UBI advocate Scott Santens discusses economic growth and technological automation with Nathan Latka.
Insight
Santens: Society should aim for full unemployment via machine automation
“We should be investing in automation, and we should be, we should get out of this I'd say almost like, it's like a trap of full employment, this belief that, that it's best for people to be doing these jobs. I think that we should be aiming for full unemployme…”
Assertion Supported
Santens: One week of Fed liquidity could fund a $2,000 monthly UBI
“We could actually be paying for a 2000 dollar a month fully universal basic income for the amount of money that the, in, in, in the Fed is doing in one week.”
Insight
Santens: High inflation functions essentially like a wealth tax on asset owners
“The more inflation that there is, is essentially can be seen as like a wealth tax or something because it disproportionately impacts the, you know, owners of these assets.”
Assertion Supported
Santens: A $1,000 monthly UBI for US citizens costs $3 trillion gross
“So if you do that, and then if you're going to do a thousand dollars per month per person, and you're going to go to citizens in the United States, then it's a little over three trillion dollars. That's the gross cost.”
Insight
Santens: Citizens should receive shareholder-style returns on government-funded tech
“So I think it's important that we see our economy as essentially, you know, a giant corporation where, as citizens, we are stockholders, and we should get a return
On our investment that we're investing in these technologies.”
Insight
Santens: Private foundational R&D like Bell Labs no longer exists
“It used to be the case, like back in the day, like say Bell Labs was a bit, was a company that did a lot of its own R&D, and that just doesn't exist anymore. If it's not profitable, people aren't going to do it. So all these, this exploration in, into new tech…”