5 ms·

> but then other things, like rent, food, etc. will all just magically get more expensive. Why?

bmitc 6y ago
The burden is on answering: why not? What protections are in place now or are being proposed that would prevent such shifts? People in power, i.e. those with money, don't like giving up money or potential profit. Without protections in place, prices will simply rise or adjust and people will stop worrying about unemployment. In the end, it just puts a different label on things, creating another category for poor people, and I doubt it actually improves anyone's lives. This is because the problems aren't necessarily all at the bottom. The majority of the source of problems are at the top of the socioeconomic ladder.
ethanbond 6y ago
Why do you think SF housing prices have gone up x% over the last 20 years? Are the buildings x% better to live in? Are the landlords providing x% better services? No. The people who work there are producing x% more capital, therefore landlords take that x% and call it “cost of living.” This is not a new phenomenon in any regard, and UBI proponents must answer for it. If their solution is rent control, then rent control is a solution even without UBI. Which of course it’s not a real solution, because then you’re distorting the price of housing and not going to get your construction/maintenance needs met. LVT is a tax scheme that lets the market set prices for what it’s worth to live in an area (land rent/ground rent), then recoups that as a tax upon the people who claim special privilege to decide what to do with that land.
- djrobstep 6y ago
  Rents do not eat up all income increases. Otherwise rents would be 90+% of incomes and all income increases (minimum wage increases, widespread pay rises, social security payments, etc etc) would be pointless.
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    Do we know that those things aren’t pointless (more specifically, temporary gains)? For many people, rent + other compulsory costs do exceed or exactly meet income. That’s precisely the problem.
    - djrobstep 6y ago
      Yes. We know from eg the Nordic countries that bulk redistribution works.
      - ethanbond 6y ago
        You mean the ones with high LVT on natural resources like oil?
        djrobstep 6y ago
        The Nordic countries do not fund their welfare states from resources, they fund it from general taxation.
- DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
  I guess I'm not following your counter argument. The reason SF housing prices have gone up so much over he last 20 years is because people need to live there to get the job they want. If you can live anywhere...wouldn't that mean only the people who need to life in SF to do their work would live there? People who don't need the service job money would just move out. I'm just missing the issue here. When you decouple housing from working, the equilibrium would simply move out; you would no longer have a force keeping people in.
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    The claim is that UBI eliminates people’s need for jobs or cities’ need for service workers? “UBI lets all the poor people leave” is not convincing at all.
    - Kronen 6y ago
      "therefore landlords take that x% and call it cost of living" is even less convincing
      - ethanbond 6y ago
        Phrased another way: High productivity areas are high rent areas. Do you dispute that?
        squeaky-clean 6y ago
        If disagree with it. High income areas are high rent areas. Is a coal mine in West Virginia really "less productive" than a tech firm in SanFran?
        ethanbond 6y ago
        Yes, in the economic sense of productivity, it is. Your high income = high rent is the same statement as what I’m saying. The mechanisms are the same, though. Amazon putting HQ2 in a city causes rent to go up (higher productivity). A coal mine developing a new, more efficient train to move coal around will also cause rent to go up (higher productivity).
- relaxing 6y ago
  You don’t think it’s the high demand for housing in SF, combined with limited supply to meet that demand, that allows landlords to raise prices? I suspect you’re used to thinking of an information economy where supply is effectively unlimited and “best services command top dollar” is the principal factor in pricing.
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    Supply is not just limited, it is fixed. When you pay rent you are making two distinct payments wrapped up in one. First is for the actual accommodation/building/apartment and it’s maintenance. The second is for the mere footprint of the building. Sometimes these two payments actually go to two different people. There is a problem with limited supply of units, yes, but in reality the majority of cost of living comes from the second type of payment: the fee for the ground rent. The ground is in fixed supply. With perfect development policy, prices would still go up, ground rent would continue to be seized by people who had nothing to do with its generated value. The schools, employers, and natural appeal of SF makes its ground rent high. Landlords did none of that.
- EricE 6y ago
  >Why do you think SF housing prices have gone up x% over the last 20 years? Draconian zoning laws dramatically restricting supply? I love idiots screeching about big tech creating to much demand. Seriously? Too much demand is a bad thing? Hardly! How about reversing the crap zoning laws and NIMBY attitudes so supply can rise up to meet demand? The SF housing crises was caused by a bunch of selfish people declaring through policy (zoning laws) that they have theirs and don't want where they are to change to accommodate others. And this is supposed to be an enlightened leftist utopia? Talk is cheap until it can affect you personally is the real lesson of San Fransisco housing politics - playing out rather dramatically. Blaming landlords is laughable. San Fransisco has an embarrassment of jobs brought by the high tech companies in the bay area and instead of embracing them (by letting more housing be constructed) they resent them and blame everyone but the real root cause - severely restricted supply.
CincinnatiMan 6y ago
One possible reason is that people would be willing to pay more for the items since they now have more money. And since everybody gets the same free money, everybody will slightly increase their price-willing-to-pay threshold.

The burden is on answering: why not? What protections are in place now or are being proposed that would prevent such shifts? People in power, i.e. those with money, don't like giving up money or potential profit. Without protections in place, prices will simply rise or adjust and people will stop worrying about unemployment. In the end, it just puts a different label on things, creating another category for poor people, and I doubt it actually improves anyone's lives. This is because the problems aren't necessarily all at the bottom. The majority of the source of problems are at the top of the socioeconomic ladder.

ethanbond 6y ago

Why do you think SF housing prices have gone up x% over the last 20 years? Are the buildings x% better to live in? Are the landlords providing x% better services? No. The people who work there are producing x% more capital, therefore landlords take that x% and call it “cost of living.” This is not a new phenomenon in any regard, and UBI proponents must answer for it. If their solution is rent control, then rent control is a solution even without UBI. Which of course it’s not a real solution, because then you’re distorting the price of housing and not going to get your construction/maintenance needs met. LVT is a tax scheme that lets the market set prices for what it’s worth to live in an area (land rent/ground rent), then recoups that as a tax upon the people who claim special privilege to decide what to do with that land.

djrobstep 6y ago
Rents do not eat up all income increases. Otherwise rents would be 90+% of incomes and all income increases (minimum wage increases, widespread pay rises, social security payments, etc etc) would be pointless.
- ethanbond 6y ago
  Do we know that those things aren’t pointless (more specifically, temporary gains)? For many people, rent + other compulsory costs do exceed or exactly meet income. That’s precisely the problem.
  - djrobstep 6y ago
    Yes. We know from eg the Nordic countries that bulk redistribution works.
    - ethanbond 6y ago
      You mean the ones with high LVT on natural resources like oil?
      - djrobstep 6y ago
        The Nordic countries do not fund their welfare states from resources, they fund it from general taxation.
DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
I guess I'm not following your counter argument. The reason SF housing prices have gone up so much over he last 20 years is because people need to live there to get the job they want. If you can live anywhere...wouldn't that mean only the people who need to life in SF to do their work would live there? People who don't need the service job money would just move out. I'm just missing the issue here. When you decouple housing from working, the equilibrium would simply move out; you would no longer have a force keeping people in.
- ethanbond 6y ago
  The claim is that UBI eliminates people’s need for jobs or cities’ need for service workers? “UBI lets all the poor people leave” is not convincing at all.
  - Kronen 6y ago
    "therefore landlords take that x% and call it cost of living" is even less convincing
    - ethanbond 6y ago
      Phrased another way: High productivity areas are high rent areas. Do you dispute that?
      - squeaky-clean 6y ago
        If disagree with it. High income areas are high rent areas. Is a coal mine in West Virginia really "less productive" than a tech firm in SanFran?
        ethanbond 6y ago
        Yes, in the economic sense of productivity, it is. Your high income = high rent is the same statement as what I’m saying. The mechanisms are the same, though. Amazon putting HQ2 in a city causes rent to go up (higher productivity). A coal mine developing a new, more efficient train to move coal around will also cause rent to go up (higher productivity).
relaxing 6y ago
You don’t think it’s the high demand for housing in SF, combined with limited supply to meet that demand, that allows landlords to raise prices? I suspect you’re used to thinking of an information economy where supply is effectively unlimited and “best services command top dollar” is the principal factor in pricing.
- ethanbond 6y ago
  Supply is not just limited, it is fixed. When you pay rent you are making two distinct payments wrapped up in one. First is for the actual accommodation/building/apartment and it’s maintenance. The second is for the mere footprint of the building. Sometimes these two payments actually go to two different people. There is a problem with limited supply of units, yes, but in reality the majority of cost of living comes from the second type of payment: the fee for the ground rent. The ground is in fixed supply. With perfect development policy, prices would still go up, ground rent would continue to be seized by people who had nothing to do with its generated value. The schools, employers, and natural appeal of SF makes its ground rent high. Landlords did none of that.
EricE 6y ago
>Why do you think SF housing prices have gone up x% over the last 20 years? Draconian zoning laws dramatically restricting supply? I love idiots screeching about big tech creating to much demand. Seriously? Too much demand is a bad thing? Hardly! How about reversing the crap zoning laws and NIMBY attitudes so supply can rise up to meet demand? The SF housing crises was caused by a bunch of selfish people declaring through policy (zoning laws) that they have theirs and don't want where they are to change to accommodate others. And this is supposed to be an enlightened leftist utopia? Talk is cheap until it can affect you personally is the real lesson of San Fransisco housing politics - playing out rather dramatically. Blaming landlords is laughable. San Fransisco has an embarrassment of jobs brought by the high tech companies in the bay area and instead of embracing them (by letting more housing be constructed) they resent them and blame everyone but the real root cause - severely restricted supply.

CincinnatiMan 6y ago

One possible reason is that people would be willing to pay more for the items since they now have more money. And since everybody gets the same free money, everybody will slightly increase their price-willing-to-pay threshold.