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> My guess is that if UBI added $1,000/mo to everyone's income Aside from whether the prediction is realistic under this assumption, UBI under any realistic fi

> My guess is that if UBI added $1,000/mo to everyone's income Aside from whether the prediction is realistic under this assumption, UBI under any realistic financing scheme doesn't do that. It replaces (and potentially increases the net benefit of) means-tested welfare at the bottom end of the income distribution and spreads the clawback from a set of relatively sharp cliffs that occur between working poor and middle income levels to a much more gradual effective trail-off over nearly the whole income distribution as part of progressive income taxation.

tzs 2y ago
Has anyone considered something like UBI but instead of income make it UBG--Universal Basic Goods. The idea would be that when automation advances to the point that something can be made with very little labor the government would build automated factories to produce that thing and make the output available for free. There would still be room for private companies to make those things too. They could make fancier or higher end models for those people who want something more than the free models from the government.
- EMIRELADERO 2y ago
  And who would purchase those, and with what? The only scenario where UBI/UGI would make sense is one where AI can replace most/all humans at any job they could have. At that point it makes no sense for there to be a economic hierarchy at all.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    No, UBI makes sense right now (the exact level that makes sense changes over time), it is a lower-bureaucracy, lower perverse-incentives alternative to means-tested welfare (and, possibly, also minimum wages) as a means of providing a support floor (its not really a flat addition because any means of financing it will provide some form of clawback, and if done through the progressive income tax, it becomes redistributiion that compresses the pre-benefit-and-supporting-tax income distribution. UBG is a completely different story, though.
Noumenon72 2y ago
The way it does all these things is by adding $1,000/mo to everyone's income. That is what UBI is. Whether you choose to cut means-tested welfare or increase progressive taxation alongside it is up to you.

tzs 2y ago

Has anyone considered something like UBI but instead of income make it UBG--Universal Basic Goods. The idea would be that when automation advances to the point that something can be made with very little labor the government would build automated factories to produce that thing and make the output available for free. There would still be room for private companies to make those things too. They could make fancier or higher end models for those people who want something more than the free models from the government.

EMIRELADERO 2y ago
And who would purchase those, and with what? The only scenario where UBI/UGI would make sense is one where AI can replace most/all humans at any job they could have. At that point it makes no sense for there to be a economic hierarchy at all.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  No, UBI makes sense right now (the exact level that makes sense changes over time), it is a lower-bureaucracy, lower perverse-incentives alternative to means-tested welfare (and, possibly, also minimum wages) as a means of providing a support floor (its not really a flat addition because any means of financing it will provide some form of clawback, and if done through the progressive income tax, it becomes redistributiion that compresses the pre-benefit-and-supporting-tax income distribution. UBG is a completely different story, though.

Noumenon72 2y ago

The way it does all these things is by adding $1,000/mo to everyone's income. That is what UBI is. Whether you choose to cut means-tested welfare or increase progressive taxation alongside it is up to you.