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this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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Is the verdict really in on UBI? Hasn't the concern been it would be equivalent to the school voucher coupons and justified to gut a wide variety of social services in the end resulting in less net-benefit to the working class?
Only when Republicans are in power. At least historically.
I honestly don't know, but that kinda/sorta makes sense on the face of it. UBI would throw everyone at the mercy of the "free market" for social services, and yes, could have the unintended consequence of obsolescing the state funded ones. Without adequate controls for services (regulations) it could get ugly. Especially if you consider that for-profit "healthcare", as we enjoy it in the US today, covers most of these services we're talking about.
UBI is a bandaid, and not a very good one.
Sure, having more money absolutely makes life easier. I'm not disputing that and no one with any sense would. But it doesn't address the numerous problems it seeks to.
But you touched on the problem, adequate controls are needed. We can do adequate controls without UBI.
The problem with UBI is that when you do big payouts like that, they just become a target for price gouging. Everyone knows there's extra money to be had and they're going to want their cut. Your landlord is going to know exactly how much extra you're making and without rent control there's nothing stopping him from taking it. The best way to prevent that is to force him to compete for tenants.
So wait, why isn't he competing for tenants now?
Additional housing fixes the rent problem. UBI puts a temporary bandaid on it.
Universal healthcare fixes the medical expenses problem, strong unionization fixes the wages problem.
Don't get me wrong I'd love the paycheck, but it isn't the solution people think it is.
If you have robust laws preventing price gouging, that is not a problem. No one serious is suggesting implementing UBI with no framework around it.
Incidentally, Alaska has a universal basic income in the form of oil dividends every year and there's no evidence it's led to price gouging as far as I know.
A few thousand dollars a year is an order of magnitude different than a few thousand dollars a month. Shits already expensive in Alaska because it's remote.
Incidentally a handful of studies are several orders of magnitude different than actual UBI, and would similarly fail to showcase the problem.
Again- if you have robust laws against price gouging, there is no price gouging problem.
Robust laws also prevent the need for UBI in the first place. If we can't figure out how to run a society without it, slapping UBI on top of that isn't actually going to fix anything.
You're making no sense. How is giving everyone the financial help to keep them clothed, housed, fed, etc. without needing to work for it not going to fix anything as long as you prevent price gouging?
Ok, let me recontextualize here. "if we can terraform mars, why wouldn't we migrate because of climate change on earth?" In that scenario, why wouldn't we fix our climate?
If we have the power to regulate pricing, why would we need UBI?
It's socialism with extra steps. You can just do regular socialism, you don't need to enshitify socialism with capitalism. You really don't.
Because no matter how low priced something is, someone who has no job still can't afford it.
So, provide the necessary things. Provide housing, medical care, and clothing to anyone that wants it, doing so will probably be necessary for price controls anyway. I'm not saying those things should be unobtainable. I'm saying UBI is a dumb way to go about providing them.
So all food should be free? Or should poor people only be allowed to have certain foods for free but rich people can have anything they want to eat?
I think basic needs should be met, and if you want something better than that you'd need to pay for it.
Ok, which foods should people with no money not be allowed to have?
Anything that is outside of basic needs? I thought that was fairly obvious. You need a certain number of calories each day, and those should come with decent nutrients. Outside of that there's literally no reason to say because we can't even get that right yet.
Fix the actual problems, don't just slap a stupid band-aid over the problem and pat yourself on the back.
Buddy you're waisting a lot of energy debating someone who already mostly agrees with you.
So your UBI-free solution is actually worse than the food stamps program?
I don't know that you do agree with me if you think rich people deserve better food than poor people.
Are you being obtuse on purpose?
Obtuse?
I asked you what sort of foods they should have. You said only their basic needs should be met in terms of food.
Me:
You:
Again, the current food stamps program allows impoverished people to buy any food they want to buy as long as they have enough in their EBT account.
Your solution would make a two-tiered system where some people can only get very basic survival food and others can get any food they want. That is worse than now.
So in what way am I being obtuse? You are saying rich people deserve better food than poor people.
Kinda agree, People should get necessities for free. A small apartment¹, access to public healthcare³, should get fresh food each week² (that way you also learn to cook and eat healthy), get all the clothing they need, plus I'd say a small amount of money each month for leisure (but nothing matching the spirit of UBI) It might be a unpopular opinion, but the freedom of choice is luxury, which, yes, you would have to work for to get. It would also be somewhat mitigated by the small amount of money you get each month, but it's main purpose is to keep some amount of independance from state aid⁴.
Now, you can image that if everybody earned suddenly much more per month, the prices would very quickly adapt and it wouldn't make much difference for the people who had nothing to begin with. Price regulation could be a possibility, but it is very much against the current economical ideology⁵ (aka communism), which we will probably have to stick with it for a while. So for now it seems to be the better option.
1: https://mymodernmet.com/housing-first-finland-homelessness/
2: [fr] https://www.cartonsducoeur.ch/
3: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany
4: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/ae/1997-v73-n4-ae2752/602240ar.pdf
5: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
Universal Basic Income reduced child poverty by 30%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_tax_credit#United_States
By making the child tax credit non-refundable it is effectively a Negative Income Tax which is a form of UBI.
All of your points misunderstand what the goal of UBI is. By guaranteeing that everyone earns a certain amount of income, the government is garaunteeing a basic standard of living. So a CTC of $3600 means that everyone is guaranteeed an income of at least $3600.
At first, there will be an inital raise in prices as a UBI will likely increases aggregate demand which will increase prices, but eventually prices would stabilize.
Of course, this only helps people with children right now, and there are barriers to filing a tax return in the United States. But the laws could be change to expand the credit, and it's completely possible for the United States to implement return free filing.
Issue with UBI that it can be distorted so much it could mean almost anything at this point. AI corpos think UBI is when you buy their stocks early on, before the big AI boom (FOMO).