Not sure what century this was in, but the article is basically saying this strategy is a fail. The resume's get screened to "auto" inbox->Trash, without being read, considered, interviewed, etc. Now, if you got those leads because of your network...you're clearly using a strategy that is not widely available to many people (that's why its a network: it's exclusive, not open). So, in essence you are blaming them for not being priviledged. Again, this is a moot point. These people need to pick a strategy that is <open to them>. Saying you have options that they lack is not a viable piece of advice to them (duh!). You might as well tell them to go to Harvard or MIT and become a programmer. While it's true tha "would" help, its also true that it has zero probability of <actually> helping. In otherwords, it's a humble-brag. It's not advice or critique (or a good comp).

This shifts the system away from incentivizing you to be unemployed, and towards countering the centralization of wealth.

My natural inclination is that such a system will create a huge incentive for a percentage of people to willingly choose to be unemployed for most of their lives. If the amount isn't enough as a "living wage" amount then people will either adjust to make it work for them or they will clamor for the powers that be to increase the amount given to make it "livable". I'm sure it would soon become a "right" of some sort.

I'm not saying that such a system would inherently be a bad thing, but it has to be designed with that outcome being considered and the consequences it implies.

If by countering the centralization of wealth you mean take from Paul to give to Peter, then you're just trading one problem for another.

The problem is, basic income will likely lead to inflation. The government would need to control prices in the necessities market (food, rent, utilities, etc) to make basic survival possible on $15,000. The price of luxuries can go up as long as necessities are affordable.

There's your incentive. You can survive on the basic income, but if you want any luxuries, you have to have a job. That way the people who don't want to contribute to society are taken care of, and there's an incentive to actually get a job paying more than $15,000. I'm sure we've all heard stories about families on welfare buying expensive toys, TVs, Xbox, dirtbikes, cable TV, etc. If we want to get rid of that, welfare needs to pay exactly what it costs to survive, and nothing more.

On the other side, if the government installed such controls as you describe then that part would potentially get worse simply because of abuses by the government on its people. Plus, government controls often do not have the intended outcome anyway resulting in worse problems than what they were trying to solve in the first place. Also, keep in mind that politicians often offer to increase the money to these programs to increase their power in their own little corner of the political landscape. Or to buy votes. Or to attack political opponents. I can easily recall the accusations that one party must not be elected because "THEY WERE GOING TO TAKE AWAY YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY!!" even though that party did not claim wanting to do such a thing. The more control you hand over to the government over its people, the more control that it desires to get in the future.

Some would say that welfare is already supposed to provide just enough to survive on to help that person. But with some groups that use the money clearly for things outside of surviving, some groups that are constantly redefining what "surviving" means, and some groups blatantly using welfare measures to buy votes to obtain power means that welfare will almost always not be the solution to the problem at hand.

Taking care of humans fairly is a rather difficult thing to succeed at.

That's not true at all: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items

You might be confused, because some states provide other forms of benefits (SS or TANF) on the same debit cards as SNAP ("food stamps"), but the food stamps program only pays for food--and not even all kinds of food.

You wrote a lengthy post, and you seem to have strong opinions about this subject, but you are badly misinformed about the underlying facts.

If anything, it's an argument in favor of replacing current welfare programs with unconditional cash transfers.

Thank you.

If one can take your government provided food stamps and convert them to cash is an abuse, how will straight-out giving them cash supposed to help in that situation? They will be provided cash with stipulations so nothing would change according to the rules.

Although, I admit there is evidence out there that if you just give cash with no stipulations to people that need help instead of "stuff" distributed through a service of some sort, they tend to do better overall: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/23/214210692/the-char....

For the record, the US government does not tend to view a warm coat and two bowls of soup to be surviving in the US.

"My opponent must not be elected because he'll take your warm coat away and prevent me from providing for your 'right' to two bowls of soup a day."

"Vote for me and I'll put real chicken in your broth!"

"My opponent calls this 'surviving'?"

/s

A person can use a quote out of context all day long but it doesn't truly reinforce the stereotype until a person hearing the quote agrees with the out-of-context usage.

For example, if a person from Mars says something stupid and someone provides me with a quote. Do I say to myself; "That person is stupid" or "Martians are stupid"? If I go with the second then the problem is within me, not the quote nor the person who provided it.

So, did the Nazi's quote Jews out of context to further their aims of denigrating them? I'm sure they did. But it only worked for people who agreed with the idea in the first place.

Speak for yourself. Other people starving & dying isn't a win in my book.