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FWIW I agree with your thought process here. Proclamations of certainty around UBI are common, but the only intellectually honest position is that we simply do
by atq2119 5y ago
FWIW I agree with your thought process here.
Proclamations of certainty around UBI are common, but the only intellectually honest position is that we simply do not have enough empirical data to tell with a useful level of confidence how a UBI would affect inflation.
Also, I believe that the only way to collect that empirical data is to implement a UBI at a sufficiently large scale and see what happens.
- tomp 5y agoThere really is no reason why you wouldn’t be able to pair government intervention on the demand side (i.e. UBI) with government intervention on the supply side. Simply introduce quotas about supply (e.g. that shops cannot throw away more than 1% of the food they sell), and/or limits on non-productive assets (e.g. freeze rents & Netflix subscription). I’m sure there are many smarter interventions than I was able to come up in 30 seconds as wel.
- atq2119 5y agoMicro-management like that very often fails, though. What do you suggest shops do if they risk crossing the 1% threshold, for example? I agree that a lot can be done if you're careful about how you do it, but if you aren't careful enough, you may easily make things worse.
- nradov 5y agoGovernment price controls inevitably cause shortages and black markets. It is completely infeasible to enforce a limit on throwing away food.
- XargonEnder 5y agoI've spent a lot of time in volunteering for the food bank in my area and the local grocery stores generally give food away right before it goes bad. They're already incentivized to do this because we give them tax write-offs.
- 988747 5y agoWelcome to the Soviet Union! They tried exactly that and failed spectacularly at it. Centrally planned economy simply does not work, it's a law of nature.