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Why we should all have a basic income

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Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#31

Post by jbmorgado »

DougN7 wrote: post #25
jganetsk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claims are misleading, wrong, and unsupported. > Demand for goods increases. Citation needed. Demand for some goods will possibly decrease: like payday loans or bankruptcy law. Demand for luxury goods won't change at all: yachts, private jets. But even the demand for Big Macs probably won't change all that much. Apply the same exercise to a bunch of other sundry cases: buying a house, life-saving medication, buying a…

More people buying stuff increases demand - econ 101. If more people aren't buying stuff, why bother giving them the money? Of course prices will rise. The only way this isn't equivalent to the government printing money is the money comes out some rich people/company's savings accounts where it wasn't being spent anyway.

We are taking about "basic" needs here. All your argument then must imply that UBI or NOT UBI, "basic needs" must be denied to part of the population or else they get too expensive.

And as almost all will agree, that's not only logically wrong, it's also morally wrong.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#32

Post by jbmorgado »

prodmerc wrote: post #15

If everyone gets $1000 every month guaranteed for "basic needs", the prices for those basic needs will increase accordingly. And independently. So you'll end up spending that $1k on either housing, bills or food. So you will still need a job if you want all three of those things, not sit around and contemplate what you should do with your life. It's sort of like how the ACA raised the overall price of insurance. Givi…

What you just advocated there, is that "basic needs" must be denied to part of population in order to make them cheaper to the other part.

That's both economical and morally wrong.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#33

Post by ragebol »

cocoa19 wrote: post #16
Tepix wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about machines doing most of the jobs so there are only a few jobs left? The value the machines generate would be enough to generate the basic income. Why is it impossible?

It's difficult with a free market. If income goes up for everyone, people can spend more on basic necessities. Robot owners will make prices higher to maximize profit. A few solutions: 1)Have the government set prices for basic necessities. 2)The government owns companies that produce basic necessities. 3)Replace capitalism. All the solutions above have its drawbacks.

But those increasing prices for robot labor are (partially) fed into the basic income, so UBI receivers will have more to spend.

There is a cycle and how quickly it cycles will be determined by how quick the various parts move. Not all robot owners will increase their prices just as fast and people will not buy from the overtly expensive sellers. Similar to the economic cycle we already have.

I certainly don't have an economics degree though.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#34

Post by prodmerc »

bostonpete wrote: post #24
prodmerc wrote: post #15

If everyone gets $1000 every month guaranteed for "basic needs", the prices for those basic needs will increase accordingly. And independently. So you'll end up spending that $1k on either housing, bills or food. So you will still need a job if you want all three of those things, not sit around and contemplate what you should do with your life. It's sort of like how the ACA raised the overall price of insurance. Givi…

A UBI would end up selectively helping those who need it and not putting money in the pocket of those who don't (in general). The UBI would have to be paid by taxes -- more than $1000 per month would come from those who are well off and less than $1000 per month would come from those in need. Your theory that the cost of food would go up if people had more money is out of whack.

I mean Universal Basic Income, the system that people rave about where everyone gets this magical problem solving basic income.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#35

Post by prodmerc »

jbmorgado wrote: post #32
prodmerc wrote: post #15

If everyone gets $1000 every month guaranteed for "basic needs", the prices for those basic needs will increase accordingly. And independently. So you'll end up spending that $1k on either housing, bills or food. So you will still need a job if you want all three of those things, not sit around and contemplate what you should do with your life. It's sort of like how the ACA raised the overall price of insurance. Givi…

What you just advocated there, is that "basic needs" must be denied to part of population in order to make them cheaper to the other part. That's both economical and morally wrong.

People with jobs have income for the basic needs.

Those without jobs get state assistance for the basic needs.

No need to give everyone a basic income.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#36

Post by jayjay71 »

_delirium wrote: post #26
programmarchy wrote: post #23

UBI is attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric, but it's bullshit. Yes it may "incentivize" some individuals to work, but only by disincentivizing others. It takes money from top wealth producers, discouraging their labor, and gives it to people who aren't producing as much wealth, effectively subsidizing unproductive work. This will make everyone poorer in the long run. The struggling artist meme is an ap…

> This will make everyone poorer in the long run. I think that's unlikely, though it depends on a lot of factors (UBI is a pretty general concept, and the specific implementation and numbers matter). It may reduce aggregate GDP, but that's not the same as making everyone poorer , since distribution matters when determining that. If, to take an exaggerated example, the top 10% of earners have their income multiplied b…

> Most economists no longer believe that these kinds of situations are automatically self-correcting through "trickle-down economics", in which just getting out of the way of wealth-creation at the top inevitably lifts all boats.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but did many economists ever take this idea seriously? I always thought trickle-down economics was just political rhetoric.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#37

Post by jganetsk »

omilu wrote: post #30

Here is the same author in 2014 attempting to explain how basic income won't lead to massive inflation: https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-... >>> It would not be new money, just money shifted from one location to another. This means that the value of each dollar has not changed. The dollar itself has only changed hands.* There is no sure fire way to reduce the value of a dollar then to redis…

> There is no sure fire way to reduce the value of a dollar then to redistribute it to people that didn't work for it. The fact that you have to work for the dollar is the thing that gives the dollar value.

Citation needed. The value of the dollar is actually determined by:

1) Foreign exchange markets

2) Debt markets

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#38

Post by ragebol »

omilu wrote: post #30

Here is the same author in 2014 attempting to explain how basic income won't lead to massive inflation: https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-... >>> It would not be new money, just money shifted from one location to another. This means that the value of each dollar has not changed. The dollar itself has only changed hands.* There is no sure fire way to reduce the value of a dollar then to redis…

But what happens when work it mostly worthless, because it's all automated?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#39

Post by witty_username »

jganetsk wrote: post #37
omilu wrote: post #30

Here is the same author in 2014 attempting to explain how basic income won't lead to massive inflation: https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-... >>> It would not be new money, just money shifted from one location to another. This means that the value of each dollar has not changed. The dollar itself has only changed hands.* There is no sure fire way to reduce the value of a dollar then to redis…

> There is no sure fire way to reduce the value of a dollar then to redistribute it to people that didn't work for it. The fact that you have to work for the dollar is the thing that gives the dollar value. Citation needed. The value of the dollar is actually determined by: 1) Foreign exchange markets 2) Debt markets

See Laffer curve. Redistribution will make people work less (i.e. less total output), so assuming the money supply doesn't change, inflation will occur.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#40

Post by srssays »

jbmorgado wrote: post #31
DougN7 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people buying stuff increases demand - econ 101. If more people aren't buying stuff, why bother giving them the money? Of course prices will rise. The only way this isn't equivalent to the government printing money is the money comes out some rich people/company's savings accounts where it wasn't being spent anyway.

We are taking about "basic" needs here. All your argument then must imply that UBI or NOT UBI, "basic needs" must be denied to part of the population or else they get too expensive. And as almost all will agree, that's not only logically wrong, it's also morally wrong.

Everybody understands that UBI is a solution to meeting "basic" needs, the contentious part is the "universal".

I don't need basic income. If I received free money that I don't need, I might decide to double my cheese consumption. If many people like me do this, then the price of cheese will go up, hurting poor people.

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