this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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Sigh. People make this braindead argument every single time this subject comes up. No they can't. Markets do not work that way. It's literally just a repackaged argument against minimum wage and it has been thoroughly debunked in that context.
Unless you live in a city with rent stabilization, yes landlords will do that. Groceries will likely not have that problem, because of other market conditions. The first to increase their rents will be luxury apartments. Once the Internet is done laughing their asses off about $5000 rent, other landlords will use realpage to gauge the market and increase in tandem. Landlords literally do not care if their property is occupied, because the money is in the land and we've commoditized housing.
Don't try to mischaracterize me. For UBI to work, we need national rent stabilization and significant efforts to build non-market housing across the nation. I'm not against UBI, but it can't just be added without other changes.
Have you seen how housing prices rose when interest rates were low? Markets work that way because consumers outcompete each other, at least in the housing market. You need a surplus of supply, like the corn market, to keep costs low.
Like @espi wrote, you need fierce competition in all markets.
We literally just witnessed this with COVID shutdown. Im not sure why you think people getting handed money will not increase pricing as that is usually how things work.
No we didn't. Prices went way up after people had gotten their money from the government. And it really wasn't that much money.
Yes it is directly because they got that money that prices went up.
So you want to tell me that companies aren't buying out competition and with a monopoly they then rise prises as they want?
Explain to me how markets work if the only company selling or renting houses is not lowering their price when demand lowers? Or when they intentionally are not renting flats in order to keep demand high?
We should do away with using money for necessities. You want a pool, pay for it. A safe and sanitary living space? Free. Stop making people rely on something with no inherent value.
How do you determine what is a necessity and how much of that necessity is free?
Is electricity a necessity? Should it be free for everyone? Should the person who owns the massive mansion get it all paid for? If we say its only for a certain amount of electricity, does the person who doesn't use all of their allocated amount get compensation somehow?
What about food then? I don't think anyone would think lobster and caviar should be free. So let's just do food basics like cheese. Artisan cheese is expensive. So we need paid for artisan cheese and basic government funded cheese product. So now we have a two tier food system where poor people live off gruel and soylent green, while the rich can afford real food.
The only way to solve these issues is to find agreed method of representing value that people can use on what they want.
No one can complain that someone else is getting something for free, because they also get the exact same thing. No one can defraud the system because everyone gets the exact same cheque. Well, unless you bump off grandma and collect hers too.
safe and sanitary space in Manhattan can cost the same as mansion with a pool somewhere else.
With current global world simply existing in attractive locations could be luxury.
Then how do you handle things like better-then-basic food, housing, etc? They serve a basic need but they're also luxuries.
We should get rid of landlords either way of course. Don't even need UBI for that. Also get rid of billionaires.
The ideas of „you can only own a building you live in“ and „companies can’t own residential buildings“ keep popping up in my head. Any reason that can’t be the solution?
Capitalist brainwashing and status quo warriors?
The fact that if you need to rent you can't because who do you rent from and where do they move to?
If you want to rent, who owns those buildings? One person who lives there?
I don’t have a definitive answer for that. Right now I‘d go with that, yes. The goal would be to move away from renting as you age. Everyone should own their living space sooner or later. There are options for this. Where I live you can rent-buy something. It’s renting but you also reduce the price you‘d pay for buying it. It’s very rare though afaik.
gigabit internet should be free for everyone imo
It's super frustrating that my state banned the ability for cities to have municipal internet, it makes organizing to make gigabit Internet a municipal utility much harder
that is batshit insane what good reason would there be to ban it
Because telecom companies secured their monopoly after a whiff of community organizing
Yeah, why TF is the internet so shitty in US? I get 500 Mbps down/10 Mbps up for $80/month. It's disgusting. I'd rather have 100 Mbps symmetric. Or better yet, 500 Mbps symmetric. My parents pay around $20/month for that, and they live in rural India. Even they got fiber, but I have to deal with fucking coax cables. The only local provider with fiber and symmetric speeds doesn't operate in my side of the town. Why does everything in US have to be designed to fuck the end consumer? It's really frustrating.
the closest thing we have now in the us afaik is public libraries, but even those aren't getting much support these days :(
must be even more annoying with that stuff about book banning in some states!
They already can, and do. If they do it too much, people leave that area. With a UBI, there's nothing that says you have to live in a big city, it would be easier to move to bfe, where it's always going to be cheaper. It's not ideal of course to uproot and leave, but it's possible, and it's that possibility that keeps prices somewhat under control.
unless you have conditions that require you to have quick access to hospital, or doesn't allow you to work in physically intensive labor like farms, or require certain infrastructure like elevators and access to wheelchairs, etc. i can see that working for some people, but not for everyone. and the people that would be left behind could be dramatically affected by this situation
Moving to more rural areas is what causes rural areas to build hospitals, and doctors to open clinics and offices. There are plenty of jobs everywhere that just involve sitting on your ass in front of a screen, or standing behind a counter. Even in rural areas.
Growth doesn't just happen. People have to go places and build. UBI would make that process a shit ton easier.
I mean, sure... but it's hard to build specialized medical facilities for people who need them in every rural area they decide to live, right? and it's basically impossible to keep them running when there's only a few people that will need them in that area, no? at some point, the places they can choose to live will be heavily informed by the disabilities they may or may not have.
eventually, you will probably end up with highly concentrated areas of people who have similar disabilities that can be treated in that area (as well as their loved ones, medics/physicians, people who provide food, transportation, etc...).
I don't want to come across as against UBI, I think it's a very interesting first approach. but I also definitely don't believe it's a solution by any , you see...
It turns out the specialized medical needs are kind of special, and they fly people to where there are facilities when they're needed. And only affects a special portion of the population. For everyone else it doesn't matter.
For fuck sake people crossed the entire US in a god damn wagon while risking being shot at by random tribes and eaten by bears. What's stopping people now is that they can't afford food or a place to park the damn wagon without getting harassed by the cops.
For the very problems you stated, I'm in favor of UBI. Capital would take some time to adjust to the new system and for a moment, misery would be alleviated for a metric shitload of people. When it's ripped from our hands by greedy capitalists, it could act as a unifying, radicalizing force and bring us closer to a revolution. There's a loooot more to it than my few sentences. But a UBI given to everyone with no means testing would be an objectively good thing. And its a bit like Pandora's box. Once it's here, you can't take it away without serious social ramifications. I'll leave a couple of articles that touch on this because it's something the left ought to be taking more seriously, however I haven't had a chance to read the two of them all the way through yet. I'm at work and things just got busy but here ya go one, two
Hard agree on all points. It's a bit of a bummer that Andrew yang of all people was the one to start the national conversation about UBI because his whole deal just pollutes the discussion from the jump
Also for a guy with a Math pin he ignored key parts of the UBI research he used for his position and repeatedly misrepresented the figures in it.
The projection that the economy would grow because of UBI was in the part of the Roosevelt Institute study that posited the money would just appear from the sky whereas the growth rates projected from tax financed UBI were almost zero as would be expected.
I felt like it should be paired with government contracts for something akin to a private dorm room (room, cafeteria with meal plan, laundry, computer lab, wifi, etc.) that negotiates a price that is then what the ubi is pegged at. Folks are guaranteed being able to have at least that option or can utilize it for something else.
Let me introduce you to government corruption
I've never heard of UBS before, I hope it takes off
(I mean it absolutely will take off... in a post capitalist society. Hopefully it takes off long before then though)