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UBI can't solve this problem. UBI does absolutely nothing if there's nothing to buy because nobody is working. You can't UBI your way around meat plants closing

by jerf 7y ago

UBI can't solve this problem. UBI does absolutely nothing if there's nothing to buy because nobody is working. You can't UBI your way around meat plants closing, restaurants not being staffed, stores closing, and so on. If anything, UBI encouraging more people to not work can only make it worse. The whole premise of UBI is that there's such a surplus that the only sane thing to do with it is to distribute it. There is now no surplus, and indeed credible threats of shortages. Therefore, it is only logical that the rest of the argument is now invalid. Hopefully, only temporarily.

claudeganon 7y ago
I said that there wouldn’t be protests like these with UBI or a response like Taiwan’s, not that it solves the problem. Only a working vaccine or wildly effective therapeutic solves this problem. Giving people a social floor so they’re not going to be out on the street or dead while we work on those is a necessary and proven effective mitigation tactic, however.
- jerf 7y ago
  What social floor? I don't think you are internalizing that people can't buy things that don't exist. Nobody is going to care how many "dollars" they have if they can't buy food. Nobody is going to feel safe or secure or comfortable. Nobody is going to feel safe or secure no matter how many dollars you throw at them if they visibly are doing worse. There will be protests if people can't buy food and if you try to literally throw dollars into those protest crowds you'll only enrage them more if there is no food to buy with them. You can't solve these shortages with UBI, or indeed, any amount of money. There is no "social floor" if the economy doesn't function. The whole premise of UBI is broken here. Yes. It is absolutely possible for you to go to the grocery store and for there to be nothing there. Millions of people have had this experience and you are not immune to it. The warning shots are already being fired. Take them seriously. I actually don't expect it to progress to this point, but it'll because the people who actually understand this stuff opened up even over the objections of the HN gestalt. TBH even the HN gestalt ought to be getting more shaken then it seems to be; there's been an awful lot of big layoffs in our core going on, you'd think at some point there'd be a bit more concern about indefinite lockdowns. The gestalt is acting a great deal more secure than the evidence available to it justifies. I suppose we have the way the question of what should and should not be opened up going from a scientific/public health question to a political question to thank.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
    This. US has not seen empty shelves since great depression and I am not sure many Americans understand what it means to an 'average' person living here. I am going to throw in an anecdote here just to spice it up a little. A pawn store owner I am acquainted with bartered ammo for masks recently. UBI means nothing when value comes from things that people want.
gizmo686 7y ago
We want to encourage people not to work; so much so that we have, as a matter of policy, made it illegal for them to work [0]. Everyone recognizes that some work is still necessary, which is why these bans make exclusions for "essential" work; so that we can continue to produce an adequate supply of essential goods. The current discontent is not about supply shortages; it is about the segments of the population who are having difficulty accessing those supplies. There is also the issue of rent/mortgage, which is closer to an issue of financial bookkeeping that real supply concerns (although, medium term, maintaince becomes an issue) [0] More precisely, made the work that they would be doing illegal.
Nasrudith 7y ago
The whole point of it being universal is that UBI gives incentive to work on top of it for more while providing a maintenance floor for those unable to work while still providing some demand for the products which are still needed. Things would be far more spartan with more of the population on UBI in a shutdown but they would be alive and their "self support" would be an outsized negative externality compared to what they generate.

by jerf 7y ago

claudeganon 7y ago

I said that there wouldn’t be protests like these with UBI or a response like Taiwan’s, not that it solves the problem. Only a working vaccine or wildly effective therapeutic solves this problem. Giving people a social floor so they’re not going to be out on the street or dead while we work on those is a necessary and proven effective mitigation tactic, however.

jerf 7y ago
What social floor? I don't think you are internalizing that people can't buy things that don't exist. Nobody is going to care how many "dollars" they have if they can't buy food. Nobody is going to feel safe or secure or comfortable. Nobody is going to feel safe or secure no matter how many dollars you throw at them if they visibly are doing worse. There will be protests if people can't buy food and if you try to literally throw dollars into those protest crowds you'll only enrage them more if there is no food to buy with them. You can't solve these shortages with UBI, or indeed, any amount of money. There is no "social floor" if the economy doesn't function. The whole premise of UBI is broken here. Yes. It is absolutely possible for you to go to the grocery store and for there to be nothing there. Millions of people have had this experience and you are not immune to it. The warning shots are already being fired. Take them seriously. I actually don't expect it to progress to this point, but it'll because the people who actually understand this stuff opened up even over the objections of the HN gestalt. TBH even the HN gestalt ought to be getting more shaken then it seems to be; there's been an awful lot of big layoffs in our core going on, you'd think at some point there'd be a bit more concern about indefinite lockdowns. The gestalt is acting a great deal more secure than the evidence available to it justifies. I suppose we have the way the question of what should and should not be opened up going from a scientific/public health question to a political question to thank.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
  This. US has not seen empty shelves since great depression and I am not sure many Americans understand what it means to an 'average' person living here. I am going to throw in an anecdote here just to spice it up a little. A pawn store owner I am acquainted with bartered ammo for masks recently. UBI means nothing when value comes from things that people want.

gizmo686 7y ago

We want to encourage people not to work; so much so that we have, as a matter of policy, made it illegal for them to work [0]. Everyone recognizes that some work is still necessary, which is why these bans make exclusions for "essential" work; so that we can continue to produce an adequate supply of essential goods. The current discontent is not about supply shortages; it is about the segments of the population who are having difficulty accessing those supplies. There is also the issue of rent/mortgage, which is closer to an issue of financial bookkeeping that real supply concerns (although, medium term, maintaince becomes an issue) [0] More precisely, made the work that they would be doing illegal.

Nasrudith 7y ago

The whole point of it being universal is that UBI gives incentive to work on top of it for more while providing a maintenance floor for those unable to work while still providing some demand for the products which are still needed. Things would be far more spartan with more of the population on UBI in a shutdown but they would be alive and their "self support" would be an outsized negative externality compared to what they generate.