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What if the landlord and food companies just raise the prices now that they know people have at least X dollars a month to spend on rent and food. Then people
by buscoquadnary 5y ago
What if the landlord and food companies just raise the prices now that they know people have at least X dollars a month to spend on rent and food.
Then people start advocating for universal housing and universal food.
- tremon 5y agoExactly. You can't determine a baseline UBI amount without knowing the baseline cost of food and rent. And I'm perfectly ok with rent control. Housing is a basic necessity, after all -- at least in humane societies.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoHousing: UBI lets you move somewhere cheap, eliminating the leverage that landlords hold, letting housing prices go down. Food: Foods are commodities, meaning that the price is the marginal cost. The price of a bushel of rice is set by the buyer, not the seller.
- listenallyall 5y agoYou've learned nothing the past two years
- bryanlarsen 5y agoI didn't learn that food prices go up during a global drought because I knew that already.
- listenallyall 5y ago> landlord and food companies just raise the prices Which is exactly what has happened (in the US at least) as people received mini-UBI called "stimulus checks" and their bosses got PPP "loans" (that didn't need to be paid back)
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoThey can only do that if they collude, which is illegal. On the other hand, if food and rent are paid for mostly with UBI money, and supply was more elastic than demand, then prices would surely increase.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoDid they collude to raise rents 10% this year? People will bid up apartments because they have more money.
- mongol 5y agoGood point. Inflation will make UBI kind of pointless.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoNot if it is indexed to inflation...eventually a steady state will be reached.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoYa, isn’t that what supply not keeping up with demand (in the form of money that can be applied to said demand). Everyone can’t afford to rent an apartment f there isn’t enough apartments to rent. People will use their buying power to prevent being the ones left without, while landlords will benefit from bidding wars by being able to raise prices. That works in Seattle or austin even if it doesn’t work in Detroit or Shreveport.
- kbelder 5y agoI can't imagine this not happening; it's a certainty.