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I have not spent much time studying basic income, but I'm sure the topic of inflation must be addressed. What's the current thinking on basic income having an
by DigitalJack 9y ago
I have not spent much time studying basic income, but I'm sure the topic of inflation must be addressed. What's the current thinking on basic income having an effect on inflation?
- marcosdumay 9y agoNobody addresses the topic of inflation because it is not real. It's just some FUD somebody though about and survives due to disinformation. Government deficits¹ generate inflation, what is a completely orthogonal concept to UBI. 1 - Among a few other factors, but the deficits are the one relevant here.
- mojomark 9y ago> Nobody addresses the topic of inflation because it is not real. It's just some FUD somebody though about and survives due to disinformation. I agree that inflation is a synthetic construct and doesn't necessarily need to exist. However, it persists because regardless of what name we assign the effect, it is a truism that market forces are never in perfect equillibrium so we'll always have some degree of inflation or deflation. Inflation is not an instantaneous metric, instead relying on prior and publically available CPI data (1) via the Bureau of Labor Stats site. In general, as wages increase, the increase in buying power drives demand, driving increased product prices (2). Price increases are difficult to reverse. So, the OC is correct to question the impacts of UBI on inflation. I think it will increase inflation at inception, but the impact would probably quickly wane as UBI becomes standard (Caveat: I am strong against UBI for other reasons, I'm just making a point about inflation here) Needless to say, plenty of discussion on this specific topic is found (3) by performing a search of the world wide web (www). 1. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/headline-inflation.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/headline-inflation.asp 2. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor... 3. http://basicincome.org/news/2016/11/will-basic-income-cause-inflation/ http://basicincome.org/news/2016/11/will-basic-income-cause-...
- dragonwriter 9y ago> I have not spent much time studying basic income, but I'm sure the topic of inflation must be addressed. What's the current thinking on basic income having an effect on inflation? Basic income will certainly (in its initial implementation and with any increases) have some effect on price levels of goods, increasing the prices of goods demanded more by net beneficiaries and reducing those demanded disproportionately by those who are net payers in whatever the funding mechanism is. But those should be such that the net beneficiaries still have increased buying power and the net payers have decreased buying power.