I’ve had this discussion before. You might want to do some more research and have sources. I would advise you to look at really good sources about the following points:
“It’s not “universal” unless/until it’s given to everyone.”
“…would cost the government $2.4 TRILLION, yearly.”
“Even seizing the entirety of every US billionaire’s net worth and cutting defense spending wouldn’t even cover the cost of this UBI for three years”
Your numbers and projected income is way wonky. I’ll discuss it when you come back with sources from the studies of UBI and why most experts think they worked being referenced.
I’m not the other person but I’ve had this discussion in work before and people have hit back with the following:
This wouldn’t work because with all these people getting UBI would just mean companies would put prices up to levels making the UBI worthless. For example if the cost of living is $1000 and you give people who need it $1000 then before long the cost of living would rise to $2000.
Now I’m in support of doing more for the average person and taking from corporations but I just don’t know how to argue against their, albeit lacking in actual data, arguments.
For example if the cost of living is $1000 and you give people who need it $1000 then before long the cost of living would rise to $2000.
You may choose to have a $2000 cost of living, but you would choose that too through a pay raise. You could be empowered to keep $1000 cost of living, and there would be more apartments like “yours” if everyone else is moving up in lifestyle.
UBI gives you more choices. If you think everyone else is passive, just paying what they are told, you can use the opportunity to build more affordable life options for people, including easy access to loans from all of the extra money getting spent.
So when I said cost of living I meant in general and not on an individual basis.
For example $1000 would cover all rent and bills, but then companies or landlords get greedy and raise prices so the cost of living is now $2000 making UBI futile. Rather than an individual increasing their own cost of living. If that makes sense.
If sellers can fix prices so easily they’re a cartel. Your whole economy is way fucked in that case so you definately need radical reform of one type or another, UBI is the least of your worries. Paying monopoly prices for everything is your big problem, you do need to get on with effective anti-trust action - or other radical market reform.
Even if no prosecution due to regulatory capture and so on though, a cartel of enough oligopolists in inherently unstable and they have to work hard to keep up the cooperation, it becomes a complex situation but underying it, the first one to cut prices will sell way more units and eat the others market share . This doesn’t work all the time in all industries, but general competetive pressure does sometimes work to mediate excess profits in some circumstances.
Now, if you’d picked a broken market like rents and said landlords fix rental prices higher, yes - dysfunctional market, high barriers to entry, no real liquidity, rare transactions, powerful intermediators, weak ill informed buyers; yes such a market probably would benefit from price regulation or increasing social housing provision.
I’d love to see the evidence for the 1:1 happening in practice. I suspect it’s someone’s perverse-dream, very strong assumptions about universal sellers power and consumers total inability to substitute.
This wouldn’t work because with all these people getting UBI would just mean companies would put prices up to levels making the UBI worthless. For example if the cost of living is $1000 and you give people who need it $1000 then before long the cost of living would rise to $2000.
It’s the guaranteed part that makes a difference. If they know they can at least buy toiletries or whatever with the money.
I don’t understand the cost of living part? Are they raising the prices randomly? Is it because more people are buying stuff, so there’s more demand? Then more jobs are created. It’s a very vague question.
Apologies for being vague, it’s been a while since I’ve had this discussion.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding UBI as being linked to the cost of living, in that the UBI would provide for people’s basic needs and if they wanted more than that then they could find a job to supplement their income or maybe it’s one or the other.
I think what they were getting at ok the raising prices is that because there is more spending power then that means corps would like to get their hands on this extra money by raising prices.
I’ll try and broach this topic again and get their objections and bring it up next time I see this discussion.
No worries, I’m guessing they won’t be able to respond either. It sounds like talking points they were given by a podcast or something, and they didn’t really look into it. Whenever people start spouting those kind of things, digging deeper into their thoughts will usually tell you pretty quickly how much they believe or are repeating.
No, I’m pointing out that you’ve added so little to this you may as well have not even posted, look at how much traction the things the other person said are now getting. Why even say anything if you aren’t willing to actually engage, all you’ve done is made the other person look rational and you look obtuse.
You might want to do some more research and have sources.
I brought up a handful of VERY easily-verifiable, non-controversial data points, and just did some simple math. But, I guess, for the extremely lazy:
$1000/mo x 12 months in a year = $12000/yr
Number of working-age (16-64) Americans = ~210 million (I rounded down to 200 and counted working-age only (i.e. no elderly/retired), two things that make my argument WEAKER)
$12 thousand x 200 million = $2.4 trillion
Combined net worth of US billionaires is ~4.5 trillion. But hey, I found a much higher estimate that puts it a bit above 6 trillion. That gets you almost a whole extra year!
Assuming stripping defense down to zero (which again, is an absolutely absurd hypothetical made for the sake of argument, and making my argument AS WEAK AS POSSIBLE) and applying the entire $850 billion to the UBI price tag, you’re left with a yearly cost of $1.55 trillion. And even using the higher estimate of $6 trillion from the billionaires, 1.55 goes into 6 less than 4 times.
The only thing ‘wonky’ is your refusal to accept mathematical reality.
P.S. Telling me to “look at really good sources” for ‘it’s not universal if it’s not given to everyone’ made me laugh pretty hard.
I’ve had this discussion before. You might want to do some more research and have sources. I would advise you to look at really good sources about the following points:
Your numbers and projected income is way wonky. I’ll discuss it when you come back with sources from the studies of UBI and why most experts think they worked being referenced.
I’m not the other person but I’ve had this discussion in work before and people have hit back with the following:
This wouldn’t work because with all these people getting UBI would just mean companies would put prices up to levels making the UBI worthless. For example if the cost of living is $1000 and you give people who need it $1000 then before long the cost of living would rise to $2000.
Now I’m in support of doing more for the average person and taking from corporations but I just don’t know how to argue against their, albeit lacking in actual data, arguments.
You may choose to have a $2000 cost of living, but you would choose that too through a pay raise. You could be empowered to keep $1000 cost of living, and there would be more apartments like “yours” if everyone else is moving up in lifestyle.
UBI gives you more choices. If you think everyone else is passive, just paying what they are told, you can use the opportunity to build more affordable life options for people, including easy access to loans from all of the extra money getting spent.
So when I said cost of living I meant in general and not on an individual basis.
For example $1000 would cover all rent and bills, but then companies or landlords get greedy and raise prices so the cost of living is now $2000 making UBI futile. Rather than an individual increasing their own cost of living. If that makes sense.
If sellers can fix prices so easily they’re a cartel. Your whole economy is way fucked in that case so you definately need radical reform of one type or another, UBI is the least of your worries. Paying monopoly prices for everything is your big problem, you do need to get on with effective anti-trust action - or other radical market reform.
Even if no prosecution due to regulatory capture and so on though, a cartel of enough oligopolists in inherently unstable and they have to work hard to keep up the cooperation, it becomes a complex situation but underying it, the first one to cut prices will sell way more units and eat the others market share . This doesn’t work all the time in all industries, but general competetive pressure does sometimes work to mediate excess profits in some circumstances.
Now, if you’d picked a broken market like rents and said landlords fix rental prices higher, yes - dysfunctional market, high barriers to entry, no real liquidity, rare transactions, powerful intermediators, weak ill informed buyers; yes such a market probably would benefit from price regulation or increasing social housing provision.
I’d love to see the evidence for the 1:1 happening in practice. I suspect it’s someone’s perverse-dream, very strong assumptions about universal sellers power and consumers total inability to substitute.
It’s the guaranteed part that makes a difference. If they know they can at least buy toiletries or whatever with the money.
I don’t understand the cost of living part? Are they raising the prices randomly? Is it because more people are buying stuff, so there’s more demand? Then more jobs are created. It’s a very vague question.
Apologies for being vague, it’s been a while since I’ve had this discussion.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding UBI as being linked to the cost of living, in that the UBI would provide for people’s basic needs and if they wanted more than that then they could find a job to supplement their income or maybe it’s one or the other.
I think what they were getting at ok the raising prices is that because there is more spending power then that means corps would like to get their hands on this extra money by raising prices.
I’ll try and broach this topic again and get their objections and bring it up next time I see this discussion.
No worries, I’m guessing they won’t be able to respond either. It sounds like talking points they were given by a podcast or something, and they didn’t really look into it. Whenever people start spouting those kind of things, digging deeper into their thoughts will usually tell you pretty quickly how much they believe or are repeating.
Removed by mod
I don’t understand this comment. Are you trolling or responding to the wrong one?
No, I’m pointing out that you’ve added so little to this you may as well have not even posted, look at how much traction the things the other person said are now getting. Why even say anything if you aren’t willing to actually engage, all you’ve done is made the other person look rational and you look obtuse.
Interesting strategy!
Ahhh, the first one.
I brought up a handful of VERY easily-verifiable, non-controversial data points, and just did some simple math. But, I guess, for the extremely lazy:
Assuming stripping defense down to zero (which again, is an absolutely absurd hypothetical made for the sake of argument, and making my argument AS WEAK AS POSSIBLE) and applying the entire $850 billion to the UBI price tag, you’re left with a yearly cost of $1.55 trillion. And even using the higher estimate of $6 trillion from the billionaires, 1.55 goes into 6 less than 4 times.
The only thing ‘wonky’ is your refusal to accept mathematical reality.
P.S. Telling me to “look at really good sources” for ‘it’s not universal if it’s not given to everyone’ made me laugh pretty hard.