this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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[–] damnedfurry@lemmy.world -1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

You might want to do some more research and have sources.

I brought up a handful of VERY easily-verifiable, non-controversial data points, and just did some simple math. But, I guess, for the extremely lazy:

  • $1000/mo x 12 months in a year = $12000/yr
  • Number of working-age (16-64) Americans = ~210 million (I rounded down to 200 and counted working-age only (i.e. no elderly/retired), two things that make my argument WEAKER)
  • $12 thousand x 200 million = $2.4 trillion
  • Combined net worth of US billionaires is ~4.5 trillion. But hey, I found a much higher estimate that puts it a bit above 6 trillion. That gets you almost a whole extra year!
  • Latest US defense spending budget is $850 billion

Assuming stripping defense down to zero (which again, is an absolutely absurd hypothetical made for the sake of argument, and making my argument AS WEAK AS POSSIBLE) and applying the entire $850 billion to the UBI price tag, you're left with a yearly cost of $1.55 trillion. And even using the higher estimate of $6 trillion from the billionaires, 1.55 goes into 6 less than 4 times.

The only thing 'wonky' is your refusal to accept mathematical reality.

P.S. Telling me to "look at really good sources" for 'it's not universal if it's not given to everyone' made me laugh pretty hard.

[–] Szyler@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Where do you think the money goes when people get them? They don't "dissappear", so the "three years" you get from your billionairs in your example is you not understanding economy, even if you math is correct as you describe it.

The money people get would circulate and be taxable, so the government will get most of that money back to repeat giving out more the next month.

Also, your example I only using billionaires wealth instead if increasing taxes that more people are able to afford now that they have this UBI. The ones who have more than they need in income would be taxed harder, as they earn enough that they don't need the UBI, but since it's universal, they still receive.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 23 hours ago

I’ll discuss it when you come back with sources from the studies of UBI and why most experts think they worked being referenced