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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. As long as you are paying for UBI through taxes rather than by printing money, there shouldn't be any overall inflation.

Certainly there will be price adjustments: the prices of some things will go up while others will go down. But that definitely wont "offset any benefit".

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> Inflation is a monetary phenomenon.

Is it? The US monetary base has more than tripled since 2008 but inflation since then is only 14.6%.

For comparison between 1999 and 2008, the us monetary base increased by about a third and inflation between those years was around 29%.

Inflation being a monetary phenomenon is the technical definition of inflation. When you mention the 14% number, that is based on market price for basket of goods which is not technically inflation (under the definition used by economists, not the definition used by journalists).

So if bought inflation-protected securities from the us treasury, they would have paid >300% from 2008 to now? Or does the us treasury use the journalist definition of inflation?

Economic definitions are abstractions built for mathematical tractibility while creating formal models.

The technical definition of inflation is raising prices. It's only a strictly monetary phenomenon if output and velocity are fixed with respect to the money supply. In other words, inflation meaning "more money" is only a technical definition in the kooky world of monetarism.

That's assuming the people getting taxed are spending less on the same things (in the CPI) that people that are getting a surplus benefit are spending more on.

Otherwise the rich are investing less and the poor are spending more on consumption. asset prices go down cpi goes up.

Maybe, maybe not.

I can see a situation where necessities increase in price, leaving low income household in the same position they have now.

Necessities would go up in price only if increased demand isn't matched by a corresponding increase in supply. There's little reason to believe that's the case except when the market can't adjust in time, and that's temporary. If Walmart sells more, their suppliers will make more, and the economy does better.

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