Transcript for The Unit of Caring
discussion.
Please note that transcript has only been spell-checked, the grammar has not been edited.
Also the transcript may only be for part of the discussion.
How can people not work and still receive money, where will the money come from?
Vote:
A: Everyone should have an income of 50,000TWD. If your income is below, the government will give you the difference
B. No matter what everyone gets 20,000TWD.
C. Current Welfare practice. Families below an income of (we guess?) 60,000TWD a year get 3,000TWD/month from the government.
Reasons for A:
Some talented people might not have the certification they need, and might not get the job they want, so they’ll need help
Because option c is only for certain people, in option a more people get the benefit.
Reasons for C:
I think our gvt’s economic condition is no good, so I choose the third one. According to NHI, the economic condition is bad.
To preserve the nation.
Reasons for B:
C is too easy for every country. For a, if your income is over 50,000, you’ll give up, and if you make 40,000, there’s no incentive.
If you get 20,000, you can live like a human being.
—So if I choose option b, I don’t have to work too hard. So I would choose b.
—I don’t know.
—So I was convinced by Anita at first. I didn’t choose a and b at first, because I was thinking, that money is going to be in everybody’s tax, so there’s not much difference.
—Say more?
—If everybody make up the income to 50,000, or if everyone gets 20,000, we have to pay the tax to get this money back. Of course we still pay tax to support option c, but it’s cheaper.
—But for a and b, is everyone going to share that money, there’s no difference.
—If everyone has the same weight of suffering, maybe ok.
—My thing about option B is, it's the least invasive. The other two systems, the government has to go around figuring out how much people make, and then whether people are cheating by having side jobs, and there's a lot of complication and bad feeling. But B, it's simple. Everyone gets the money, you don't have to worry about who 'should' get it. They just get it. You only have to worry about identity cheating and the like.
—Why should we license hair cutters?
—To make sure their skills are good
—But they need it because they dye hair, and they use scissors, they might cut people
—Should you have a license to fix airplanes?
—Is this required by the government? Technically you should have.
—What’s the purpose of licensing?
—To show you have the ability to do something
—Quality control. It’s a standard
—It’s a certification of your level of knowledge.
—So in paragraph 7, she says there’s no need to get a license. I agree with her, because sometimes people can’t get a license, but they are able to do the work.
—Or to run a preschool without a college degree.
Final Statements:
Actually I have no idea about this practical regulation and UBI, these things. But I agree with practical regulation and universal health care, but skeptical of UBI. But now after our discussion I think the UBI is an interesting idea. And the Taiwan has the money for the investment in companies, so I think we can put more money into our welfare. But since there is north Korea, the people who went through the Korean war, they think welfare is equal to socialism, so there’s a conflict between young and old generation. But I hope someday I can get 20,000 ntd every month. Would it be enough?
—not in Taipei, not for coffee
—but if you got 50,000 ntd, you won’t work, but if you get 20k, you will work. So I hope someday to receive money like this.
—I agree. If we all got the 50k, people will get lazy and be like, I don’t need to work. So maybe 20k is a suitable income from the government.
—a convert!
Tbh, I just want sb to survey for real the income and expenditure of the government. I mean this is a very monumental task, and there’s so much politics in what happens, and people are people, it’s very hard to calculate, but at the same time, we need to know how the money flows.
And then it would be good if someone could estimate how the flow of taxes and expenditures works in society.
I feel like, in this information society, we couldn’t we figure this out?
But I know I’m an idealist, and maybe there is a real impediment to this. But what could the impediment be?
And also, what would the real economic drawbacks be?
I feel like the most arguments against UBI are all about doubting people, oh, they’re gonna be lazy, oh, they’re going to spend the money on bad things.
But I’m wondering if in the aggregate, will it be economically beneficial? Or not? And I can’t find this information.
—it’s hard to summarize or trace in the system.
—it’s asking for a complicated thing, I know
—I just wanna know if it’s gonna work
So I’m interested in licenses. Because I have some. So we worked so hard in university, and we have the examination. And after we graduated we joked that we forgot everything, but of course we didn’t, the training still worked. So of course people learn in different ways, but for national guidance, we need a system to manage all the pharmacists or doctors. Or like Alfred says, the people don’t have a certain ability. So I think the certificate is necessary for some systems. If ‘m a patient, I want my doctor to have a license. What if they don’t know how to treat me. But maybe 500 years ago, the doctors never got a license, people didn’t always die. Who knows, but in modern society, we still need this system to manage everyone. Because there’s so many people, and we need guidance. But I want to put one special thing, before 2002, Chinese medicine doctors, they can take the exam by themselves, they don’t need the university education. But now they’re required to have some training in physiology and pathology. So I think in the twenty first century, the system has changed, we need the certification and license.
—so before the Chinese medical doctor don’t need
—before they can study on their own and get the license for the exam. But after 2005, they need to also have the university degree, and then you can have the right to take the exam.
—in the us, you can’t take the bar exam for lawyers without a law degree
—in Taiwan you don’t have to. You have a kind of pre-exam
—in Korea you need to go to law school first
—don’t you think that if you can successfully take the exam, why do you need the law degree?
—okay but for doctors and nurses, it’s because some courses you cannot learn by yourself
I want to talk about the certification and licensing too. I have the same question, why some of the jobs that require you to have a certain degree. Like in aviation, they require that I stay in the industry a certain number of years, and accomplish certain tasks, and have certification to show them, then I can join the tests. In college, I studied EE, but I also love cooking. And I remember I want to the cooking department and asked to join their practical course, training them to have a license. And the professor asked where I was from, I said EE, they shut the door on me. They only wanted people in their department, they didn’t want to waste their time. And like the Chinese medical things. I actually googled this, I tried to learn it myself, because I hurt myself a lot fixing airplanes so I went to the acupuncture clinic a lot. So I thought I should learn that. And they say you need to join the college and stuff. I was wondering why. If I can do it like 柯P, he’s always bragging about what he can do. If sb can do that without training, if he can do that, I still have the skill. If you can pass it, you can pass it, you have the same knowledge and skills. Why do we have so many limitations on this?
—a lot of it’s politics, and protecting their territories and their industries./
—for example the medical school students, they have a specific number. And this is politics. They will count
UBI: before I came to this discussion I thought this idea wouldn’t work, it’s not acceptable. But I realized I can choose option be, I don’t have to work. I
—it’s quality of life!
—but so I hope this will be applicable in Taiwan in the future. And licensing, I have a different point of view. Because nowadays, degrees, people studying in university 4 years, their mentality is way different from in the old days. How can we make sure the degree is actually meaning something.
—so if you want to get a license, they think you should pass the exam. So then they validate how much you learn during these four years.
—so that makes sense, I agree with licenses, but why do we need the degrees?
