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UBI as a productivity dividend

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Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#251

Post by zozbot234 »

ItsMonkk wrote: post #213
estearum wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re making an argument for my point of view. Rents are set by local wages (via mechanism of land rents) > Rents might even decrease since any given UBI amount will go a lot further in a lower-COL area, which incents people to move out (reversing gentrification dynamics) Can you identify any historical analogy to this claim? History shows — across the board — people move toward higher COL areas as their ability to…

Your concern can easily be addressed by having a 100% tax on the value of land and then distributing this tax money through a citizen's dividend. But this isn't all that related to the productivity dividend. That's more natural by setting banks to have a full reserve requirement. At that point new innovations would yield deflation, which would be harmful. The Fed would then have to step up and be the creator and dist…

You can't literally tax 100%, but this matters little: you just have to tax a sizeable fraction of land rent and this has as an outsized effect on land values due to capitalization, which vastly improves the effectiveness of the real estate market as a whole. You see this today partially, where states with high property tax rates tend to have broadly lower real estate costs.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#252

Post by zozbot234 »

neilwilson wrote: post #240
zozbot234 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An income subsidy does the same thing at lesser cost. Whether that subsidy is a UBI or a wage supplement is to some extent a political choice: we got the EITC instead of a proper UBI (managed as a "negative" income tax bill for low-earning folks) largely due to political objections to the notion of getting money "for doing nothing".

Yet the state pension tells us that isn’t the case. The state pension is a UBI allocated by age rather than physical area. We have millions of data points showing that when people receive sufficient to live on they stop working. The result is political pressure to remove the state pension or increase the age at which it is received. If UBI worked as you suggest then the resulting increase in productivity would drive…

Often the state pension gets clawed back at such a rate if you go back to work that it makes working a bad deal for the elderly.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#253

Post by AnimalMuppet »

K0balt wrote: post #230
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but the same response still applies. There still are plenty of arguments against UBI, and you still need to actually refute them rather than just dismiss them with "they're false or moot".

I’d agree with you in a debate, for sure, but I’m just stating my opinion. Of course, opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one lol, so I’m not saying im necessarily right. But I do think in the special case of self maintaining, self manufacturing, intelligent servitors, I think the only way we can hope to sustain an economy of any kind would be to redistribute the output of those machines significantly, or we…

Good reply. A few things, though:

> But I do think in the special case of self maintaining, self manufacturing, intelligent servitors, I think the only way we can hope to sustain an economy of any kind would be to redistribute the output of those machines significantly, or we would end up with a concentration of power around capital that utterly eliminates the economy as we presently understand it.

That would definitely be true in the case of self maintaining, self manufacturing, intelligent servitors who can do everything. I'm not sure we would get that, even as the end state. (We're probably at about the end state of "electricity can do everything", and yet there's still large amounts of manual labor. It can't do everything.)

> Ultimately, the production of pure automation springs directly from the resources of the earth, and the earth is everyones, so it makes sense to redistribute the production to a significant extent.

Unfortunately, under current law, the earth is not everyones. Real estate and mineral rights are pretty well entrenched. (For that matter, so are national governments. Given that resources are not evenly distributed, that matters.)

So getting to your philosophical starting point would require a massive transformation of existing human society. (Of course, robots doing everything might have that effect...)

> Ubi causing runaway inflation is another example of a thoroughly refuted claim that is easily given the lie by looking at extant UBI systems.

What are your examples of "extant UBI systems"? And to what degree are they true UBI?

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#254

Post by JKCalhoun »

pjmorris wrote: post #132
randerson wrote: post #8

I'm UBI-curious, but surely inflation would be inevitable if everyone suddenly had $x more disposable income per year? Landlords and grocery stores and everyone else would raise prices because they know people can afford it. Obviously if you're living in poverty, anything is better than nothing, but would the average middle class person be better off? As far as I can tell no country has ever tested true UBI (uncondit…

Agreed. I tend to think a job guarantee would work better than UBI: have the government provide a job to anyone who can't find one somewhere else, something like what was done in the 1930's in the US. Come up with a list of things needed (can you think of anything that needs fixing?), and pay people a living wage and benefits to take care of those things. Call it 'Universal Basic Work.' Beyond spending government mon…

I like the idea of Universal Basic Work because, like you state, I think from work comes a sense of self-usefulness, utility and ultimately perhaps dignity, self-esteem. I don't see any of that from UBI.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#255

Post by wartywhoa23 »

amelius wrote: post #232
wartywhoa23 wrote: post #13

Communists shared alright 110 years ago in Russia, tens of millions of people failed to cope with that much prosperity and wellbeing, and then even more with unbearable freedom and peace.

It's probably an established law now that whenever someone points out that capitalism has flaws, another person always points at communism.

Yes, because the humankind has been flickering between extremes since name your date, and no balanced system managed to survive for more than a couple of decades.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#256

Post by throwaway94275 »

estearum wrote: post #27
throwaway94275 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In places that consist of many people with subsidized incomes, like elderly housing complexes, why aren't local grocery stores and gas stations higher than elsewhere? Also, aside from that question, prices will only rise if there's no competition. In a working market, if more people can afford a higher rent more apartments will be built.

Because the subsidies aren't on top of base income? The subsidy isn't the problem per se, it's the net increase in income. It is obviously self-evident everywhere that high incomes create high cost of living, which can be traced through higher costs all the way down to the land rents (the rent someone is willing to pay to have market access to the high local incomes).

So ... why work or have a career then? If we're damned if we do (UBI=higher inflation=no advantage in costs) and don't (work hard to increase income=no advantage in costs) then it seems UBI will clear the field for those who like to work because they enjoy it.

Is the problem that money is becoming worthless and relationships are what matter? I'm not wealthy, and never have been, but I suspect relationships and not wealth-as-in-dollars matters after $500 million net worth or so.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#257

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

t0bia_s wrote: post #201
EGG_CREAM wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is the opposite of centralized planning. Instead of the state deciding what resources people need, and who “deserves” help, it leaves it up to individuals to decide how best to divvy up resources, and everybody gets it. As for tools that make citizens obey, the government already has the best one: a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Everything else is child’s play compared to that.

So why UBI from involuntary collected money of taxpayers, instead of lowering taxes? Whats the benefit of it and for whom?

Because lower income levels in the USA are so low that a substantial number of people do not even pay federal income tax at all. Consequently, "lowering taxes" does not deliver any money to those people. A tax credit would, but this is more or less semantically equivalent to an actual payment such as UBI.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#258

Post by lyu07282 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #122
lyu07282 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of like social security, medicare or the 5 day work week, if everyone suddenly had $x more disposable income per year? Landlords and grocery stores and everyone else would raise prices because they know people can afford it.

And UBI would give people the freedom to move to a place with cheap rent and groceries. Rent is high in places with jobs and low in places without. Supply and demand will work better, lowering prices.

These people would argue against the weekend on economic grounds too if we didn't have it already, everything seems unimaginable until it becomes real. Its like trickle down economics, you can make the "economic" argument fit whatever you want to appeal to the oligarchy.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#259

Post by AndrewKemendo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No

NYPD regularly arrests peaceful protestors and striking workers

https://x.com/SBWorkersUnited/status/1996650716686176576

ACAB

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#260

Post by estearum »

throwaway94275 wrote: post #256
estearum wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the subsidies aren't on top of base income? The subsidy isn't the problem per se, it's the net increase in income. It is obviously self-evident everywhere that high incomes create high cost of living, which can be traced through higher costs all the way down to the land rents (the rent someone is willing to pay to have market access to the high local incomes).

So ... why work or have a career then? If we're damned if we do (UBI=higher inflation=no advantage in costs) and don't (work hard to increase income=no advantage in costs) then it seems UBI will clear the field for those who like to work because they enjoy it. Is the problem that money is becoming worthless and relationships are what matter? I'm not wealthy, and never have been, but I suspect relationships and not we…

Because it’s good to have shelter and food, and other people are willing to compete for those resources so you must (to a greater or lesser degree per your priorities) compete as well.
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