The problem with UBI is that most versions of it would essentially liquidate social services that people would normally receive. UBI only makes sense in addition to the other parts of a comprehensive safety net (universal housing and healthcare), not as a replacement.
What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
71–80 of 474 posts
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You're gonna pay one way or another. Only because nonsense like this is allowed. > Some costs will be more monetary, some will be more health/crime-related, etc, but very few of us live in countries where there is a general desire and will to force people to work. You should be looking for work. If you haven't tried looking for a job you get your benefits removed. Obviously the Elderly and Disabled should get help…
Coward, downvoting because you have no response to my valid question.
You must be new here.
Two things: the people you're replying to can't downvote you, and complaining about downvotes will earn you downvotes.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#73The interview here is compelling. Yang's book is even more compelling. But what Yang doesn't do here or in his book is make a powerful case to fiscal conservative spelling out just how universal income will avoid demolishing the economy through inflation. Until this happens, UBI is going nowhere. Although COVID-19 is on everyone's minds right now, it wasn't too long ago that Venezuela, its hyperinflation, and empty s…
Inflation is a non-issue. Economic growth has largely been constrained by demand, not supply. And the modern economy is saturated with replacement goods. If the demand for milk goes up, I can switch to soy milk. If soy milk goes up, I can switch to Almond. And if all of them go up, I just drink water. Once most basic needs are met, inflation looses its power with a few exceptions. The financialization of our economy…
>If the demand for milk goes up, I can switch to soy milk. If soy milk goes up, I can switch to Almond. And if all of them go up, I just drink water.
What happens when the water gets privatized and you can't afford that?
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/water-privatizatio...
>After privatization, water rates increase at about three times the rate of inflation, with an average increase of 18 percent every other year
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#74Congress woman Tulsi Gabbard (the Clinton blacklisted presidential candidate) took on Yang's UBI initiative after he ran out of money and dropped out of the presidential race.
Gabbard introduced HRes 897 last Thursday and has been vocal about providing an urgent $1k per month UBI payment for the projected 10 million US citizens who will lose their jobs.
The DNC in their wisdom have again chosen to blank Gabbard and focus on AOC and Romney thinking about doing the same thing, although I believe there are now co sponsors and momentum for HRes897.
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/include-ubi-in-the-economi...
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m so confused why this inflation argument keeps popping up. If you’re paying for the Ubi with taxes then there’s no inflation. Net money supply hasn’t changed (0). If you pay for ubi by printing money then yes, inflation would be a problem. But no one has suggested that. (0) I’m willing to entertain an argument about the velocity of money increasing from ubi but I really doubt it would be too significant.
My understanding is that if it's known that every American adult collects $1000 in addition to their regular income, prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess, so that the net result isn't that everyone gets an extra $1000 in discretionary income, but that everyone ends up paying that extra $1000 back in inflated prices. Similar logic to how raising tariffs doesn't hurt companies a…
> prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess
The assumes financial excess. The reason for UBI is that there isn't excess. If 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, then that's not excess. If 63% of Americans can't afford an unexpected $500 bill, that's not excess.
You're right that inflation happens when there is excess, but given these stats, I don't buy that part of the argument. Even if these stats could be explained away from being financially irresponsible (I don't believe this is the common case), it still wouldn't be excess because people are still spending. If we don't assume excess then this argument becomes as silly as saying that giving people jobs with an income will cause inflation.
So where could this money be captured? A person that couldn't afford a car can now. I person with a $1k beater car can now buy a $5k car. Someone that was living paycheck to paycheck can now take a breath, buy a TV and a Netflix subscription. Someone that was unable to invest before could use that money to invest. The money affects everyone in different ways, but supporters of UBI think it is clear that there are already avenues to "capture" this money without inflation and that different income groups will spend the money differently. Studies have also shown that when there isn't full market capture cash injection doesn't cause meaningful rises in inflation.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Inflation is a non-issue. Economic growth has largely been constrained by demand, not supply. And the modern economy is saturated with replacement goods. If the demand for milk goes up, I can switch to soy milk. If soy milk goes up, I can switch to Almond. And if all of them go up, I just drink water. Once most basic needs are met, inflation looses its power with a few exceptions. The financialization of our economy…
Uh, the housing market is more complex than you think. If the bottom of the market gets bid up because of an increase in purchasing power that will affect higher priced units too - if previously I was considering a shitty studio in a bad area for $500/mo vs a 1bed in a good area for $1k/mo, and now the studio is $800/mo, don’t you think the 1bed is going to cost more too? Also everybody has low interest rates for the…
It's certainly more complicated than I understand, but I see it like this...
Case 1: With no UBI the person who works in food service has to live an hour or more out of town and commutes to work each day. This is because their pay is better in town than out of town so it's worth it financially overall. Or they simply are paying more in housing costs than they should, are feeding money up the rent chain instead of saving to say own their own house and have a tenuous living environment for a family.
Case 2: With UBI the person can just move to a place where housing costs are $300 a month and do whatever they want without worrying about how they'll support themselves in an emergency where they can't find work. They could start a business. Volunteer. Stay at home and raise kids. Take care of the neighbors kids and teach them gardening. Or work if the pay is actually high enough to justify it, which seems to push more money down to human workers over profit automatons. Hey, teachers could live and teach in cities with smaller school budgets!
Is that inflation? I suppose in the sense of rising buying power diluting the dollar some, but assuming it's paid for by a high progressive tax after a certain income amount, I think it's just wealth redistribution that levels out the overall geographical housing cost to income ratio.
I think it would reduce the power of landlords, though certainly doomsayers say it will just push up rental and house prices. I think this is possible to a point, but honestly seems too locally focused. I think a lot of people would leave where they are if they knew they could support themselves somewhere new.
$1000 a month would offset decreased pay more in an absolute sense in a lower cost of living area. This will make it feasible for a family to move safely to a new place without a job lined up. Or know that if they join a union and get fired they'll have baseline support. It's hard for me to see this as favoring anyone but lower income human workers even if it's not perfect in every way.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure how one would manage to produce $1,000 per month per citizen over 18 without printing money. That's $2,500,000,000,000 per year. You'd have to raise taxes by more than 50% to cover the costs.
The US govt has recently dumped trillions into the banking system in a matter of days. Last I checked they were talking about additionally cutting payroll taxes for the year. Somehow they were able to do this without raising taxes by 50%... Turns out we have the money after all.
This isn't a fair comparison. That injection is a loan. I support UBI, but we can't be making bad comparisons like this. It doesn't help.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m so confused why this inflation argument keeps popping up. If you’re paying for the Ubi with taxes then there’s no inflation. Net money supply hasn’t changed (0). If you pay for ubi by printing money then yes, inflation would be a problem. But no one has suggested that. (0) I’m willing to entertain an argument about the velocity of money increasing from ubi but I really doubt it would be too significant.
Rich people aren't spending all their money on stuff, they're investing it. If wealthy people were to take all that wealth and start buying stuff (themselves or via redistribution through taxes to UBI), there isn't magically more stuff, so the price of stuff goes way up => inflation.
Investing is just lending money to people who need to buy something, such as capital. That money is still spent. In fact it needs to be spent on production, in order to produce returns.
You can’t just store wealth in a vault and have it grow.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#79The fact that covid is screwing the world right now does not mean that we should all be getting UBI under non emergency conditions. Putting Romney's plan in with Yang's is a conflation here because one is only for a single unprecedented global emergency, not everyday life. That said, UBI is quite literal wealth redistribution. You take taxes from the haves and give the cash directly to the hands of the have nots. The…
There's nothing unethical about a wealth tax. Billionaires made their fortunates on the backs of society and have only maintained that power and wealth through corruption and bribery. They should have never had that money to begin with.
Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
#80The interview here is compelling. Yang's book is even more compelling. But what Yang doesn't do here or in his book is make a powerful case to fiscal conservative spelling out just how universal income will avoid demolishing the economy through inflation. Until this happens, UBI is going nowhere. Although COVID-19 is on everyone's minds right now, it wasn't too long ago that Venezuela, its hyperinflation, and empty s…
I agree that it needs to be addressed, but my worry is that it’s complete conjecture. So many people were predicting massive inflation from quantitative easing but that never came to pass. To me, the scary thought is implementing UBI without a mechanism to reel it back if our model wasn’t right
QE added ~$3 trillion cumulatively to the money supply at its peak. And most of it sat on banks' balance sheets because in a $200+ trillion global financial asset market ($300+ trillion today), $3 trillion doesn't do much to change banks' incentive structure for making loans, it just propped up the existing incentive structures so the whole system didn't collapse.
I can't fathom how adding $2+ trillion every year directly to working Americans' wallets wouldn't lead to greater consumer price inflation than we've seen with QE. That doesn't actually tell us much about whether UBI is worthwhile, but I don't see the point in denying it. In fact, it's important to have that discussion because there are ways we could mitigate it. For example, most of UBI would likely get sucked up by supply-constrained markets like housing, so it's probably a good idea to combine UBI with housing reform, such as development as of right for missing middle multifamily projects.
I agree, we should have an exit plan. But we should also have an entry plan.