Request For Research: Basic Income

The bay area is an interesting example. Prices are skyrocketing from demand, but part of the reason why supply has been so slow is that demand has been so sudden. San Francisco has always had a high quality of life, but it did just fine until the tech booms. The majority of people now moving to SF are coming for economic reasons. Would UBI reduce these motivations, easing pressure on the local rental market? I don't know.

SF definitely demonstrates that the price of food will go up if there's enough money floating around. But you can still get a burrito for $6 if you know where to look.

But the more interesting possibility is actually that we don't increase demand. You have the unemployed, who will go from having no income to having income, and demand from them will certainly rise for the necessities. But for the large middle swath, perhaps this will not add to their spending, but instead provide a means for people to take longer vacations, stay home with children, or create artwork more adventurously. Perhaps this will, rather than increasing demand generally, provide flexibility sufficient for the middle class to feel safer in spending more time in ways that build social ties, benefit the community, and create cultural value that is insufficiently valued in the current economic regime.

The gap that I see in this approach is everyone has a different definition of what is a nicety and what is a necessity.

To go with your tobacco example, I personally don't believe that tobacco should be considered a necessity. (Though I have no problem with Nicorette / nicotine gum being in that category, which could be used by someone unable to buy cigarettes to satisfy their craving.) Someone else may have a different definition of a necessity vs nicety altogether.

It's much simpler IMO to just give people ordinary currency, and let them decide how to spend it best.

Definitely think it would be interesting to see YC Research's take on economics research, but I'm left wondering, why would someone want to take this position? As opposed to, say, entering an economics PhD program and studying the problem there. To be clear, I don't mean to spark an academia-vs-industry (or whatever YC research would be categorized as) battle. I don't know the field of econ research well and my prior would be that more perspectives and approaches to the issue would be helpful in studying the problem. What I'm interested in what would someone personally want out of doing this research but without the support of collaborators in a more formally collegial academic setting or the reputation and pull of an established think tank.

To be clear, I'm not trying to argue that taking this position is a bad idea, I'm just trying to better understand the opportunity and why YC research might be a better decision than a more run-of-the-mill PhD. I'm ever so slightly skeptical, but mostly just curious.

* This is enforced by only permitting certain sellers to accept necessity-dollars, and only on certain transactions.

there are so many reasons why this wouldn't work. The whole point of UBI is that you are not creating a judgemental system by which certain products are or are not reified by the system. Would tampons be covered by UBFS? Let's say then we allow for UBFS to cover female menstrual products. Would cups then be covered? Why or why not? How would you validate a product as being "for a given use"? How much political maneuvering would be required to get a permit for a product?

* inelastic demand (as found by the BLS during CPI calculation)

Pray tell how does one measure demand elasticity[0]? And if you're entrusting the BLS to do this, will they apply fudge factors? Why or why not? Who gets to influence the BLS to get the 'stats right' on their

* You can't tax or fine anyone in necessity-dollars

one word: Arbitrage.

[0] usually a merchant does this by dicking around with the price.

A startup is a corporation with angels and VCs (who raise money from LPs). Over time, the larger startups go on NASDAQ or the NYSE, and then after time issue dividends. They expropriate the surplus labor time from the people who work and create the wealth of their company.

A corporation is a tool by one class to exploit and expropriate from another class, so asking how a startup/corporation can help workers is contradictory. The way to help workers is to abolish corporations and capitalism.

With the rise of capitalism came into existence a new category - unemployment. The major US business magazines worry about unemployment - when it gets too low ( http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_44/b3653163.htm ). Too many people who want work having work is seen as the problem. Why? Because a reserve army of labor is needed as a cudgel against those who are employed.

People don't need to be convinced of this. We can see what is happening as China has taken the capitalist road, in Greece, in Spain. The fed funds rate went from next to nothing to 0.25% and the US stock market began tanking - after years and years of free money. As Marx said, capitalism is like every economic system before it - a self-destructive one. In some months, or some years, all the starry-eyed 20 somethings in San Francisco will be facing what the starry eyed 20 year olds of 2000-2001 went through - layoffs and no work. The lucky ones will land some shit job for less pay. I supposed if you have a doctorate in machine learning from MIT and are working at Google or Facebook you might not notice this happening, but everyone else will.

"The angel market is drying up because the stock market went down and people have less money". See and hear children. Learn.

We don't have to convince people of this. The people controlling the capital will botch it up, the economy will tank more, and everyone will be told to "tighten their belts" except the type of people Graham writes hosannas for in his odes to wealth inequality. Some fools will lick the boot kicking them, but not all will and we go from there. Feudalism lasted maybe 1000 years, capitalism has been around in a real sense for maybe half that time, but many think it is more unstable than feudalism and will keel over faster.