Share this page!

Scott Santens Profile picture
Twitter logo
Apr 26 • 2 tweets • 2 min read
"The sad truth here is that conservatives are at war with themselves. For libertarian-leaning conservatives, the CTC seems a marvelous means of sustaining a civilized society that depends less on government and minimizes restrictions on freedom."

milkenreview.org/articles/requi…
This is a great piece by @besttrousers for @MilkenInstitute, but I would add one more bit of irony as the cherry on top. It's how Charles Murray is now in favor of UBI and recognizes that with UBI, taking a job has no downsides compared to welfare.

wsj.com/articles/a-gua…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Scott Santens

Scott Santens Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @scottsantens

Scott Santens Profile picture
Apr 9
They always pick a larger amount, then multiply by everyone, and pretend they've just calculated the cost of UBI. It's not that simple. They also never calculate the full costs of poverty, nor care about our $1.5 trillion a year in existing tax subsidies.

scottsantens.com/the-cost-of-un…
Here's the thing: most programs involving taxing from one person to provide something to another, but UBI is atypical. It taxes and provides to the same person so calculating cost requires subtracting one from the other to determine the net gain or loss.
Here's an example. How much does it cost me to give you $50? It's $50. Now how much does it cost me to give you $50, and then ask for $50 back? It's $0 because even though I gave you $50, you didn't end up with $50 more at the end of the 2-part transaction of money + tax.
Read 6 tweets
Scott Santens Profile picture
Mar 29
A growing sense of inequality is undermining trust in both society’s institutions and capitalism, according to a long-running global survey. A majority of respondents in every developed market no longer believe they will be better off in five years’ time.

app.autohub.co.bw/people-no-long…
Restoring trust is perhaps the most fundamental goal of all. To accomplish this, governments must refocus on their primary purpose, which is meeting the needs of their people, and it must be done by trusting their people to meet their own needs, given the resources. We need UBI.
Capitalism is eating itself and the rest of human civilization along with it. It's an inequality-generating machine. If you consider yourself a capitalist, you should know that it must be made to improve everyone's lives, or else it will be abandoned.

Same is true for democracy.
Read 8 tweets
Scott Santens Profile picture
Mar 20
From a long thread about how the inflation in the UK caused by the pandemic and now Putin is about to lead to disaster unless the UK govt steps up. High income earners will be okay, but no one else will. Spending will fall, recession will hit, and civil unrest will likely follow.
Notice that the UK is facing dangerous levels of inflation and they didn't do stimulus checks. The inflation we've been seeing has been mostly an issue of supply not demand. As long as those supply issues persist, we will continue to see inflation, but we can protect against it.
In my book, I talk about basic income as an inflation tax rebate. The monthly CTC was shielding families but doing nothing for childless adults. We should restore the monthly CTC immediately, but we should also start doing the same for adults too. We need inflation rebate checks.
Read 6 tweets
Scott Santens Profile picture
Mar 11
How it started:
Universal basic income is a great idea, but the rich will never support it because it frees us from having to work for them to live.

How it's going: The rich have long conspired to implement UBI so that the government can control us by threatening to turn it off.
This stupid fucking conspiracy theory has always just been another stupid fucking conspiracy theory, but with the rise of QAnon and the pandemic, along with all other conspiracy theories, it's spread through the population of those who desperately need UBI for financial security.
Its popularity seemed to pick up thanks to the World Economic Forum suggesting a "Great Reset" and now it seems to be gaining popularity thanks to the response in Canada by Trudeau that involved freezing the bank accounts of those linked to the protests.

newsweek.com/trudeau-crack-…
Read 11 tweets
Scott Santens Profile picture
Mar 9
Neck and neck right in South Korea counting the votes for president with a win by @Jaemyung_Lee (in blue) meaning they could be the first industrialized country with universal basic income. Image
With over 75% of the vote now counted, @Jaemyung_Lee has fallen behind Yoon, the conservative candidate. A joint exit poll by KBS, MBC, and SBS television stations in South Korea predict that Yoon will end up winning. It's so close though that the winner may not be known today. Image
With over 88% of the votes cast, channel KBS has called the election for the incel-backed right-wing populist party candidate. It also appears that the 3rd place progressive female candidate served as a spoiler thanks to the lack of ranked-choice voting.

vice.com/en/article/y3v…
Read 5 tweets
Scott Santens Profile picture
Feb 21
This comment is made frequently enough that I wrote an article for my UBI FAQ about it years ago. A UBI is not UBI if it can be withdrawn like this, and we don't see this with existing programs like Social Security. Seniors don't feel afraid to speak out.

scottsantens.com/wont-basic-inc…
"We can't have universal health care. It won't work because the government will just refuse to provide it to people who protest the government."

Yeah sure. Countries all over the world have that problem, right? Universal health care is a bad idea because citizens fear losing it?
It's so frustrating. Conservatives should be crying out for UBI right now *because* of its unconditionality. Some Republicans almost even connected the dots recently when they carved out exceptions for unemployment so that they could refuse to get vaccinated and still get UI pay. Image
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(