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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

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).
        squeaky-clean 6y ago
        1. You didn't provide any actual evidence or deeper claims than (putting something in parenthesis). I don't really believe the coal mine claim, as in reality we don't see that happening. Mining towns are still among the cheapest and poorest towns in America. 2. That's a really naive sense of economic productivity. Here is a thought experiment. A) Let's shut down all of Amazon HQ1. B) Let's shut down the dams that provide 86% of Seattle greater area's electricity. Which one of these entities is ACTUALLY responsible for that "productivity" then? And I bet you rents in Seattle without electricity would drop far greater proportionally than they do out by the dams. Rent follows incomes, not productivity.
        ethanbond 6y ago
        There is no deeper claim being made. We are saying the same thing. You can call it income if you'd like. A person's wages are some portion of their productivity. The distinction is irrelevant for this point.
- Kronen 6y ago
  The lack of offer to rent areas are high rent areas
- ubercow13 6y ago
  >“UBI lets all the poor people leave” is not convincing at all. The value proposition for service workers in high-COL cities like SF is probably already bad. How would UBI make it worse? At least it'd be easier to move away from those areas. Maybe cities would have to pay serivce workers more to make sure they stay.
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    Straightforward answer: It would make the value prop worse because the prices would go up. Companies can go ahead and pay more to keep them. You know what happens then? Prices go up more. Where is all this capital flowing to? Landlords. Who didn’t pay for UBI, didn’t build the infrastructure, didn’t employ those people.
    - ubercow13 6y ago
      I can't imagine rent prices in SF are determined by service worker wages at all at the moment.
      - ethanbond 6y ago
        Prices would go up for everyone, making the value prop worse for everyone.
        ubercow13 6y ago
        Rents are high in SF because there is extremely high demand for those apartments at high prices, because they allow access to high incomes. The value of living in SF for a random serivce worker is not increased by them getting a $2k UBI cheque, it is decreased. For the tech workers driving the demand, $2k a month is not going to do much to change the value they assign to housing in SF either way. So I do not see how the UBI cheques would increase demand, and therefore rent, for housing in SF.
- Olreich 6y ago
  I wrote a big long article for you, but realized you’d counter with the idea that landlords will collectively decide to hike rents no matter what. So, the simple argument that UBI will not increase minimum rents by 2k a month overnight with no improvement in living conditions: landlords will have to compete to get the UBI out of individuals hands. Right now, the lowest income housing isn’t in competition for individuals, it’s competing for government approval and integration. If everyone individually has 2k a month to spend, they have the luxury of shopping around.
- state_less 6y ago
  > UBI eliminates people’s need for a job. Yes, see retired social security recipients as an example. But you won’t find these folk renting in SF on a social security check. SF’s desire for (inexpensive) service workers is a separate matter.

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).
      - squeaky-clean 6y ago
        1. You didn't provide any actual evidence or deeper claims than (putting something in parenthesis). I don't really believe the coal mine claim, as in reality we don't see that happening. Mining towns are still among the cheapest and poorest towns in America. 2. That's a really naive sense of economic productivity. Here is a thought experiment. A) Let's shut down all of Amazon HQ1. B) Let's shut down the dams that provide 86% of Seattle greater area's electricity. Which one of these entities is ACTUALLY responsible for that "productivity" then? And I bet you rents in Seattle without electricity would drop far greater proportionally than they do out by the dams. Rent follows incomes, not productivity.
        ethanbond 6y ago
        There is no deeper claim being made. We are saying the same thing. You can call it income if you'd like. A person's wages are some portion of their productivity. The distinction is irrelevant for this point.
Kronen 6y ago
The lack of offer to rent areas are high rent areas
ubercow13 6y ago
>“UBI lets all the poor people leave” is not convincing at all. The value proposition for service workers in high-COL cities like SF is probably already bad. How would UBI make it worse? At least it'd be easier to move away from those areas. Maybe cities would have to pay serivce workers more to make sure they stay.
- ethanbond 6y ago
  Straightforward answer: It would make the value prop worse because the prices would go up. Companies can go ahead and pay more to keep them. You know what happens then? Prices go up more. Where is all this capital flowing to? Landlords. Who didn’t pay for UBI, didn’t build the infrastructure, didn’t employ those people.
  - ubercow13 6y ago
    I can't imagine rent prices in SF are determined by service worker wages at all at the moment.
    - ethanbond 6y ago
      Prices would go up for everyone, making the value prop worse for everyone.
      - ubercow13 6y ago
        Rents are high in SF because there is extremely high demand for those apartments at high prices, because they allow access to high incomes. The value of living in SF for a random serivce worker is not increased by them getting a $2k UBI cheque, it is decreased. For the tech workers driving the demand, $2k a month is not going to do much to change the value they assign to housing in SF either way. So I do not see how the UBI cheques would increase demand, and therefore rent, for housing in SF.
Olreich 6y ago
I wrote a big long article for you, but realized you’d counter with the idea that landlords will collectively decide to hike rents no matter what. So, the simple argument that UBI will not increase minimum rents by 2k a month overnight with no improvement in living conditions: landlords will have to compete to get the UBI out of individuals hands. Right now, the lowest income housing isn’t in competition for individuals, it’s competing for government approval and integration. If everyone individually has 2k a month to spend, they have the luxury of shopping around.
state_less 6y ago
> UBI eliminates people’s need for a job. Yes, see retired social security recipients as an example. But you won’t find these folk renting in SF on a social security check. SF’s desire for (inexpensive) service workers is a separate matter.