4 ms·

It depends if you just end up paying people not to work. Money doesnt just have some "value" you can share like a pie. The value in money is just the productive

It depends if you just end up paying people not to work. Money doesnt just have some "value" you can share like a pie. The value in money is just the productive capacity of an economy. If you're paying large numbers to do nothing, the value of that money plummets and people will starve. Recall: 50% of the country make less than the median wage... UBI is going to have to be way below this to preserve the very wealth which UBI redistributes

staticassertion 5y ago
One thing that's been made clear in the last two years is that even a very very measly increase to unemployment can have huge impact. And unemployment runs out after a while, and the increases have been tiny. And unemployment makes you jump through hoops, is very stressful, and wastes a lot of your time. I expect that UBI could start off very small and still have huge impact. A quick search shows that median income can range from ~40k-80k state to state. I'd bet you could radically change this country for way less than that.
- tekknik 5y ago
  If people are getting paid $80k a year to do nothing Im quitting my job and living in the woods. 1 less software engineer.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    The point was to pay less than median income. So you're looking at closer to 30k at the high end.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      So those in high cost of living areas are still just screwed? $30k/yr isn’t even enough to pay rent.
      - staticassertion 5y ago
        Do you want me to write a full, detailed policy? Or can you just use some common sense?
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>If you're paying large numbers to do nothing, the value of that money plummets and people will starve. We already pay large numbers of people to do nothing, retirees.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Ostensibly, we are paying them back the Social Security taxes + interest that were withheld from their pay when they were working, supplemented by any pensions or savings they may have.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Whatever way you look at it they are doing nothing and people aren't "starving".
goodpoint 5y ago
> If you're paying large numbers to do nothing, the value of that money plummets and people will starve Absolutely not. Having a large fraction of population being unemployed is not good but this is not the point of UBI. Also, this is completely disconnected from inflation/deflation. Furthermore, deflation and "people will starve" are very much disconnected. Many countries devalued their money on purpose to be more competitive on international markets.
- qwytw 5y ago
  I don't think deflation is an actual risk in this scenario ("value of that money plummets" = high inflation). There are many stages between "people will starve" and having access to high quality food (and high QOL in general). For example if UBI is sufficiently high to allow most people currently employed in the food and service industries to not work (or to invest their time into gaining new skills etc.) I think a massive increase in food prices is unavoidable, at least in the short term until automation catches up. While basic foodstuffs would still remain affordable to all/most (the government would be forced to subsidize them if not), eating out and high quality, labor intensive products would likely become unaffordable to most people.
- kuratkull 5y ago
  Currency exchange rates are bidirectional. You are arguing for people to produce less, so export plummets, which will bring down the value of the $, which means it is harder to import stuff you need.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    > You are arguing for people to produce less No I'm not. > so export plummets, which will bring down the value of the $ No, if anything, it's the very opposite.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      > No, if anything, it's the very opposite. How?
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
UBI has to be under the average, not the median. If wealth disparity increases too much, the average wealth will be much higher than the median wealth, but unfortunately that wouldn’t apply as much to income.
noogle 5y ago
> Money doesnt just have some "value" you can share like a pie. The trillions of dollars printed by the Federal Reserve in the past two years beg to differ. Honestly, if the country is going into deficit, you might as well give it directly to people instead of injecting it via financial institutes. Society in general may greatly benefit from having people not HAVING to work.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Prices inflate like they have recently and will continue until prices absorbs any increases and the lack of production will put a greater strain.
  - noogle 5y ago
    Yet that did not deter us from creating trillions of dollars and giving them to financial institutes. What if we printed the same amount and gave it directly to people? the $6T/year could yield ~$40K to each of the ~150M working-age Americans. The biggest impact is to give employees more power in the negotiation with employers: currently, employees are far more pressed to find work than the employer needs to fill in a position (if the employee fails to pay rent, they are evicted; if an employer fails to meet a deadline, nothing happens immediately), and have the inherent disadvantage of having orders of magnitude more employees than employers. UBI will help the public by reducing the pressure on employees to find job, thus improving the negotiation power and conditions for all other employees. Even the slight help during COVID created the best conditions for working people in decades. Seems to be worth the inflation IMO.
    - chii 5y ago
      > creating trillions of dollars and giving them to financial institutes. those trillions were swapped, not given, to the financial institutes, in return for the bonds and treasuries they held. It isn't the same sort of printing that you hear about in Zimbabwe or Venezuela. If the gov't really printed trillions and gave them to people like you described, you'd get major inflation. Oh wait, that's already happening...and it's only a couple thousand for some people, and it's not printed, it's borrowed. Imagine the effects, if it was truly printed like you described!

staticassertion 5y ago

One thing that's been made clear in the last two years is that even a very very measly increase to unemployment can have huge impact. And unemployment runs out after a while, and the increases have been tiny. And unemployment makes you jump through hoops, is very stressful, and wastes a lot of your time. I expect that UBI could start off very small and still have huge impact. A quick search shows that median income can range from ~40k-80k state to state. I'd bet you could radically change this country for way less than that.

tekknik 5y ago
If people are getting paid $80k a year to do nothing Im quitting my job and living in the woods. 1 less software engineer.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  The point was to pay less than median income. So you're looking at closer to 30k at the high end.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    So those in high cost of living areas are still just screwed? $30k/yr isn’t even enough to pay rent.
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      Do you want me to write a full, detailed policy? Or can you just use some common sense?

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

>If you're paying large numbers to do nothing, the value of that money plummets and people will starve. We already pay large numbers of people to do nothing, retirees.

throwawayboise 5y ago
Ostensibly, we are paying them back the Social Security taxes + interest that were withheld from their pay when they were working, supplemented by any pensions or savings they may have.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Whatever way you look at it they are doing nothing and people aren't "starving".

goodpoint 5y ago

> If you're paying large numbers to do nothing, the value of that money plummets and people will starve Absolutely not. Having a large fraction of population being unemployed is not good but this is not the point of UBI. Also, this is completely disconnected from inflation/deflation. Furthermore, deflation and "people will starve" are very much disconnected. Many countries devalued their money on purpose to be more competitive on international markets.

qwytw 5y ago
I don't think deflation is an actual risk in this scenario ("value of that money plummets" = high inflation). There are many stages between "people will starve" and having access to high quality food (and high QOL in general). For example if UBI is sufficiently high to allow most people currently employed in the food and service industries to not work (or to invest their time into gaining new skills etc.) I think a massive increase in food prices is unavoidable, at least in the short term until automation catches up. While basic foodstuffs would still remain affordable to all/most (the government would be forced to subsidize them if not), eating out and high quality, labor intensive products would likely become unaffordable to most people.
kuratkull 5y ago
Currency exchange rates are bidirectional. You are arguing for people to produce less, so export plummets, which will bring down the value of the $, which means it is harder to import stuff you need.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > You are arguing for people to produce less No I'm not. > so export plummets, which will bring down the value of the $ No, if anything, it's the very opposite.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    > No, if anything, it's the very opposite. How?

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

UBI has to be under the average, not the median. If wealth disparity increases too much, the average wealth will be much higher than the median wealth, but unfortunately that wouldn’t apply as much to income.

noogle 5y ago

> Money doesnt just have some "value" you can share like a pie. The trillions of dollars printed by the Federal Reserve in the past two years beg to differ. Honestly, if the country is going into deficit, you might as well give it directly to people instead of injecting it via financial institutes. Society in general may greatly benefit from having people not HAVING to work.

ipaddr 5y ago
Prices inflate like they have recently and will continue until prices absorbs any increases and the lack of production will put a greater strain.
- noogle 5y ago
  Yet that did not deter us from creating trillions of dollars and giving them to financial institutes. What if we printed the same amount and gave it directly to people? the $6T/year could yield ~$40K to each of the ~150M working-age Americans. The biggest impact is to give employees more power in the negotiation with employers: currently, employees are far more pressed to find work than the employer needs to fill in a position (if the employee fails to pay rent, they are evicted; if an employer fails to meet a deadline, nothing happens immediately), and have the inherent disadvantage of having orders of magnitude more employees than employers. UBI will help the public by reducing the pressure on employees to find job, thus improving the negotiation power and conditions for all other employees. Even the slight help during COVID created the best conditions for working people in decades. Seems to be worth the inflation IMO.
  - chii 5y ago
    > creating trillions of dollars and giving them to financial institutes. those trillions were swapped, not given, to the financial institutes, in return for the bonds and treasuries they held. It isn't the same sort of printing that you hear about in Zimbabwe or Venezuela. If the gov't really printed trillions and gave them to people like you described, you'd get major inflation. Oh wait, that's already happening...and it's only a couple thousand for some people, and it's not printed, it's borrowed. Imagine the effects, if it was truly printed like you described!