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0 pointsidontpost7y ago0 comments

> Money supply isn't the issue here. > If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars, the amount of money available for low income housing has strictly increased. Landlords are then in a position to raise prices proportionally.

You're contradicting yourself through sloppy thinking. If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars, the money supply has increased. That's the definition of money supply.

It's also a total strawman and not what UBI proposes to do. For example, my wife and I make about $150,000 combined. UBI would basically do nothing for us because of the taxes we'd pay to support it. If anything we'd have less money, not $12,000 more.

The only people who'd have $12,000 more are the totally unemployed and homeless.

The point of UBI isn't that everyone gets more money, it's that everyone is guaranteed to have the means not to starve or be homeless at a minimum.

People who support UBI (including myself) do so not because they would have more money (as stated, I personally would almost certainly lose money), but because they would have less RISK. That's what UBI really does. It lowers the risk of life choices and gives people the freedom to make choices that otherwise they could not have made.

If I'm one of the lucky (which so far, I have been), UBI does nothing for me. But if tomorrow I'm crippled in a car accident and can no longer work, UBI guarantees a certain minimum standard of living.

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mcguire7y ago

You are correct; the money supply isn't an issue. However, inflation within a localized area of the economy is a thing (e.g. housing prices, health care).

UBI is a transfer of money from the wealthy, who would have used it to buy filet mignon or something, to the poor, who would likely use it to buy food and shelter. One should expect the prices of food and shelter to rise, relative to other products.

idontpostOP7y ago

And? That's not an argument against UBI. These things have equilibria and rising prices push up supply. The fact that prices may (I emphasize may, because there are other factors at play here that you conveniently ignore) rise doesn't change the utility of raising the floor on standard of living.

I already live a better, more comfortable life than any Roman emperor ever did. We have the means to ensure that no one in our society suffers in destitution, by a vast margin, and that margin increases continuously as automation of menial work proceeds over time.

Not doing so because it might not be "optimally efficient" according to some arbitrary metric is inhuman.

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