13 ms·

UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money. Its one of the best ways to rebalance the power relationships between employer and employee.

game_the0ry 6y ago
That's interesting, never thought of it that way. Upon ruminating on that concept, I think at the core, fuck you money and UBI are - I can express myself and nothing can financially ruin me or make me homeless.
- munk-a 6y ago
  I consider the private healthcare market in the US to be the same sort of impediment as a lack of UBI - except that when it comes to healthcare it's an even bigger burden to remain with your current employer if you're going through stressful times (i.e. have cancer).
  - jonnycomputer 6y ago
    Yes. People are desperate to keep their health insurance through their job, and this is also an impediment.
    - game_the0ry 6y ago
      I can relate - I am about to get married, kids will follow soon, and I am already anxious. I have a couple of ideas for indie hacker-type side hustles but not enough time bc I am prepping for tech interviews at FAANGs.
      - RyanGoosling 6y ago
        get a 15-yr mortgage. the 30-yr one is a scam. Buy a small condo, hopefully work remote from lower COL (Sacramento even). Live small for a few years, then upgrade incrementally over time. Most importantly, don't max out your budget, especially in rent/30-yr mortgage situation. Don't have your MS? Get it.
ekianjo 6y ago
> UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money Erm no, it's probably only barely what you need to survive, nothing close to what people refer to as FU Money.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  When I worked retail in college, “fuck you money” for my colleagues could be as little as $2,500. One guy I worked with worked from 5am to 2pm in the mall bakery, took a nap in the backroom, the was a line cook from 4p-midnight. Mostly because of some debts and a situation that prevented his wife from working.
- Robin_Message 6y ago
  FU money implies never needing to work again... ...which is exactly what UBI intends.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    FU money means you have more than what you need. Relying on UBI means you become slave to a system that does not depend on you (external) for your survival, which is the opposite of actually having FU money. It's a big old trap.
    - EGreg 6y ago
      What you need is a function of what you have come to expect. Electricity. Wifi. Fast internet. Air conditioning. Running water. Access to nutritious food and good medicine. Some of those are needs, others are not. The ones which are directly maintaining you in good health are needs. Don't sacrifice your needs (8 hours of sleep a day, for example) for your wants (a shiny new iPhone or bigger apartment) over the years. It's not black and white. As we give more and more UBI, we rebalance the power dynamic between employers and employees. It starts to obviate the need for minimum wage laws and unions, because people can start to ask for 30 hour work weeks, time off to raise their own kids, study a new career, contribute to science and open source software and so on. They'll be able to take more entrepreneurial risks, too. A society with UBI would have a lot more people contributing to gift economies.
fiftyfifty 6y ago
I've always thought UBI and Universal Health Care could be huge boons to the start-up economy. Loosing health insurance and all of their income has to be a major hurdle for many people taking the step to start their own business.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > Loosing health insurance and all of their income has to be a major hurdle for many people taking the step to start their own business. If that was even remotely true then France would the most active center in the world in terms of business creation. I hate to break the news for you, but it isn't.
  - chickenpotpie 6y ago
    Why France in particular? Sweden is consistently rated one of the top countries to start a business and they have universal healthcare
  - jakeva 6y ago
    I don't think the person you were responding to argued that removing those hurdles would create the most active business creation in the world. Enabling successful business creation is a worthy goal, one I think you'd agree France does accomplish. Not being the superlative isn't the same as failure.
  - FpUser 6y ago
    There is UBI in France? How one is protected from loosing the income there? Let's say I give nice warm and fuzzy F-U to my boss and quit. Where do I get money then?
    - hycaria 6y ago
      If you're over 25 with no income, you're eligible for the RSA (~500€/month). Healthcare is free if you don't have any income.
      - 6y ago
Proziam 6y ago
I have written about this before, but I believe this perspective is worth repeating. UBI is a fantastic idea in theory. It is more efficient in terms of capital and human resources than the current system, probably by an order of magnitude or more. However, it does suffer one deep flaw that I haven't seen anyone promoting UBI address. How do we ensure that UBI doesn't become weaponized against the people it's supposed to be helping? If UBI is passed it becomes the single most important issue to the majority of voters. Someone running on a platform of 'more money' will (even if it's economically a bad idea) likely win elections based on it. If there is an economic need to decrease the UBI payments it will be the death knell of political careers. But the biggest concern I have is this: We've already seen big legislation like the Affordable Care Act come under attack and eventually get essentially removed (in that case overwritten by the American Health Care Act on Mar 4, 2017). What would the damage be to the people who come to rely on UBI as part of the general economic system, only to have it rapidly reduced or removed entirely?
- me_me_me 6y ago
  UBI fuels local economies, in long term this is actually more beneficial to economy and recovery from some market crash. Even if the increase of UBI would be used to get votes, its better then what we currently have - lover taxes for mega rich. At least this way I get something.
- erosenbe0 6y ago
  I believe some of the original proponents of UBI tended to be for balanced budget amendments. This perhaps yields some sort of equilibrium. Although I can think of some states with balanced budget constitutions that act only nominally to constrain spending, as they are based on abusable projections, so the impediment is not firm.
  - Proziam 6y ago
    > Although I can think of some states with balanced budget constitutions that act only nominally to constrain spending, as they are based on abusable projections, so the impediment is not firm. Most of the sources of misery in the US are economic, unfortunately. The political parties in the US have a long history of being poor trustees of the nation's wealth. I make the comparison to Norway often because Norway has the world's largest social safety net in the form of their Sovereign Wealth Funds. Norway has $1.1T, roughly $200,000 USD per citizen, that can be used to maintain economic stability and secure social programs even in hard times. The US absolutely could have accomplished the same thing, but instead we've racked up a national debt per citizen of over $70,000.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nodesocket 6y ago
I’ll leave Naval Ravikant’s reasoning why UBI is a terrible idea since he should have much more clout here on HN than me. I am honestly dumbfounded that HN always seems to be so absolutely pro-UBI, like it’s a magic bullet that will end poverty and all of human suffering. People want to earn their money. It feels better, it promotes self-confidence and also is part of the ethos of America. “The moment you start having a direct transfer mechanism like that in democracy, you're basically doing away with capitalism which is the engine of economic growth. You're also forcing the entrepreneur out, or telling them not to come here." "People who are down on their luck, they're not looking for handouts. It's not just about money, it's also about status and meaning. The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class citizen.”
- JeremyReimer 6y ago
  I think the idea is that a UBI would provide only enough money for subsistence, and the human drive for greater wealth and status would continue unabated. Status and meaning are certainly important, and people would continue to seek those out. It's possible that many more people would want to become entrepreneurs, given that there would be a social safety net if they failed. Right now, most entrepreneurs come from an upper middle-class background, often with financial assistance and cushioning from their parents.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  $1000 a month is not going to reduce anybody's drive to work. It'll pay for food and rent if you have a roomie, but nothing else. If you want a new phone, you need to work. If you can't stand having a roomie, more work. Et cetera. And the thing about UBI is that everybody gets money, even Bill Gates. So nobody's a second class citizen.
fareesh 6y ago
Citizen, you have watched a video featuring Benjamin Shapiro. Your UBI has been deducted by $1
trident5000 6y ago
All that happens with UBI is that prices meet demand and rise. Dollars are worth less. There is never going to be a situation where we just hit the printing press and everybody gets to live a leisurely good life. Living a good life really comes down to national production and logistics more than money distribution (the rich have piles of money but they dont typically consume in line with their wealth, like Jeff Bezos is not taking up 50 nurses or buying 100 single family homes or eating 100x his share of food). For example if I gave everyone 250k and told them to all go out and buy a ferrari, its actually impossible. There are not enough cars and prices would rise substantially to box out people again. The same principal goes for homes, healthcare, education, etc. The best way to increase standard of living is to increase production and efficiency to meet everyone's needs in all service and product categories.
- Marazan 6y ago
  Citation needed.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    Assume rent was your only expense, and your landlord currently charges you $1000/mo rent. He cannot charge you $1200/mo because you can't bear it. If he learns that you started getting $200/mo for free, he can easily raise your rent to $1200/mo. Now in the real world, we have multiple expenses, so prices rises will happen proportionally among them. The consumers with UBI can bear price increases, so the producers will soak it up.
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      Alternately, UBI allows you to quit your job, move to WV and pay $200 for rent. What constrains your landlord from jacking up rent is competition. If he jacks up rent by $200 but the landlord across the street has an empty apartment he'd be glad to rent out for $1000 he'll think twice about jacking your rent. The housing crisis in America is a supply issue. UBI has nothing to do with it. Inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. If they pay for UBI with deficit spending it might crank up inflation, but if it's fully funded it won't.
annoyingnoob 6y ago
UBI is a sham that only drives inflation. At first it looks and acts like a stimulus. Over time it just drives inflation. Rent will go up proportional to your UBI and your landlord will make more money but you won't, for example.
- foobarbecue 6y ago
  The point is the relative effect is has between people to counteract inequality. If Alice has a job, and Bob is unemployed and broke, Alice has infinity times the purchasing power of Bob. Bob may only need a tiny bit of purchasing power to start his economic engine and get ahead, but his battery is at 0% and he's screwed. The point is to get enough juice in the battery to start the engine. And yes, the cost might be some inflation, but predictions of inflation have lately failed: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970595276/bond-voyage https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970595276/bond-voyage
  - annoyingnoob 6y ago
    Where does the UBI money come from? How do we pay for UBI? In year 1, Bob has extra money. By year 3 Bob's rent goes up. Did Bob's UBI go up proportionally to his rent? After a few years, Bob ends up in the same place - unless we keep injecting more money over time, which creates inflation.
    - Rule35 6y ago
      Like most social-engineering plans the solution is more social-engineering - price controls, standardized rent, etc.
      - annoyingnoob 6y ago
        You avoided the questions.
        RyanGoosling 6y ago
UncleOxidant 6y ago
> UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money. Which is partly why there's so much opposition from the powers that be. Similar for universal healthcare - these things reduce the amount of power employers have over employees.
Rule35 6y ago
Why would we want to give money to people who won't work? And how would it be a benefit to those whose money would be used? Welfare attempts to uplift people, but UBI is never ending and would come to be seen as a right, not a gift. Welfare makes people and communities stronger, UBI would not.
- eggsmediumrare 6y ago
  This made sense 30 years ago when we needed humans. Now we don't really need that many humans. "Work harder" is stupid advice when there is no work.
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    I for one am certainly not ready for humanity to stagnate. There are a lot of improvements left to made, and a lot of work left to be done.
    - eggsmediumrare 6y ago
      There will be a few very intelligent people who will make the improvements while the rest of humanity does... Something. TBD.
      - Rule35 6y ago
        Whatever the massez do, it'll be while force-fed soma. If we do have a huge privileged class who doesn't need to work we can't risk them getting uppity and continually demanding more so we'll keep them on a short leash. And even if something like UBI ever happened, don't imagine that the productive will share power. It'll be a box, VR helmet, drugged soylent, and you'd happy with it. It can't be anything else, and everyone should realize it. There's no UBI-topia out there for people, should they simply come to consensus and demand it from their pols. It's wishful thinking and the simple concept hurts more than it helps. Be afraid of the person who offers you this nonsense.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
jkinudsjknds 6y ago
Everytime UBI comes up I see a slew of common arguments about inflation and rents. I think those are debateable. But globalism isn't. If everyone gets some money for free, the cost of labor will need to go up, because the marginal utility of those salaries will be lower. This is especially true for people at the bottom, but also for those in the middle. To some extent this will raise prices, specifically to the point at which the lower class needs to work to survive, because That Is How It Works. But they will still probably be better off, debateably. What isn't clear is what happens to all of the jobs that can be exported to countries without UBI that are now that much cheaper. If you raise the price of labor and jobs leave the country, you've made the country net poorer, and in all likelihood increased wealth inequality by squeezing people out of the middle.
tengbretson 6y ago
Does that appear to be the case for the millions of people already receiving checks from the government?
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  They don't understand redistribution vs inflation.
  - RhysU 6y ago
    You've made this comment a lot in this thread. Suppose, for the sake of argument, UBI is implemented by the pure redistribution of wealth. No debt. No draining some capital reserve. Steady state redistribution. The act of distributing wealth to new people will shift demand in accordance with their demands. The newly UBI-ed masses won't be chasing the same rich-men goods as the rich men they soaked. The aggregate demand for not-rich-man goods will go up. So then those prices will go up. When the price for goods goes up without any increase in their quality, all else constant, that's inflation. At least by my layman's understanding. Why do you keep insisting that redistribution won't cause inflation?
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      Youre only looking at demand. There's another factor you're missing. SUPPLY and demand. If supply is static then yes, you are correct. But the supply for most 'not-rich-man goods' is made of commodities and is highly scalable and economic productivity will increase to match demand. And the increased productivity/value from the economy will have a deflationary aspect that you're not considering. This as a side effect also creates jobs and just generally increases the well being of the middle class and poor as a whole not just from the UBI. This will also distribute the population throughout the country more evenly so rent prices will go down as well... as people don't have to live in certain areas that happen to have jobs and can afford to innovate in B.F.E without the risk of becoming homeless if they fail which in aggregate will have some businesses succeed and stimulate those areas of the country.
tastyfreeze 6y ago
UBI is a path to government dependence for everybody. Making the government bigger and making everybody rely on it to survive is very likely to turn out worse than reducing the size of government and letting people keep their earned money. We do not need a larger government!
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  UBI removes massive amounts of gov't bureaucracy in the bloated and disjointed safety net programs in the US and the bloated gov't salaries of the people running them. It's actually a small gov't conservatives dream.
  - tastyfreeze 6y ago
    I would need proof of that claim. As it has been proposed UBI is in addition to existing welfare programs. We cant even pay for the current budget. How are we supposed to add more?
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      UBI is a social safety net, the goal is for it to replace those other social safety net programs.
      - tastyfreeze 6y ago
        Replacing other social safety net programs is not how UBI has been proposed. It has been sold as a guaranteed income for all. Not once has discontinuing other social safety net programs been included in UBI proposals. It is always "we could replace all programs with UBI". If the end of other programs is not included in a UBI bill then we will end up with both... forever. So, I will ask again. We can't afford what we have. How can we add more?
        nickthemagicman 6y ago
        We can afford the current social safety net we have pretty easily. We spend around 2.3T to entitlement programs and takes in around 3.8T. What's putting us in debt is massive tax cuts for the rich and insane health care costs. I don't think there's been a comprehensive bill for UBI floated yet.
core-questions 6y ago
What happens if everyone says Fuck-You, though? I mean, at the end of the day, we need farmers, truckers, grocery store workers, and a whole host of people in between to make sure we don't starve. How do we make sure people keep working these necessary-but-sometimes-grueling jobs in a world where they could just quit and be on the UBI?

game_the0ry 6y ago

That's interesting, never thought of it that way. Upon ruminating on that concept, I think at the core, fuck you money and UBI are - I can express myself and nothing can financially ruin me or make me homeless.

munk-a 6y ago
I consider the private healthcare market in the US to be the same sort of impediment as a lack of UBI - except that when it comes to healthcare it's an even bigger burden to remain with your current employer if you're going through stressful times (i.e. have cancer).
- jonnycomputer 6y ago
  Yes. People are desperate to keep their health insurance through their job, and this is also an impediment.
  - game_the0ry 6y ago
    I can relate - I am about to get married, kids will follow soon, and I am already anxious. I have a couple of ideas for indie hacker-type side hustles but not enough time bc I am prepping for tech interviews at FAANGs.
    - RyanGoosling 6y ago
      get a 15-yr mortgage. the 30-yr one is a scam. Buy a small condo, hopefully work remote from lower COL (Sacramento even). Live small for a few years, then upgrade incrementally over time. Most importantly, don't max out your budget, especially in rent/30-yr mortgage situation. Don't have your MS? Get it.

ekianjo 6y ago

> UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money Erm no, it's probably only barely what you need to survive, nothing close to what people refer to as FU Money.

Spooky23 6y ago
When I worked retail in college, “fuck you money” for my colleagues could be as little as $2,500. One guy I worked with worked from 5am to 2pm in the mall bakery, took a nap in the backroom, the was a line cook from 4p-midnight. Mostly because of some debts and a situation that prevented his wife from working.
Robin_Message 6y ago
FU money implies never needing to work again... ...which is exactly what UBI intends.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  FU money means you have more than what you need. Relying on UBI means you become slave to a system that does not depend on you (external) for your survival, which is the opposite of actually having FU money. It's a big old trap.
  - EGreg 6y ago
    What you need is a function of what you have come to expect. Electricity. Wifi. Fast internet. Air conditioning. Running water. Access to nutritious food and good medicine. Some of those are needs, others are not. The ones which are directly maintaining you in good health are needs. Don't sacrifice your needs (8 hours of sleep a day, for example) for your wants (a shiny new iPhone or bigger apartment) over the years. It's not black and white. As we give more and more UBI, we rebalance the power dynamic between employers and employees. It starts to obviate the need for minimum wage laws and unions, because people can start to ask for 30 hour work weeks, time off to raise their own kids, study a new career, contribute to science and open source software and so on. They'll be able to take more entrepreneurial risks, too. A society with UBI would have a lot more people contributing to gift economies.

fiftyfifty 6y ago

I've always thought UBI and Universal Health Care could be huge boons to the start-up economy. Loosing health insurance and all of their income has to be a major hurdle for many people taking the step to start their own business.

ekianjo 6y ago
> Loosing health insurance and all of their income has to be a major hurdle for many people taking the step to start their own business. If that was even remotely true then France would the most active center in the world in terms of business creation. I hate to break the news for you, but it isn't.
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  Why France in particular? Sweden is consistently rated one of the top countries to start a business and they have universal healthcare
- jakeva 6y ago
  I don't think the person you were responding to argued that removing those hurdles would create the most active business creation in the world. Enabling successful business creation is a worthy goal, one I think you'd agree France does accomplish. Not being the superlative isn't the same as failure.
- FpUser 6y ago
  There is UBI in France? How one is protected from loosing the income there? Let's say I give nice warm and fuzzy F-U to my boss and quit. Where do I get money then?
  - hycaria 6y ago
    If you're over 25 with no income, you're eligible for the RSA (~500€/month). Healthcare is free if you don't have any income.
    - 6y ago

Proziam 6y ago

I have written about this before, but I believe this perspective is worth repeating. UBI is a fantastic idea in theory. It is more efficient in terms of capital and human resources than the current system, probably by an order of magnitude or more. However, it does suffer one deep flaw that I haven't seen anyone promoting UBI address. How do we ensure that UBI doesn't become weaponized against the people it's supposed to be helping? If UBI is passed it becomes the single most important issue to the majority of voters. Someone running on a platform of 'more money' will (even if it's economically a bad idea) likely win elections based on it. If there is an economic need to decrease the UBI payments it will be the death knell of political careers. But the biggest concern I have is this: We've already seen big legislation like the Affordable Care Act come under attack and eventually get essentially removed (in that case overwritten by the American Health Care Act on Mar 4, 2017). What would the damage be to the people who come to rely on UBI as part of the general economic system, only to have it rapidly reduced or removed entirely?

me_me_me 6y ago
UBI fuels local economies, in long term this is actually more beneficial to economy and recovery from some market crash. Even if the increase of UBI would be used to get votes, its better then what we currently have - lover taxes for mega rich. At least this way I get something.
erosenbe0 6y ago
I believe some of the original proponents of UBI tended to be for balanced budget amendments. This perhaps yields some sort of equilibrium. Although I can think of some states with balanced budget constitutions that act only nominally to constrain spending, as they are based on abusable projections, so the impediment is not firm.
- Proziam 6y ago
  > Although I can think of some states with balanced budget constitutions that act only nominally to constrain spending, as they are based on abusable projections, so the impediment is not firm. Most of the sources of misery in the US are economic, unfortunately. The political parties in the US have a long history of being poor trustees of the nation's wealth. I make the comparison to Norway often because Norway has the world's largest social safety net in the form of their Sovereign Wealth Funds. Norway has $1.1T, roughly $200,000 USD per citizen, that can be used to maintain economic stability and secure social programs even in hard times. The US absolutely could have accomplished the same thing, but instead we've racked up a national debt per citizen of over $70,000.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nodesocket 6y ago

I’ll leave Naval Ravikant’s reasoning why UBI is a terrible idea since he should have much more clout here on HN than me. I am honestly dumbfounded that HN always seems to be so absolutely pro-UBI, like it’s a magic bullet that will end poverty and all of human suffering. People want to earn their money. It feels better, it promotes self-confidence and also is part of the ethos of America. “The moment you start having a direct transfer mechanism like that in democracy, you're basically doing away with capitalism which is the engine of economic growth. You're also forcing the entrepreneur out, or telling them not to come here." "People who are down on their luck, they're not looking for handouts. It's not just about money, it's also about status and meaning. The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class citizen.”

JeremyReimer 6y ago
I think the idea is that a UBI would provide only enough money for subsistence, and the human drive for greater wealth and status would continue unabated. Status and meaning are certainly important, and people would continue to seek those out. It's possible that many more people would want to become entrepreneurs, given that there would be a social safety net if they failed. Right now, most entrepreneurs come from an upper middle-class background, often with financial assistance and cushioning from their parents.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
$1000 a month is not going to reduce anybody's drive to work. It'll pay for food and rent if you have a roomie, but nothing else. If you want a new phone, you need to work. If you can't stand having a roomie, more work. Et cetera. And the thing about UBI is that everybody gets money, even Bill Gates. So nobody's a second class citizen.

fareesh 6y ago

Citizen, you have watched a video featuring Benjamin Shapiro. Your UBI has been deducted by $1

trident5000 6y ago

All that happens with UBI is that prices meet demand and rise. Dollars are worth less. There is never going to be a situation where we just hit the printing press and everybody gets to live a leisurely good life. Living a good life really comes down to national production and logistics more than money distribution (the rich have piles of money but they dont typically consume in line with their wealth, like Jeff Bezos is not taking up 50 nurses or buying 100 single family homes or eating 100x his share of food). For example if I gave everyone 250k and told them to all go out and buy a ferrari, its actually impossible. There are not enough cars and prices would rise substantially to box out people again. The same principal goes for homes, healthcare, education, etc. The best way to increase standard of living is to increase production and efficiency to meet everyone's needs in all service and product categories.

Marazan 6y ago
Citation needed.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Assume rent was your only expense, and your landlord currently charges you $1000/mo rent. He cannot charge you $1200/mo because you can't bear it. If he learns that you started getting $200/mo for free, he can easily raise your rent to $1200/mo. Now in the real world, we have multiple expenses, so prices rises will happen proportionally among them. The consumers with UBI can bear price increases, so the producers will soak it up.
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    Alternately, UBI allows you to quit your job, move to WV and pay $200 for rent. What constrains your landlord from jacking up rent is competition. If he jacks up rent by $200 but the landlord across the street has an empty apartment he'd be glad to rent out for $1000 he'll think twice about jacking your rent. The housing crisis in America is a supply issue. UBI has nothing to do with it. Inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. If they pay for UBI with deficit spending it might crank up inflation, but if it's fully funded it won't.

annoyingnoob 6y ago

UBI is a sham that only drives inflation. At first it looks and acts like a stimulus. Over time it just drives inflation. Rent will go up proportional to your UBI and your landlord will make more money but you won't, for example.

foobarbecue 6y ago
The point is the relative effect is has between people to counteract inequality. If Alice has a job, and Bob is unemployed and broke, Alice has infinity times the purchasing power of Bob. Bob may only need a tiny bit of purchasing power to start his economic engine and get ahead, but his battery is at 0% and he's screwed. The point is to get enough juice in the battery to start the engine. And yes, the cost might be some inflation, but predictions of inflation have lately failed: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970595276/bond-voyage https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970595276/bond-voyage
- annoyingnoob 6y ago
  Where does the UBI money come from? How do we pay for UBI? In year 1, Bob has extra money. By year 3 Bob's rent goes up. Did Bob's UBI go up proportionally to his rent? After a few years, Bob ends up in the same place - unless we keep injecting more money over time, which creates inflation.
  - Rule35 6y ago
    Like most social-engineering plans the solution is more social-engineering - price controls, standardized rent, etc.
    - annoyingnoob 6y ago
      You avoided the questions.
      - RyanGoosling 6y ago

UncleOxidant 6y ago

> UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money. Which is partly why there's so much opposition from the powers that be. Similar for universal healthcare - these things reduce the amount of power employers have over employees.

Rule35 6y ago

Why would we want to give money to people who won't work? And how would it be a benefit to those whose money would be used? Welfare attempts to uplift people, but UBI is never ending and would come to be seen as a right, not a gift. Welfare makes people and communities stronger, UBI would not.

eggsmediumrare 6y ago
This made sense 30 years ago when we needed humans. Now we don't really need that many humans. "Work harder" is stupid advice when there is no work.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  I for one am certainly not ready for humanity to stagnate. There are a lot of improvements left to made, and a lot of work left to be done.
  - eggsmediumrare 6y ago
    There will be a few very intelligent people who will make the improvements while the rest of humanity does... Something. TBD.
    - Rule35 6y ago
      Whatever the massez do, it'll be while force-fed soma. If we do have a huge privileged class who doesn't need to work we can't risk them getting uppity and continually demanding more so we'll keep them on a short leash. And even if something like UBI ever happened, don't imagine that the productive will share power. It'll be a box, VR helmet, drugged soylent, and you'd happy with it. It can't be anything else, and everyone should realize it. There's no UBI-topia out there for people, should they simply come to consensus and demand it from their pols. It's wishful thinking and the simple concept hurts more than it helps. Be afraid of the person who offers you this nonsense.
- ryandrake 6y ago

jkinudsjknds 6y ago

Everytime UBI comes up I see a slew of common arguments about inflation and rents. I think those are debateable. But globalism isn't. If everyone gets some money for free, the cost of labor will need to go up, because the marginal utility of those salaries will be lower. This is especially true for people at the bottom, but also for those in the middle. To some extent this will raise prices, specifically to the point at which the lower class needs to work to survive, because That Is How It Works. But they will still probably be better off, debateably. What isn't clear is what happens to all of the jobs that can be exported to countries without UBI that are now that much cheaper. If you raise the price of labor and jobs leave the country, you've made the country net poorer, and in all likelihood increased wealth inequality by squeezing people out of the middle.

tengbretson 6y ago

Does that appear to be the case for the millions of people already receiving checks from the government?

nickthemagicman 6y ago
They don't understand redistribution vs inflation.
- RhysU 6y ago
  You've made this comment a lot in this thread. Suppose, for the sake of argument, UBI is implemented by the pure redistribution of wealth. No debt. No draining some capital reserve. Steady state redistribution. The act of distributing wealth to new people will shift demand in accordance with their demands. The newly UBI-ed masses won't be chasing the same rich-men goods as the rich men they soaked. The aggregate demand for not-rich-man goods will go up. So then those prices will go up. When the price for goods goes up without any increase in their quality, all else constant, that's inflation. At least by my layman's understanding. Why do you keep insisting that redistribution won't cause inflation?
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    Youre only looking at demand. There's another factor you're missing. SUPPLY and demand. If supply is static then yes, you are correct. But the supply for most 'not-rich-man goods' is made of commodities and is highly scalable and economic productivity will increase to match demand. And the increased productivity/value from the economy will have a deflationary aspect that you're not considering. This as a side effect also creates jobs and just generally increases the well being of the middle class and poor as a whole not just from the UBI. This will also distribute the population throughout the country more evenly so rent prices will go down as well... as people don't have to live in certain areas that happen to have jobs and can afford to innovate in B.F.E without the risk of becoming homeless if they fail which in aggregate will have some businesses succeed and stimulate those areas of the country.

tastyfreeze 6y ago

UBI is a path to government dependence for everybody. Making the government bigger and making everybody rely on it to survive is very likely to turn out worse than reducing the size of government and letting people keep their earned money. We do not need a larger government!

nickthemagicman 6y ago
UBI removes massive amounts of gov't bureaucracy in the bloated and disjointed safety net programs in the US and the bloated gov't salaries of the people running them. It's actually a small gov't conservatives dream.
- tastyfreeze 6y ago
  I would need proof of that claim. As it has been proposed UBI is in addition to existing welfare programs. We cant even pay for the current budget. How are we supposed to add more?
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    UBI is a social safety net, the goal is for it to replace those other social safety net programs.
    - tastyfreeze 6y ago
      Replacing other social safety net programs is not how UBI has been proposed. It has been sold as a guaranteed income for all. Not once has discontinuing other social safety net programs been included in UBI proposals. It is always "we could replace all programs with UBI". If the end of other programs is not included in a UBI bill then we will end up with both... forever. So, I will ask again. We can't afford what we have. How can we add more?
      - nickthemagicman 6y ago
        We can afford the current social safety net we have pretty easily. We spend around 2.3T to entitlement programs and takes in around 3.8T. What's putting us in debt is massive tax cuts for the rich and insane health care costs. I don't think there's been a comprehensive bill for UBI floated yet.

core-questions 6y ago

What happens if everyone says Fuck-You, though? I mean, at the end of the day, we need farmers, truckers, grocery store workers, and a whole host of people in between to make sure we don't starve. How do we make sure people keep working these necessary-but-sometimes-grueling jobs in a world where they could just quit and be on the UBI?