statistics. Nowadays, around 20% of men match with around 80% of women.
Most men aren't having sex. Most men can't find a match to cheat with if they wanted to.

The tall cute photogenic guys are cleaning up.
The 20% of men that match the bulk of women are going through women like a mill. They will smash whatever bored housewife crosses their path.

A 2 second google result :
https://usustatesman.com/economics-of-dating-2-the-brutal-reality-of-dating-apps/




"Women don't like men that believe wholeheartedly that all women are just lessers, leeches"
-newt

Agreed.

Fortunately, I never say that about women.






" you can't grasp that a codified, delineated, agreed to partnership is almost always better, more fulfilling, and has many benefits cohabitation lacks"
-newt

False equivalence.

Cohabitation and Partnership are mutually independent.
Meaning both can exist at the same time.


-scheherazade

You are projecting.

Marriage takes the honesty away from a relationship.
It's no longer me and you.
It's me and you and uncle sam.
I want *consensual* relations where me and my partner set our rules, not some 3rd party, and not when the rules are stacked against me.

Congratulations to your brother. Lucky him.

I never said women don't work.

I said that men make more personal sacrifices for their work - a true statement about men as a group. Exceptions don't alter the rule.

Yes, women under 35 out earn men now. And as legacy earners retire, we will be facing a situation where women out earn men at any age. Preferential admittance and hiring tend to have that effect. It's by design.

And women don't get paid less for the same work - the studies saying that don't account for hours worked and don't provide any breakdown of job title. E.g. Women doctors get paid less - because the type of doctor they choose to be is more likely to be a pediatrician than a heart surgeon or anesthesiologist. But within each category of doctor, per hour worked, and per year experience, their income is essentially identical.

And you don't need to be a home maker to get paid in a divorce. Just make less than your partner.
Historically the divorce rewards scale higher for women given mirror situations.

Why would I want to deal with a 50/50 split when I brought 90% of the assets into the marriage? A 50/50 split would set me back decades. I just want to keep my stuff, I did pay for it after all, which cost me money, which cost me time, which cost me life.

And why should /anyone/ have their life supported by anyone else?
(*context=spouses. Not interested in some bad faith out of context argument bringing up children or retirees supported by taxes, etc)
Are you able bodied? Then get working.
Is it tough? Too bad.
It's harder for both people supporting themselves alone, you aren't special. You were in this situation before you got married, you can go back to it.

In any case, the homemaker job argument is senseless. There are benefits (time with kids), and there are pitfalls (hole in your resume). You make your choice, and you deal with the consequences.
You are paid by the home over your head and the money you're given while you are a home maker. What other job do you get to leave and still be paid. People act as if the working partner was just chilling this whole time. Where are the working partner's continuing post divorce benefits?


I have no mindset about women. More projection.
I couldn't care less if I marry a stripper with 2 kids - so long as in the event of a divorce we go our separate ways with ZERO obligations to one another.

I have a mindset about the dangers of divorce, and the fact that most marriages end in divorce, and most divorces are initiated by the female partner.
I am on average more likely than not to face a divorce.
Hence the risk reduction by being more 'picky'.


I am in a nearly 20 year happy relationship - unmarried.
She's the boss of the relationship. And I'm fine with that because I *consent* to it. I can always walk away if I decide otherwise.

So long as laws and family court are how they are, I won't even consider marriage.

-scheherazade

So weird seeing people disagree with you, and then go off spouting shit about subjective benefits while married.

Objectively, by the numbers, in terms of who benefits if the marriage ends, it's pure win for the woman and pure loss for the man.

It's practically a carrot dangling in front of them daring them to divorce.

eg.

Woman wins :
Woman = Here's 30% of his income for 20 years and 50% of assets, and you get to walk away with no obligations.
Man = You get to keep all your financial marriage obligations for the rest of your productive life while she gets her divorce.

Man wins :
Man = Here's $500 for 6 months. You are an able bodied person and you can take care of yourself after that.
Woman = Pay him $500 for 6 months, then you have your divorce.

... and women win practically all the time.



So considering that most women 'marry up (financially)', and most women don't sacrifice personal life for career (to the extent that men do)... they benefit financially from marriage.

Then the divorce is massively skewed for their benefit.

So in the end, they win in marriage, and win in divorce.

And since it's the men paying for those wins, the men are losing and losing.

So yeah, I think your description is totally on point.




Marriage is so screwed up that I wouldn't even consider marrying anyone that has any adverse indicators that suggest they are even slightly disloyal or temptable. Don't care how much I like them otherwise.

Long dating history? Too much risk
Tends to have short relationships? Too much risk
Likes attention? Too much risk
Single mother (non-widow)? Too much risk
Any mental issues (depression, bipolar, narcissist, anxiety, etc)? Too much risk
Older (why you still single...)? Too much risk
Likes to party? Too much risk
Drinks? Too much risk

When the consequence of failure is immediate total financial annihilation, and a heavy financial burden for the rest of your productive life, you better F'ing choose carefully.

Or just don't get married.

(Or change the law so a divorce is actually a divorce for both people. No obligations. Just everyone go their own way.)

-scheherazade