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gedaliyah , (edited )
@gedaliyah@lemmy.world avatar

Don’t give away money to the poor! They’ll just waste it spending $36 billion on a poorly thought out and woefully executed meta-universe! Only corporations can be trusted to make efficient decisions!

Socsa ,

The crazy thing is that this kind of thing is way closer to actual socialism than any historical society has gotten, but the tankies hate it because it doesn’t have enough violent fan service.

RustyShackleford , (edited )
@RustyShackleford@programming.dev avatar

It’s because they’re akin to the pigs in Animal Farm. They don’t give a shit about the proletariat. They just wanna be in charge forever and kill anyone who points that out.

Daft_ish ,

“People spend money on basic needs”

mycathas9lives ,
@mycathas9lives@mastodon.social avatar

@testeronious

Some people are being given thousands of dollars with no strings attached in universal basic income trials. They spend the cash.

FTFY

intensely_human ,

The entire concept of a scientific study to determine whether people spend this money wisely is bunk, because it’s nobody else’s business how a person’s money gets spent and whether it’s categorized as “wise”.

If we assume that there is an objective, ie scientifically valid, definition of “wise spending”, then we should just go centrally planned communism because the whole point of free markets is allowing people to enact their own value structure in their spending.

The whole idea of basic income, as opposed to all these other services, is based on the same idea: that people’s money is their own.

This study seems nice, but it frames this whole question the wrong way. The whole concept of money is that people have a right to make their own economic choices, regardless of what some centralized authority thinks is “wise”.

szczuroarturo ,

That’s not true. There is a wise spending. Or to be more correct there is a foolish spending. Gambling your money away for example is f* stupid.

ItsMeSpez ,

The point is that the government really shouldn’t have any say in which is which. I agree with you that gambling all your money away is a poor financial choice, but that doesn’t mean that I think we should ban gambling, because many people enjoy it responsibly. Teaching people financial literacy, and treating addictions is the solution, not policing how people use their UBI.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

If it’s government given money, that’s somebody’s tax dollars and the government absolutely should have a say, because the people giving that money should have a say.

ItsMeSpez ,

Why attack the people for their spending on vices when you could just outlaw the vices. If you care so much about people’s morals, then the government should just outlaw alcohol, gambling and anything else deemed an ill use of this money. It’s the exact same thing, except you only want the government to police people who you think don’t deserve freedom because you consider them lesser.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

When you take someone else’s money, you should have a good reason for doing so. Money is an exchange of labor, straight up. You’re not entitled to anyone else’s labor without qualification.

Social benefit programs are just that, programs for the social benefit.

People are allowed to have vices, but irresponsibly spending other people’s money is not okay, just like breaking/trashing other people’s stuff (and thus spending their time and money) is not okay.

This is a basic part of the social contract.

CileTheSane ,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

If it’s government given money, that’s somebody’s tax dollars and the government absolutely should have a say,

The issue is it costs money for the Government to have a say and 99% of the time it’s not needed.

If you just get rid of the Government overhead to make sure people are “spending it wisely,” the money lost by the 1% who spend it foolishly will be far less than the money saved by getting rid of all the administration.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

(Response is here: social.packetloss.gg/comment/1528226)

intensely_human ,

Nope. The nature of money is that when you transfer it to someone else’s, it is now their money. It’s no longer your money. It’s their money.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

No that’s not how it works. It is extremely common for government issued money to come with stipulations on how it can be spent.

valtia ,

I agree with you, except that we should ban gambling.

intensely_human ,

but that doesn’t mean that I think we should ban gambling, because many people enjoy it responsibly

More like because it’s an adult human’s right to be free. That is the point. Responsibly, irresponsibly, these are secondary concepts.

KillingTimeItself ,

now let’s say you heavily tax gambling at a state level. Suddenly you get more tax kickback from that UBI even though nothing particularly effective was done with it.

I mean, theoretically, gambling itself, as a tax revenue source is actually pretty good. It’s money going to a good cause, even though technically wasted.

Litron3000 ,

Also it’s a huge difference if you get universal income for life or just for a limited time and have to provide for yourself again after that

Churbleyimyam ,

Word.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

Yeah no, there definitely is wise spending.

Spending all your money at the casino, spending all your money on alcohol, etc. That’s majority different from spending money on food, shelter, an education, etc.

There’s also a difference between spending money that was given to you vs spending money that you did something to earn. That’s part of why welfare is such a contentious program in the country. “I want them to have food not half a dozen kids, 17 pets, brand new phones, and cigarettes.”

The fact of the matter is, most recipients don’t spend the money on that and they do spend it wisely just like the folks did here.

But yeah, if you’re asking for me or anyone else to give up a portion of our salaries to create universal basic income, etc, it needs to be proven to be a net benefit, and how “wisely” that money is being spent is important.

We wouldn’t rejoice at a politician taking more money from the public fund for a personal trip to the Bahamas. If it’s shown this money just becomes vacation money, it’s clearly not needed and frankly shouldn’t be given.

Understanding how the money is spent is important.

emptiestplace ,

status quo is worse

nomous ,

Jesus christ someone makes a well-stated, thoughtful response and your slack-jawed response is “status quo worse!” like that addresses any of the points made. It’s no wonder “the left” in the U.S. are such fucking losers if this is what the brain trust has to offer.

CileTheSane ,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

The fact of the matter is, most recipients don’t spend the money on that and they do spend it wisely just like the folks did here.

And the fact of the matter is a lot of money is wasted on administration making sure those people who wouldn’t waste their money aren’t wasting their money.

Think about it this way: for X amount of tax dollars you could help 10 families in need and cover the administration costs to make sure they are spending it wisely.
For the same X amount of dollars you could help 20 families in need with no administrative oversight, and 1 of those families doesn’t need or misuses the money.

In the second scenario you’re still helping 9 more families that need it at no additional cost.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

Because it works out so well when we just let people run away with money?

You’re making the same argument that a lot of Republicans make. “Corporations will be honest with the public money we give them, we don’t need all this administrative overhead.”

There’s definitely something to be said for minimizing administrative overhead. However, that’s a very different argument than “there’s no such thing as wise spending and we just shouldn’t care where the money is going.”

CileTheSane ,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

And here we have a study demonstrating that people will be smart with the money. I’m not saying “just trust me on this,” we have actual evidence.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

So, in summary…

  • Original comment: "We don’t need studies"
  • Me: "Yes, we do need studies. This is important data to keep track of to make sure the money is being put where it’s most desperately needed."
  • You: “We don’t need to keep track of where money is going, people are honest. We have studies!”

In other words…

  • Original comment: "Studies are useless!"
  • Me: "Studies are not useless"
  • You: “Studies are useless, because we have proof that studies are useless, via a study”
CileTheSane ,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

Original comment: we don’t need oversight.
You: we should have oversight because people might waste money.
Me: even if people waste money that will be less money wasted than is spent on the oversight, allowing more people to be helped.

Dark_Arc , (edited )
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

Actual original comment’s very first sentence:

The entire concept of a scientific study to determine whether people spend this money wisely is bunk

You: putting words in my mouth, doubling down, and missing the point.

Me: Over this.

CileTheSane ,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

Actual original comment’s very first sentence:

The entire concept of a scientific study to determine whether people spend this money wisely is bunk

So as I said: saying we don’t need oversight.

You: putting words in my mouth, doubling down, and missing the point.

You:

But yeah, if you’re asking for me or anyone else to give up a portion of our salaries to create universal basic income, etc, it needs to be proven to be a net benefit, and how “wisely” that money is being spent is important.

Sure sounds like you’re saying “we should have oversight because people might waste money.” I don’t see how that is putting words in your mouth. If I am misrepresenting your point the correct way to respond is with a clarification or restating of your point. A generic “yOuR pUtTiNg WoRdS iN mY mOuTh” and going off in a huff does nothing to clarify point or show how it was “misrepresented.”

I was in no way saying your argument was a bad opinion to have, just that I disagreed with it and gave a counter argument.

Voran ,

Unsure I agree with this. I agree it’s not black and white but for example if someone spent it on drinking binges or gambling is that really just their business? The money could have gone to something else.

CileTheSane ,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

The cost of the adminstration to make sure no one spends it driving and gambling is more expensive than the money that would be lost drinking and gambling.

If you do away with the adminstration you can spend that money helping more people who need it. If someone wants to waste that money not helping themselves that is their choice, more people still get helped with the same amount of cost.

Voran ,

Hmm good point.

KillingTimeItself ,

i actually think in the concept of distributing tax money as UBI, that this is actually a very valid point.

It doesn’t matter how it’s spent, you can spend it on a fucking 5 thousand dollar bottle of wine, or you could spend it on food because you are broke as fuck. It makes no difference to either party, that money is still spent and utilized in the economy.

Where that money goes after however? Now that’s a different story, go ask bezos.

PresidentCamacho ,

The entire concept of a scientific study to determine whether people spend this money wisely is bunk

For anything like this to actually happen people will have to vote for it. 1st you are incorrect because this wont happen if the people arnt educated on what happens when this system is introduced. 2nd Your correct because you can do all the studies in the world and gen pop would still be too easily manipulated to ever try something out of the box like this.

nutsack ,

the amount given should be based on some cost of living index just like the minimum wage should be

Maggoty ,

Oh look UBI experiment number 1578 says the same thing.

And people will still ignore it and pretend UBI is unproven.

BreadstickNinja ,

But people won’t want to slave away for my megacorp for starvation wages if we pay them not to work!

Blackmist ,

Except of course none of these are UBI experiments. The U has been completely forgotten.

They’re trying to water down the idea of UBI to renaming “benefits”. There’s only one class of people who would find this advantageous, and it ain’t us.

The reality is that we won’t know for sure how it works across an entire population until a small country changes its tax structure to make this possible across everyone. Would people quit shit jobs more often? Would minimum wage be abolished? How much work is considered saturation when all the crap is stripped away?

Real actual UBI would be an enormous societal change (I believe for the better), and I’m not sure that giving a handful of poor people some money and watching them spend it on things they need to survive is particularly worthwhile. We know that. It’s everyone else that might throw a spanner in the works.

WeirdGoesPro ,
@WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

This has been my primary question about UBI: if landlords know that everybody has an extra $1000 per month, what stops them from raising rent by exactly that amount?

My biggest concern with UBI is that it would be great for a couple of years, and then the greedy fingers of capitalism would find a way to start clawing it back. I don’t see how UBI works without including a bunch of protections to keep the newly financially stable populace from being exploited again.

Maggoty ,

Because we’ve already capped annual rent increases and stood up a special part of the DOJ to prosecute any price cartels.

UBI doesn’t answer every problem. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.

WeirdGoesPro ,
@WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

For the record, I don’t think it is a bad idea—I want it to be a good idea and I would benefit from it.

I just don’t trust corpo America to let us normies experience an increase in our quality of life without it putting a target on our backs.

I’m glad to hear about the rent cap. Does that apply to new developments as well? Could somebody tear down an old apartment and build new ones at double the cost?

I’m not trying to slam UBI or interrogate you, I’m genuinely curious. I just have a natural resistance to getting my hopes up after watching nearly every other proposed social program in my lifetime turn out to be varying shades of bullshit.

Maggoty ,

Oh no. We’re going to have to fight. The idea that we won capitalism in the 80’s and 90’s seriously set us back. We’re going to have to fight and keep fighting our entire lives.

Blackmist ,

Because not everyone has an extra $1000 a month. The median working person’s tax will increase to the point that the UBI is wiped out (and high earners will find their tax burden more than it is now). This is how it works. It’s not free money on top of your existing money. It’s a barrier at the low end preventing money from going below a certain level.

WeirdGoesPro ,
@WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I see, so it sort of scales where they take some or all of the UBI back in taxes based on your income? Would the tax evasion that is common with the ultra-rich thwart this design?

And if only the poorest demographic has the extra $1000, then wouldn’t that concentrate potential price increases in low income neighborhoods?

Thank you for answering my questions and feel free to tap out whenever, I just haven’t had the chance to ask anyone about this who seems to have done any real research on it.

Blackmist ,

Well the ultra rich don’t really pay a level of income tax that reflects their wealth anyway, but even if they were actively trying to fiddle things any amount of UBI would be but a rounding error in their finances. For the actual rich, nothing short of a wealth tax will do.

As for the second question, possibly. Although UBI does replace benefits, and I’d wager most low income neighbourhood are already using those benefits to top up landlord retirement funds anyway. UBI is as much about letting people have the money without making them balance it on their nose first while praising the glorious taxpayers that fund it.

damnedfurry , (edited )

the ultra rich don’t really pay a level of income tax that reflects their wealth anyway

Nor does anyone else.

Income tax reflects income. It has zero relationship with wealth/net worth.

EDIT: lmao even the most basic factual statements get downvoted when they’re inconvenient to the narrative, huh guys?

WeirdGoesPro ,
@WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Thank you, I learned some things today.

Maggoty ,

Ahhh the, “the experiment is impossible” argument. Except no one ever argues that the math is wrong once the self sustaining tax system is explained. Because it’s really quite simple. So we don’t need an experiment for that do we?

We look at people’s employment status and their financial literacy. And this is study number 1542 proving that it would not cause massive drop out from employment and people are capable of budgeting the extra money responsibly.

Blackmist ,

And this is study number 1542 proving that it would not cause massive drop out from employment

And where, pray tell, has it proved that?

The only way that it would not cause a drop in employment is if UBI is not enough to live off, which defeats the whole purpose.

Maggoty ,

UBI as an entire living stipend is an end state scenario; when automation is extremely advanced. Nobody serious is suggesting that for right now.

Blackmist ,

I think any definition of UBI that does not contain enough to live off is not really UBI.

And yes, to live off it, you’ll be shopping in Aldi, eating very basic food, and living in an area that isn’t very nice. I’m not suggesting you should be able to live on it in a nice area of SF or somewhere else with ludicrous property prices on UBI. It would probably involve some basic housing being thrown up by the government.

We already live in a society with enough money to ensure everyone can live. It would just be nice to get rid of the cruelty in the lower rungs.

Tower ,

We already live in a society with enough money to ensure everyone can live. It would just be nice to get rid of the cruelty in the lower rungs.

Very well said. Unfortunately, for some, the cruelty is the point.

Maggoty ,

Should the people who work in SF be able to live there?

One way to tackle the problem of wealth distribution is a UBI. Because it effectively just acts as an extra tax on the wealthy and a stimulus for the working class. It effectively rebalances the economy over time. It also helps people get better jobs, job training, and supports creative workers. Of course not everyone can get the “good jobs” but this makes the labor market more competitive so even the “bad jobs” will need to treat workers better to keep them.

Blackmist ,

I mean yeah, they’ll have to. But they’ll have to be paid enough to live there. If you’re paying a janitor $80k because that’s what he needs to vac to floors and empty the bins, companies might start asking “what the fuck are we putting our businesses in SF for?”

Remote work is another good equaliser there, but comes with the downside of remote workers also being available overseas and a lot cheaper.

charonn0 ,
@charonn0@startrek.website avatar

Experiments like these only proves “BI”. Still waiting for someone to explain how the “U” is supposed to work.

gamermanh ,
@gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

There are multiple ideas, all of which have merits and drawbacks because this is reality.

Piss easy to find them yourself and not pretend like you actually know what you’re on about.

charonn0 ,
@charonn0@startrek.website avatar

Sorry, I assumed you were being sincere and looking for a discussion.

Maggoty ,

Simply put you give everyone X amount. We’ll use 100 because it’s easy. Then you tax it back on a sliding scale. At the low end they keep the entire 100 dollars. At the high end it is all paid back. In the middle you’d get 100 dollars and owe 50 back in taxes.

This actually removes a lot of the administrative overhead and allows UBI to circulate a lot more money than you’re actually paying into it.

Less simply, I’ll let this guy explain it.

7heo , (edited )

Personally I have never considered that there would be a risk of the UBI recipients to spend the money unwisely.

People needing UBI have a very long standing experience of not getting what they need to minimise their losses on a daily basis, so of course they will invest in that first. They all probably have a ranked, itemised list of all that would help. And I’m willing to bet that said list, on average, would be at least 80% correct (the 20% being influenced by personal sensitivities and beliefs, like a vegan person spending more on plastic based clothing, that wears out faster).

People not needing UBI already have more money than they can find intelligent uses for, and so they already are spending money unwisely.

Nah, the part that concerns me is that as soon as we all get UBI, and I do mean the very next day, rents are gonna rise by 33% of the amount of the UBI, the cost of food will rise by 33% of the amount of the UBI, and the cost of all the rest combined will rise by 34% of the amount of the UBI. It will be back to square one, and all we will have achieved will be funnelling our taxes straight into the pockets of for profit, private megacorporations.

We need to “fix” that megacorporation problem first.

C126 ,

Start a competing business that doesn’t make any profit.

7heo ,

How can you be so thick? If the problem was with profits, we’d have solved it essentially on day one of capitalism.

No, profits are good, it means you can live from your work.

The problem here is greed. And you know what? Unlike with finding out that you’re too stupid to get this, finding out where profits stop and greed start is a hard problem. Not individually, because that is about when a business owner starts paying their workforce less and starts buying stupid useless crap to show their status or grow their comfort much beyond the average… No, systematically. Because differences in management style mean that sometimes it makes sense to shrink everyone’s income (including the CEO’s) to be able to address challenges. But you can’t easily tell that apart from greed and dodging taxes.

BluesF ,

You can live from your work without profit. Wages are a cost, not the result of profit. I would argue it’s very easy to see when greed begins - it’s when people (shareholders) are paid without having done any work. Obviously there is an argument that senior managers get paid disproportionately, but a part of that will always be stock for which they will continue to earn money without doing anything at all. At least their wage is paid for doing something.

The other commenter misses a key point that under the current system to truly compete with megacorps you need investors to build scale. Independent companies can certainly reinvest their earnings rather than claiming them as profits, which is far better than having them siphoned off, but won’t get you anywhere near the kind of cash that you need. And as soon as you have investors, they expect their cut.

7heo ,

You can live from your work without profit. Wages are a cost, not the result of profit.

This only works when you have enough capital to back it up. Can’t switch to a salary-based remuneration model without having enough assets to make sure you don’t default every other month. But yes indeed, you can do that, once you have made enough profits to have an appropriate capital for this use case.

I would argue it’s very easy to see when greed begins - it’s when people (shareholders) are paid without having done any work.

Yes, that is correct. However the appreciation of “work” is actually the hard part. If it wasn’t, micromanagement wouldn’t be a thing. So I guess we’re saying the same thing, from different angles.

Obviously there is an argument that senior managers get paid disproportionately, but a part of that will always be stock for which they will continue to earn money without doing anything at all. At least their wage is paid for doing something.

Yeah, so, already, this is going into “hard to gauge” territory. Is the senior manager one of the founding members, that grew a business from nothing, eating pasta and sweating blood for years; is the senior manager one of the founding members, that just was a dick from day one, backed by inherited money or VC money; or is the senior manager someone who just joined along the way, and is now profiting off of the work of others?

See, in these 3 eventualities alone, only the first one actually has any kind of legitimacy for being paid and not doing much. Because then, it is a return on investment, and a pretty damn hard investment at that. However, even in that case, it is extremely easy to overdo it and end up paying yourself more than you would actually deserve, even with the all hard work, the initial risk and stress, and the dedication combined.

The other commenter misses a key point that under the current system to truly compete with megacorps you need investors to build scale.

I believe you don’t necessarily need investors, but then, you need skill, wits, balls, and a whole lot of sheer luck. Oh, and a “sure thing” product/service too. Can’t take any chances.

Independent companies can certainly reinvest their earnings rather than claiming them as profits, which is far better than having them siphoned off, but won’t get you anywhere near the kind of cash that you need.

I mean, if you are truly starting a honest business, without much starting capital, and without much preexisting means (e.g. no privileged professional network, access to means of production at extremely low, or no cost, free raw materials/energy, etc), you can’t really do it any other way. You gotta reinvest as much as possible, pay yourself the minimum viable amount (pasta/rice only, and necessities. No travel, no leisure, no comfort), to grow the business into something that can ultimately support your life in a more “normal” way.

And as soon as you have investors, they expect their cut.

The main problem with investors isn’t even that. Them wanting their cuts is definitely a challenge. But the pressure they can exert on the management, the changes they can enact, the decisions they can force, that is the actual problem with investors. They aren’t doing it just for the money. It is a domination kink.

Schadrach ,

I would argue it’s very easy to see when greed begins - it’s when people (shareholders) are paid without having done any work.

So, you want to ban publicly traded companies? That’s usually where ownership and involvement with the company get sharply split, once people can freely buy and sell pieces of the company on the open market.

BluesF ,

What? I didn’t say I wanted to ban anything. And publicly traded companies are not the only ones with shareholders, private companies also can have them.

C126 ,

You’re being greedy by demanding lower prices. How can you be so hypocritical? If you don’t like the businesses that are out their get off your armchair and start competing with a better model. Slackers all of you.

7heo ,

I had to read word by word to make sense of your drivel. At first, it seemed to be sarcasm, but reading “out their” convinced me otherwise. Lrn2English bruh.

For other readers that will find this comment: I’d have written a logical rebuttal explaining why the concentration of wealth, IP laws, predatory financial institutions, etc. make this flat out impossible; and how fair, true capitalism died under Nixon, but it would here be like casting pearls before swine.

C126 ,

So you can’t compete because you have no actual abilities. Got it.

KillingTimeItself ,

a competiting UBI business?

BallsandBayonets ,

You mean rents will go up by 100% of the UBI, food will go up by 100% of the UBI, and healthcare will go up by 10,000% because it’s a day ending in the letter Y.

Signtist ,

I remember when the first wave of stimulus checks went out and a bunch of car dealerships suddenly raised the price on their cars by $1000. UBI would be great, but if we don’t reign in the corporate-apologist economy first, every product will suddenly be more expensive so they can bleed people of that extra money.

zik ,

There have been UBI trials before and they found that it didn’t lead to price increases to any great degree.

DevopsPalmer ,

Yes but not widespread UBI, I think it would be slightly different like the reference to the stimulus checks where nearly everyone obtained it and it was widely circulated information.

Signtist ,

Exactly. If a small group of people are given UBI, then they just have more money, and stores want to profit from everyone, including the people who aren’t getting more money. But if everyone gets UBI, then the stores are sure that their customers can afford higher prices, and our current government has shown that it doesn’t care if prices are arbitrarily inflated. I’d love UBI, but it can’t function alone without accompanying laws to prevent price hiking.

SlopppyEngineer ,

And the discussion about immigrants receiving UBI is going to be very problematic.

mycathas9lives ,
@mycathas9lives@mastodon.social avatar

@SlopppyEngineer @Signtist

UBI will undoubtedly be tied to citizenship

Signtist ,

It will, yeah, but I think people will be a lot less worried about others succeeding when they themselves are succeeding as well. But maybe I’m underestimating the country’s racism. I hope I’m not.

Ilovethebomb ,

That is not how a competitive market works, at all. If there is enough competition, someone will always undercut the scalpers.

Signtist ,

You’re right, it’s not… Too bad most places have realized they can just raise prices together and share in the extra profits, rather than compete with one another. There’s a reason why price fixing is illegal, and there’s a reason why the government rarely enforces it.

Ilovethebomb ,

Sure buddy, if you say so.

otp ,

Exactly. If a small group of people are given UBI, then they just have more money, and stores want to profit from everyone, including the people who aren’t getting more money. But if everyone gets UBI, then the stores are sure that their customers can afford higher prices

But if everyone was getting it, wouldn’t people at different income levels spend it on different things?

Even at the grocery store…middle class people might start buying nicer stuff and nice to haves that they didn’t buy before. Lower class people might start buying more well-rounded batches, but still the “cheaper” brands and stuff.

Signtist ,

If I was buying Ritz crackers for $4 before, maybe now they’re $5. I’m making more money, and it’s just $1, so I might not even be paying enough attention to notice, but if everything goes up by a similar amount, then I’m spending significantly more on the same items than I was before, and might end up dropping $100 of my new UBI money on groceries without even making a change in my shopping habits.

Now, a lower income person might be buying store brand crackers that only cost $2, but now they’re $3, so the same situation occurs.

These are hypothetical numbers of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a situation like that occurred, given that every company would know exactly how much more money is now in everyone’s pockets. Every product goes up just a bit, just to take a bit of that UBI pie.

otp ,

My point is that people with more money would have more “fun” money, and people with less money would have more room for essentials.

You’d think the bigger market would be to pull at the people with “fun” money, rather than the people who can now afford a well-rounded diet.

Yeah, things will go up in price. It’s like when minimum wage goes up. But in all the studies I’ve seen on minimum wage going up, the minimum wage earners generally win out over rising prices (being better off after the increase).

I’m sure some store has done the math that it’s better to sell 2 boxes of cookies to the poor guy than to raise the price to get the maximum profit off of an individual box. And then there are places with competition…and some staples are already generally competitive (such as bread) to the point of being loss leaders in grocery stores.

Signtist ,

I certainly hope you’re right. All I picture is the dollar stores suddenly becoming $2 stores as everything just shifts to be more expensive with very few people improving their financial situation at all.

otp ,

The funny part is that you’re describing things that are happening in my country and we don’t even have UBI.

Our Dollar stores are already $2+ dollar stores. Anything that’s $1 is smaller than it was a decade ago, or is fewer units than it used to be.

The price of all kinds of stuff is increasing in price, and rent is already completely unaffordable, including places that are multi-hour commutes away from the places with jobs.

Someone working full time at minimum wage will not make enough money to rent a studio apartment, let alone also be able to afford groceries and other essentials. They’d need to rent a room, get a second job, or be born 10 years earlier and be in a rent-controlled place.

So yeah, with UBI, more people are going to be able to do things like…

  • Afford rent. Our rents are already very inflated, and many people are rent controlled where they are. And if UBI is only for citizens, we likely wouldn’t see a huge skyrocket as a lot of new renters are newcomers to the country.
  • Quit their second jobs. This would improve the job market by making more jobs available, and putting pressure on employers to make jobs better.
  • Improve their employability and skills. We have caps on tuition that make it relatively easy for people to afford school, but even student loans don’t make it possible for most people to attend unless they have income or savings. And not many people can go to school while working two jobs. This will also improve the job market, and our productivity/GDP as a whole.

Things will get more expensive. But we live in an open market. Stores and brands will compete with each other for some of that extra money. Some people will be spending it on “fun stuff”, and I think that’s where we’d see prices increase the most. And I’m okay with new video games being $120 (like they used to be sometimes!) if it means we get UBI.

Signtist ,

Doesn’t that just further validate my concerns? Prices are going up to gouge people even when a lot of people don’t have the cash to pay for it. I see no reason why a landlord charging $15,000 a year won’t just up it to $25,000 a year when everyone gets a $10k UBI. The government seems to care very little about preventing things like that.

otp ,
  • Rent control protects current renters
  • With UBI not applying to newcomers, then newcomers would be priced out of the market. But they are a big portion of the market, so their capacity would inevitably be considered when setting new rent prices.
  • New rent is already about (or more than) $25,000/yr (CAD) where I live. Generally, that’s enough to pay for a person’s mortgage, taxes, maintenance, and to still profit (unless they’re a new buyer). There’ll always be someone willing to accept less profit to get the sale.
  • Add taxes/fines for vacant units. (Some municipalities have this where I live)
  • Add rent control between renters or market rent. Some countries do this, and this would probably be the best solution for rent specifically.
Signtist ,

I understand that there are solutions that could fix this, I just don’t think the US government as it is now would be willing to enact or enforce them even if it went ahead with UBI. That’s why my initial post said we need to figure out these things before UBI, or else we’ll enact it without things like taxes for vacant units or rent control between renters, and it’ll fail, killing any enthusiasm for another attempt following potential law changes to fix the issues.

otp ,

Can landlords just change rent whenever they feel like it in the US?

Signtist , (edited )

Essentially. They can’t freely change rent for current tenants since they need to stay within the confines of whatever lease was agreed upon, but they can make rent whatever they want for new tenants, so it’s not an uncommon occurrence for them to simply stop fixing things in a timely manner so that current tenants feel compelled to leave, and then they can fill the space, charging whatever they feel someone will pay for rent after that. It’s scummy, and it’s technically illegal, but everyone knows they won’t really get in trouble for it.

otp ,

Same thing happens where I live, but there is recourse. If it were me, I’d probably try to fix things on my own if I were getting a great deal on rent. Not that I’d have to, but to save myself from having to move. Of course, that’s not an option for everyone.

Still, with a lot of the rental market (again, where I live) being newcomers, I don’t think it’d make sense to immediately jack up the rates… they’d be turning away too much of the market.

Signtist ,

Well, once the lease is over people have to sign a new one anyway, so even existing tenants can only lock in rates for so long. And when one landlord ups rent, it’s usually because all the other landlords are doing it too - it seems like they do it in unison, I imagine because they don’t want to have to worry about people leaving for somewhere cheaper. I’m not sure if it’s illegal like price fixing or not, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the end.

jj4211 ,

The issue being we’ve never seen an actual trial of UBI. It’s always some sample of the population for a known limited time. UBI as a concept doesn’t lend itself to “trials”, we won’t really know until at least a number of entire cities are indefinitely implementing UBI, and probably would be 3 or 4 years before people start actually acting like it is indefinite.

CptOblivius ,

Same thing happened to college financial aid. The more aid given the more colleges raised the prices.

loopedcandle ,

Oh this is an awesome comment. I love talking about this part of UBI

I studied Economics in school and dived deep into UBI. Some interesting facts/research for you:

  1. (Fun fact) The US already has UBI, just a super watered down version. It’s called EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit). It’s a Nixon brainchild and was thought they could use UBI to reduce the inefficiencies of such a big government. I.e. get one nice UBI check that covers healthcare, retirement, insurance, education, food, housing, etc. blah blah blah, and you can shut down a bunch of federal government agencies that are pretty inefficient.
  2. The car dealership thing happened because of a variable that we often discount: information (or knowledge). The car dealership knew exactly how much money was coming out and who got it (mostly), and they knew it was a one-off not an ongoing thing. A lot of UBI macro research guesses that we’d see some small inflationary pressure at the beginning when it’s new, but then return to normal as it becomes part of every day life. And even if it does, the benefits strongly outweigh the benefits and the Fed has other tools to reign in inflation to balance the affect out.

Caveat, this knowledge is 20+ years old. I may be way off base.

Signtist ,

Sweet! I sure hope the inflation wouldn’t completely invalidate the extra income, but I still have very little faith in American capitalism allowing for there to be money not immediately being funneled into the bank accounts of the 1%.

loopedcandle ,

IIRC, that was one of the ways Nixon sold it. If the plebes have more money, they spend it on more consumerism bullshit . . .which is money that ends up in the hands of the 1%.

Again, this is a 20 year old college course, so my memory could be way off (and aspirational b.c. I personally like UBI).

JustAnotherRando ,

Just a heads-up, you accidentally wrote “the benefits strongly outweigh the benefits” instead of (presumably) “the benefits strongly outweigh the drawbacks.”

otp ,

That’s just how strong the benefits are. It’s cyclic!

jpreston2005 ,

benefits all the way down

KillingTimeItself ,

trickle down benifinomics

DogWater ,

This second point is going to be impossible to avoid when everyone knows ubi is a thing.

In my mind I see a huge displacement coming for a large number of workers who get ousted by AI. There will still be jobs, but far fewer in each discipline. Think office workers and coders etc. Once ai matures and integrates, we are going to have millions of people without jobs as companies cut 80 to 90% in each department. UBI will be necessary and everyone who sells shit will know that it exists and we are back to square one because they increase prices. It seems hard to avoid.

To be clear, I’m all for UBI. It seems like its pretty much unavoidable as productivity per worker continues to sky rocket and wages remain the same.

KillingTimeItself ,

This is a big problem with getting rid of taxes on the working class, or citizens, which as someone trying to NOT exist in society as much as possible. I’m all for, you’re telling me i dont have to think about property tax anymore? sign me the fuck up!

But, unless you fix that shit, it literally will not give you more spending money. Corpos will pay you less, things will cost more, entertainment will cost more. etc…

HubertManne ,

there is no try. do. ubi is not ubi and its benefits only really show when its everyone. One of the main points is for it to go to those who need it when they need it without a whole lot of beuracracy (those needing it being those who are in a position to not be making much money and therefor their tax burden will be less than they recieve)

AllonzeeLV ,

Here in the US, our society is in practice neutral towards human life. We (usually) don’t actively kill each other, but we’re completely comfortable letting our fellow citizens die under a freeway of exposure for the crime of not producing capital value for our owner class.

Instituting something like UBI would be a significant step towards finding congruence with our currently false, empty rhetoric of valuing human life.

Untl then, we as a people can and will continue to pretend that we do, but again in practice, it means the same as saying we value the candy bar wrapper we just threw in the trash.

Green13 ,

Remember, if these trials can cause change then EVERYONE gets a little extra. And it’s cheaper than our current welfare system. AND it actually helps people instead of putting them in a place where getting help ends their desperately needed support. It’s a win for everyone except the “I struggled and so should you” crowd which means its an absolute victory for everyone that matters!

JamesTBagg ,

What makes it worse, those people almost never actually struggled. Otherwise they may have learned to suffer some empathy.

EmpathicVagrant ,

I’ve watched someone start to empathize and then talk themselves out of it so many times I’ve lost faith in someone’s ability to learn it.

Th4tGuyII ,
@Th4tGuyII@kbin.social avatar

The conclusion is basically of course a UBI works - you give most people extra money, they'll spend it on things they need and things that are worthwhile rather than blowing it all on vices.

It's something we see time and time again, and anyone who genuinely believes otherwise is either rich or blind.

AllonzeeLV , (edited )

Or antisocial in the psychological sense, ie “I see it, and I’m not rich, but people suffering under me makes me feel superior, gives me the dopamine rush of schadenfreude, and I’ll just go ahead and make shit up in my head about why I believe they deserve their suffering so I can just revel in how much better I’m doing guilt free.”

As an American, its a tragic reality that 10s of millions of us are proud sadists. Not entirely our fault, our owners gained their fortunes by not caring about how their profiteering hurt others, ane they propagandize us to worship and deify them and their mindset of If I hurt you to benefit myself, its just business.

bradorsomething ,

I’ve always felt that the push back comes from people who assume others are at the same level of means as they are. A lot of people don’t understand food insecurity, or that “you have a car” doesn’t mean the oil was changed this year.

damnedfurry , (edited )

The thing that keeps it from working is the cost. None of these experiments test the U in UBI.

Giving even a measly $10k in UBI to every US (for example) citizen of working age would cost over $2 trillion annually.

The sum of all welfare spending last year was $1 trillion. So, the common argument that cutting other programs to replace it with UBI holds no water–cutting all of it only gets you halfway to a paltry sum that’s far below the poverty line, and the whole reason we’re talking about UBI to begin with is because people don’t feel that those programs do enough to help the impoverished.

What about military spending? The sum of all defense spending last year was $800 billion. Cutting 100% of it (which would be objectively stupid for reasons I hope wouldn’t need explaining) won’t get you there either.

What about taking the billionaires’ wealth? The total estimated net worth of all US billionaires is $5.2 trillion. Even if you could wave a magic wand and convert all of this “net worth” 1:1 into cash, that still funds this shitty tiny hypothetical $10k UBI for less than 3 years.

We are simply not in a state where true UBI is even close to financially viable.

KillingTimeItself ,

so, basically, according to your example, we could take yearly welfare spending, assuming it’s 1 trillion. Every year, delete an entire section of bureacratic bullshit, and then everyone would get 5 grand annually.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

Now to be fair, that is all of welfare, so not exactly ideal, but still. It’s a pretty manageable concept in that regard.

damnedfurry ,

so, basically, according to your example, we could take yearly welfare spending, assuming it’s 1 trillion. Every year, delete an entire section of bureacratic bullshit, and then everyone would get 5 grand annually.

If you remove every welfare program that exists, sure. But that’s not good–remember that UBI goes to everyone, while welfare program dollars go based on need. So it stands to reason that the average person who gets some sort(s) of welfare now, will end up able to buy less care with that $5000 annually, than they’re getting now.

garretble ,
@garretble@lemmy.world avatar

Weird how every one of these tests shows most people use the money to better themselves instead of wasting it all like right wing media would say.

Super weird.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It’s almost like an individual is the person who knows what is best for themselves, instead of an agency that has never met them and only knows them through means-testing.

girlfreddy ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

Common sense dictates that’s exactly what would happen. The super rich and right wingnuts lack that particular attribute tho.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yeah but that’s because they’re way more likely to read Ayn Rand than Thomas Paine.

snekerpimp ,

It’s projection. “I’d blow it all on coke and hookers, so obviously everyone else will too!”

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The people with the most money do the least amount of work and call everyone else “lazy.”

Mongostein ,

They have the time to call everyone else lazy. We’re all too busy watching each other be busy.

EmpathicVagrant ,

If you have time to lean, you have time to blame the masses for your own shortcomings.

skeptomatic ,

The people with the most money spend it on hookers and blow. Probably underage, trafficked hookers. You know, like Trump did.

andrew ,
@andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun avatar

I think it’s also just a side effect of their place in life. If you have disposable income already, a few thousand dollars is more disposable income. You can’t picture what poverty is really like when you’re a few thousand short on bills for the year every year and so you have to give up meals etc to make ends meet.

skeptomatic ,

Well, if only one person does spend it on hookers and blow, it’ll be the only headline…such is our news media.

LillyPip ,

It’s worse than that.

Conservative ideology is based on the fundamental belief that society is a thin veneer over our base instincts towards self-destruction, and the only way to maintain the façade is with a strictly enforced hierarchy in which power is maintained by a ‘deserving’ ruling class. Conservatism was born during the bloody death of feudalism, in which Ye Olde Ruling Class learnt they must repackage their ideals tied in a bow of capitalism if they’d have any hope of maintaining their wealth and control.

It’s no coincidence that many of the same familial names holding power carried forward through that transitional period. It’s also no coincidence that the basis of much of that power is rooted in systems of religion.

The core belief it puts forth is that without a strict hierarchy in which every person knows their place, society will collapse into chaos. That if you’re ‘deserving’, the system will grant you comfort, and if you’re struggling and destitute, that is your lot.

It’s the ‘just world’ hypothesis, and deviating from it isn’t just bad, it can unravel the very foundations of society. It’s why someone like Obama being elected to the highest office was such an affront. It wasn’t just racism (though that was a big part of it), but perceived as a very dangerous subversion of the system.

The people who subscribe to this would disagree, and they can’t consciously articulate any of this. It’s in the subtext of their existence – they absorb it via osmosis, through their religious upbringing in the form of fables, and via cultural maxims surrounding family values and patriotism.

If it were just projection or logical fallacy, it could be reasoned with. But it isn’t and it can’t be.

WhatsThePoint ,

Right wing media has the same formula for everything and it somehow keeps working with their brainwashed base. Phrase good things for society to sound bad and repeat it over and over. Don’t use facts, use fear and emotions to achieve this. Anytime an issue is caused by a power center the right supports, blame the individual. Find examples of the issue negatively affecting a person that the base will dislike or not identify with (typically a minority) to prop up blaming the individual. Project any negative attacks from other ideological parties back onto that party brazenly and repeat it over and over. Play the victim if anyone tries to question your motives or actually push back. Make showy gestures of support for traditional value social issues to make your base feel you are one of them (as long as they don’t affect the true agenda of advancing the goals of businesses and the rich). It’s the same playbook for 40+ years and it’s still working.

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