frostbiker

Note that you’re using the term “retiree” in this example, but were talking about pensioners previously.

You are right, I've been sloppy.

A lot of pensioners do keep working

Do you have any data on what percentage of them do, particularly full time? Based on the people I know, they spend most of their time with hobbies, chores and socializing. Not that there is anything wong with that, but as a larger percentage of our population becomes unproductive it will become harder to fund social services such as healthcare or the UBI.

You are asking me to disregard heaps of peer reviewed research because you ran into a lazy retiree once.

So a retiree that doesn't work is now lazy? Does that mean by extension that a UBI recipient that doesn't work is also lazy?

Re. the pilot studies, I don't believe that the behavior elicited by a short term study automatically extends to a lifetime UBI.

As a counterexample I have suggested looking at pensioners, particularly healthy early retirees. If our working-age population experienced a fraction of the productivity loss that we see in healthy early retirees, we would not be able to fund our current expenses, such as healthcare, let alone a UBI on top of that.

As a side note, why are you worried more about the rich than the poor?

I am not. I'm offering the argument that a UBI may well lead to a less productive population, which makes it even harder to maintain a UBI in the first place.

They will get UBI too so worst case they hit the same floor as everyone else.

But if there are no longer rich people to be taxed because they have been sucked dry then there is no source to fund the UBI. Hence the notion that "rich people will fund the UBI" doesn't fly. Not to mention that wealthy people find it relatively easy to move to other countries with less taxes.

Tell us more anecdotes from the early 80s boomer.

She retired last year, making her Gen X. I am younger than her.

Not that any of that makes any difference: people stop working as soon as they have the means to do so.

Since you have resorted to personal insults it is safe to assume that you have ran out of actual arguments. Thank you for the conversation.

They are not 67 years old for one.

Do early retirees act any differently? My kid's teacher retired at 55 and she wasn't talking of all the work she was planning to do afterwards. I know a couple other healthy early retirees and they don't do anything productive either.

The funny thing is people in this thread are complaining that rich people contribute nothing to society, but they avoid saying that the reason rich people don't work is because they don't have to. We all know that if we didn't have to work we would not do a fraction of what we do today.

If we reduce the number of people who actually work and contribute to our tax base, there will be not enough budget to fund UBI, healthcare, or anything else.

A UBI turns everybody into a pensioner.

Wait what? This is not even close to true.

A pensioner receives a stable income for life even when they are not working.

A UBI recipient receives a stable income for life even when they are not working.

It seems to me like a pretty similar situation. And what do most people do when they are eligible to receive a pension? They stop working. They may do a little volunteering on the side, but it's not typically on the ballpark of what they did before.

I'd like to hear your counterpoint.

Retired people can contribute time to their families, the community, and other non-capitalist endeavors.

Of course, and that's great. But who pays for the UBI? Rich people? And what do we do when we have taken everything from them, or they move overseas?

Any early retiree is most likely a billionaire

My kid's teacher retired at 55. So you think she was a billionaire?

so by definition they weren’t even contributing that much to begin with, probably just hoarding generational riches.

So rich people don't contribute to society because they don't have to work in order to live. However, people under a UBI will be very productive because they don't have to work in order to live?