Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 147 | Universal Basic Income

Episode Date: August 7, 2019

Perhaps an effective pitch for various Democratic nominees, but is UBI effective policy?

Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to Relatable. Today we're talking about another exciting subject, and that is universal basic income. Aren't you guys pumped? No, I really am excited about it. This just isn't, I think I said this about another topic recently. It's not the most sensational topic in the world. It might not be something that you're going to necessarily get into an argument about any time soon with one of your friends, but hey, maybe you will. But the reason that we're going to talk about it is because you are probably going to hear a presidential candidates talking about this soon, if you haven't already, particularly Democratic candidate Andrew Yang. Now, this is not a guy who has a whole lot of name recognition right now, but he's actually been on some more conservative outlets. Like he was on Tucker Carlson,

he was on Ben Shapiro's show, but he just is not quite as famous as, you know, the more mainstream candidates, even a newcomer like Pete Buttigieg. But, but, but, But he talks a lot about universal basic income. It's also something that Bernie Sanders has talked about some. And if it is an idea that ends up appealing to people, which we'll talk about how appealing it actually is, you're probably going to start hearing more candidates talk about it. But I do think that we need to talk about it regardless of whether or not it's a big topic in 2020 because it's an idea that has been circulating for a while.

and I think we'll probably continue to circulate. It speaks to a part of our culture that is important for us to analyze, which is why we're going to talk about what it is. We're going to talk about how it works, if it actually works, if it's effective. And then I'm going to use it just as a launching pad. I'm not going to necessarily connect it completely. I'm going to use it as a launching pad to talk about a part of our culture,

particularly for younger generations that I think needs a readjustment and a rethinking about. So let us first talk about what universal basic income is and why you've got people talking about it. It's the idea that every person gets a fixed amount of money every month from the government. Say it's $1,000. This is supposed to help them live. It's supposed to help them meet their basic needs or it's supposed to be like a platform for them or a jumping off point from which they can, you know, start some kind of career that maybe they wouldn't have been able to if they didn't have any money at all.

The person who's best known as the champion of this idea is Philippe van Paris. Maybe that's how you say his last name. We're just going to go with that. He's a Belgian, a political philosopher. He's an economist. He describes it this way. It's an income paid by a government at a uniform level and at regular intervals to each adult member of society.

The grant is paid and its level is fixed. Irrespective of whether the person is rich or poor, lives alone or with others, is willing to work or not. In most versions, certainly in mine, it is granted not only to citizens, but to all permanent residents. So you hear all of that, you hear all of that. Whether you're willing to work or not, you're going to get $1,000. Whether you're part of a family or not, you'll get $1,000.

It's not just granted to citizens. It's granted to all permanent residents, I would say probably in the United States that also means illegal immigrants. This guy, of course, is not an American, but this is the idea that a lot of people on the Democratic side are latching on to. This is mostly who it comes from. He calls this a powerful tool of social justice. Why, of course, we know that social justice advocates really like to even, or they say

they like to even the playing field. Really, they're looking more for equal outcomes. He thinks that this will help achieve that. It's seen as a foundation for people to build their life on so they don't have to ever worry about completely going without because they will have this at least $1,000 or however much it is as a basis. they will be freer to pursue the things that they want to pursue without feeling the heavy weight of having no money or the potential of having no money. Andrew Yang describes it like this.

A form of Social Security that guarantees a certain amount of money to every citizen. So he made that distinction to every citizen with a given governed population without having to pass a test or fulfill a work requirement. So his is the same thing there. You don't have to go to work to get this $1,000. Every universal basic income plan can be different in terms of amount or design. And this is true. He goes on. The UBI, and that's probably the term that we're going to use from now on, the UBI,

meaning universal basic income, of course. The UBI he is proposing. So this is someone describing his proposal. He is proposing for the United States is a set of guaranteed payments of $1,000 per month or $12,000 per year to all U.S. citizens over the age of 18. Yes, that means you and everyone you know would get another $1,000 every month from the U.S. government. No questions asked. Yang says that he would like to consolidate welfare programs and implement a program where current beneficiaries would be given the choice between their current benefits or the $1,000. So apparently under his plan, it is not both. It is either or.

To pay for Yang's model, his proposal is to implement what he calls. a value added tax of 10%. This tax is on the production of goods or services of businesses. There are some examples of what he would like to tax, like Amazon shipping, Google searches. He says that it would primarily be on these large companies. He says that these companies often hide their profits

and their income, and so they are fair game for this kind of tax to pay for UBI. Yang says that this will have all kinds of benefits for Americans. it will give them more time to focus on art, for example. It will offer better mental health. This is all from his website, as they feel more secure with the baseline amount of money in their pockets. It reduces domestic violence, he says.

It improves relationships. He says, and of course, he is saying all of these things based on the assumption that the reason that all of these things happen, domestic violence, what have you, is because people are desperate for money. And with $1,000 a month, they wouldn't be so desperate. And so none of these things would happen if people had this kind of security, is his assumption, is his hypothesis. There are tech giants who also agree with his plan, Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, they're totally on board.

Other people at Facebook are on board as well. There are even people on the right who are at least sympathetic to the idea or sympathetic to the problems that Andrew describes. and Andrew, sorry, Yang, Andrew Yang describes, and as his reason for implementing UBI, one of those major problems that he says, and a lot of advocates for UBI says is automation. So millions of Americans have already been displaced from their jobs by automation. Millions more will continue to be displaced by automation, they say. Retailers, call centers, fast food restaurants are all moving toward using computers. for these kind of low-skill jobs rather than people? Why? Because it saves them millions of dollars

and also saves them a lot of headaches. They don't have to worry about HR issues. The fear is that this is going to reach every other industry, like, for example, the trucking industry. There are millions of truckers that people like Andrew Yang and others are afraid will be automated out of their jobs. So there's going to be, they fear a huge section of the population that is unemployed. In the trucking industry. These are typically older men, so it's not quite as feasible for them to learn a new skill and to go into another industry. The people at retail stores and in fast food restaurants are typically, not always, but typically people who are either in the process of finishing their education or who don't plan to finish their education at all. So it's difficult for them to get

anything other than low skill work. So the thought is that something like UBI would help these people at least not be destitute or hold them over while they're figuring out what to do next. Although it is important to study, this is the argument that they make, but at the same time they're saying that everyone, regardless of whether they work or not, or whether they have a million dollars or not, gets this extra $1,000 per month. And so they might say it's for the desperate. They might say it's for the people that are getting automated out of their jobs, but they're actually saying everyone gets $1,000, which of course is a lot more expensive, which of course,

cost a lot more for us in tax money. So they use automation as a reason, but it's obviously not the only reason. A 2013 study from researchers at Oxford University concluded that 47% of jobs in the United States are at high risk of falling victim to automation by around 2030. These realizations have now led to more American supporting the idea of UPI, UBI.

12% of Americans supported UBI. However, today 48% of Americans now support it, according to a Gallup survey of more than 3,000 adults. So that's a huge jump. And a lot of this is because of fear of displacement, I think. But I think a lot of it is also because people have learned to expect a lot more from their government, especially when you have people like Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders saying that the government owes you things.

I think people have just moved a lot more to the left. So that's probably a large reason of why more people are accepting of this universal basic income idea. Now, not everyone, of course, is excited about this. Not everyone thinks that this is a great idea. The Heritage Foundation has conducted experiments showing that something like this is not going to work. It actually reduces the hours worked per week because people simply are not incentivized to

work. Paul Krugman is a Nobel winning economist. He said that he is not support of the, not insupport. of the idea of UBI because it's so much money. It's just going to cost a lot of money to the American people. And it's probably still going to be inadequate for the people who are in need. Now, Paul Khrigman is not a conservative. He is someone who is a supporter of Obamacare, universal health care. He just doesn't think that UBI would be a good use of our money and that we should instead. He says, focus on people with real needs through our current welfare programs rather than giving everyone

$1,000 whether they need it or not. He would say that that's just an inefficient and ineffective way to help those who need it. And it's just more money than most Americans are willing to spend. So Andrew Yang and others see universal basic income as a kind of investment into the American people. Rather than just money they're giving away, they think everyone would be better off if they knew they'd have at least a thousand dollars a month. But a lot of people are a little bit skeptical about that rosy view of humanity. In addition to how much it's going to cost the American people, some people might actually, yes, they might actually use this money well.

They might actually steward it wisely. They might put it to good use. But there are millions of people that are not going to. There are millions of people who would not. I think it's extremely naive to believe that everyone. who gets an extra $1,000 a month, that they did not earn and with no strings attached, with no expectations to work whatsoever, that they're going to keep getting that every month without any conditions, I think it's naive to think that everyone is going to take care of their

grandma and start a pottery making company based on that. I do not think that that is actually what's going to happen because we've already had experiments. We've already seen what happens when you just give people money indiscriminately. It doesn't actually help. It hasn't actually closed the wealth gap. How much we give in welfare and entitlements every year. And people actually are profiting more off of what the government is giving them than what they're able to earn in a job.

They're not incentivized to go out and work. And so I just think it's probably not the correct mentality to assume that people are going to be able to use this money well and that it's actually going to help a whole lot of people. Yes, it's an intended. to be an investment and for some people it might be but for a lot of people it's just going to be enablement uh for many people it's going to remove any kind of incentive to work or to work at a better job or to get a more lucrative job to work hard at their job to make sure that they don't get fired at their job uh just giving someone money doesn't guarantee that they're going to use it well

people who win the lottery for example they very often go bankrupt quickly you often hear about athletes and even artists who make a quick million dollars and end up losing it all after five years. Why? Because all of a sudden they had money that they never had and they didn't know how to use it. And the artist and athlete examples are actually a little bit different because at least those people earned their money. But it's naive to believe that when people are given money that they did not earn that they are going to just use it to better themselves and better their communities. Some people might and that's great. but a lot of people are just not going to. I think that you can look throughout history

at how that's worked to know that it's probably not going to happen as positively as they think it will, that it could actually further enable apathy if apathy exists. And for the people who will, those people out there who will use this well, who will become painters,

who will become entrepreneurs because now they have less risk. The question is, will the work that they now feel free to do be work that is actually helpful or contribute to society? If I know that I'm going to have enough money to care for my basic needs no matter what, that may mean that I choose to start a company or a project that is really a labor of love, something that I want to do, something I'm excited about, but that no one else wants to buy from.

It might mean that I make a product that no one else actually wants to consume. The risk of entrepreneurism of failing of having no money is completely taken away. But it is that risk that forces people to make wise, to make calculated decisions that are actually based on demand. In the scenario that universal basic income allows for is one that the supply and the demand really don't have to correlate. I can supply as many products as I want to supply as many services as. I want to supply without any thought really as to what the demand is. That does not help the economy that might make people creating their crafts happy because they, okay, they can do this and they're not completely going to be destitute,

but it doesn't do anything to help the whole. And that is one of the goals of UBI or the stated goals of UBI. The reality is that some people have skills and have passions that are not really worth supplying because there's no demand for them and there are skills that we actually need that Americans currently are not supplying. There are skills in oil and gas and mining and construction and nursing. The list goes on that right now are in short supply because not enough Americans are being trained for them. It's just not true that at least right now all of these jobs are being automated, that all of these jobs are being taken over by robots. Some, yes, but not enough to say that

we need to be indiscriminately giving people $1,000 to pursue their passions without any thought as to what jobs are actually needed right now in society and are not being filled. The goal of UBI, they say, is to give so-called dignity of life to people, to give their life some kind of sense of being dignified. But that is extremely subjective. what does a dignified life look like? What does dignity look like? You can bet that if that starts at $1,000, it is not going to end there. People are going to say, well, the cost of living is a lot higher in New York City to have a dignified life than it is in, say, Laramie, Wyoming. So it's not fair that people in Laramie also get $1,000 a month. People in Manhattan should get more. It takes more to live in dignity there. Then people will say $1,000, it isn't really enough to live on if you're of work. So this whole thing, it doesn't really help me that much. I need more money. Realistically, especially for living in a more expensive place, we need at least $5,000 a month

to pay for rent, utilities, groceries, an iPhone, a laptop, maybe a night's out with friends. I don't know. How could the government be so stingy? I need that $5,000 a month. It has never happened where we have given people something. The government has given people something that they did not earn and they either say, you know, I don't want this anymore or I'll take a little bit less or I'm just good with this. No, we are greedy. We always want more and more, especially if it enables our laziness. I'm not talking about individuals. There are plenty of individuals that have gotten off welfare. There are plenty of individuals who have said, you know what, I'm going to work, even though I'm making less money working at Walmart than I am from the government. There have been plenty of individuals

who have done that. But as a whole, and as programs go, they tend to grow and they tend to grow and they to not very help very much. They just get flooded with more and more money. This is probably going to be that as well. And of course, as UBI rises, the taxes on those who are working are going to continue to rise as well. Why? Because you can't just create money. It has to come from somewhere. And so UBI has to come from the people who are working to support the people who are not working. And remember, this premise of UBI is that it goes to people whether or not they are working. We remember that phrase unwilling to work. It was also in Alexandria, Acaccio-Cortez's Green New Deal. This phrase, unwilling to work, is something that you are going to hear more and more over the

next 10 years, and it's something to pay attention to. Because socialists, I've heard this before, socialists do not believe there's any morality or any inherent dignity or goodness in work that just by existing, you deserve to have all of your needs met no matter what, that there should be no expectation or condition on you that human beings weren't necessarily made to work. Well, from a Christian perspective, we know that that's absolutely wrong because work existed before the fall. And we see throughout proverbs, that laziness, that idleness, not working, just taking pleasure in things, rather than actually being productive is seen as a sin. And it actually leads to evil. We see throughout the New Testament that work is a necessity that Paul actually worked.

work is something that human beings were made to do. That's why when human beings don't work or they're out of a job, they get purposeless, they get dejected, they very often get depressed. Work is important. So when you hear a socialist say that, you know, if you're unwilling to work, you're still going to get all of your needs taken care of. No, no, no. That is a terrible idea. That's how you get a completely apathetic society. And I don't think that that's good for everyone. and it's especially not fair to those who are willing to work. If you think that social justice advocates are going to be okay, by the way, another problem with UBI,

if you think that social justice advocates are going to be okay with everyone getting the same amount, so doctors and lawyers getting the same amount as a poor person, $1,000 a month and you're out of your mind. They will never stand for that. They will say, no, rich people, they can ever take. to find rich people. Rich people shouldn't get $1,000 a month. No white people shouldn't get $1,000 a month. No men shouldn't get $1,000 a month. They're going to have all these stipulations.

If you think that they're okay with a white male Christian lawyer getting $1,000 a month, the same amount as the person on the bottom of their intersectional scale, getting $1,000 a month, you're crazy. So it really is a slippery slope, and that's not just a fallacy because it's really easy to see the edge of the cliff. It is an expensive and unrealistic idea that in the end is going to be pushed over by the very people who advocated for it. It's going to not be woke enough for the woke crowd to give everyone $1,000 a month. Now, UBI advocates say that they're testing it already in communities across the country to see if people will use the money wisely to see if they will rely on the money to look for another job rather than just sitting on their couch.

But first of all, it needs to be said that they're not actually testing for UBI. This is the money that they are doing in some of these projects, or giving in some of these projects, they're giving to extremely poor families. They're giving them a little extra money like $500 a month to live on in addition to their welfare. So this doesn't give us an indication of what UBI, universal basic income, would actually look like. What would it do to our economy to give everyone money without them actually earning it?

even the people who don't need it. There is no indication whatsoever that this is a good idea. In fact, here's what Forbes has to say about it. And this is written, again, by someone who is not, it does not seem like who is on the right, who also talks about his love for Medicare for all and thinks. This is what Forbes has to say about it.

The country is toying with the idea of UBI. All advanced economies are deep in debt with pitifully low productivity growth and a massive looming rise in pension and health care expenditures. Think of Italy, where the populist five-star movement secured one-third of the vote in the last elections by promising UBI. They desperately need to generate more income and spread it wisely.

It makes no sense to waste money on those who do not need it. And I would add to that and who did not earn it. So instead of saying robots are taking over, he and other people are basically saying, let's give people money. Let's give people money who actually need it or let's help the people who actually need it. Let's invest in the programs that. we actually need and let's train other people to do the skills that we actually need right now. Let's stop encouraging young people, and this is me saying this, this part, this is me saying this.

Let's stop encouraging young people to go into 10 to thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to get a degree at a four-year school that they either won't use or will get a job that makes them little to no money and they'll never be able to pay off their debt. So I agree, obviously, like I said, that we shouldn't be encouraging young people to go to college if they don't need to go to college. Now, whether or not that I think that we need to invest in our current welfare programs, I think that we completely need to reform our current welfare program. So people are actually incentivized to work instead of enabled not to work. But you're going to get people on the left to criticize UBI saying, hang on, let's like get Medicare for all. Let's get health care for all. care of before we talk about giving people $1,000 a month. I obviously don't agree with that. But I do agree that it's not the right time. It's never the right time to give people $1,000 who did not earn it, and also people who did not need it. I think it's an inordinate amount of money for taxpayers to spend that is not going to be effective at all. And I think that we have the wrong solutions to the problems. The problem is that we've got a whole bunch of young people who think that they need to go into all of this debt and never be able to pay it off.

And then when they can't pay it off, they're frustrated and ask the government to do it, a.k. you and me, aka taxpayers. So this is the line that we hear from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren that we need to give people free college. It's the same kind of idea. If you're unwilling to work, if you don't want to own up to the consequences of your choices, well, you shouldn't have to pay for them. It's the same thing that we hear with living wage. It's this whole idea that, oh, you should be dignified working 40 hours a week no matter what. Well, not necessarily. Like if you are painting watercolor paintings and no one is buying it and you're doing it for 45 hours a week,

you don't necessarily deserve, you don't deserve $40,000 a year, however much it is for you to be able to live and to pay rent. No, there's this thing called supply and demand. The job that you do actually has to have some value. and it's not set arbitrarily by the government. It's set by the value that it has in the marketplace. That's something that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and these people don't seem to understand

that you don't just give people money and it ends up all working out and balancing out in the end because everyone's just going to use it to, you know, become an entrepreneur, whatever it is. It just doesn't work like that. Now, here's the truth. Here's the truth because our culture is heading in this direction because we are so obsessed with the God of self.

We're so obsessed with what we deserve. We're so obsessed with putting ourselves in the center of everything. And this goes beyond UBI. This goes beyond free college. This goes beyond the whole living wage argument. This is especially true, I would say, for millennials and for young people, we are too obsessed with following our so-called passion. And we're so obsessed with a superficial,

worldly definition of happiness that we think that life and the university exist to make us happy. And so we have to be following our passion in order for things to be fair. We need less people who are following their so-called passion. We need fewer people studying only that which they're interested in. We need fewer people chasing their dreams. In a society that is so obsessed with this kind of superficial idea of happiness, who sees sacrifice as a kind of toxic thing that you need to cut out of your, life. I know that what I just said is considered hate speech, but it's actually true. The fact of the matter is, not everyone has a passion that is worth pursuing with their whole lives. Not everyone is

good enough at their hobby to turn it into a career. And so we are not entitled to money by taxpayers or by the government in order to do that. Now, as demoralizing and as negative as that might sound, I think it's a reality that would actually free a lot of people, especially a lot of young people from the burden they carry of thinking that in order to have a fulfilled life, they have to have a trendy job that they love every minute up. Now, in our Instagram world, and I understand that not even everyone that I'm talking about right now has the privilege of being on Instagram. But I think speaking to the people that I'm speaking to now, in our Instagram world,

it seems like that's what life is all about, that you need to have a job that gains you followers and fame and flexibility and allows you to travel and look good all the time and be rich. and you need to love it. But that is not feasible for everyone, and that should not be the goal. That might not be your life, and that's okay.

You might not get to pursue your passion or your interest full time. Our society today, especially among young people, prioritizes what we want to do over what we need to do, and the idea of necessity or duty or responsibility is seen as unfair.

It's seen as unjust. And so that's why you have these politicians coming forward saying, well, you shouldn't have to pay for that. You shouldn't have to worry about getting a certain kind of job. Now, contrast this to the greatest generation, the generation who fought in World War II, and then came back and rebuilt America as well as the economies of the nations we fought with and fought against. Do you think that they were obsessed exclusively with their passions?

Do you think that they were only concerned with living their truth? Do you think that they were unfulfilled because they did jobs that, needed to be done rather than the jobs that they wanted to do? I don't think so. I just don't think so. In fact, it seems that the race of discontentment and anxiety go up as the generations go down. I mean, study after study tends to show how unsatisfied millennials are with our lives, despite constantly being told to be happy and to do everything we want to do, what should probably tell us that following our so-called passions isn't our highest calling. It's not the best thing that we can do. Maybe the human spirit actually runs better on the fuel of

purpose and sacrifice of doing what we need to do that helps the greater good instead of just helping us in checking things off of our list of goals that helps us more than personal ambition. Here comes the caveat to all of this, okay? Here's the caveat. I realize I am saying this as someone who does something that I love. Like I realize I'm saying this as a podcast host. I'm very aware of that. I am in many ways a product of my generation. I have always wanted a job of flexibility and freedom. I've always wanted to be my own boss. I did not like having a nine to five. I never liked having a boss. So clearly, I am not against people having a job that they love. But, but I started doing what I do now, blogging, writing,

speaking while I was working full time. I didn't quit working full time for over a year of doing this from the fall of 2015 to the beginning of 2017 until I knew that I was going to have some sort of money in place, some sort of salary in place. At least I, knew pretty confidently. I mean, I did take a little bit of a risk, but it was a risk that I was pretty sure was going to pay off quickly. And then it did, at least a little bit, not a lot. It did enough for me to be able to do it full time. At this point, at the beginning of 2017, I made this bet based on what I knew. So I knew I already had a following. I knew my videos were doing well. I made really solid connections at a media company. I was charging a little bit at this point for speaking

engagement and I knew that if this didn't work that I would get a job elsewhere. Why? Because we needed money. Now, we were extremely lucky at this time. We lived with my brother, which was a sacrifice, which was, it was awesome, but it was a sacrifice and we saved money doing that. And the first job that I took in this world of media was actually not a job as a talent, which is what they call the people in front of the microphone or the camera, but was a job as a social media manager, which is not what I wanted to do at all. That was something I had done in the past. It was not what I wanted to do with this media company in the slightest. And yet I took the job knowing that it was going to want.

It was going to pay me a salary, a low salary, but it was going to pay me a salary. And so we weren't going to, you know, we were going to have some money and be able to save some money. But also it got me in the realm that I wanted to be in. So when I was in that role, I started taking steps, taking the initiative to get in front of the camera, to get in front of the microphone, to make opportunities for myself and connections for myself. so I could actually start doing what I wanted to do and get paid to do that. Now, at this point, I started getting asked to do other kind of TV appearances. I started getting asked to speak at more places and actually getting paid to do these things.

But even in that first job I took in media, I made a sacrifice just to make sure that I was making some money doing something that I didn't want to do, which was managing social media. So even though, yes, I am doing a job that I love and I am so thankful. to God for that. I could not do this, obviously, without the grace of God and without the support of my husband. There were sacrifices that I had to make merely because the value of what I was offering was not enough to make me money yet. And so we have to remove ourselves from this faulty mentality that you are entitled to do what you want to do, even if it doesn't serve anyone and even if it doesn't contribute to your livelihood at all. So I don't. I don't. I don't, I did a lot of things I did not want to do before I did this full time.

And also, once I was able to do this full time, I had to find enough people to listen to me to be able to make a living doing it. And so if I wasn't able to do that, if I didn't have people listening to Relatable, if I wasn't able to get hired doing what I do, I would have stopped and I would have done something else. So all of that said, if you can find a way to fill a need in the world and thus make money doing your passion, by all means, go forth. I will support you. I am a huge cheerleader of people jumping off the deep end in a good way and taking a leap, doing something they know God is calling them to do for the glory of God that they are good at that fills an actual need. I am so supportive of that. And while you are doing that, unless you're being, financially supported by someone else, be okay with doing things that you don't want to do. Be okay with working full-time or part-time simultaneously. This is why the majority of people don't actually make it as entrepreneurs because of the work that has to be put in for years without making any money because some people genuinely can't afford that.

They genuinely don't have time for that and that's perfectly fine. So it is okay to follow our passion as long as your passion actually fills some kind of need that is going to make you a livelihood if it meets an actual. demand. You're going to know pretty soon if it doesn't. You get a pretty quick feedback and you can look at numbers to see whether or not people are picking up what you're throwing down or buying what you're selling. But it is important to realize that you actually have to be productive in order to have any right to do what you do. Unfortunately, this idea, now I don't think in all scenarios, but the pie in the sky idea that is being communicated by UBI that is being communicated about

free college is about people being able to pursue their passions without any fear and with all the security in the world. Well, that actually isn't, it's not the best thing that you can do. And it's not even necessarily the right thing to do, especially when we have jobs that actually need to be filled and actually need to be trained for. skills that you might have or you could be trained to have that actually fill a need in society. It's not all about doing the things that we want to do if the things that we want to do are not adding value and are not actually paying the bills for us. And so I think it just speaks to a mentality

of our generation. Now, there are going to be plenty of people that say, no, this is for the poorest of the poor. Okay, we can talk about that. You can talk about the injustices of rising prices in college, okay, we can talk about that, but this idea that it's often being perpetuated by people, that this is about security for people to chase their dreams. I just think that's unrealistic. It's symptomatic of a greater disease of self-centeredness that we've got going on in our society. Okay, that's all I have to say about that. If you've got any feedback, please let me know. I was going to get more into kind of living wage, but we've already talked about living wage. We talked about it on a previous podcast episode that I don't remember that it is very stupid,

that it doesn't make any economic sense whatsoever because people are just going, their employers are not going to take a huge cut to their profits so they can't pay their family. They are going to fire people if they have to raise the minimum wage too high or they're going to raise the cost of the food or whatever it is they're selling. They're probably just going to fire people and automate them so they can save all of that money. The living wage argument really doesn't make any economic sense.

But that's really all I have to say about that. So I didn't want to dedicate a whole lot of time on this podcast to it. Okay, um, I will talk to you guys soon.