During Brexit, people in job-starved areas of UK were reported as resentful for receiving handouts. They wanted gainful employment and their dignity back. You could have corporations foot the bill for basic income and people with certain values would still not want it. The image of being a breadwinner is so deeply instilled in some people that for them not being that, triggers mid-life-crisis: a depression, sense of meaningless existence, addiction, etc. Employment's bigger role is not just to provide income, but to keep people's minds busy and balance dopamine and add more meaning in their life. We have to provide solutions for all of the pieces of the puzzle if we want rapid automation.
Creating jobs is one thing, but creating meaningful jobs is something completely different.
In communistic days in eastern europe, everyone was employed, but most people had a lousy job, that involved very little effort.
The first time i came to the US, i got the same feeling, lots of meaningless jobs (lift boy, parking lot attendant, grocery store bag filler) that i didn't see in the Netherlands.
Are these meaningless jobs really better than universal basic income?
At least with UBI people can decide for themselves how they create a meaningful daily activity.
I think that's one of the biggest open questions with UBI. What percent of people would use UBI to do productive or self-improving works vs those that solely play video games, watch TV, and feel like life is meaningless? I think psychologically, people need something to do with themselves. However, a counter argument is that many of the people that UBI may benefit the most might have jobs that they loathe.
I'd love to see a review of the impact of work and UBI on human psychological well-being. This is definitely not one-to-one, but it would be interesting to study people that inherited fortunes so they would never need to work. How many chose a life of leisure? For those that did, what is their mental health like? That population is much more privileged and probably better educated than the average citizen that would get UBI, but I think it might give some clues.
A basic income distributed to everyone wouldn't carry the same stigma as "handouts." Those people wouldn't stop wanting jobs, I agree. They're not going to be satisfied to just be on the dole, and net taxpayer status will probably matter a lot to them. But the basic income would provide them with a fundamental level of security and mobility. It would keep money pumping steadily into the local economy. Small-time entrepreneurs would be able to take small-time risks; small corner-store businesses would be able to prosper. A worker would be able risk leaving a job, and training for a new one; they won't get stuck filling half of their potential just to keep their children in clothing. A more flexible workforce should lower a barrier to new investment in the region. Mobility for the higher achievers would mean more opportunity for those who just want to come in, punch the clock, check out and have a beer.
And when they voiced anger about the government accepting immigrants when there already wasn't enough work to go around they got called racist.
I think UBI's effect on immigration is an interesting topic and one I don't see discussed in most articles. What does it mean to be a citizen of a country when, statistically speaking, you're a drain on the economy? How does immigration fit into that model? In my mind UBI doesn't require changing how we view work, it requires changing how we view citizenship and statecraft.
This is one of the main theories as to why Trump was successful in the US. The US economy can't properly support it's workforce fully. The Democrats offered social safety net. The Republicans offered tax cuts and deregulation to the business owners. Neither solved the underlying problem that the US economy can't properly support the workforce.
People want an honest day's pay for an honest day's work as they have for millennia. Pride in honest, good work is important to the vast majority of people, especially in the US.
I don't know about the UK, but in the US, you effectively have a choice between getting welfare and working. So people have the option to take some low-paying job, but they don't do it because then they lose welfare benefits that pay almost as much, sometimes subsidizing childcare etc. so it's an unemployment trap. UBI is much saner because you get it in addition to any income you earn from working, so you can go ahead and take that low-paying job as well.
Seriously now: if they have money, it's up to them to find a meaning of life. Not having to work, doesn't mean you shouldn't work. You can help with old people, or educate the youth. You can work on some very non-profitable, but good and meaningful agricultural thing. You can fix your city. You can clean the street. You can work on open source software. You can build furniture.
Giving money just to the poor is stigmatizing, and very bad for mental health as you pointed out. A universal measure would be very different tho.
What could be less dignified than working a job you are empirically inferior for because you got your competition banned?
That doing automatable busywork by hand is somehow more dignified than receiving handouts is an absurd idea (it's just as much a handout, only in this case you have to jump through hoops for it).
That others people should be required to do automatable busywork to receive their handouts is a cruel and borderline evil idea.
Maybe in future there can be some gamification of the whole thing, led by the government for the "common good" (although I wouldn't hold my breath). But I think giving meaning to people's life is a task beyond a government. Experience in Communist countries shows government should be kept as far away as possible from such tasks.
> They wanted gainful employment and their dignity back.
That is in fact what a basic income allows, because it allows you to eliminate the minimum wage. Then anyone who wants a job can have it, because they are allowed to accept the wages employers are actually willing to pay, and in combination with the basic income still have enough to live.
I would agree with you if the perception that UBI is equivalent of handouts, which UBI specifically isnt.
Think of it like this, if every citizen is getting money regardless of their employment status and that this is essentially a perk of being a citizen and paying your taxes, the negative stigma would not be there per se.
Eventually , people will start seeing this as an additional benefits similar to healthcare being provided by state.
One of the crucial points while introducing UBI would be education both of the populace being helped and the populace at large since you may not be able to introduce it through out the country at one go.
It's really a need to feel useful. If we permit politicians to conflate a specific manifestation of that need as being a want for gainful employment, we will end up with protectionism. We will see laws prohibiting certain kinds of automation. And we will see a fight between different classes as one class feels entitled to work, and another class feels entitled to save money on labor.
UBI combined with single payer health care and a removal of the minimum wage addresses this problem. It's called "basic" for a reason; the idea is that people will continue to supplement it with work that they find enriching and rewarding.
Whole new sorts of currently "worthless" work become possible when not shackled by a minimum wage.
A UBI does not prevent anyone from getting work. It actually makes it easier to get work if you want to, because you don't have to compete against as many applicants because some of them would rather stay home and take care of their kids, or woodwork.
Basic income could help get rid of people sitting around unemployed. Instead of small amounts of earned income being effective taxed at near 100% by loss of benefits they might be able to keep it all making low paying work worth doing.
Which is great for UBI as the social contract makes explicit that everyone is a beneficiary of it. The people who need it then will have both their dignity and the will to make more of themselves.
If I had basic income, I would go back to study, get a PhD in Computer Science Majoring in AI/Machine learning and then I would try to do something meaningful with it. I am tired of doing pseudo-intellectual software 'engineering' tasks - I would like to use my intellect to tackle difficult problems instead of trivial problems like building UI components and managing databases. Unfortunately, I can't afford to go to back to uni right now.
I think that there are a lot of people in my position who are desperate for basic income. From a societal point of view, innovation would move quicker if people had more time to invest in themselves.
Unfortunately for me, right now, I just have two options if I want to buy myself some time to study:
- Hope that one of the startups I work/worked for gets a big exit and that I can cash in and fund my studies.
- Wait for retirement age before going back to uni (and hope that my brain still works OK at that age).
The fact that someone is paying you to do these jobs shows that the things you do do have a lot value to someone (your boss, the company's customers etc.). So your existing job is far from being meaningless.
Instead of crying for a UBI you should better cry for people not to buy software that does "trivial stuff". If people were willing to spend a lot of money on software that does highly not-trivial stuff, there probably were a large demand for people that are able and willing to work on such things.
Markets are a democracy - everybody votes with his wallet.
So, I have a couple of questions here -- one for UBI and one for you.
1. You're hoping for UBI so that you can quit the work force and get a PhD, so you're going to (at least temporarily) cease to input money into the system, and start to take money from the system. That seems like effectively twice the cost. Where does that money come from, if you and other people have that same idea? This is the part of UBI I'm struggling to comprehend. There's the idea that you will come out of school "more valuable," but that's speculative vs your current position which is actively adding value (albeit less than what you feel you're worth).
2. Why do you need UBI in order to do this? Are you making no money beyond the absolute minimum you need to live with your current job? Couldn't you potentially save some away and then do the "nights and weekends" sort of school that some people do? To your very last point, you mention having to hope for one of your startups goes big, but could you take a more "steady" / traditional job and make a decent amount of money that way?
Unpopular opinion: this strikes me as exactly a case against UBI. You're taking an active, and perhaps more importantly, tax-contributing member of society, and incentivizing them to stop being one. "Innovation would move quicker" is a great idea, but I don't think it's all that much of a guarantee. It seems likely to me that it would continue near the same pace. But, that's also just speculation / without citation.
Almost everyone here seems to be discussing the economic challenges of UBI, but so far I haven't seen much mention of the political challenges. UBI is a completely unworkable concept in the U.S.A and likely many European countries as well. American citizens will be literally shooting eachother in the streets before they accept such a massive wealth redistribution mechanism, and that resistance will be mostly made up of the masses that could benefit from it, to say nothing of the powerful that will leverage the full extent of their influence to prevent their gains from being redistributed.
Capitalism is going away, no matter what, once we have massive unemployment due to automation.
You think people are just going to accept starvation? Shit will get real, real fast.
And most people aren't as articulate or reasonable as the people on this site.
There will be massive violence.
A better way to look at UBI is that it's not about giving poor people money.
Its about keeping the fabric of society together and preventing revolutions.
Although basic income is obviously a well-worn topic, this article seems a bit more substantive than average. So we'll try downweighting this thread less than we usually do for well-worn topics.
Funny how all the proponents of a Universal 'Basic' Income aren't proposing instead to make every 'Basic' item 'Free'.
After all, if you believe their rhetoric, giving someone $500/mo should be the same as giving them free bread, eggs, milk, some clothes and some movie tickets.
I wonder why... Maybe, the reality is that over time our 'Basic' needs increase. In certain parts of the world shoes are still considered a luxury whereas in others, Nikes and Adidas are considered 'basic'. 50 years ago car ownership was a luxury even in most 'developed' nations, as were televisions. Now they're considered 'Basic'.
The reality is, the people touting UBI as a way forward suffer from having a thoroughly static and isolated view of the world. They fail to see that value creation is what's important, and drives society to further itself. As value creation goes up, the definition of 'basic' increases with it. I'm not for a minute advocating that the current system is anywhere near perfect - the wealthiest in our population are questionable value creators while at the same time there are value creators scraping by in the world so the way we reward people needs a rethink.
I don't profess to know how to solve the poverty crisis and I very much want it to be solved as a citizen of the world. What I do know is that the only way to do it will involve reforming education so that future generations are inspired to advance humankind and create value in the process.
I'm wondering what effect good virtual reality with a Metaverse as described in Snowcrash and Ready Player One will have on society.
There is a potential that a large percentage of people will be happy with their virtual life even if they are poor in real life (as soon as the virtual reality is good enough to spend pretty much all of your time there).
“How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli 1469 - 1527
Even if UBI was proven to be a net gain to society, implementation is highly unlikely.
This is less about technology/economics and more about human nature, which has not changed much over the last 500 years.
> human nature, which has not changed much over the last 500 years
Let's be clear that "human nature" is relatively stable, but the "cultures" that sit atop are much more capricious-- slowly changing in different ways to fit the same human desires.
That's right. People can't stand the idea of freeloaders that don't have to do anything and get everything for free, while we are working hard to pay for their stuff. Even if this hardly happens, the thought alone scares and angers the hell out of most people.
I think a basic income is a dangerous and bad idea.
If we expect the wealthy class to give their money to the masses to fund their survival, the masses would become functionally dependent on that transfer continuing. At which point the wealthy class would have incredible power over the masses.
Asking for a basic income is like asking to go to prison for the free food. It is not a good idea to become dependent on others with such different interests.
Instead, I advocate the development of open source automation solutions that provide everything necessary for human survival. Open source machines can be manufactured by any corporation and purchased by groups who would then own the means of their own survival.
A basic income becomes a source of leverage for moneyed interests to get their way. But if we all own the machines that support our survival, we can choose for ourselves when we work and when we study to better ourselves.
Automation will not reduce overall jobs same way industrialization did not do that. Automation will create more jobs in services instead. Basic income is crazy socialist dream that was tested in communism already and it failed.
When I was 3 years old, my dad bought a brand new house in a brand new suburb. It was 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, etc. For its era, it was a very solidly middle class or upper middle class house and he had 3/4 of the price of the house in the bank. The house cost $16k. He had $12k in the bank. It was a LOT of money when I was 3 years old. It is not a lot of money today.
A $1000/month sounds like a lot now. But the minute you issue UBI, it will spur inflation and the value of that $1000 will immediately be less than it is now. This is a problem faced by every single welfare or aid program the world over: It takes no time for whatever figures you came up with to be out of date and for your program to not be accomplishing its intended goals.
I have written about this before (for example: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/09/it-was-obsol...) and I expect to write about this more. The UBI is a bad solution to the problem. We have faced this problem before in the form of the Industrial Revolution and we invented the 40 hour work week. It helped distribute work more fairly. We need similar solutions today. Turning most people into sheeple and charity cases merely because they are not rich is a terrible, terrible idea.
I think most proponents of UBI agree that the value should be tied to inflation, updated on a regular schedule (I advocate monthly). This would guarantee that UBI doesn't go "out of date".
I'm adding to the the discussion cause we have very smart people here with very good assessments on what the implications are for basic income. I had to chime in to clear some of the speculation on the arguments brought forward. I'm not for or against basic income at the moment but I want to make sure we are all on the same page on what inflation is and the basics of economics.
Inflation is simply the influx of money that causes the "value" of ALL goods/services to increase. This is due to the increase of the money supply which decreases the value of the currency. I emphasize that it is the value of ALL goods/services not just one or a large number of sectors.
When we see prices rise up in goods and services in one area it isn't inflation because it is in one area of the economy.
Another misunderstood axiom of economics is that a market is based on finite resources. If goods in one area of the market increase then somewhere else across the economy the value of goods and services decrease.
Now the misinterpretation of inflation and price hikes happen due to one variable, time. The time it takes for price hikes in one area to affect another is what gives the perception of inflation. But when the value of groceries significantly increases then I assure you people are going to eat out less. It just takes time for the sectors to affect on one another.
This article seems really out of touch, and anybody mentioning the 'UBI' experiment in Manitoba Canada as a success or in a positive light I can hardly trust about the experiments I haven't read about. When we Canadians did an experiment it failed!
As a payor of six digits of taxes, this sounds expensive and likely to be taken advantage of by the lazy.
When I grew up my basic income was something called "wages," for which I worked to earn.
Someone has to fund shit like this. Handouts do not promote self help, but the opposite: dependence on the government. Is that something to be proud about?
My interpretation of that episode was that the guest was largely _for_ UBI, so long as it replaced many of the current safety net / welfare programs (it is simpler to administer, doesn't require large bureaucracies to verify eligibility, and doesn't dis-incentivize people from getting a job and working their way up as do disability, unemployment insurance, section 8, food stamps, etc).
My interpretation was that the host wasn't sold on the idea nor on the low estimated tax increases required to fund a UBI (IIRC the guest stated 3-10% increases in income taxes and the host speculated more like 20+%).
>>>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 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.
> 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:
Im confused by your claim "There is no sure fire way to reduce the value of a dollar..."
The dollar has lost 97% of its value since the federal reserve was created. To me, having a federal reserve is a sure fire way to reduce the value of a dollar.
I would rather work today for pre-1965 quarters made of silver than a dollar today. The pre-1965 quarter will buy a gallon of gas. The dollar today will require three to buy that same gallon. Proof is in the pudding as they say. The currency is the problem.
[+] [-] dzink|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ako|9 years ago|reply
In communistic days in eastern europe, everyone was employed, but most people had a lousy job, that involved very little effort.
The first time i came to the US, i got the same feeling, lots of meaningless jobs (lift boy, parking lot attendant, grocery store bag filler) that i didn't see in the Netherlands.
Are these meaningless jobs really better than universal basic income?
At least with UBI people can decide for themselves how they create a meaningful daily activity.
[+] [-] chriskanan|9 years ago|reply
I'd love to see a review of the impact of work and UBI on human psychological well-being. This is definitely not one-to-one, but it would be interesting to study people that inherited fortunes so they would never need to work. How many chose a life of leisure? For those that did, what is their mental health like? That population is much more privileged and probably better educated than the average citizen that would get UBI, but I think it might give some clues.
[+] [-] escape_goat|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ng12|9 years ago|reply
I think UBI's effect on immigration is an interesting topic and one I don't see discussed in most articles. What does it mean to be a citizen of a country when, statistically speaking, you're a drain on the economy? How does immigration fit into that model? In my mind UBI doesn't require changing how we view work, it requires changing how we view citizenship and statecraft.
[+] [-] Clubber|9 years ago|reply
People want an honest day's pay for an honest day's work as they have for millennia. Pride in honest, good work is important to the vast majority of people, especially in the US.
[+] [-] lg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kome|9 years ago|reply
Seriously now: if they have money, it's up to them to find a meaning of life. Not having to work, doesn't mean you shouldn't work. You can help with old people, or educate the youth. You can work on some very non-profitable, but good and meaningful agricultural thing. You can fix your city. You can clean the street. You can work on open source software. You can build furniture.
Giving money just to the poor is stigmatizing, and very bad for mental health as you pointed out. A universal measure would be very different tho.
[+] [-] closeparen|9 years ago|reply
That doing automatable busywork by hand is somehow more dignified than receiving handouts is an absurd idea (it's just as much a handout, only in this case you have to jump through hoops for it).
That others people should be required to do automatable busywork to receive their handouts is a cruel and borderline evil idea.
[+] [-] gotofritz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|9 years ago|reply
That is in fact what a basic income allows, because it allows you to eliminate the minimum wage. Then anyone who wants a job can have it, because they are allowed to accept the wages employers are actually willing to pay, and in combination with the basic income still have enough to live.
[+] [-] kakeadw5481|9 years ago|reply
Think of it like this, if every citizen is getting money regardless of their employment status and that this is essentially a perk of being a citizen and paying your taxes, the negative stigma would not be there per se.
Eventually , people will start seeing this as an additional benefits similar to healthcare being provided by state.
One of the crucial points while introducing UBI would be education both of the populace being helped and the populace at large since you may not be able to introduce it through out the country at one go.
[+] [-] cmurf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kemiller|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JeremyNT|9 years ago|reply
Whole new sorts of currently "worthless" work become possible when not shackled by a minimum wage.
[+] [-] 2noame|9 years ago|reply
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cars.12091/full
[+] [-] JamesBarney|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tim333|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whytaka|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sauronlord|9 years ago|reply
No one is stopping someone from providing services or goods to others
[+] [-] sean_patel|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jondubois|9 years ago|reply
I think that there are a lot of people in my position who are desperate for basic income. From a societal point of view, innovation would move quicker if people had more time to invest in themselves.
Unfortunately for me, right now, I just have two options if I want to buy myself some time to study:
- Hope that one of the startups I work/worked for gets a big exit and that I can cash in and fund my studies.
- Wait for retirement age before going back to uni (and hope that my brain still works OK at that age).
[+] [-] wolfgke|9 years ago|reply
Instead of crying for a UBI you should better cry for people not to buy software that does "trivial stuff". If people were willing to spend a lot of money on software that does highly not-trivial stuff, there probably were a large demand for people that are able and willing to work on such things.
Markets are a democracy - everybody votes with his wallet.
[+] [-] shortstuffsushi|9 years ago|reply
1. You're hoping for UBI so that you can quit the work force and get a PhD, so you're going to (at least temporarily) cease to input money into the system, and start to take money from the system. That seems like effectively twice the cost. Where does that money come from, if you and other people have that same idea? This is the part of UBI I'm struggling to comprehend. There's the idea that you will come out of school "more valuable," but that's speculative vs your current position which is actively adding value (albeit less than what you feel you're worth).
2. Why do you need UBI in order to do this? Are you making no money beyond the absolute minimum you need to live with your current job? Couldn't you potentially save some away and then do the "nights and weekends" sort of school that some people do? To your very last point, you mention having to hope for one of your startups goes big, but could you take a more "steady" / traditional job and make a decent amount of money that way?
Unpopular opinion: this strikes me as exactly a case against UBI. You're taking an active, and perhaps more importantly, tax-contributing member of society, and incentivizing them to stop being one. "Innovation would move quicker" is a great idea, but I don't think it's all that much of a guarantee. It seems likely to me that it would continue near the same pace. But, that's also just speculation / without citation.
[+] [-] vectorpush|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickthemagicman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|9 years ago|reply
Although basic income is obviously a well-worn topic, this article seems a bit more substantive than average. So we'll try downweighting this thread less than we usually do for well-worn topics.
[+] [-] jarym|9 years ago|reply
After all, if you believe their rhetoric, giving someone $500/mo should be the same as giving them free bread, eggs, milk, some clothes and some movie tickets.
I wonder why... Maybe, the reality is that over time our 'Basic' needs increase. In certain parts of the world shoes are still considered a luxury whereas in others, Nikes and Adidas are considered 'basic'. 50 years ago car ownership was a luxury even in most 'developed' nations, as were televisions. Now they're considered 'Basic'.
The reality is, the people touting UBI as a way forward suffer from having a thoroughly static and isolated view of the world. They fail to see that value creation is what's important, and drives society to further itself. As value creation goes up, the definition of 'basic' increases with it. I'm not for a minute advocating that the current system is anywhere near perfect - the wealthiest in our population are questionable value creators while at the same time there are value creators scraping by in the world so the way we reward people needs a rethink.
I don't profess to know how to solve the poverty crisis and I very much want it to be solved as a citizen of the world. What I do know is that the only way to do it will involve reforming education so that future generations are inspired to advance humankind and create value in the process.
[+] [-] Tepix|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shahbaby|9 years ago|reply
Even if UBI was proven to be a net gain to society, implementation is highly unlikely.
This is less about technology/economics and more about human nature, which has not changed much over the last 500 years.
[+] [-] undershirt|9 years ago|reply
Let's be clear that "human nature" is relatively stable, but the "cultures" that sit atop are much more capricious-- slowly changing in different ways to fit the same human desires.
[+] [-] planck01|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2noame|9 years ago|reply
https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-...
If you have another question check here:
http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|9 years ago|reply
If we expect the wealthy class to give their money to the masses to fund their survival, the masses would become functionally dependent on that transfer continuing. At which point the wealthy class would have incredible power over the masses.
Asking for a basic income is like asking to go to prison for the free food. It is not a good idea to become dependent on others with such different interests.
Instead, I advocate the development of open source automation solutions that provide everything necessary for human survival. Open source machines can be manufactured by any corporation and purchased by groups who would then own the means of their own survival.
A basic income becomes a source of leverage for moneyed interests to get their way. But if we all own the machines that support our survival, we can choose for ourselves when we work and when we study to better ourselves.
I've written about this recently, here: http://tlalexander.com/machine/
[+] [-] amelius|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] funkyy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mz|9 years ago|reply
A $1000/month sounds like a lot now. But the minute you issue UBI, it will spur inflation and the value of that $1000 will immediately be less than it is now. This is a problem faced by every single welfare or aid program the world over: It takes no time for whatever figures you came up with to be out of date and for your program to not be accomplishing its intended goals.
I have written about this before (for example: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/09/it-was-obsol...) and I expect to write about this more. The UBI is a bad solution to the problem. We have faced this problem before in the form of the Industrial Revolution and we invented the 40 hour work week. It helped distribute work more fairly. We need similar solutions today. Turning most people into sheeple and charity cases merely because they are not rich is a terrible, terrible idea.
[+] [-] xvedejas|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heycomeoncomeon|9 years ago|reply
Inflation is simply the influx of money that causes the "value" of ALL goods/services to increase. This is due to the increase of the money supply which decreases the value of the currency. I emphasize that it is the value of ALL goods/services not just one or a large number of sectors. When we see prices rise up in goods and services in one area it isn't inflation because it is in one area of the economy.
Another misunderstood axiom of economics is that a market is based on finite resources. If goods in one area of the market increase then somewhere else across the economy the value of goods and services decrease. Now the misinterpretation of inflation and price hikes happen due to one variable, time. The time it takes for price hikes in one area to affect another is what gives the perception of inflation. But when the value of groceries significantly increases then I assure you people are going to eat out less. It just takes time for the sectors to affect on one another.
[+] [-] err4nt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unstatusthequo|9 years ago|reply
When I grew up my basic income was something called "wages," for which I worked to earn.
Someone has to fund shit like this. Handouts do not promote self help, but the opposite: dependence on the government. Is that something to be proud about?
[+] [-] roldie|9 years ago|reply
[0] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/01/michael_munger_3.ht...
[+] [-] thephyber|9 years ago|reply
My interpretation was that the host wasn't sold on the idea nor on the low estimated tax increases required to fund a UBI (IIRC the guest stated 3-10% increases in income taxes and the host speculated more like 20+%).
[+] [-] omilu|9 years ago|reply
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 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.
[+] [-] Balgair|9 years ago|reply
Wait, so then how does inheritance work? Like, your grandmother worked for it, but you just snowboard all year long. What am I missing here?
[+] [-] jganetsk|9 years ago|reply
Citation needed. The value of the dollar is actually determined by:
1) Foreign exchange markets
2) Debt markets
[+] [-] ragebol|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] X86BSD|9 years ago|reply
The dollar has lost 97% of its value since the federal reserve was created. To me, having a federal reserve is a sure fire way to reduce the value of a dollar.
I would rather work today for pre-1965 quarters made of silver than a dollar today. The pre-1965 quarter will buy a gallon of gas. The dollar today will require three to buy that same gallon. Proof is in the pudding as they say. The currency is the problem.