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AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

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Re: AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

#171

Post by twiceaday »

oDot wrote: post #120
burlesona wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a long answer to your post but a shorter one is this: the housing market in California is absolutely a zero sum game due to policies that essentially hold the supply as fixed.

There is only one Mona Lisa. A voluntary transaction where one party buys it from another is not zero sum, both parties gain.

I think zero-sum was meant from a perspective of a fixed-resource being divvied up among more and more people. In that case each person gets a smaller and smaller theoretical share. Any exchange is locally fair but globally everybody is becoming worse and worse off. This is especially true if you disconnect the concept of living in your own home from the investment opportunity. I doubt many people are going "Sorry honey, we cannot afford a house now or probably ever, but hey that's fair because if we could afford it with so little money we'd be getting access to an unreasonably good performing investment and that wouldn't be fair to others." I think most (reasonable) renters would settle for significantly worse performing housing market in exchange for cheaper housing so that they could transition from renting to owning.

Re: AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

#172

Post by zoonosis »

mcv wrote: post #52
gedy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mainly a try at introducing a VAT, populist UBI stuff is probably secondary goal

VAT seems an odd way to fund Basic Income. It should be part of the income tax system. I believe Friedman called it a negative income tax. If it's a livable BI, it should replace welfare and similar benefits.

I believe the US already has a negative income tax, the EITC.

Re: AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

#173

Post by zoonosis »

jchanimal wrote: post #159
mech1234 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it already the government's money?

They print it and they defend its value by providing a legal and defense framework within which the market operates. If it is better for the economy that quantitative easing happen via cash payouts to the people rather than via capital injections to banks, the government has the purview to do that.

It is hard to justify government control of the money supply with the argument that they protect its value when you look at the value of the dollar over the past hundred years.

Re: AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

#175

Post by JoeAltmaier »

thereisnospork wrote: post #155
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houses get built, maybe just not in the favorite places. People get roommates. Sure housing is more inflexible than some products, but not a whole lot.

> Houses get built, maybe just not in the favorite places. So 9 out of 10 families get to live in a commutable distance to where they work, or 2 families get to live in half the appropriate space. Not good for the economy, not good for the families, very good for landlords. Whether or not housing is naturally flexible, CA's government has done pretty darn well making it inflexible. See rents vs. inflation. Every doll…

Straw man.

Re: AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

#176

Post by fargle »

michaelt wrote: post #105
oDot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write as if markets are a zero sum game, however they are most certainly not. You say the poor tenant will transfer wealth to the wealthy landlord as if the tenant is losing. However -- they are both gaining. Say the rent is $1000. Obviously, the property usage right is worth to the landlord less than $1000, otherwise he would've just used the property himself. He gains. The property usage right is worth more tha…

Housing markets are a zero-sum game if you refuse to build more housing when demand exceeds supply If ten families want houses and there are only nine on the market, one family will go without whether you have auctions, price caps, land taxes, means testing, subsidies, or any other economic intervention, because nine is less than ten

And when demand exceeds supply by enough, the prices go up until they reach a point where it becomes non-unprofitable and then people stop "refusing" to build more housing.

And who is refusing to build more housing? I will personally arrange for as much housing as you like in any neighborhood in any city in California. Oh, for the price that you desire? OK, nope, sorry doesn't work that way.

Re: AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

#177

Post by Ohn0 »

Do any other hackers wonder what the overhead is for collecting / enforcing a new tax (VAT)?

Like others have mentioned, it seemed like the benefits of UBI were to eliminate some redundancy from similar programs that require more administration. Creating a new tax seems non-trivial, but on the other hand would be easy to ratchet up down the road.

Re: AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

#179

Post by fargle »

thereisnospork wrote: post #155
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houses get built, maybe just not in the favorite places. People get roommates. Sure housing is more inflexible than some products, but not a whole lot.

> Houses get built, maybe just not in the favorite places. So 9 out of 10 families get to live in a commutable distance to where they work, or 2 families get to live in half the appropriate space. Not good for the economy, not good for the families, very good for landlords. Whether or not housing is naturally flexible, CA's government has done pretty darn well making it inflexible. See rents vs. inflation. Every doll…

Pretty sure it's not the landlords and wealthier classes that are making CA's government into a giant tarpit. They'd love to see less and smaller government.

Over-regulation is only a part of the cost. The biggest part is the demand. But don't worry, whenever people figure out that silicon valley jobs can easily be relocated, to basically anywhere, that will all work itself out.

Re: AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

#180

Post by fargle »

burlesona wrote: post #85
oDot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write as if markets are a zero sum game, however they are most certainly not. You say the poor tenant will transfer wealth to the wealthy landlord as if the tenant is losing. However -- they are both gaining. Say the rent is $1000. Obviously, the property usage right is worth to the landlord less than $1000, otherwise he would've just used the property himself. He gains. The property usage right is worth more tha…

The transaction isn’t even close to this. Imagine the case of a working class family that has lived in CA for generations. The elderly grandmother owns a home because she bought it in the 1950s when things were not so broken. She has two grown children, each with families. One family lives in her house with her, because that’s all they can afford, but that’s okay because they want to stay close to home. The other fam…

Hmm... I'm not sure you understand how a free market works or what a monopoly is. Or "fixed supply". But you're quite correct that anything like UBI won't help make housing more affordable. However, it doesn't make anyone else any better off either. It just devalues the dollar a little. Why not cap rents and raise the minimum wage too while we're at it doing absolutely nothing to help.
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