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I understand where you're coming from, but the idea that every person has the same basic requirements falls flat immediately. Take just a small sample of diffe

I understand where you're coming from, but the idea that every person has the same basic requirements falls flat immediately. Take just a small sample of different folks Person A: Single 35yo female with high blood pressure Person B: Married 62yo with dementia Person C: 14yo with Type 1 diabetes Person D: Married 36yo with a knee replacement Person E: Single 21yo attending college That's 5 people. Not a one of them is all that rare. They each require some form of the goods you've described, but the actual needs of each person vary A LOT. The 21yo in college probably doesn't need a car. The guy with dementia probably can't have a car. The 36yo will need a form of transportation that accommodates the knee. The food requirements of the person with diabetes and the person with high blood pressure are specific and different. The meds those two people need are specific and different. And that's just 5 people with relatively common situations. Once you actually start trying to get those "basic requirements for living" to work for the entire populace you quickly realize that "basic" is not actually basic, and usually the person best able to decide what they need is... drumroll... that person. So instead of a condescending, authoritarian approach where the government strictly provides goods, UBI tries to give each person the ability to choose for themselves what they need, and how they'd like to prioritize it. ----- Now, I still have a lot of problems with UBI, and I'm fairly convinced it won't work. But I do strongly believe that the "pile of cash" approach is the most egalitarian and efficient solution to meet the specific needs of the incredibly varied population if UBI is something we're going to try.

logfromblammo 7y ago
The government absolutely has to be on the supply side of that exchange. If the state gives person C $X for diabetes meds, and then does not also produce enough diabetes meds for one person exactly like person C and place it on the market for $X, then the person or firm that does produce the meds that person C uses can capture all the $X checks from all the diabetics by supplying one unit less than is required for all of them and making them play a game of musical chairs where the highest bidders sit first, and the one left without a seat at the end dies. It works for every need--housing, meds, transport, etc. If the government does not add to the market supply, the incumbent suppliers can capture all the benefit. So if the people need more housing, the government can't just give people money and tell them to rent. They can't just build houses and assign people to them. They have to build houses that are competitive on the open market, and also give people enough money to buy or rent them. Even if some rich landlord snaps up all the state-built houses to rent out, the potential of capturing the benefit by raising rents is still mitigated by the increase in housing supply. Helicopter-dropped piles of cash go hand in hand with ensuring a supply exists to spend that cash on.
lasagnaphil 7y ago
But the dilemma is, that the privatization of social services in favor of UBI might increase the costs for those services (We’ve observed over the past that unregulated competition doesn’t lead to more competitive prices and rather monopolization and exploitation), up to the point that people who really need those services wouldn’t afford it even with UBI. That is why I think UBI should be done in adjunction to existing public social services (such as healthcare).

logfromblammo 7y ago

The government absolutely has to be on the supply side of that exchange. If the state gives person C $X for diabetes meds, and then does not also produce enough diabetes meds for one person exactly like person C and place it on the market for $X, then the person or firm that does produce the meds that person C uses can capture all the $X checks from all the diabetics by supplying one unit less than is required for all of them and making them play a game of musical chairs where the highest bidders sit first, and the one left without a seat at the end dies. It works for every need--housing, meds, transport, etc. If the government does not add to the market supply, the incumbent suppliers can capture all the benefit. So if the people need more housing, the government can't just give people money and tell them to rent. They can't just build houses and assign people to them. They have to build houses that are competitive on the open market, and also give people enough money to buy or rent them. Even if some rich landlord snaps up all the state-built houses to rent out, the potential of capturing the benefit by raising rents is still mitigated by the increase in housing supply. Helicopter-dropped piles of cash go hand in hand with ensuring a supply exists to spend that cash on.

lasagnaphil 7y ago

But the dilemma is, that the privatization of social services in favor of UBI might increase the costs for those services (We’ve observed over the past that unregulated competition doesn’t lead to more competitive prices and rather monopolization and exploitation), up to the point that people who really need those services wouldn’t afford it even with UBI. That is why I think UBI should be done in adjunction to existing public social services (such as healthcare).