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If you would take a look at bay area, it's a very good example of what happens when you give a lot of people bigger income - rent, housing and prices will autom

If you would take a look at bay area, it's a very good example of what happens when you give a lot of people bigger income - rent, housing and prices will automatically go up and net average would be the same. I don't understand why people are pushing for redistribution of income rather than redistribution of goods like we pretty much did with utilities, public transport and, to a certain degree, internet.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> If you would take a look at bay area, it's a very good example of what happens when you give a lot of people bigger income - rent, housing and prices will automatically go up and net average would be the same. The main price increase in the bay area has been housing -- rent is still housing -- and the reason for that isn't primarily incomes. It's artificial scarcity (from zoning) in the face of increasing population. In a normal market without the artificial restrictions, the fact that people are willing to pay a million dollars for housing would cause lots of new housing to be constructed which would bring the price down. Incomes contribute, because if housing cost that much and people weren't making that much money then they would move out of the area (which would lower demand), but those prices would never be sustainable without the restrictions on new construction. But more importantly, this is all about relativity. If Bob has twenty dollars, Alice has ten and Charlie has one, and you print three more dollars and give each person one, now there is going to be ~10% inflation because $31 used to exist and now $34 exists. But now Charlie has $2 which are worth as much as $1.82 used to be, which is less than $2, but he's still up $0.82. And on top of that, a UBI doesn't actually create new money. Everyone gets a dollar, but it's because Alice paid $1 in taxes and then got it back and Bob paid $2 in taxes $1 of which went to Charlie. There is no new money to cause inflation, it's just redistribution. In theory there could be relative demand shifts, if Charlie likes to buy different stuff than Bob would have, but unless that stuff is in limited supply, people will just make more of it. And if it is in limited supply, it still works as redistribution because it just means we're back to relativity -- even if things did cost more, it still increases the proportion of things that Charlie gets. > I don't understand why people are pushing for redistribution of income rather than redistribution of goods like we pretty much did with utilities, public transport and, to a certain degree, internet. I don't understand what "redistribution of goods" means. More free public infrastructure? There are good reasons to do that for natural monopolies like roads and utilities, but that's a completely different thing, and we can do both at the same time.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

> If you would take a look at bay area, it's a very good example of what happens when you give a lot of people bigger income - rent, housing and prices will automatically go up and net average would be the same. The main price increase in the bay area has been housing -- rent is still housing -- and the reason for that isn't primarily incomes. It's artificial scarcity (from zoning) in the face of increasing population. In a normal market without the artificial restrictions, the fact that people are willing to pay a million dollars for housing would cause lots of new housing to be constructed which would bring the price down. Incomes contribute, because if housing cost that much and people weren't making that much money then they would move out of the area (which would lower demand), but those prices would never be sustainable without the restrictions on new construction. But more importantly, this is all about relativity. If Bob has twenty dollars, Alice has ten and Charlie has one, and you print three more dollars and give each person one, now there is going to be ~10% inflation because $31 used to exist and now $34 exists. But now Charlie has $2 which are worth as much as $1.82 used to be, which is less than $2, but he's still up $0.82. And on top of that, a UBI doesn't actually create new money. Everyone gets a dollar, but it's because Alice paid $1 in taxes and then got it back and Bob paid $2 in taxes $1 of which went to Charlie. There is no new money to cause inflation, it's just redistribution. In theory there could be relative demand shifts, if Charlie likes to buy different stuff than Bob would have, but unless that stuff is in limited supply, people will just make more of it. And if it is in limited supply, it still works as redistribution because it just means we're back to relativity -- even if things did cost more, it still increases the proportion of things that Charlie gets. > I don't understand why people are pushing for redistribution of income rather than redistribution of goods like we pretty much did with utilities, public transport and, to a certain degree, internet. I don't understand what "redistribution of goods" means. More free public infrastructure? There are good reasons to do that for natural monopolies like roads and utilities, but that's a completely different thing, and we can do both at the same time.