4 ms·

Won’t it just be negated with increased cost of living? If people get 1000 a month free, you better believe that rent starts at 1000. The free money will never

Won’t it just be negated with increased cost of living? If people get 1000 a month free, you better believe that rent starts at 1000. The free money will never do what it’s supposed to do in the long run. It’s better to just give the actual service for free (healthcare, college, transportation).

thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
And it will obviously never just sit at $1000. There will be a riot every other week to change the UBI payments. "Too high!" "Too low!"
- blackflame7000 6y ago
  Has anyone ever rioted because of too much money from the government?
- DeonPenny 6y ago
  Not every week. Eventually the poeple paying for UBI will leave or guillotine over their head will be used and body will be looted. Rinse and repeat every-time equity is tried.
  - _jahh 6y ago
    that's an awfully sad and ill-informed perspective. egalitarian communities have existed to varying sizes and durations for the existence of humanity. if anything we are wired for altruism.
    - ytNumbers 6y ago
      From some of the comments here, and from talking to people in the past month, it occurs to me that 2020 seems to be causing people to remove their rose-colored glasses. It's hard to believe that the web page for the link below may, in some ways, have actually underestimated just how bad things would get in 2020: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/615163630343397490/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/615163630343397490/ Of course, only some of the disasters of 2020 have been beyond our control. However, in the face of so much calamity, it's soul-crushing that so much of the suffering in the USA in 2020 is self-inflicted. Think I'm overreacting? https://medium.com/@mtracey/two-months-since-the-riots-and-still-no-national-conversation-12a7e3e4e006 https://medium.com/@mtracey/two-months-since-the-riots-and-s...
      - _jahh 6y ago
        life is a process, pain is a constant, struggle is a constant. the fact we are witness to so much of others pain when individually we are comparatively spared means that progress is being made. And remember could be we'll see the yellowstone caldera could blow or a gamma ray burst wipe us out.
jc_811 6y ago
Is that totally guaranteed though? It’s important to remember that the landlords as well will be getting the 1000$ UBI. So yes, there will be landlords starting their rent at $1000, but there will also be landlords who start lower because they too have become more enriched from the UBI and don’t need to squeeze the margins as much anymore.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Fair point, but if I had to counter I’d point to egregious wealth accumulation in our society, which is in it’s distilled form is just greed. The greedy could siphon away most of the UBI, bringing us back to square one. UBI suffers from the assumption that we have a system with the right incentive structures. We kind of don’t from what I’m seeing.
  - _jahh 6y ago
    but the only way to pay for the dividend is through taxing the greedy so even if they do that's a plus, again the greedy/enterprising are what make everything we love like these devices.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  >landlords as well will be getting the 1000$ UBI They get it and then it is instantly removed via taxes so their overall profits from UBI were $0. The only difference between UBI and unemployment/welfare is you don't have to apply for it, its simply calculated and distributed by the tax system.
elil17 6y ago
Why would UBI raise rents? The cost of rent is based on supply and demand, and UBI doesn’t make people need more bedrooms.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  The rent prices are high (low supply), so whoever has the most money gets it. If you only have 1000 from UBI, but the guy next to you has 1000 plus the 1000 from UBI, guess what the new price is?
  - cactus2093 6y ago
    Build another house, and then problem solved. Why start with the assumption that supply needs to be low forever? That is actually a very new problem in housing due to regulatory capture, a long history of terrible zoning laws, and a tragedy of the commons that there are always many people ready to oppose a new house but no resident of the unbuilt house able to counter that force and argue for it. With better policy we really could end the current housing shortage in our biggest & richest cities.
  - elil17 6y ago
    But in America there are more empty houses than there are homeless people. Supply is not low. Maybe rent would go up in some markets (eg Bay Area), but people can move somewhere else. That’s the point of having a market system. Yes UBI decreases market inefficiency, but the effect would be smallest on inelastic markets like housing. You’d see the biggest impact in the markets for the life-improving items/services that people with less money can’t afford right now, everything from fresh/healthy foods to nice shoes. The prices of those things would go up, but it would reflect an increase in demand.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
1. Inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. So as long as you pay for UBI through increased taxes rather than by borrowing or printing the money, it won't cause overall inflation. Certainly it will cause local distortions -- some stuff will go up in price but that should be balanced by the stuff that goes down in price. 2. Another possible theory is that UBI will allow people to move away from expensive cities to areas that are cheap to live in. $1K a month won't go far in SF, but you might be able to live on that in the middle of nowhere without having to fin a job. So decreased demand for housing in expensive cities means that UBI might cause housing prices there to go down. 3. Housing problems are fairly orthogonal to UBI. In pretty much every other market supply can rise to match increased demand so that prices stay close to their marginal cost of production. We need to fix our housing pricing problems UBI or no UBI.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  Probably the biggest change I expect is very undesirable jobs will either become automated or high paying because you have people thinking "I hate working as a toilet cleaner but it pays so much its worth it" Or we will end up with self cleaning toilets. There is no longer a whole class of people who will work any job no matter how shit and for the minimum wage because they are forced to.
cactus2093 6y ago
That's a very hand-wavy and ridiculously over-simplified way to just dismiss an idea out of hand. May I suggest learning even the first thing about a new idea before so confidently asserting it could never possibly work?
jaydz 6y ago
Of course it would. Over time UBI would destroy the value of our currency, and those who use the dollar as their reserve currency would get wrecked as well. IMO an Implementation of UBI would require the creation of a new currency.
orangecat 6y ago
Won’t it just be negated with increased cost of living? Not unless landlords collude to fix prices. Competition will keep prices down, the same way that gas isn't always $4/gallon even though people will buy almost as much at that price as at $1.

thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago

And it will obviously never just sit at $1000. There will be a riot every other week to change the UBI payments. "Too high!" "Too low!"

blackflame7000 6y ago
Has anyone ever rioted because of too much money from the government?
DeonPenny 6y ago
Not every week. Eventually the poeple paying for UBI will leave or guillotine over their head will be used and body will be looted. Rinse and repeat every-time equity is tried.
- _jahh 6y ago
  that's an awfully sad and ill-informed perspective. egalitarian communities have existed to varying sizes and durations for the existence of humanity. if anything we are wired for altruism.
  - ytNumbers 6y ago
    From some of the comments here, and from talking to people in the past month, it occurs to me that 2020 seems to be causing people to remove their rose-colored glasses. It's hard to believe that the web page for the link below may, in some ways, have actually underestimated just how bad things would get in 2020: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/615163630343397490/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/615163630343397490/ Of course, only some of the disasters of 2020 have been beyond our control. However, in the face of so much calamity, it's soul-crushing that so much of the suffering in the USA in 2020 is self-inflicted. Think I'm overreacting? https://medium.com/@mtracey/two-months-since-the-riots-and-still-no-national-conversation-12a7e3e4e006 https://medium.com/@mtracey/two-months-since-the-riots-and-s...
    - _jahh 6y ago
      life is a process, pain is a constant, struggle is a constant. the fact we are witness to so much of others pain when individually we are comparatively spared means that progress is being made. And remember could be we'll see the yellowstone caldera could blow or a gamma ray burst wipe us out.

jc_811 6y ago

Is that totally guaranteed though? It’s important to remember that the landlords as well will be getting the 1000$ UBI. So yes, there will be landlords starting their rent at $1000, but there will also be landlords who start lower because they too have become more enriched from the UBI and don’t need to squeeze the margins as much anymore.

runawaybottle 6y ago
Fair point, but if I had to counter I’d point to egregious wealth accumulation in our society, which is in it’s distilled form is just greed. The greedy could siphon away most of the UBI, bringing us back to square one. UBI suffers from the assumption that we have a system with the right incentive structures. We kind of don’t from what I’m seeing.
- _jahh 6y ago
  but the only way to pay for the dividend is through taxing the greedy so even if they do that's a plus, again the greedy/enterprising are what make everything we love like these devices.
Polylactic_acid 6y ago
>landlords as well will be getting the 1000$ UBI They get it and then it is instantly removed via taxes so their overall profits from UBI were $0. The only difference between UBI and unemployment/welfare is you don't have to apply for it, its simply calculated and distributed by the tax system.

elil17 6y ago

Why would UBI raise rents? The cost of rent is based on supply and demand, and UBI doesn’t make people need more bedrooms.

runawaybottle 6y ago
The rent prices are high (low supply), so whoever has the most money gets it. If you only have 1000 from UBI, but the guy next to you has 1000 plus the 1000 from UBI, guess what the new price is?
- cactus2093 6y ago
  Build another house, and then problem solved. Why start with the assumption that supply needs to be low forever? That is actually a very new problem in housing due to regulatory capture, a long history of terrible zoning laws, and a tragedy of the commons that there are always many people ready to oppose a new house but no resident of the unbuilt house able to counter that force and argue for it. With better policy we really could end the current housing shortage in our biggest & richest cities.
- elil17 6y ago
  But in America there are more empty houses than there are homeless people. Supply is not low. Maybe rent would go up in some markets (eg Bay Area), but people can move somewhere else. That’s the point of having a market system. Yes UBI decreases market inefficiency, but the effect would be smallest on inelastic markets like housing. You’d see the biggest impact in the markets for the life-improving items/services that people with less money can’t afford right now, everything from fresh/healthy foods to nice shoes. The prices of those things would go up, but it would reflect an increase in demand.

bryanlarsen 6y ago

1. Inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. So as long as you pay for UBI through increased taxes rather than by borrowing or printing the money, it won't cause overall inflation. Certainly it will cause local distortions -- some stuff will go up in price but that should be balanced by the stuff that goes down in price. 2. Another possible theory is that UBI will allow people to move away from expensive cities to areas that are cheap to live in. $1K a month won't go far in SF, but you might be able to live on that in the middle of nowhere without having to fin a job. So decreased demand for housing in expensive cities means that UBI might cause housing prices there to go down. 3. Housing problems are fairly orthogonal to UBI. In pretty much every other market supply can rise to match increased demand so that prices stay close to their marginal cost of production. We need to fix our housing pricing problems UBI or no UBI.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
Probably the biggest change I expect is very undesirable jobs will either become automated or high paying because you have people thinking "I hate working as a toilet cleaner but it pays so much its worth it" Or we will end up with self cleaning toilets. There is no longer a whole class of people who will work any job no matter how shit and for the minimum wage because they are forced to.

cactus2093 6y ago

That's a very hand-wavy and ridiculously over-simplified way to just dismiss an idea out of hand. May I suggest learning even the first thing about a new idea before so confidently asserting it could never possibly work?

jaydz 6y ago

Of course it would. Over time UBI would destroy the value of our currency, and those who use the dollar as their reserve currency would get wrecked as well. IMO an Implementation of UBI would require the creation of a new currency.

orangecat 6y ago

Won’t it just be negated with increased cost of living? Not unless landlords collude to fix prices. Competition will keep prices down, the same way that gas isn't always $4/gallon even though people will buy almost as much at that price as at $1.