61–70 of 236 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or how increasing the money supply affects the price of eggs...
Considering the price of eggs skyrocketed due to an outbreak of avian flu forcing farmers into mass culling tens of millions of egg laying hens across the US, it's probably not the money supply that caused that.
Google "Weimar Republic".
A large population with basic needs met and nothing particular they have to do is untested. I don't really know how that will end, but I fear it may not end especially well. Let's be real: no one works at McDonalds because they have a great passion to fry burgers. SpongeBob was a lie! Would extra income from McDonalds be enough to motivate people to do this kind of stuff anyway? Perhaps. It's currently unclear.
I'm somewhat skeptical that large changes are afoot though; current AI systems aren't really good enough for most things and it's unclear what future developments will bring. And you can't automate frying burgers or stock shelves in the first place (well, not without huge investments that just aren't worth it).
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?
One form of UBI is essentially a negative income tax rate for people making below a certain line.
As more and more jobs get automated away, we will either become a society of wage slaves with a small upper class controlling trillions (wait a minute...) or we will distribute the benefits of an automated society to all people.
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.
What is useful is thinking about money sources and money sinks. As long as the (source rate - sink rate) ≅ Δvalue of goods an services, inflation is checked.
"Printing money", paired with a comparable sink, is completely fine and a more useful tool than "never print money". The biggest roadblock we have when it comes to employing this tool is that our system of governance has different systems when it comes to monetary and fiscal policy that over-complicate its use.
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.
But this is much better than subsidizing home ownership for the rich.
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.
Not to mention that the amount given - a total of $3200 to childless people over an entire year - amounts to around 3 months of an average 1 bedroom apartment's rent in America in 2020, much less in cities, and not including groceries or utilities. As a young, childless person who got the full amount that year, it gave me exactly what I needed to be able to move out, but certainly wouldn't have sustained me - even in a "flop house" - long enough to really avoid looking for work.
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.
> Is it with new taxation on XYZ Bring back the 70% corporate tax rate that was considered normal when Reagan was elected. That should give us a solid start. After that take all the money from every billionaire. You can have up to $999,999,999.99 in your bank + assets, and everything after that goes to healthcare and UBI. If you get to a billion, we'll name a dog park after you and you get a little trophy that says y…
It's a fast track to destroying entrepreneurship, reducing competition to introduce new, better products or lower prices of existing products.
This is bad for the middle-class consumer because they'll have less to buy, and fewer places to work at.
Furthermore, even if you went full Stalin and confiscated the entire wealth of all the billionaires, that's only $12T [1]. Sounds like a lot? It's a whopping $1500 per person in the world. You'll completely obliterate the economy for the ability to give everyone a check for $1500. One month later, 95% of that money will be spent and back in the hands of innovators and value providers.
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.
Money isn't zero sum. We've never let such concerns interfere with funding wars.
Bottom line is, regardless of how well it works, all the pieces need to fit a certain way for this to be implemented, which is very unlikely.