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In theory I hope this works in some way. Alternatives to the current approaches need to be explored. And we're certainly not confident AI will take more jobs /
by chiefalchemist 3y ago
In theory I hope this works in some way. Alternatives to the current approaches need to be explored. And we're certainly not confident AI will take more jobs / wealth than it create.
That said, unless recipients own where they live - housing typically being your single biggest expense - I envision rents increasing because landlords naturally price what the market will bear. Even with UBI we'll eventually be back to where are now with loads of that I going to housing and too little left for anything else.
What am I missing?
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoEverything. If economics was just 'housing takes up all the money' well, we could dispense with those expensive college degrees for Economics.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoI'm not looking for an academic view of the world. I'm looking for reality-based, and that reality is...housing eats up a high percentage of income. What's to stop landlords from doing what they do now and pricing what the market will bear? Yes, it's such a simple question. I'm not the one missing anything.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoUBI is just direct wealth redistribution. It doesn’t actually create more housing, it just makes poorer people have more money to bid on housing and richer people have less money to bid on housing. As the landlord, probably rents on lower end properties will rise and and rents on higher end properties will fall if all of UBI was spent on housing and the taxes used to pay for it came out of housing budgets.
- pcthrowaway 3y agoI'm concerned that when everyone receives money, the people and corps with concentrated power/wealth are able to funnel it into their own pockets, and the money becomes worth less over time so that the people receiving it now need the UBI and an income to scrape by. Think about the shift towards dual income households; instead of households becoming more wealthy, society has changed such that it's difficult to survive on one income now (and for people with children, nearly impossible for most). If anything, households combining 2 incomes have a worse standard of living than a single-income household 40 years ago. I strongly believe at this point it would be better for society to prioritize housing, feeding, and attending to the medical needs of everyone; the possibility of paying them can then come later.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThe shift to dual income was a middle class thing. It didn’t change anything for the lower class, both parents were already working in their struggle to survive. The standard of living today is higher than 40 years ago, but we are paying for it by having more people in the workforce. The corps didn’t magically gobble up more profit.
- coldtea 3y agoWe probably should, as their track record both for predictions and for succesful policy suggestions is horrendous...
- pcthrowaway 3y agoBut the economy would collapse without money pouring into higher education economics programs
- coldtea 3y agoYeah, it's funny how we got the idea that what makes the economy tick is economists and their policy suggestions, as opposed to businesses and production and exports and inventions...
- fastball 3y agoDemand doesn't exist in a vacuum. If giving people UBI increases demand, supply usually follows. Although our ability to make more land is limited, our ability to increase housing stock is certainly not. And although NIMBYism frequently gets in the way of this, there is always a breaking point (more housing is built, or people pick up and leave).
- mytailorisrich 3y ago£1,600 a month is more than my mortgage so if I got that for free, guaranteed, every month, on top of my salary, and so did my wife, we would of course look at moving to a massively bigger house. Of course so would everyone else so prices would adjust...
- pavlov 3y agoIsn’t the point of UBI that it’s balanced by income tax increases? Everyone would receive £1,600 / month, but the high earners would pay that much more in taxes, so they wouldn’t have any extra money to spend on massive houses.
- zdragnar 3y agoNot in this study; the thirty participants aren't paying more in taxes. At the end of the day, the only conclusion they will reach is "people like free money."
- mytailorisrich 3y agoI don't get the benefit of giving everyone money just to take it all back from 80%+ of people over giving money as needed as the welfare state does now.
- Ekaros 3y agoBecause giving money as needed is expensive process. Quite a lot of paperwork to process and this can happen relatively often.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoThat's easy to claim. I'd like to see actual numbers and I doubt UBI proponents only want to make admin savings! More bluntly: I call BS on that argument.
- zhoujianfu 3y agoIf it were illegal to build more housing (which is unfortunately practically is in some NIMBY areas), prices might increase, yes… But if we fix zoning issues then supply should eventually catch up to meet the increased demand and prices should more or less be stable. I wouldn’t expect e.g. web hosting to increase in price if there were a UBI, as there’s plenty of competition and it is not in any way supply constrained.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago> I wouldn’t expect e.g. web hosting to increase in price if there were a UBI Domain name registration on the other hand, might