2 ms·

The biggest issue I have with UBI is that it's likely just going to be funded with higher income taxes, mostly coming from the middle/professional classes, rath

The biggest issue I have with UBI is that it's likely just going to be funded with higher income taxes, mostly coming from the middle/professional classes, rather than from the truly rich. And it is likely that a lot of the money is just going to end up in the hands of landlords or property owners. So in many ways it would actually shrink the size of the middle class However, I do think it is a very good idea to remove welfare traps, which can instead be implemented through negative income tax brackets. Plus I believe replacing SSI with unconditional benefits would be a huge boost to the labor force as well.

pmiller2 7y ago
This has always been my exact complaint about UBI, and nobody seems to be able to tell me why landlords (more generally, current homeowners) won’t end up with most of the money. Think about it: $1000/month drops out of the sky on everyone. My landlord knows this, and so does every other residential landlord. What stops them from raising everyone’s rent to take up the surplus? (Ignore rent control for now, because is not common enough to matter overall.) If you own a home, you don’t have a landlord to pay, so you keep your $1000/month. But, if you go to buy a house after UBI is instituted, I bet you would find house prices go up enough to eat a substantial portion of that $1000/month. This is a tiny oversimplification, because I don’t think all of the price increases will go into housing, but the price of every essential good and service will increase to an equilibrium such that the net effect is that the providers of said goods and services (landlords and corporations) end up with the entire surplus. All of this sounds like basic market economics to me, so I don’t see how you get around it without massive amounts of regulation preventing it. Yet, I don’t hear anyone talking about the regulations, just the extra $1000/month.
- TheCoelacanth 7y ago
  This is why UBI should be funded by a land-value tax.

pmiller2 7y ago

This has always been my exact complaint about UBI, and nobody seems to be able to tell me why landlords (more generally, current homeowners) won’t end up with most of the money. Think about it: $1000/month drops out of the sky on everyone. My landlord knows this, and so does every other residential landlord. What stops them from raising everyone’s rent to take up the surplus? (Ignore rent control for now, because is not common enough to matter overall.) If you own a home, you don’t have a landlord to pay, so you keep your $1000/month. But, if you go to buy a house after UBI is instituted, I bet you would find house prices go up enough to eat a substantial portion of that $1000/month. This is a tiny oversimplification, because I don’t think all of the price increases will go into housing, but the price of every essential good and service will increase to an equilibrium such that the net effect is that the providers of said goods and services (landlords and corporations) end up with the entire surplus. All of this sounds like basic market economics to me, so I don’t see how you get around it without massive amounts of regulation preventing it. Yet, I don’t hear anyone talking about the regulations, just the extra $1000/month.

TheCoelacanth 7y ago
This is why UBI should be funded by a land-value tax.