Could A Robot Tax Win the War on Poverty?

we don't know all the details yet. To just bear with us while we try and figure this out. Right, and in the meantime, you can get in touch with the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and the Chance Center Box offices to figure out what's what. Yeah, they'll probably have good at phone. But we really apologize for any inconvenience and we will eventually see you, guys, we promise. In the meantime, stay well, wash those hands and don't panic. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of My

Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry and this is stuff you should know the podcast about universal basic income on the podcast that's right, you be I baby, Yeah, it's it's like the most blamed set of words I've ever seen strung together in my life. But they have a big, big punch if you really dig into them. Yeah, I found myself kind

of it was. It was cool reading all this stuff and researching it because I I don't think I had much of an opinion on it before, and I'm going to try to not get too opinionated this time. But now you're like, well, all poor people can just die off for all I care. A lot of this, A lot of this made sense to me. Yeah, especially when

you're talking about replacing a bloated, kind of broken system. Anyway, because my first thought was like, universal basic income in addition to um, you know, welfare and food stamps and all the other social safety nets, but like replacing it with something that's a little more straightforward kind of spoke to me a little bit. Yeah, And I think that speaks to a lot of people too. And we'll kind of explain a little more obviously what we're talking about.

But one thing that stuck out to me about that Chuck was what about people who are physically incapable of working, of making a living, and that this would be their only means of support, or who have aged out of working and and don't have a way to support themselves anymore. Wouldn't you still need some sort of social safety net in addition to that for those people. I don't know if this would replace disability or would it. I guess

it depends on who whose plan. You know. Some people there's a conservative economists who will talk about later on named Charles Murray who's like, get rid of everything, this is it okay? And he goes on to say, like, while he wrote like a whole book about it, but I read kind of his synopsis of the book, but he he kind of explains, like, here's how this could

actually work. Um, he doesn't just say that, but there is a sense of there's definitely a real disdain for the bloated bureaucracy that that is the entitlement or welfare system in the United States, for sure, And I get the sense that it's on both sides. So that is kind of an appealing part of this, that this could

conceivably replace it under the right circumstances. Yeah, and this also made me think a little bit about the push for a flat tax that happens every so often, where it's like, we've got such a convoluted tax system, can we just settle on a very fair percentage that everyone pays across the board. The problem with that one, it's a great idea on his face, sure, a lot of problems. Problem. The basic problem that I have with it is that

automatically makes it aggressive. If you're a millionaire and you pay ten percent, that ten percent is going to mean a lot less to you than if you're a person living near the poverty line and that ten percent means rent or food or something like that, you know what I mean. So therefore it's a regressive tax. And I've never heard a good way to kind of um set up that flat text, uh, to make it non regressive, so that that that doesn't just automatically introduce this other

new convoluted tax code to you know what I mean. Yeah, And it's if you look back at the history of flat tax proposals, it's usually some super rich, old white guy that proposes it. So that makes you kind of want to go like, well, wait a minute, right, can you loophole your way out of that too? Yeah? Well no, I mean it's not a loophole, it's more just it's just super aggressive. Um, but that's a different episode. We've never done a flat tax up, so right, I think

we should do it. Yeah, we totally should. I'm actually kind of surprised we haven't. But yeah, so that's a totally different episode. But um, what we're talking about instead is called universal basic income. The universal is really important because there's different proposals. But in a universal basic income scheme, the government takes X number of dollars, say a thousand dollars a month, and mails that check out to every adult, say eighteen and over in the United States, everybody, no

questions asked, no strings attached. You don't have to be poor. It doesn't matter if you're rich. It doesn't matter what you do with that money. You can go spend it all on crack if you want to. It's your money. Like, the cops may bust you for buying crack or smoking crack or whatever, but you can use it for crack or ideally you would use it. Um in in myriad other beneficial ways. But I guess I'm just trying to point out there's no there's no guidance on how you're

to use that money. That's your money, and because it's coming from the federal government and it's guaranteed basic income, you can rely on that every month, and so you can start to build your life around knowing that at the very least you're gonna have a thousand dollars tax free. From what I understand from the government, that would be so United States to give you a thousand dollars a

month and then take back like three right exactly. So this was if you were a fan of Andrew Yang during his UM I don't want to say brief presidential bid, not long enough. I'll tell you that you like Yang, I like Yang. Hu was crazy for Yang, but I just thought his idea, his ideas were very level headed, were very a political. I just thought he was I thought he was great. Yeah, he spoke to me too, um. But he called it the freedom dividend, And that's what

we're talking about. A thousand bucks a month, no questions ask. If you're Bill Gates, you get a thousand dollars if you don't have two pennies to rub together. You get a thousand dollars and we'll talk. This is one of the few episodes I think we're the history. Uh. Addressing that later kind of works, UM, But there is some history beyond him, and he's not the only person there. A lot of the Bill Gates is and the Zuckerberg's and the Musk's of the world. It's huge and Silicon

Valley right now. It is in Silicon Valley, as we will learn, is one of the areas that they would that's in the cross here's for providing uh this money to a large degree through taxes because uh, one of the fears is and it's a legit fear. And I know in your Existential Risks UH podcast series, you talk about automation and robots, robots and things. But the fact

is we are automating more and more. Uh. Some say that uh in the next twelve and twelve years that about thirty of all working Americans will lose their jobs to robots. Do you realize what an increase in unemployment that is, Huget. I think right now we're at somewhere around three percent unemployment, which is really low. It's close, very close to full employment, if not like statistically full employment all of a sudden and how many years did

you say? It? Said? Twelve? I mean that's an estimation. So that's probably like a sky is falling kind of scenario. But there are a lot of smart people out there who say, Okay, maybe twelve years is a little soon, maybe that percentage is a little high. Definitely some people

will be put out of work in that time. But let's say let's expand that window to thirty years or fifty years, then we might start getting into some really high percentages of people who are being put out of work and not like you know, you could go over to company B. Your job's just gone, because we develop machines that are way better and way more efficient and way cheaper at doing that, uh than you are. And

so what do you do with those people? And it's not just a question for governments, um of what do you do with that physical person who's now poverty stricken because they their job doesn't exist any longer for for people, But all of these social safety nets and a lot of other stuff that um that we have in this country that those people would need to participate in, those are funded by payroll taxes and unemployment tax and stuff

that is a tax on labor and employment. And so if you have a person whose job doesn't exist anymore, you can't tax that labor, you can't tax that employment. So now you have the problem of somebody who says, I need this assistance, and then they're the way of providing that assistance has just been removed because we automated that job away, right, And there are some people like Bill Gates that are saying, hey, companies that are automating

all this stuff, you're avoiding all these payroll taxes. Now, um, you should pay it on the robot as well, which what I didn't see necessarily was whether or not that's and I assume it is. One of the big benefits of automation is that you don't have to pay those payroll taxes any longer. If you're in a business, yeah, that'd be a huge Yeah, if you can get rid of people. People are generally expensive, and if you're just strictly a utilitarian business owner, it was it's very much

in your in your favor of automating whatever jobs you can. Yeah, you're not paying payroll tax, you're not having to pay for that person the portion of their health care. You don't have to worry about union striking people getting sick. Right, So, as we become more automated, there are people speaking up and saying sure, there's also a lot of job creation

that happens with automating things. But the person that is taking care of your sanitation every week, if that was replaced by a robot off driving truck and clamper that dumps the garbage in there, clamper trademark wind COO, that person is not necessarily going to be the person that can be like, hey, I'll just get a job building these robots too, right, right, right, yeah, Yeah, which is ultimately kind of a it's a supplementary part to this

whole discussion of you know, we're still going to need people to do things like build robots, So how much of this should really be how much of this attention and effort should be directed towards training people for this new economy. Yeah, And it's the same idea when you talk about alternative energy. Teach the coal miner to build

wind turbines and an ideal world. All that happens very seamlessly, and they're just like, well, let's just take all these people that are out those jobs and give them the new jobs. It just doesn't work that way all the time, right right, and and yeah, and I mean idealize that. No, you can't and you shouldn't like this is these need to be like Frank Stark, sober discussions that we have about this because we're a little bit we're talking about

it doesn't hurt. Maybe some nice maybe some nice homemade thumb print cookies with the hers she's kissing there, um, but the but yeah, you do. We do need to talk about the stuff because we're talking about human beings and who who are gainfully employed now who maybe again poverty stricken because their job doesn't exist in the next decade or so. And yes, we need to be thinking

about this now. And then other people chuck say, Okay, that's the real possibilities robot this robot Texas automated economy that we're clearly moving toward. We don't know when it's going to really kick in. Is it's gonna be twelve years, Is it gonna be thirty, is it gonna be fifty. We don't know, But basically everybody agrees that that is the direction that we're heading you could have to be basically cuckoo to argue against that. Right, It's just when

are the effects really going to be felt? Other people say, yeah, that's a big problem, and I'm glad we're thinking about it. But we have had poor people in the United States and a huge inequality gap basically since World War Two. It's a national blemish of shame on our character, our country's character that there are people that are just gobsmackingly rich and other people who are gobsmackingly poor, and they deserve to not live in poverty because because they are

citizens of the world's wealthiest economy. Just the fact that they are Americans says that they shouldn't have a life of poverty because we can provide for them at least enough so that they don't have to be poverty stricken. And that's another argument for universal basic income as well, one that was championed by Martin Luther King. Look, we can take care of people, and we should. We have a moral obligation to. And I've just realized I suddenly

started just talking like Bernie Sanders. Did you catch that that like stammering kind of delivery? That was weird? My hair turned white. Just now, didn't it? And shaggy Yeah, I hope it grows back to normal. So, uh, maybe we should take a break here in a minute. Wait, what's what my hair? Do you think it's going to

go back to normal? Let's take a break now, Okay, Bernie and uh because that was a good setup, and we'll talk a little bit about what exactly is in some of the pros and cons right after this large sk Alright, so we talked about the Freedom Dividend from Andrew Yang and his his team and where you get a thousand dollars a month, whether you're working or not, whether your ridge or poor, and it the idea is is that it would replace the safety net programs that

all have strings attached. Right, So, if you are a part of the SNAP program and you get food stamps, you need to prove that you are below a certain income level. Uh. If you're getting unemployment, you have to show you're looking for work. If you're getting Social Security, then you have paid into that for a number of years. If you have disability, then that you have a doctor vouching for you. This is no questions asked, which is a you know, sounds radical to some people, but other

people say, just makes perfect sense. Yeah, And and Yank's not the only one to um to to address this, Like you said, you know, it's kind of a hot topic in Silicon valiant has been for the last five, six, seven years, UM to the point now where it's probably like old news and everybody's moved on to something else, like um, debtors prisons are the new thing in Silicon Valley. UM. But one of the co founders of Facebook named Chris Hughes, he wrote a book. UM. I can't remember what it's called.

It's like I read that it was half memoir half basically policy. Um uh lay out what I would like to do. Yeah, and it was basically arguing in favor of a universal basic income. And this guy put his money where his mouth is. He actually funded a pilot program in uh Stockton. I think the UM he said, here, take four families, right, five dollars each a month. Know, his was five dollars a month. But he hit on

something that I saw other people have hit on. Two that in addition to universal basic basic income, that's pretty good, but you have to go a little further, and UM, people would need to have at least catastrophic health insurance to where if they needed surgery or long term care or something like that, they had insurance that covered it. That those two things would probably help people get by UM.

And then there's plenty of other people running experiments on the stuff that we'll talk about later, But the general idea is that that yes, you just no questions asked, no strings attached you, you get some amount per month just for being an adult. Some other plans say maybe per household would be a good way to cut it down, maybe if you make less than a certain amount of money. Sure, but one of the things that about universal basic income

typically is that there's no cut off for wealth. Everybody gets it just for being an American, and that it isn't per household, it's per individual, which UM really is beneficial for a whole segment of society, which are unpaid caregivers, everybody from stay at home moms to people who are caring for their UM, their their parents with Alzheimer's. Those

people get a thousand dollars themselves. So now, all of a sudden, a household with two adults in it UM who pool their resources, has you know, twenty four thousand dollars a year rather than just twelve. So that's one of the pros um Another is, you know, if you are poverty stricken, if you live, if you're one of the one and eight Americans, which is striking that lives below the poverty line, um, you are probably not doing

a lot of things to meet your health needs. You're probably not getting up every day and saying I need to I need to work out and eat really healthy. We've talked about the problem, the food problem in this country and how the poorest people eat the biggest garbage diets because it's cheap. Um, you're not thinking, you're not eating well, you're not exercising, you're not uh, you know,

paying as much attention to your kids doing homework. Sure, if you want to idealize everything, you should be doing all those things. But if you're struggling day to day just to to live and survive, a lot of these things go by the wayside. So the idea is that a universal basic income would provide you with enough of a buffer to where you can tackle some of these other things. Or you can maybe go back to school and get that degree or start your own business, right,

you know. And another another thing for the very like the poverty stricken working class. Um, they would be given this buffer or this this check that everybody gets for them would be like a floor that would allow them to say, you know what, I don't have to take this job because I'm not desperate any longer to put food on the table, so I can hold out for a better job that affords me more dignity or that isn't actually dangerous to do because the working conditions are

so poor. So there's there's a whole um uh, employer exploitation that would largely dissolve when because the working class, that the really right around the poverty level working class would have this kind of buffer that they could use to negotiate better working conditions and higher higher wages. Yeah, and we should point out everything we're saying here. We should have this term in front of it is this is the idea that these things will happen, right, This

is all the in theory, right exactly. Um. The one thing I didn't see listed as a pro which I think is an obvious one, is if you make a certain amount of money, then I imagine a lot of people would treat this twelve grand year as something that they could just spend, thus propping up the economy, or donate, right. Yeah, I would hope that if you were very wealthy, that

it would become kind of trendy to just donate this part. Yeah, I haven't seen people talking about that in anything that I've read, and that just seems like a real obvious one to me. That, uh, you know, because a lot of people that are doing pretty well and they might get a tax return and that's like TV time or whatever,

let me go buy that flat screen. Well, actually, if if we can throw out one of the cons um actually dovetails with what you're talking about that there's a concern among economists that if all of a sudden, every adult over eighteen in America was getting a thousand dollars a month, they would be like, heck, yeah, I'm going to get a TV this month. Next month, I'm gonna go get some clothes, or I'm gonna save up a few months and get a car sooner than I normally

would have. Yes, because if all of a sudden, a couple of hundred million Americans are all doing this, spending more money, way more than we have been before where this is going, that we would outstrips. Demand would outstrip supply, and so the prices of goods would go up inflation, and so it would cancel out any benefit there was from the universal basic income because we would have all caused inflation to make prices rise in the cost of

goods increase. D Oh, totally, it's very valid. But what's great about it is people are thinking about it, you know what I'm saying. The other thing I like about this too is, um, it's not just liberals who are crazy about this, libertarians too, and um, some conservatives as well are totally cool with it too. For a number of reasons. Um, Libertarians like the idea that it would conceivably replace that bloated welfare state because libertarians are not

ones for big giant government bureaucracies. And also in the same vein that thing about the universal basic income, just being like, here's your money, go do what you want with it. Not here's some money. You have to spend it on food and wait, wait, wait, you have to spend it on specifically these types of food. But libertarians love it so because you're all you're just saying like, I'm not I'm the government, and I'm telling you how to spend this money on this particular kind of food.

It's here's your money, you know, do what you want with it, which is just libertarian dream kind of stuff. Yeah. And that economist Charles Murray said he was a conservative economist. He's the one that's like, man, this is would cost less than Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the SNAP program, right, and the entire welfare state. We could get rid of it, and this would actually be better for us in the

long run. Yeah, and cut down on just the the bureaucracy and the paperwork, and uh, it's just it's a much cleaner system. Yeah. Just the fact that the bureaucracy itself would be slim down, which ironically would put a bunch of people out of work. Um, that in and of itself would be a cost efficiency savings right. Um. And I guess there's a I was looking. I was like, well, how much do we spend on entitlement programs in the

United States? And no one knows. Apparently there's like some I saw a Heritage report, which I believe is the conservative think tank. They were saying it actually there's like a shadow um welfare program budget that's like a trillion dollars in addition to the other trillion and a half

dollars that's on the books or whatever, um. So if that's all correct, then this is about the same because the rough estimates are that it cost about two point three trillion dollars a year to mail a thousand dollar check every month to every adult over eighteen in the United States, roughly two million adults two point three trillion

dollars a year. But again, you're sending the same check out to every single person over age eighteen, and that in and of itself could be very easily automated, so it would be cheaper to actually do even if the

actual amount of money you're shelling out is roughly the same. Yeah, and another one of the pros, and we'll talk about some of the limited studies they've done on this, but an interesting one in Kenya is they had a lot of malnourishment due to drought, and so the government said, you know what, instead of giving food aid to vulnerable households, let's do a direct cash test basically, and they found that about nine of these people they bought some food,

but nine of them also used it to launch small businesses or to h to restock their heard of goats or whatever kind of reinvest in themselves. And that's one of the again, uh, the idealized version is people use this money, um and in an entrepreneurial way. Yeah, and that's I mean, that's these little pilot programs are just

coming back with really mixed results. But one of the ones I saw, I think it was like a Nathan Heller piece in New Yorker from a couple of years ago, and he was talking about that Kenya experiment and he's he pointed out one like one heavy drinking um resident, uh use that money not to go on a bender, but instead to buy like a taxicab and start his

own taxicab business. Bought a couple of like milk cows and um and did a couple of other things that that we're fairly surprising, considering most people would expect that he would he would just um squandered it all on booze or gambling or whatever whatever you might expect somebody like that to do. That's one of the big fears and of the big arguments against it is, I mean, is it really a good idea to just give a

thousand dollars a month? No, strings attached to absolutely everybody, including people who are addicted to whatever, including people who um are terrible with money, including people who um are are con artists, you know, like just because they're Americans. And that's the I don't know if like that's a one of the flaws, but also simultaneously one of the benefits of it. Is yes, the answer is yes, everybody gets it, and then it's up to that person to

to spend it in the best possible way. All right, should we take another break? Sure? Man, Alright, we'll take another break and talk about the criticisms and more like how are they gonna pay for this? Right after this definition sk Alright, so if you are against this, that you probably fall into one of two camps or both. One is that it's expensive and how you're gonna pay for this, and the other is sort of combined with a lot of ways that certain Americans think, which is like,

you shouldn't get anything for free. There are no free lunches, and if you do that, then people aren't gonna work. They'll just find a way to live on that twelve grand a year, and um, it won't change anything for them. Yeah, which is you know, apparently some of the data that's coming back from these trials are, like I said, they're mixed. So some people, um, spend it on a taxi cab and start their own business, and other people are like, I'm I don't have to work at all. This is great,

And that's that's a big problem. You don't. You don't in a in a productive economy that relies on human labor. A government program that basically pays people not to work is disastrous, right, And that's one of the big the big criticisms of the current welfare system is that it traps people into cycle of poverty by disincentivizing them from from working. Where if you reach a certain point with

your wages, you lose all of your safety net. You know, you lose your food stamps, you lose your healthcare, you lose unemployment checks, you lose all that stuff because you now are employed. And on the one hand, it makes sense because you don't need support supposedly, but the problem is when it really washes out into practicality, you still do need that support. But you've just been um booted off of this stuff for working, So it's actually better

for you to not work. Um that's that's people say they're worried about the same thing with universal basic income. Yeah, I mean, I guess what's important is the overall picture, because there's the idealized version air You give people twelve dollars a year and they're like, man, I was laid off. Now can afford to go back to school and make my rent every month and get a better job. Or now I can concentrate on health and wellness and invest

in my children. Or I can care for my my, my mother or my you know, family member who's old. Or I can be a stay at home parent, or just just live less stressed. Yeah, I mean those are the idealized versions. There are also, of course, going to be people that gambled a little away, or drink it away or drug it away. Uh So the idea is you look at the overall picture, does the good outweigh the bad or vice versa, vice versa. I can't believe

I just said that. I like it. It's got a little on yap to it, you know what I'm saying. So it's that overall picture. But I think we need to talk a little bit about how it would be paid for. We talked a little bit about it. Redirecting those safety net UH programs right now would be part of it. Um. And this is like one of Yang's proposals are a bunch of different ones. Um a value added tax of ten which I read up on that a little bit. It's a little bit confusing to me. Yeah, Um,

what should we talk about it? What it is? Well, yeah, I think just a little bit essentially, so from what I gathered, and just correct me if I'm wrong. You have a different understanding. But at each stage of production, um, the thing is taxed. So as like a raw material is sold to a manufacturer to make candy. I think I saw that coco and all that stuff is taxed at ten percent, right, Well then well then the manufacturer turns that cocoa into candy and they sell it to

a retailer, it's taxed at ten percent. Then the retailer sell it to the consumer, it's tax at timbercent. And the government doesn't get ten percent tem percent, tem percent like thirty of the total value. They get overall ten percent of the total value. And that that's this value add tax. And it's like they use it in Europe and have for decades now. Basically everyone but the US has a value added tax. The great part about it

is there's no way around it. You can't hire from what I saw, you can't hire um a really great accountant to find loopholes in the text code, like you're going to pay this ten percent tax. It's a sales tax for every stage of a product's life. So companies can't get away with not paying any corporate taxes because

they're paying this consumption tax. The problem with it is you, the consumer, are still paying that ultimate ten percent tax on the end that's coming out of your pocket, even if some of it's going to the business and some

of it's going to the government, and you're still paying that. Right, I don't know if I think, okay, it might it might be in addition to but the thing that Yang's plan, this was his big thing to use a value added tax to pay for this um the basic income, was that this would be mostly on luxury goods and that basic staples and necessities would be exempted from this value added tax, which would prevent it from being a regressive tax.

All right, that makes sense. So Yang also said, let's tax um investment income, which would obviously target a certain very small percentage of the country. Um, how about we tax carbon polluters? Put a carbon tax? Right? Um? Some people, like Bill Gates I think I mentioned earlier, He's like, Hey, all these companies that are replacing people with robots, uh and skirting payroll taxes and and medical insurance and stuff like that, why don't you tax them with a robot tax?

Right that every every robot that they replace a human being with or several human beings with tact have to pay a tax for every single one, or software or something like that. The problem that I saw with that is that no one has any idea how to actually quantify it. Like you can say, this robot replaced five factory workers on the factory floor. That's easy enough. But what is like software that helps you know, transfer phone calls or something like that. How many people does that

this place? It's really hard to say, which is from what I can tell at least on the Reddit Yang Gang thread. Um, they explained it that like that's why Yang went with a value added text because corporations can't get around it. There's no way to loophole your way out of it. And it's much more quantifiable than you know,

taxing software. So but that is so the But the robot text still captures that same sentiment right there, that the people who are the ones who are automating away jobs are the ones who need to pay for the people who are being put out of jobs. That's kind of the spirit of the robot text, right. Um. As far as studies, you know, it's sort of been all

over the place, there haven't been. I mean, there have been some studies in Canada and the US and in Europe that seem to indicate that the hey, these people just won't want to work isn't really going to be a problem. Like I said, some people will, of course, but overall, these studies are coming back saying, now people are going to use this in the spirit as it is intended generally. Yeah, Um, so Ruse helped us put this together. He he pointed to um the Alaska Permanent Fund.

I'm not sure where he saw that, But that's so small though, it's kind of a tough. It's not exactly apples to apples dollars a resident a year. In two thousand nineteen, each resident of Alaska received sixteen hundred dollars, and it is just such a small amount that you couldn't possibly, you know, really work less because of that. So hip Rob would find a way to get by on six some some people would for sure. Right, you know, you can go fish with your bare hands in Alaska,

so maybe that could supplement things. But but um, the big question is, yeah, what really happens when you give you know, a bunch of people, a large group of people, twelve thousand dollars a year? You know, would that mean that they would stop working and not even necessarily stop working, but work less? And from what I saw, uh, it seems to be on both sides of the aisle, or both political stripes for economists that yeah, there probably will be a reduction in um worked hours, but that it

would be nothing that would stall the economy out. People are not going to just quit jobs and droves. They just might work a little less. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Like what are they doing with that time? That's kind of what is the key factor? Are they volunteering? Are they sitting around playing PlayStation games? Uh? That's some Some other economists said that there, I can't remember which

one I said. There was a Technology Review article I think I saw that really kind of they didn't poop poo the concept. They just pooh pooed some points of it. But one of the things they pointed to is that there are plenty of studies out there that show that when people reduce work hours, they just sit around and watch TV. You know, you know, but um, the that's not really what you want to do. But again, if you're a libertarian economist, you would say, well, you know,

that's that's that's what people That is your right. But then you should probably turn in your economist shield, because if you're an economist, you kind of want people working. Unless you're John Maynard Keynes, um he wrote. We've talked about him before. Kanesie and economics the usually the super like government spend can spend its way out of a session kind of stuff that all came from Kanes and and I think nineteen thirty three, Kanes wrote this essay.

Oh man, I can't remember the name of it, but some something about you know, work in our grandchildren, something about team Yang. He said he basically predicted in a hundred years back in nineteen thirty three that we would not be working any longer because we would have automated all our jobs away. But everybody would be living a life of leisure, and we missed that mark big time for all all manner of reasons. But you could you could kind of look at Kanes's prediction and say, well,

maybe he was off by fifty years. Maybe it's not a hundred years, but the same thing is going to happen fifty years or a hundred and fifty years from when he predicted it back in nine And so some people say, Okay, this robot tax idea in principle works really well, or it could work really well, but we are way premature with this, that this is something we need to start doing thirty years from now, not now, and that it would actually harmor economy if we do

it now because there are people who will stop working. We would be paying some people to not work anymore. And we still are adding hundreds of thousands of jobs a quarter in the United States alone. We still need human labor. So we don't want to prevent people from

doing it. But when when we do automate jobs like Gangbusters, um, then yeah, we should take a significant amount of that wealth that's going to be generated by these robots and not only make sure that people have their basic necessities provided for why not just make it so every single person in America is wealthy compared to our standards here today, just because we we have robots doing all this work and generating all this wealth for us, why not just

share it for everybody. Why should just a handful of people who own the robots have all the wealth while everybody else has been put out of work? Why not just make it so everybody's wealthy because the robots are doing all the work for us, right, I agree? WHOA And that has caused some people to say, well, wait a minute. It makes you wonder why Silicon Valley is into this whole thing as much as they are right now. Have they seen like that this may be a road

that we follow in the next twenty thirty years. And they're trying to stem the tide now and say, hey, how about we give you guys ten thousand dollars a year, Actually, how about the federal government gives you guys ten thousands of flush money just to basically get to be bought off now cheaper now than we would be in the

future when the real problem starts to come along. And so there are some people who say it's a good idea in principle, but it it's too soon, and we need to be wary of people who come bearing gifts of ten thousand dollars a year today. Yeah, interesting, I thought so too. We talked to we promised a little

history this UM. I think you mentioned Canes, But in the late nineteen thirties there was a free market economist named Milton Milton Friedman, I'm sorry, Milton Milton Friedman who had an idea sort of like this UM to ensure that people had a minimum standard of living. But this was through it was called a negative income tax. So it essentially works kind of the same way. Once you do your taxes, if you were below a certain threshold, then you would actually get money from the i R.

S Uh. We mentioned Martin Luther King. What might surprise you is that a little guy name Tricky Dick Nixon in this surprising, very surprising. We were surprised by some of these recently. What was that he was the first president that had the first African American guest in the

Lincoln bedroom, who was Sammy Davis Jr. That's right. So in nineteen nine Nixon said, hey, how about this, Why don't we start a program where UM it's the equivalent of about eleven eleven grand a year today, where we pay people six hundred dollars a year plus food stamps if you, um are a family of four that doesn't

have an income. Basically, I mean, here's a quote that says, what I'm proposing is that the federal government build the foundation under the income of every American family that cannot care for itself, and wherever in America that family may live. This was Richard x In saying this. Yeah, and then that's universal basic income to a uh, to a certain degree.

It's not everybody, but he's saying, hey, if you don't have any money and you're an American, then we'll give some to you, because you have a right to have a very basic level of income. Yeah. It was called the Family Assistance Plan that that UM actor was, or that bill was, and it went and made its way through Congress, and Congress said no, but they there was a um There was one part of it that the Senate,

I guess said, oh, we like this though. It was a work requirement, and so from that point on, if you wanted federal assistance, you had to prove that you were working. And that still survives today, and it's been upheld by you know, not just GOP presidents, but Bill Clinton made sure that that was part of his welfare reforms as well. Sure, and it came from that. So they said, now we're going to do away with this guaranteed minimum income, but we like the work requirement part,

and that was the legacy of it. Yeah, I mean, one thing is for sure, if this has any traction in the United States, there's going to have to be a lot more data behind these trial programs. And even if that data comes back in the positive that this would be a good thing, there would need to be a sea change of of of thought change with a

lot of Americans about giving people money. Yeah, we would basically have to say, like the point of life is not work, which is not the way Americans think these days. I mean we might say that we don't, but no, we actually act differently. Like working is largely the purpose of life, and there's a lot of like pleasure to be gained from, like feeling productive. And I think even if everybody did have it was able to just stop working and be wealthy, people would still find stuff to do.

You'd still go like garden or learned to to paint. Like you wouldn't just lay around and smoke opium all day or anything like that. Most of wouldn't write. So, um, I think there is like a lot of value to work. But um, the I forgot where what started this off? What did you say? Uh? When I was saying there would need to be a sea change of the government is giving handouts to people right right, and that that the value of work was divorced from the right to

to live life wealthy or cared for. That it would it would require an enormous change. Although there are programs in place right now that kind of kind of resemble this, and some some people say, hey, there's this thing called the earned income tax credit that um that where it's basically Melton Freedman's negative income tax thing. And you you

know Freeman, he was basically one of the architects of neoliberalism. Um, so this negative income tax planning came up with kind of became the earned income tax which is, um, there earned income tax credit, which is if you're below a certain level of income, not only do you not have to pay tax, this tax credit actually pays you back like you can get a check from the I R S rather than vice versa, and then it fades out as you go, you know, you get further along the

scale of wealth until it's you don't get anything and you're paying lots of taxes. So that's when you've got all those great loopholes, right exactly. No, that's after that part, you know, that's beyond like a middle class and upper class. That's that point one percent stuff right. So, um, some people are saying, forget this universal basic income. We've already got this earned income tax credit. Let's expand that. Let's

make it so more people are are able to get it. Um. One of the big criticisms is that it uh incentivizes people to have children that they might not otherwise have. Well, yes, I think it is from what I from what I've seen that it is at the very least if you're talking in hypotheticals like we were talking about the idealized version, and yeah, it's at least as real as that. So, like, there are people that are like, man, let's go have a few more kids to get those sweet rite offs.

Well here's the thing. Let me put it to you like this, if you're a family with three or more kids, your maximum earned income tax credit is eighteen dollars. If you have zero kids, your maximum is five and ten dollars. Right, kids are nothing but a money drain. Totally true. And so you remember that conservative the conservative economists what was

his name, Um, Charles what Murray, Yeah, Charles Murray. He but he pointed out that under the current entitlement welfare system, UM, there are programs where you get additional benefits if you have kids, which theoretically, um, and can incentivize somebody to have a kid that they might not otherwise have. Right. One of the things that he said, this is a great thing about your basic income is it does away with those entitlement programs and replaces it with that money.

And now all of a sudden, you're disincentivised to have a kid you wouldn't otherwise have because all you have is that ten grand and you can keep it all yourself, or you can have a kid and have to support your kid with that ten grand because nobody else is going to help you support the kid. Right, there's no benefits. You don't get ten grand plus two grand for having a kid. Do you get ten grand? No matter if

you have zero kids or ten kids. Right, so on that in that sense, it kind of disincentivizes people from having kids where they otherwise wouldn't. But and this is why some GOOP people love it, like that whole focus on the family thing. Although the GOP doesn't have the market cornered on families, that's not what I mean to say, but there is a bit of a focus on like

traditional families and family values. And this is I think who he was kind of speaking to was if you are a couple and you pull your your ten thousand dollars together a year, you've got twenty tho dollars, but you're also just having to pay a rent, wants pay for you know, maybe a car, maybe two um groceries

for the whole house. Like, like, there's an economy of scale to building a family, and so now it makes sense to have kids more than it does just by yourself with that ten grand you know what I'm saying. But if you want to save all your money, don't have kids or pets, right right, that's just basic economy one O one, keep all that sweet dough for yourself. Yeah, exactly. I'm curious to know if if like you were asking, if that's like if that actually does happen in real life,

and to what degree. I don't know, Man, I just have a hard time believing that there's that much like planning of Like, well, let me think here, if I have three kids, I could get back all this tax money and they would cost me this much, and here's

what the difference would be. So I'm coming out ahead by like a thousand dollars a year, right, And even if there are people doing that, like what proportion of the general population do they present, and is it really enough to prevent you know, taking uh risks that could have huge payoffs, like something like a universal basic income, just because a few people are going to do it wrong, you know, I I would for me the answers no, But I'm not fully sold on the universal basic income

now right, I'm not either. And I'm also for someone who just said keep all that sweet money for yourself. This is coming from someone who has four pets and an adopted child, right, So I'm I'm the biggest chump

in the history of jumps. And well and also if we're getting all like, you know, self perspective and all that stuff, we should probably say it's a lot easier for us to be like, we don't need that universal basic income now because you and I don't necessarily need it, but there are plenty of people who really do need it. Suld put it to give you, So maybe we should

just keep our fat mouth shut. Well. I would like to think that if this kind of thing came along, I can pay my bills and I would donate that money. There you go, just starting out, Chuck, Chuck, what a great guy. You know you got anything? Else? What I feel guilty about is not doating enough time. Oh yeah, you know, because like donating money is great, but feed

on the ground. Volunteer work is is very valuable, valuable and valued, and the best thing you can possibly do is walk around volunteering and throwing money, tossing it just like Hey, I'm here to uh clean up the dog kennels and here's a wad of cash, exactly, But you have to do it like de Niro, Like, you know, you shake somebody's hand and all of a sudden you got like happen, right, and where a suit while you're

cleaning up the dog kennels. Oh man, I wish I was cool enough to palm a fifty dollar bill without noticing all it takes is practice. It's right. Um. Okay, Well, if you want to know more about universal basic income, just moved to Silicon Valley and start talking to people. Although I am curious if it's not hot any longer, what's the new thing? Let me know Silicon Value. Okay, let us know. And since I said let us know Silicon Valley, it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna

call this from a listener I met in person. Recently. I've been doing, as you know, a little bit of alumnus work with the University of Georgia. Uh, doing some a little speaking thing the other night. Nice, how did it go? It went great? You know, it went really really great. I had a lot of fun and I was able to speak to about seventy five semi recent graduates about podcasting and everyone was super cool. There were

a lot of uh, a lot of stuff. You should know people in the audience that were just delighted to get in a small room at a whiskey distillery. Oh that's a great place for it. Big shout out to the A. S W Distillery. Another alumnus. Nice. Uh, make they make some good stuff, you know what, something you'll

get a kick out of is. During the Q and A, one of the first questions they said was what was your reaction when you were first asked to come back and talk to the university students and stuff like that. And I said, my first reaction, honestly, was what took you so long? I think I've been waiting for years for U g A too, you know, show me a little love stick it to him, Chuck, And they laughed. They thought it was funny you put him on the spot. I did. I like, uh, but this was from Greg Bell.

And I met Greg afterward and he told me a great story and I was like, you know what, send that in an email and I'll and I'll read it. So he said, hey, Chuck, had a great pleasure of meeting you at the Young Alumni event about ten years ago. I was about six months away from graduating high school and had big plans to become a long haul truck driver. I stumbled across your podcast while looking for things to

listen to on the road and was hooked. Your show was incredible to me because I didn't think I liked learning, but every Tuesday and Thursday morning I found myself refreshing my podcast speed just to see what you guys would be talking about over the next few months. Back then, I came to realize that I loved learning and I love telling other people about the things I was learning from.

You both talked about you so much that I got my dad and my wife to both start listening, And now we have conversations every time we're together about what episodes we've been listening to. Um, we love this stuff. When families, I'll eat this up all day. Yeah, man, family that listens Stuff you Should Know together rarely argues sure. I think that's the same. You were both a major factor and me ultimately making a decision to stay in

school and get my undergrad degree in history. Today, I am an educator at an art museum in North Georgia, and I seriously can't imagine how much different my life would be if I hadn't found Stuff you Should Know when I did. Thank you both so much for the work that you do in the impact you have on so many people around the world. If you ever find yourselves in Cartersville, would like a tour at the booth

Western Art Museum. Oh, that's a good one. I would be more than happy to make that happen, and that is from Greg Bell. And I met Greg and his wife and they were just great, super super cool. Greg Bell is one of the most U g A names I've ever heard in my life, you think, aside from maybe Tucker Carlson, and I don't think he went to U g A. But that's a the different side of you g A. Greg Bell is like straight ahead, you

g A name. I like it, Greg Bell Freshman. I think I might take them up on that um that museum tour. You love your museums, I do, I do. I just gotta make it up to Cartersville. That's the downside. Oh that'd be great. Uh, well, if you want to get in touch with us, like Greg did apparently show up at Chuck speaking gigs at Whiskey Distilleries. Yeah, there's some more of those coming up. If you're a ug alumnus,

pay attention. That's awesome, Chuck, seriously, pay attention to everybody. UM. And if you are not a U g A alumnus or you can't make it out to one of these things, you can also get in touch with this via email. Wrap your email up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to stuff podcast that iHeart radio dot com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's

How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart radio because at the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows