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Comment by Pfhreak | Hacker News Reader

I'm glad we are having this conversation about ubi, but I see a lot of proposals that are basically "just give everyone $X,000 a month and turn off other social services".

My big concern with that approach is that we'd see landlords immediately bump rents, or we'd cut medical support for people (when medical bills can clearly be many multiples of ubi).

But I'm very pro ubi if we can figure out how to protect the people who rely on it (maybe with some sort of rent control?), support it with other social programs like healthcare, and build some educational resources about how to effectively use it.

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You're pointing out issues that aren't actually related to UBI. In a properly functioning real estate market, if rents rise to the point where landlords make easy money, more housing gets built and the effect diminishes. The problem is most metro areas have stupid housing and zoning policies so even without anything like UBI we already have massive rent inflation. Fixing the housing situation would largely diminish the potential for UBI to create massive rent increases.

Healthcare is also its own problem that is widely discussed on HN. Any sane national healthcare system would largely prevent huge increases in healthcare costs. Our privatized system is just a horrible model all around.

Also, it's worth noting that most UBI proposals include indexing the UBI amount to inflation, such that if UBI disbursements do lead to inflation, the UBI payments go up to account for it so that UBI recipients are at about the same means on a year-to-year basis.

You've pointed out why UBI makes no sense. As the saying goes, if everyone is a millionaire, nobody is. Likewise, if you give everyone $X that amount becomes the new baseline.

This is also the reason why it makes no sense to fight wealth inequality. Without wealth inequality, there wouldn't be wealth, only a baseline.

What UBI tries to solve isn't a bug, but a feature.

Sure, but it's a very different baseline when you can afford basic needs instead of being homeless and hungry. The fact that some other people might feel "less rich" as a result shouldn't really be considered an issue.

I think maybe OPs point is that current prices for basics are based on some sort baseline ability to pay. If you increase that baseline then whats to stop basic prices to rise leaving everyone at that same point or maybe worse since other social services would get turned off?

Rent control. Keeping other social programs like food stamps. There are ways to protect these dollars. They might not be popular, but they aren't inconceivable.

Some of those services would be so abundant that they would be free by nature of economics, not by subsidies. Others might get more expensive.

Competition is what should keep prices at bay, assuming no significant change in cost of production and market with no monopoly. Actually, more automation should in the long term reduce prices in real terms.

If everyone gets $2000 per month instead of 0$ per month just for existing, $2000 becomes the new zero. They won't suddenly be able to afford things. Instead, their rent may magically raise by $2000. In the end, scarcity will still exist for lots of things and if you give everyone more money, prices will just adjust.

Also, if you are starving or homeless in a first world country the fault lies with you. There's so many social security in place, you just have to make use of it.

> What UBI tries to solve isn't a bug, but a feature.

You can't possibly believe this...

There are millions of children who don't have enough food in America. There are millions more people who cannot afford to keep their heat on, or are evicted because of a small unplanned repair bill.

To say that millions of people should be starving, homeless, poorly clothed, dealing with crippling anxiety over keeping a roof over their heads, etc. is a feature is borderline sociopathic.

Why borderline? Call a spade a spade.

Still better than everyone starving.

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