IMO, In order to break the hold on the House or Senate we will need to discuss UBI.

[CK_John]

My solution is to reduce SocSec to age 40 and those without coverage add them to Medicare.

The middle class has to be restuctured because they are not all going to be conputer coders.

The money people know; why not candidates for Congress???

A universal basic income, or UBI, is a once-fringe policy proposal that has gained increasing public support in the U.S., including from many tech business leaders including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. In part, the idea is appealing because it would help insulate workers against labor market shocks likely to be produced by innovations like self-driving cars and artificial intelligence.

read more:
http://fortune.com/2017/09/03/universal-basic-income-economy-study/

[Cartoonist]

1. I'm all for it

Except as a campaign issue. It will be called Welfare.2 and the right wing goobers whom it would benefit will see it as another handout to the moochers.

[CK_John]

3. IMO, if we do not make it a campaign issue we give to GOP a free ride.

The money people knows this/CIO's knows it is coming, the middle class knows and their kids are not going to have a job.

Why do you think they are so mad????

[snooper2]

2. not going to happen

[CK_John]

4. It will, it's just when.

[Orrex]

6. A few decades after hell freezes over, at the soonest

The idea is noble and laudable, but even if it were implemented, the GOP would immediately set about sabotaging it so that they can call it a failure and transform it into trillions worth of tax cuts for billionaires.

[MichMan]

5. Social Security at 40?

Social Security starting at 40 yrs old?

By the time many people graduate from college and get established in a career, they are in their late 20's. That means after contributing to Social Security for less than 15 yrs, people would draw retirement benefits for the next 40 years. It's not remotely feasible

[CK_John]

7. If you have no college cost or education you will not have that problem, at 40 you will

need UBI.

[Demsrule86]

9. So you think a country that won't even pay basic welfare to kids...

will authorized UBI for a forty year old with no education? Ah...OK. Americans want jobs not UBI and they damn sure don't want to give it to anyone.

[MichMan]

13. The OP is proposing Social Security at 40

The linked article suggested a UBI of $1000/month.

The OP went way above and beyond that with a proposal to let people retire and draw Social Security at the age of 40.

My argument that a plan that allows people to retire for twice as long as they worked and contributed to the system was unfeasible was dismissed

[Demsrule86]

15. Of course it is...I think I misdirected my reply...there will be no UBI...they will let people

starve first.

[Demsrule86]

8. It will never happen...you might as well ask for a unicorn...and the GOP would have joy demonizing

any attempt.

[CK_John]

11. IMO, When it happens is not a problem, it not giving any fight to our candidates.

FDR had the same problem getting SocSec to begin with.

[Demsrule86]

16. Our candidates would not win on an issue that will have little popularity with anyone.

[zipplewrath]

10. Back to the farm

I'm beginning to wonder if we aren't headed back to the "subsistence" farm. I'm not denying the UBI, more of a case of connecting it to some amount of self sustaining labor. Not that we'll all be required to farm 5 acres and feed chickens, but that some sort of model involving self sustaining labor, subsidized or motivated by requirements for a UBI.

Prior to the industrial revolution, most folks lived on subsistence farms, either as labors, or owners. It was the justification for large families. It was the purpose of the "orphan trains". Farms were a form of commune in which food, shelter, water, etc. were created and shared in groups. When the cities opened up and filled with factories, the people poured off of the farms because the incomes were more consistent and secure, and quite honestly, the work/lifestyle was "easier".

The factories have now become automated and they don't need the "self programming and maintaining" individual worker anymore. The result may be that the people will have to "head back to the farm" from whence we came.

[CK_John]

14. The trouble is 1% of farms(corporate) produce 98% of the food.

We have to teach the population to learn a hobby, something to keep from killing each other.

Teach your kids how to weld and protect the eyes.

[zipplewrath]

17. And probably still will

As I say, what I see more is not going back to a 5 acre farm with chickens, but a commune type arrangement making anything from clothing to wooden furniture. And not so much for cash as for subsistence and barter. A really, as you suggest, as much to occupy folks as any real point of production.

[Wounded Bear]

12. It won't win the heartland...