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> 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 b
by 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 agoI 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 agoCurrency 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.