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I'm of the exact opposite opinion. My view is that UBI will have a effect similar to minimim wages: it will raise prices by raising demand against a fixed (or f

I'm of the exact opposite opinion. My view is that UBI will have a effect similar to minimim wages: it will raise prices by raising demand against a fixed (or falling supply), and it will do this by stealing from people that are productive. All government welfare is bad. The "strings attached" versions tend to be better because they impose requirements before distributions are allocated. You want to do wjat you want without restriction? Fine. Pay for it. All welfare should come from private charity. Strings are typically attached, the outcomes are better, and you don't have to steal from a single person to do it.

conception 2y ago
Cite sources as any Ive seen disagree with these points. Any history pre-new deal shows how incorrect this standing is. Also, taxes aren’t theft. It’s the cost of living in society and providing for societal, shared goods. “Streets are theft!! All roads should be toll roads!” Want a grand society…
- thechao 2y ago
  My favorite eye-roll was a random YT short of a power washer dude driving down an interstate in his behemoth diesel (his equipment could've fit in a large sedan), complaining that he only pays taxes to the gov't but gets no benefit from it, streaming the video over cellular.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    ...drinking clean water, breathing in clean air, on his way to buy safe, disease-free food from the supermarket...
    - hellojesus 2y ago
      All of this could just as well be created by the private sector.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - tetris11 2y ago
        Fiduciury duty, and the lack of a regulatory body to ensure some semblance of actual competition means that that private industry would likely not act in the interests of the public
        hellojesus 2y ago
        The public only has an interest in public goods. And those are still provided by the state. Private goods should be influenced by private transactions, and competiton guides those to optimal market-based outcomes.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        tetris11 2y ago
        You're advocating for the privatization of clean drinking water, breathable air, and disease-free food. Have you seen what has happened to the UK in the past 10 years? Do you still believe that privatization was a net benefit there? The only way to guarantee competition is to punish predatory practices of large companies against small ones, which means, surprise, regulation.
- hellojesus 2y ago
  > Also, taxes aren’t theft. It’s the cost of living in society and providing for societal, shared goods. “Streets are theft!! All roads should be toll roads!” Want a grand society… How is UBI a shared good? It definitionally takes from some to give to others. That is the opposite of a shared good. Taxes are theft when taxes are used for nonpublic goods. That means any good that is not both nonrivalous and nonexcludable. We tend to allow the bluring of nonpublic goods the more hyperlocal we get, since we can more accurately address needs. But such nonpublic goods are still funded via theft. What's wrong with paying for that which you use? It's a consumption based model, and I do believe it would lead to better economic and societal outcomes.
  - jakelazaroff 2y ago
    > Taxes are theft when taxes are used for nonpublic goods. That means any good that is not both nonrivalous and nonexcludable. No one else here seems to share this axiom. I appreciate that it’s important to your worldview but it’s also why you and everyone else are arguing past each other.
alephnerd 2y ago
> My view is that UBI will have a effect similar to minimim wages: it will raise prices by raising demand against a fixed (or falling supply), and it will do this by stealing from people that are productive We have a UBI program already running in America - Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend It has been shown that "the dividend had no effect on employment and increased part-time work by 1.8 percentage points" [0] and has lifted 25,000 Alaskans out of poverty in 2015 alone [1] [0] - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190299 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190299 [1] - https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/2016_12-PFDandPoverty-Summary.pdf https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/2016_...
- hellojesus 2y ago
  > [0] Our preferred interpretation of the empirical patterns we observe is that the null em- ployment effect could be explained a by positive general equilibrium response offsetting a negative income effect. The unconditional cash transfer results in consumption increases that stimulate labor demand and could mitigate potential reductions in employment. While we do not directly test this channel, we do show indirect evidence for this general equilibium effect in two ways: first, we compare our empirical employment effect to the expected micro and macro effects of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend based on estimates from prior literature, and second we compare the impact of the cash transfer on the tradable and non-tradable sectors. > Second, the impact on labor demand should be especially pronounced in the non- tradable sector. We show suggestive evidence consistent with this hypothesis — the esti- mated effects of the dividend on both employment and part-time work are sizeable in the tradable sector and suggest a reduction in labor, but are close to zero in the non-tradable sector. These estimates are only suggestive, but are consistent with a macro feedback effect on employment. I enjoy data, so thank you for the studies. That said, I do not think these are adequate to generalize the impacts of UBI. Mostly this is because the Alaska-based UBI only contributes a mean of ~$4k/household. That seems wholly too small to make national conclusions; such a UBI amount is insufficient for life. I do appreciate that the general equilibrium held. That is, the negative offsets of the opportunity cost of employment were offset by the new employment demand that the UBI stimulus had on the economy. But I think it's important to distinguish the tradeable vs nontradeable conclusion: > Second, the impact on labor demand should be especially pronounced in the non- tradable sector. We show suggestive evidence consistent with this hypothesis — the esti- mated effects of the dividend on both employment and part-time work are sizeable in the tradable sector and suggest a reduction in labor, but are close to zero in the non-tradable sector. These estimates are only suggestive, but are consistent with a macro feedback effect on employment. To me, it seems that the impact of PFD is akin to a stimulus check. The fungible money is utilized to buy luxuries[+]. I can think of no other reason that demand for nontradeable goods would spike. Thus, although people are lifted out of poverty, unless their nontradeble consumption is housing[+], then their consumption seems to be misaligned with general wealth building principles, such as saving and investing the difference. More broadly, if the nation adopted UBI, tradeable offsets may be harder to come by, as they would be required to be imports, since the other states would face the same labor impact as AK. Thank you for the data. I'll read more when I have some time, but my opinion seems to be generally unchanged, though I recognize the impacts may be lesser than my prior suggested.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
Why do you think that? ~60% of consumption in the US is for goods that adjust supply relatively well: food, clothing, material goods, services et cetera. The other 40% is the cost of housing. UBI could help tremendously here. The US has really cheap housing in places with no jobs and expensive housing in places with jobs. UBI would allow those without jobs to move to the cheap places. UBI is unlikely to be generous so if you want to live off UBI without a job it would almost force you to either supplement with a job or move to a place with cheap housing.
- hellojesus 2y ago
  > ~60% of consumption in the US is for goods that adjust supply relatively well: food, clothing, material goods, services et cetera. Any demand increase will lead to price increases against a fixed supply. You propose that supply will rise if demand does. Perhaps. But a lot of these industries rely on unskilled workers, and UBI would give those unskilled workers free money. I hypothesize unskilled workers would demand a higher wage to trade their freetime for worktime, and that would increase costs and therefore prices. > The US has really cheap housing in places with no jobs and expensive housing in places with jobs. UBI would allow those without jobs to move to the cheap places There is a reason some places are cheap: little economic opportunity. We saw the massive change some of these places underwent when covid sent many to remote only work amd they moved out of the city. The difference is that during covid those people brought private dollars to the cheaper places. UBI proposes to steal from wealthy to prop up cheap places. It creates economic deadweight.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    > . I hypothesize unskilled workers would demand a higher wage to trade their freetime for work I hypothesize the opposite. A UBI eliminates the need for minimum wage. And small differences in income are very meaningful for the poor. For instance if somebody is making $1k/month from UBI, a $1/hour job increases income to $1160. That's very meaningful and some would take it if nothing else is available.
    - 2y ago
pif 2y ago
[flagged]
- hellojesus 2y ago
  I don't wear red. Just yesterday I saw a headline about Trump stating he wanted to lower taxes while skyrocketting tarrifs. Seems Big Red doesn't know tarrifs are taxes. I would much rather Peter Schiff hold the office.
tempfile 2y ago
And what about necessary welfare that isn't covered by private charity? Have you ever seen or heard what life was like before WWII in developed countries? Do you think those people should just die in the street?
- hellojesus 2y ago
  > Do you think those people should just die in the street? I expect for this to be an available path but an unlikely one. People tend to give to those in need. Sometimes that comes with conditions: no drugs, get a job, etc. Historically we used religious institutions for this, which is largely why they are tax exempt. Breaking poverty tends to require a shift in behavior. UBI by definition removes the requirement that someone makes EV+ decisions and lifestyle changes.
  - tempfile 2y ago
    > I expect this to be... an unlikely one On what basis? Do you know how many people die in poverty in countries with no social safety net?
    - hellojesus 2y ago
      It is irrelevant to the US federal government. Nowhere does S1A8 authorize Congress to act on starvation.
      - tempfile 2y ago
        I don't think this comment makes sense. I'm not asking about your reading of the constitution. I'm trying to get you to admit that you don't care whether people die in poverty, and that you have no reason to think a small number of people would die if state assistance was removed. The moral claim (and your original argument was a moral claim) has nothing to do with whatever S1A8 is or does.
LightHugger 2y ago
Just wait until you hear about wage theft and how common it is! You likely profit directly from stealing from people if you have any stock holdings.

conception 2y ago

Cite sources as any Ive seen disagree with these points. Any history pre-new deal shows how incorrect this standing is. Also, taxes aren’t theft. It’s the cost of living in society and providing for societal, shared goods. “Streets are theft!! All roads should be toll roads!” Want a grand society…

thechao 2y ago
My favorite eye-roll was a random YT short of a power washer dude driving down an interstate in his behemoth diesel (his equipment could've fit in a large sedan), complaining that he only pays taxes to the gov't but gets no benefit from it, streaming the video over cellular.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  ...drinking clean water, breathing in clean air, on his way to buy safe, disease-free food from the supermarket...
  - hellojesus 2y ago
    All of this could just as well be created by the private sector.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - tetris11 2y ago
      Fiduciury duty, and the lack of a regulatory body to ensure some semblance of actual competition means that that private industry would likely not act in the interests of the public
      - hellojesus 2y ago
        The public only has an interest in public goods. And those are still provided by the state. Private goods should be influenced by private transactions, and competiton guides those to optimal market-based outcomes.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        tetris11 2y ago
        You're advocating for the privatization of clean drinking water, breathable air, and disease-free food. Have you seen what has happened to the UK in the past 10 years? Do you still believe that privatization was a net benefit there? The only way to guarantee competition is to punish predatory practices of large companies against small ones, which means, surprise, regulation.
hellojesus 2y ago
> Also, taxes aren’t theft. It’s the cost of living in society and providing for societal, shared goods. “Streets are theft!! All roads should be toll roads!” Want a grand society… How is UBI a shared good? It definitionally takes from some to give to others. That is the opposite of a shared good. Taxes are theft when taxes are used for nonpublic goods. That means any good that is not both nonrivalous and nonexcludable. We tend to allow the bluring of nonpublic goods the more hyperlocal we get, since we can more accurately address needs. But such nonpublic goods are still funded via theft. What's wrong with paying for that which you use? It's a consumption based model, and I do believe it would lead to better economic and societal outcomes.
- jakelazaroff 2y ago
  > Taxes are theft when taxes are used for nonpublic goods. That means any good that is not both nonrivalous and nonexcludable. No one else here seems to share this axiom. I appreciate that it’s important to your worldview but it’s also why you and everyone else are arguing past each other.

alephnerd 2y ago

> My view is that UBI will have a effect similar to minimim wages: it will raise prices by raising demand against a fixed (or falling supply), and it will do this by stealing from people that are productive We have a UBI program already running in America - Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend It has been shown that "the dividend had no effect on employment and increased part-time work by 1.8 percentage points" [0] and has lifted 25,000 Alaskans out of poverty in 2015 alone [1] [0] - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190299 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190299 [1] - https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/2016_12-PFDandPoverty-Summary.pdf https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/2016_...

hellojesus 2y ago
> [0] Our preferred interpretation of the empirical patterns we observe is that the null em- ployment effect could be explained a by positive general equilibrium response offsetting a negative income effect. The unconditional cash transfer results in consumption increases that stimulate labor demand and could mitigate potential reductions in employment. While we do not directly test this channel, we do show indirect evidence for this general equilibium effect in two ways: first, we compare our empirical employment effect to the expected micro and macro effects of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend based on estimates from prior literature, and second we compare the impact of the cash transfer on the tradable and non-tradable sectors. > Second, the impact on labor demand should be especially pronounced in the non- tradable sector. We show suggestive evidence consistent with this hypothesis — the esti- mated effects of the dividend on both employment and part-time work are sizeable in the tradable sector and suggest a reduction in labor, but are close to zero in the non-tradable sector. These estimates are only suggestive, but are consistent with a macro feedback effect on employment. I enjoy data, so thank you for the studies. That said, I do not think these are adequate to generalize the impacts of UBI. Mostly this is because the Alaska-based UBI only contributes a mean of ~$4k/household. That seems wholly too small to make national conclusions; such a UBI amount is insufficient for life. I do appreciate that the general equilibrium held. That is, the negative offsets of the opportunity cost of employment were offset by the new employment demand that the UBI stimulus had on the economy. But I think it's important to distinguish the tradeable vs nontradeable conclusion: > Second, the impact on labor demand should be especially pronounced in the non- tradable sector. We show suggestive evidence consistent with this hypothesis — the esti- mated effects of the dividend on both employment and part-time work are sizeable in the tradable sector and suggest a reduction in labor, but are close to zero in the non-tradable sector. These estimates are only suggestive, but are consistent with a macro feedback effect on employment. To me, it seems that the impact of PFD is akin to a stimulus check. The fungible money is utilized to buy luxuries[+]. I can think of no other reason that demand for nontradeable goods would spike. Thus, although people are lifted out of poverty, unless their nontradeble consumption is housing[+], then their consumption seems to be misaligned with general wealth building principles, such as saving and investing the difference. More broadly, if the nation adopted UBI, tradeable offsets may be harder to come by, as they would be required to be imports, since the other states would face the same labor impact as AK. Thank you for the data. I'll read more when I have some time, but my opinion seems to be generally unchanged, though I recognize the impacts may be lesser than my prior suggested.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

Why do you think that? ~60% of consumption in the US is for goods that adjust supply relatively well: food, clothing, material goods, services et cetera. The other 40% is the cost of housing. UBI could help tremendously here. The US has really cheap housing in places with no jobs and expensive housing in places with jobs. UBI would allow those without jobs to move to the cheap places. UBI is unlikely to be generous so if you want to live off UBI without a job it would almost force you to either supplement with a job or move to a place with cheap housing.

hellojesus 2y ago
> ~60% of consumption in the US is for goods that adjust supply relatively well: food, clothing, material goods, services et cetera. Any demand increase will lead to price increases against a fixed supply. You propose that supply will rise if demand does. Perhaps. But a lot of these industries rely on unskilled workers, and UBI would give those unskilled workers free money. I hypothesize unskilled workers would demand a higher wage to trade their freetime for worktime, and that would increase costs and therefore prices. > The US has really cheap housing in places with no jobs and expensive housing in places with jobs. UBI would allow those without jobs to move to the cheap places There is a reason some places are cheap: little economic opportunity. We saw the massive change some of these places underwent when covid sent many to remote only work amd they moved out of the city. The difference is that during covid those people brought private dollars to the cheaper places. UBI proposes to steal from wealthy to prop up cheap places. It creates economic deadweight.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  > . I hypothesize unskilled workers would demand a higher wage to trade their freetime for work I hypothesize the opposite. A UBI eliminates the need for minimum wage. And small differences in income are very meaningful for the poor. For instance if somebody is making $1k/month from UBI, a $1/hour job increases income to $1160. That's very meaningful and some would take it if nothing else is available.
  - 2y ago

pif 2y ago

[flagged]

hellojesus 2y ago
I don't wear red. Just yesterday I saw a headline about Trump stating he wanted to lower taxes while skyrocketting tarrifs. Seems Big Red doesn't know tarrifs are taxes. I would much rather Peter Schiff hold the office.

tempfile 2y ago

And what about necessary welfare that isn't covered by private charity? Have you ever seen or heard what life was like before WWII in developed countries? Do you think those people should just die in the street?

hellojesus 2y ago
> Do you think those people should just die in the street? I expect for this to be an available path but an unlikely one. People tend to give to those in need. Sometimes that comes with conditions: no drugs, get a job, etc. Historically we used religious institutions for this, which is largely why they are tax exempt. Breaking poverty tends to require a shift in behavior. UBI by definition removes the requirement that someone makes EV+ decisions and lifestyle changes.
- tempfile 2y ago
  > I expect this to be... an unlikely one On what basis? Do you know how many people die in poverty in countries with no social safety net?
  - hellojesus 2y ago
    It is irrelevant to the US federal government. Nowhere does S1A8 authorize Congress to act on starvation.
    - tempfile 2y ago
      I don't think this comment makes sense. I'm not asking about your reading of the constitution. I'm trying to get you to admit that you don't care whether people die in poverty, and that you have no reason to think a small number of people would die if state assistance was removed. The moral claim (and your original argument was a moral claim) has nothing to do with whatever S1A8 is or does.

LightHugger 2y ago

Just wait until you hear about wage theft and how common it is! You likely profit directly from stealing from people if you have any stock holdings.