Does UBI really solve the problem, wouldn’t it just make everything more expensive?

bryanlarsen 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not necessarily. It's straightforward to make it revenue neutral.

You make it revenue neutral for the average tacpayer. If you want UBI to be $1000/month, you increase the average tax by $1000. The average taxpayer still benefit because even though they don't get more money, they have a safety net.

People making less than average get more UBI than the tax increase, and those making more pay more.

Most people get more money because the median income us a lot lower than the average.

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lotyrin 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Right, but people with lower incomes spend, and mostly on necessities, I think the idea is that most of those necessities would become more expensive (naturally or artificially due to price-fixing) if the poorest suddenly had more financial power. In the system as it stands, it seems to me like it'd just result in a bunch of money going to grocery giants and their suppliers, landlords, medical, etc.

	▲	bryanlarsen an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Most of those are commodities, where the price is set by the cost of marginal supply. Housing prices should go down. Housing is expensive in places with jobs and cheap in places without jobs. UBI gives people the freedom to move from the former to the latter. Healthcare is screwed up, UBI or no.
	▲	shahmeern 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yeah this is the downstream effect I had in mind. You could say we'd increase supply to meet the demand but that hasn't really worked out with housing for example

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nostrebored 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This assumes all goods are wanted and consumed equally. Housing, milk, meat, eggs, etc. do not see downward pressure from this.

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AnimalMuppet an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Is it straightforward to get Congress to make it revenue neutral? And to keep it revenue neutral? I don't think so. Politicians find "free money for everybody" to be too easy a way of getting votes.

	▲	bryanlarsen an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Straightforward? Yes. Easy? heck no.

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recursivecaveat 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If the only money is UBI money then things start to get weird. If UBI coexists with regular income in moderation then it doesn't change much. Consider that about 1/3 Americans receive some form of government assistance. There's already a kind of fallback UBI distributed across SNAP + Medicare + Medicaid + Unemployment + Social Security + etc, and no one on those programs is clamoring for them to be shut down so that lentils become cheaper. Giving money to everyone does increase inflation (though you can play with the tax rate to offset that), but the important effect is it transfers purchasing power to net recipients. Basically: the economy wide money supply would at worst go up by a modest factor, the income of the poorest goes up by an absolute amount (or a massive factor if you want to view it that way), which is a huge benefit to them.

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ambicapter 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Solve the problem" probably not, but trigger inflation, probably not, since the amount is so low, it will have very little impact on the behavior of the richest, but it would have a massive impact on the behavior of the poorest, and their purchase habits generally don't impact inflation as much.

UBI is just a band-aid on not taxing the rich, though.

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kbelder 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The purchase habits of the poor impact the products purchased primarily by the poor quite a bit.

Cheap rental properties. Basic phone plans. Cheap food. The poor buy vastly more ramen noodles than the rich.

	▲	ambicapter 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Cheap rental properties They buy at most one. > basic phone plans They buy at most one. > Cheap food, ramen noodles. Humans have fixed calorie needs and even the very obese spend maybe 10x the norm, nothing more. Compare that to the prospect of someone buying MULTIPLE properties, possibly multiple properties that are 10x more expensive the norm, the price disparity between a regular car and multiple supercars, the price disparity between owning a boat and/or yacht vs...not owning a boat.

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Galaxeblaffer 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not everything, only stuff that are suddenly in higher demand that can't increase supply. If you take food as an example i don't imagine demand would increase? And if it did we could probably just produce more? And also it's not like everyone will have unlimited money, so you'll still have to prioritize and luckily we don't all have the same priorities. I'm pretty sure the idea is to fund this by taxing production and not by printing money, so inflation shouldn't be a problem.

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Detrytus 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, it does cause huge inflation, but that's not even the biggest problem with it. That would be: people do not really like to share fruits of their labor with strangers, so UBI would significantly undermine the motivation to do anything other than bare minimum.

UBI is not possible until robots and AI take over most jobs (but then we risk that one day the AI decides to just get rid of "those useless humans")

	▲	xantronix 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't think we should worry about the advent of AGI deciding to get rid of us; I'm more worried about the people who own the AI current AI infrastructure, as well as the current US regime, who don't see the value in the pesky humans beyond revenue and votes, respectively.
	▲	satvikpendem 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Isn't UBI just a sort of tax, which people pay already, whether they like it or not? I agree with your second paragraph though.