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UBI as a productivity dividend

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Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#101

Post by estearum »

SoftTalker wrote: post #90
larsiusprime wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good resource on the question -- Land Value Tax is not passed on to tenants, the landlord eats it. This is pretty unique among taxes, which is why LVT is a particularly good way to fund UBI, otherwise you would expect the UBI to result in inflated rents. https://progressandpovertyinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/P...

The argument seems to be "that landlords are already charging the maximum that tenants are willing to pay for access to a given location and so cannot arbitrarily raise rents when a LVT is imposed." But, if the tenants now have more money in the form of UBI, then that argument doesn't hold.

No the argument is that the landlord will raise rents, but they will not keep them. The gain generated by UBI, by virtue of raising the value of the land underneath the unit, would be recouped by the LVT at tax time.

UBI is passed from the tenants to the landlord in the form of higher prices, but is recouped by the LVT, which cannot be passed in reverse from the landlord back to the tenant.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#102

Post by JumpCrisscross »

advael wrote: post #54
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most of the arguments against it are moot points or simply falsehoods What are the falsehoods in complaints against police unions?

Police unions aren't the same thing as other unions. Most unions exist to equalize labor negotiation through collective bargaining, and police unions tend to include and align with the leadership in the organization that a union would traditionally be negotiating with. In practice they're a lot more like a military contractor than a union (in that their role is to prevent public accountability)

> Police unions aren't the same thing as other unions

What about California teachers’ unions? European notaries?

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#103

Post by AnimalMuppet »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #63
SequoiaHope wrote: post #62

The goal we all seek - liberation - is a distant one. That said I’m skeptical that UBI is the right way. UBI assumes and requires an elite ownership class and a powerful state to force them to share their profits. But as we’ve seen, such class members will organize to penetrate the state and contort it for their own ends. Thus any successful UBI will be a compromise or it will be dismantled by the powerful class that…

> UBI assumes and requires an elite ownership class and a powerful state to force them to share their profits. It makes no assumption about an elite ownership class at all. It merely assumes profits, and rearranges how those profits are distributed (away from shareholders, towards labor). There is no need for community ownership of the means of production (though that might have some different benefits, along with so…

Community ownership does share across sectors if the community owns both sectors. Why would it not?

Also, you haven't really answered the point. You may be able to get this established. But how do you keep it established? How do you keep the elite ownership class from dismantling it? (Based on historically observed behavior, the default assumption is that they will try.) If you don't have a plan that accounts for that, you don't really have a workable plan.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#104

Post by JumpCrisscross »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #57
advael wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police unions aren't the same thing as other unions. Most unions exist to equalize labor negotiation through collective bargaining, and police unions tend to include and align with the leadership in the organization that a union would traditionally be negotiating with. In practice they're a lot more like a military contractor than a union (in that their role is to prevent public accountability)

This is correct and the proof is that police do not strike with labor they fight labor on behalf of capital The core premise of a union is that you have solidarity primarily across unions which is actually how you get collective-bargaining at larger scales

> core premise of a union is that you have solidarity primarily across unions which is actually how you get collective-bargaining at larger scales

Police unions in New York regularly join hands with other public-sector unions.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#105

Post by keeda »

ambicapter wrote: post #4

The only way? What about built out infrastructure? What about universal health care? What about enforcing laws? What about enforcing truth in advertising? What about punishing various types of crooks in the various markets and transactions, financial and otherwise, that ordinary people take part in? The only way? Like a silver bullet? Like that thing that the common idiom says doesn't exist?

> What about universal health care?

I haven't thought this through, but I don't see how you could have UBI without universal healthcare. If the point of UBI is to ensure the most basic necessities are covered, and "basic necessities" includes healthcare, and healthcare is the Luigi-inducing travesty it is in the US right now, how is it UBI without universal healthcare?

The alternative is that UBI is high enough to cover healthcare, which is extremely (maybe unfeasibly so) expensive and creates all kinds of other incentives for abuse. Or we fix the systemic, profit motive-driven problems in the current system by nationalizing healthcare.

Yes, nationalized healthcare is also problematic, but I think UBI will indirectly alleviate a lot of the systemic problems there as well.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#106

Post by estearum »

NicuCalcea wrote: post #98
estearum wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More precisely: purchasing power. And that's my point. Your purchasing power will not change.

If we worked fewer hours for the same pay, our purchasing power would remain the same. I'm not saying there won't be any disruption at all, but we did it before with the five-day work week.

If "we" means everyone, yes. But the reality is there is a sufficient number of people willing to work more to earn more, and therefore they will raise prices of everything which destroys your purchasing power.

Your purchasing power is defined in a competitive equilibrium with your peers.

If you're assuming you can band everyone together to all decide to work fewer hours for the same pay, fine, but you just invented a union, not an improvement to UBI.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#107

Post by AnimalMuppet »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #7
shahmeern wrote: post #2

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

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…

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.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#108

Post by JumpCrisscross »

K0balt wrote: post #76
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most of the arguments against it are moot points or simply falsehoods What are the falsehoods in complaints against police unions?

lol. I typed ubi is and the autocorrect put “unions.” It has been corrected . But it is kinda funny anyway.

This reminds me of a trading incident decades ago. We were unwinding a portfolio of correlation trades. The trades basically bet on continued correlation between assets. Unwinding those trades means assets which typically correlate now correlate less. When we fucked we they sometimes anticorrelated. Anyway, some of these price movements were noticed and incessantly commented on by CNBC pundits. Theories abounded. All wrong. Most amusing.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#109

Post by bryanlarsen »

lotyrin wrote: post #21
bryanlarsen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#110

Post by randerson »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #68
randerson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be in a sense, because that money is otherwise mostly hoarded by the wealthy, whose spending would look the same whether or not they are taxed. If money is saved and not spent, it is not really part of the economy in this sense. But if the money is transferred to others and spent on additional goods & services that is when it increases demand and raises prices.

Ah yes, the old "we should actually be grateful to the ultra-rich, because by not spending all the financial resources they accumulate, they save us from inflation!"

I see it more as, we should have taken their money sooner so that we don't have this problem now!
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