5 ms·
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 t
by 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 agoWhere 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 agoLike most social-engineering plans the solution is more social-engineering - price controls, standardized rent, etc.
- annoyingnoob 6y agoYou avoided the questions.
- RyanGoosling 6y agowell those are simple questions to answer. MORE TAXES!
- annoyingnoob 6y agoTurtles all the way down?
- foobarbecue 6y agoIn theory, the cool thing about UBI is that you can dismantle all that other stuff and just have the one safety net that covers everybody, replacing the piecemeal safety nets that are supposed to catch people in certain situations.
- Rule35 6y agoYeah, it lessens the risk of falling through those nets and is probably cheaper, per dollar dispensed, to administrate.
- foobarbecue 6y agoThe money, as always, is made by a combination of the machines which actually do all of the required production, and the treasury, which prints little game tickets you can use to make other people dance for you.
- the_dune_13 6y agoActually, inflation is not as simple as you have described it. There is a great NPR's Planet Money episode touching the waters of why the inflation does not behave as we think it is [1]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/01/20/958854717/modern-monetary-theory-classic https://www.npr.org/2021/01/20/958854717/modern-monetary-the...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- foobarbecue 6y agoThe newer episode, which I linked to in the grandparent of your comment, is also fascinating.
- RyanGoosling 6y agoinb4 gov tract housing without landlords to increase rent? Now that would mess up the real estate market
- Rule35 6y agoThe people you're talking to literally believe you can print value. > The money, [...] the treasury, which prints little game tickets you can use to make other people dance for you. They think there's a printer somewhere, and some jerk sitting next to it who just won't print enough money. If only he'd print more, we'd all be billionaires!
- Rule35 6y agoGreat, so give Bob a scholarship, or a grant, or welfare, or just a gift. Something that gives him that hand-up but without turning into a permanent right. If UBI becomes a right, and you raise a generation who doesn't need to work, what do you do when there's a recession? Cut UBI and watch the riots start? Or drive off the cliff at speed because the non-working class can't be denied?
- foobarbecue 6y agoDuring a recession, we eat the rich.
- Rule35 6y agoBut Carl, the rich are where UBI comes from!
- RyanGoosling 6y agorelevant username
- annoyingnoob 6y agoThe issue really is wages have been flat for nearly 50 years. https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ We need to fix wages, not provide handouts. I'm for helping people that need but UBI isn't the way to do that.
- tastyfreeze 6y agoTrue, wages haven't kept up with inflation that resulted from foolhardy monetary policy. Mandating increased wages is a bandaid on a gushing wound. We cannot continue debasing our currency and hope it makes a robust economy. A thriving economy requires a stable currency. Fiat by its nature is unstable.
- foobarbecue 6y agoGold was even less stable.
- tastyfreeze 6y agoThat is false. Over the long term the value of a full reserve gold backed currency is stable. When politicians print more money than they have in gold is when things start to go wonky.
- foobarbecue 6y agoI'm referring to the wild historical fluctuations in gold price that happened every time there was a gold rush, war, and / or run on gold.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoHow do you fix wages without gov't intervention? Because if what you're saying is true..with any unnatural gov't interference ...there will be inflation. (which is inaccurate by the way)
- Rule35 6y agoThankfully there are more than two people on earth and this edge case won't happen. Because many people are nearly at zero there are a number of also-poor merchants selling low-end goods, and Bob is able to trade a small amount of labour for the goods he needs, and can work his way up. > yes, the cost might be some inflation, but predictions of inflation have lately failed For a time, anything may remain out of sync. But you can't get more money from less workers. You can't redistribute to provide UBI, you have to print it, and that devalues the currency. Even sillier, most UBI proposals are tied to a consumer index, such that when the currency was devalued you would print and distribute more, but with zero concern for the actual workers whose salaries are not also being inflated to match. Eventually the premium for working will be small enough that you'd be a fool for having a job. And of course "predictions of inflation have lately failed". Because nobody is giving out UBI on a large enough scale. It's suicide. Even tax-and-spend bread-and-circus providing pols still want to be in power next year, so there's a limit to what they can print, and how widely they can distribute it.