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The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

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Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#41
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope landlords will just raise rents back to approximately the same level of poverty.

That would probably make a lot of new housing construction more economically viable. I’m not sure what the overall effects of UBI would be, but this seems like it would be a short term effect.

Economic viability isn’t what prevents new housing from being built.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#43
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would probably cause price inflation. I think if my landlord knew that I was receiving an extra amount of money each month, that everyone got this extra amount of money, they would naturally raise the price of my rent. Retailers would do this for certain. Otherwise it is leaving money on the table, and successful businesses tend to be very aware of this. A UBI would only work if there were massive cost controls, w…

Would a removal of income tax not net the same result?: an increase in money supply, therefore an increase in inflation. We could always dig at the cultural issue and work towards making greed a degenerate trait to be shunned and managed out.

You mean the greed of people who think they're entitled to the fruit of other people's labor merely by being born?

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#44

I don't know much about UBI. How do people generally see it being implemented? Does everyone get the exact same, flat amount? Do only people below a certain income get it? Does the amount gradually decline based on current income? Does the amount change based on cost of living? If someone remains destitute after being given UBI - is that now more clearly "on them," or do they now qualify for additional support? Genui…

UBI is universal, as others have said.

There’s also the concept of “guaranteed minimum income,” which, I believe, just tops you up to the minimum income amount if you make less. In comparison, guaranteed minimum income seems much more difficult to administer (means testing and all that), and it seems like it would incentivize bad habits, in the sense that if you make less than the threshold, why not just quit your job?

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closest thing we had to it - welfare and unemployment benefits without work requirements or onerous means testing - were dismantled on the basis of shoddy (read: nonexistent) research and amidst an atmosphere of racism and classism, and with the current status quo perpetuated by the perverse incentives of public-private "work search support" contracts. Any analysis of resistance to the implementation of UBI shoul…

> We've known for a while now that the best approach Another settled science, and it for the progressive outlook. What an amazing coincidence.

Did you read his links? At least he gave some, you didn't.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#46

The idea of UBI, to me at least, is a mind-blowing one. It’s a shame something like this doesn’t exist on a large scale already. I know I’m probably missing something important here, but can someone outline any good reasons, if any, that it hasn’t been implemented yet?

It already does exist in some places in the form of sovereign wealth funds, such as the Alaska Permanent Fund [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

But that is derived from profits from the sale of Alaskan oil. It is not a wealth redistribution program, increased taxes, or reductions in spending elsewhere. Alaska is also a very costly place to live. It's also the only state that actually sells something and makes a profit which it can redistribute to its citizens. Maybe if America as a whole profited from the sale of its natural resources then it could, in theory, redistribute that and call it a UBI. Either way, to implement a UBI the money has to come from somewhere which at this moment means it has to be taken from someone/something else.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#47
It seems to me that every basic income ‘experiment’ is flawed because they don’t account for the externalities of higher taxes and the fact that the pool of recipients is limited enough that the market is unaffected. Giving a few thousand people a few thousand a month isn’t going to cause much on an impact on inflation and it’s not going to make rents go up across the market. Additionally, others outside the experiment aren’t getting taxed at a higher rate so they aren’t passing costs on to consumers.

My other main criticism is the fact that most of these experiments measure how “happy” or less anxious the recipients become. Which to me is obvious, yes, free money can do that. But again, they’re measuring the impact of limited free money without the downsides of higher taxes and market impact. Would any of these experiments demand that the recipients also lose access to any other government assistance they may be on? To my knowledge none of them do.

Edit: To put it more succinctly, they are measuring the impact of a stipend and not a basic income program.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope landlords will just raise rents back to approximately the same level of poverty.

If you upzone and increase supply, it becomes a buyers market and landlords have to lower their prices.

That’s true totally separate from UBI. No matter what else you do, UBI’s effect will be increased rents. In absolute terms you could overcome this by increasing supply, but 1) nothing about UBI makes increasing supply easier, and 2) UBI would reduce the positive effects on rent achieved by increasing supply.

If you want to reduce the cost of living you increase supply. UBI will not affect supply nor demand, it will just affect the existing demand’s ability to pay a higher price universally and knowably. As a landlord, I would be an idiot not to raise rents by $x soon after implementation. Every landlord knows this and so they’d all do it together, no coordination necessary.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#50

The idea of UBI, to me at least, is a mind-blowing one. It’s a shame something like this doesn’t exist on a large scale already. I know I’m probably missing something important here, but can someone outline any good reasons, if any, that it hasn’t been implemented yet?

A UBI of $x/month will just yield rent increases of $x/month.

That depends on how it's paid for. If the money is printed, then yes. If it's raised through taxes, then not necessarily.
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