4 ms·

But lack of personnel to do jobs would bump the wages due to demand and that would quickly find people ready to fill them in

megous 7y ago
Or it would kill the businesses operating at the margin of profitability.
- BlackCherry 7y ago
  Which leaves room for a more cost effective business to come in and fill the gap in the market left by the inefficient business' death.
- munk-a 7y ago
  Why do business deserve a level of welfare we're not affording to human beings. Let's feed, house, cloth, educate and provide health care for everyone - then we can start looking at saving unprofitable business. The truth is, a lot of business ventures simply aren't profitable. It isn't profitable for me to start a business where I deliver whitecastle to remote areas by flying couriers there with the food - but it could be profitable if enough market changes occurred. As these bloat businesses die off we'll see a shift in the market - either there will be a surplus of employees (that will drive down the cost of employment and enable more bloat businesses) or those employees will find other businesses to work at that can survive in the margins that exist.
  - megous 7y ago
    I guess parent edited the comment. I don't remember responding to whatever is in that comment now. So you're responding out of context, too. Fun.
wtdo 7y ago
And bumped wages means higher costs which are passed on to customers. The higher prices means having to raise UBI, and the only way to afford that is by increasing taxes, and so effective take home pay from those bumped wages isn't as high as everyone thought and now we're back to square one.
- munk-a 7y ago
  The first half of your statement is perfectly true, through implementing UBI we're raising the floor on income inequality so that the relative gap between the richest and poorest shrinks. But, we don't end up back at square one, we just haven't given as effective a UBI as we originally intended.
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  Maybe. These kinds of system-level effects are extremely hard to forecast with any kind of certainty. At best, the evidence we have is from studying the effects of things like raising minimum wage or giving away money to more niche groups such as families with children (eg Canada's CCTB), or people living in specific areas (Alaska Permanent Fund). As far as I can tell, none of these lesser programmes has had any effect above and beyond inflation on cost of living. Wasn't the sky supposed to fall when Washington State passed that ballot measure for a graduated minimum wage increase back in 2016? Meanwhile, there are plenty of examples of awfully expensive large scale "back to square one" experiments that have been undertaken by other political ideologies with little to no opposition—where is the economic growth that was supposed to have happened as a consequence of the Ryan/Trump tax cuts in 2017?
- BlackCherry 7y ago
  You're assuming the bump in costs due to higher wages would by default outpace that of UBI's tax revenue. This is a ridiculous assumption. The wage earners would be paying more taxes due to their higher wages. The wage earners would have more spending power in our real economy, which both means more businesses earning money, and more tax revenue collected. Is there a threshold we could hit where wage increases, increase cost to the point of outpacing tax revenues, sure. Is this even close to a default outcome. Absolutely not, and it's absurd to suggest it.

megous 7y ago

Or it would kill the businesses operating at the margin of profitability.

BlackCherry 7y ago
Which leaves room for a more cost effective business to come in and fill the gap in the market left by the inefficient business' death.
munk-a 7y ago
Why do business deserve a level of welfare we're not affording to human beings. Let's feed, house, cloth, educate and provide health care for everyone - then we can start looking at saving unprofitable business. The truth is, a lot of business ventures simply aren't profitable. It isn't profitable for me to start a business where I deliver whitecastle to remote areas by flying couriers there with the food - but it could be profitable if enough market changes occurred. As these bloat businesses die off we'll see a shift in the market - either there will be a surplus of employees (that will drive down the cost of employment and enable more bloat businesses) or those employees will find other businesses to work at that can survive in the margins that exist.
- megous 7y ago
  I guess parent edited the comment. I don't remember responding to whatever is in that comment now. So you're responding out of context, too. Fun.

wtdo 7y ago

And bumped wages means higher costs which are passed on to customers. The higher prices means having to raise UBI, and the only way to afford that is by increasing taxes, and so effective take home pay from those bumped wages isn't as high as everyone thought and now we're back to square one.

munk-a 7y ago
The first half of your statement is perfectly true, through implementing UBI we're raising the floor on income inequality so that the relative gap between the richest and poorest shrinks. But, we don't end up back at square one, we just haven't given as effective a UBI as we originally intended.
mikepurvis 7y ago
Maybe. These kinds of system-level effects are extremely hard to forecast with any kind of certainty. At best, the evidence we have is from studying the effects of things like raising minimum wage or giving away money to more niche groups such as families with children (eg Canada's CCTB), or people living in specific areas (Alaska Permanent Fund). As far as I can tell, none of these lesser programmes has had any effect above and beyond inflation on cost of living. Wasn't the sky supposed to fall when Washington State passed that ballot measure for a graduated minimum wage increase back in 2016? Meanwhile, there are plenty of examples of awfully expensive large scale "back to square one" experiments that have been undertaken by other political ideologies with little to no opposition—where is the economic growth that was supposed to have happened as a consequence of the Ryan/Trump tax cuts in 2017?
BlackCherry 7y ago
You're assuming the bump in costs due to higher wages would by default outpace that of UBI's tax revenue. This is a ridiculous assumption. The wage earners would be paying more taxes due to their higher wages. The wage earners would have more spending power in our real economy, which both means more businesses earning money, and more tax revenue collected. Is there a threshold we could hit where wage increases, increase cost to the point of outpacing tax revenues, sure. Is this even close to a default outcome. Absolutely not, and it's absurd to suggest it.