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Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

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21–30 of 236 posts

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#21

In the US, we gave money to people during the pandemic. Worker shortages in low-skill labor resulted and inflation hit 10%. I think that's the major flaw - young, childless people without responsibility see no reason to work, when they can watch Netflix all day, either paying their mom some token rent or sharing a flop house with a bunch of friends.

"young, childless people without responsibility see no reason to work" doesn't seem supported by data. If their workplaces shut down where are they supposed to work?

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#22
post #5

I would like to counter with first hand observed real world evidence. Raising the minimum wage near where I live (Seattle area) has raised the prices of everything. Rent seeking land owners raise their rents, which passes through to everything and absorbs the water trying to sate the parched desert. IMO either directly supplying what UBI is supposed to provide, or encouraging local supply to match the market need, th…

Funny that you blame landlords off the bat as opposed to the fact that everyone who employs folks at minimum wage is forced to raise prices in order not to go out of business.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The money has to come out of the system somewhere. Governments have the ability to print money out of thin air. What I'd like to see is how UBI impacts inflation and economic growth.

Google "hyperinflation." Printing money out of thin air causes the existing money to be worth about as much as toilet paper.

Depends on how much you print, and what happens with supply as you do so. Some countries (eg. Japan) are struggling to increase inflation, so this seems like a straightforward policy. At the same time it can solve the problem of weak consumer demand: productive factories making desirable goods that citizens nonetheless feel too poor to buy, causing those factories to shut down, resulting in the country getting poorer in real terms. After all, "demand" is desirability times spending power: if spending power is low in your target market, then demand is low, even when your products are desirable.

Putting money in the hands of the largest number of people works well with production economies of scale. For the same total quantity of money, having it concentrated in a few hands means your society is incentivized to produce a few yachts and private jets, and too low on the quantity curve for economies of scale to make that production efficient. When that same money is distributed, the incentives are to produce large quantities of vacuum cleaners and washing machines, where mass production is very efficient, so total utility can be higher.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#25

In the US, we gave money to people during the pandemic. Worker shortages in low-skill labor resulted and inflation hit 10%. I think that's the major flaw - young, childless people without responsibility see no reason to work, when they can watch Netflix all day, either paying their mom some token rent or sharing a flop house with a bunch of friends.

[deleted]

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#26

When has UBI actually every been tried? I don't think any trials really qualify as "Universal". IMO the universal part is the hard part and changes it drastically. Compared to a small limited trial of giving people money, where does it all come from when it's actually universal? And what are the effects on the overall economy when it's universal?

Yeah, many of the quoted examples miss the “universal” part:

> recurring cash relief to low-income residents for 2 years

> Finland launched a program to give €560 ($616) a month to 2,000 unemployed citizens

> doled out monthly unconditional sums of $500 to 125 low-income participants for two years

My contention with UBI is that if you give cash to everybody, it ends up being largely a wealth transfer to the rent seekers in society who can just raise their prices because more cash is now chasing the same amount of supply.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#27
post #2

I don't think anyone is doubting that giving people money improves their lives. That seems to be the conclusion of these studies. However what is seemingly _never_ studied is how to finance such an operation. The money has to come out of the system somewhere. Is it with new taxation on XYZ, or slashing services somewhere else etc.

> The money has to come out of the system somewhere. Governments have the ability to print money out of thin air. What I'd like to see is how UBI impacts inflation and economic growth.

Printing money out of thin air makes existing money worth less. So it is effectively a tax by another name, you are taking the value from the people who have money now, without actually changing the balances in their bank accounts. And it's regressive, since there's no way to limit inflation to any selected demographic.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#28
post #2

I don't think anyone is doubting that giving people money improves their lives. That seems to be the conclusion of these studies. However what is seemingly _never_ studied is how to finance such an operation. The money has to come out of the system somewhere. Is it with new taxation on XYZ, or slashing services somewhere else etc.

> I don't think anyone is doubting that giving people money improves their lives.

I think this is actually more controversial than you're giving it credit for. Giving money as opposed to other non-monetary forms of aid is quite a radical concept. Many people believe that giving money to the poor results in bad financial decisions, short term spending, and few long-term effects. This is the main belief that the trials of UBI so far have disproven.

Another example of this is charitable giving. Most charities tackling poverty focus on giving food, water, medicine, etc, whereas studies have shown that giving money is a remarkably efficient way of donating. Give Directly has done very well with this.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#29
post #2

I don't think anyone is doubting that giving people money improves their lives. That seems to be the conclusion of these studies. However what is seemingly _never_ studied is how to finance such an operation. The money has to come out of the system somewhere. Is it with new taxation on XYZ, or slashing services somewhere else etc.

The GDP of the USA is about 28 trillion dollars. The US military's budget alone is over eight hundred billion dollars. I think we can manage.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#30
post #2

I don't think anyone is doubting that giving people money improves their lives. That seems to be the conclusion of these studies. However what is seemingly _never_ studied is how to finance such an operation. The money has to come out of the system somewhere. Is it with new taxation on XYZ, or slashing services somewhere else etc.

> The money has to come out of the system somewhere. Governments have the ability to print money out of thin air. What I'd like to see is how UBI impacts inflation and economic growth.

Right. And if they can print it from thin air and just give it to everyone, then it has no actual value. Price discovery will force significant inflation on every class of product and service because that is what people will be buying with it. Its effectiveness drops with scale, which is what they are not testing. It's great that UBI works in a lab, but this experiment has been run at multiple points in history and absolutely thrashed societies every time without significant external input (conquest, exploitation, etc.).

Money by definition derives its value from its scarcity relative to the economy it is representing. There is no free lunch here.

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