The money is minted, which is to say printed, by the central bank. That is where the money comes from. That is where all money comes from.
The point of UBI proposals is that there is enough total value in our national economies to meet everyone's basic needs— the question of where the money/value "comes from" is simple, it comes from taking it back from where it's been concentrated over decades of inadequate taxation.
Printing money doesn't increase financial value it only increases liquidity.
> it comes from taking it back from where it's been concentrated over decades of inadequate taxation.
Again you're not increasing the financial value, you're changing how it's disbursed. Whether your fuel is in the form of gasoline or electricity you still have a finite amount of it and once you burn through it, it's gone unless you're adding more to the system.
"Moral" as a descriptor seems likely to derail the argument here. There's nothing immoral about delivering groceries; it's providing a genuinely useful service, and can be intrinsically rewarding as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of people volunteering to do it for free in the UK at the moment.
> But there isn't much value in people spending their lives driving delivery cars or bagging groceries either.
The parent is conflating different meanings for the word "value". The grandparent is talking economic value, eg receiving money for labor. Clearly there is economic value for delivery services since I'm happy to pay them and their drivers do infact get paid.
Therefore the parent must intend a different meaning of value. The most likely meaning (that makes sense in this context) is moral value. There may be great moral value in being a doctor for instance - saving the lives of others.
I am not saying that it is the case that there exists no moral value in delivery jobs or grocery. I am saying that even if it were the case that those jobs have no moral value they still have economic value.
(I would argue all work well done has moral value, but that's irrelevant)
In a UBI world where those people weren't working to avoid starvation and homelessness, it's likely that much of this bottom-tier work would start to look more like the kind of job a middle class teenager does while living with their parents— they're not there to survive, they're there to earn supplementary cash for a video game or prom dress. I'd expect then that:
- Employers would experience some frustration with the flakiness of non-desperate personnel, and would be willing to pay at least something of a premium for labour that sticks around.
- That premium and the promise of even greater reliability gains would lead to increased automation pressure at the bottom end.
- Poor people who used to work themselves to the bone just surviving (eg, Stephanie Land) actually have the time to take training programs and ready themselves for higher-value work.
That labor cost premium would have to be reflected in higher prices. I'm not paying a premium for marginal items. That's the whole definition of premium...
<- Poor people who used to work themselves to the bone just surviving (eg, Stephanie Land) actually have the time to take training programs and ready themselves for higher-value work.>
Not everyone is cut out for higher-value work, and the amount of higher-value work is also limited. Rembember Carlin's Axiom [1]
The reason these jobs don't pay very much isn't just because there's a large pool of people willing to take them. In fact, many menial job positions have a hard time being staffed because the labor pool is not big. The reason they pay poorly is because they have low economic value. They add little marginal value to a product or service.
For example, if I want a hamburger, I can cook one at home for approximately $1.50. A nice bun, 1/4lb of fresh meat, some condiments. If I get a Quarter Pounder from McDonalds, it's around $4. So I normally only buy one for convenience; when I'm too far from home, or too tired to cook. Now if that ends up $8, then I'll cook one at home every time I want one.
[1]George Carlin — 'Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.'
Conflict diamonds and non fair trade coffee are also cheaper than what replaced them. Obviously these kinds of ethical externalities exist on a scale, but the point is that it's more complicated than just arbitrarily declaring an item or class of labour as "marginal" and moving on.
> Not everyone is cut out for higher-value work...
The snide value judgment aside, lots of artists/writers/musicians/etc begrudgingly participate in the "low value labour" market as a means of staying afloat while they pursue their real passion on the side. Isn't all of this just a further argument for taking on as a society the obligation to meet people's basic needs? Do we really need to hold people's livelihoods hostage just so that upper middle class software professionals can still get a $4 hamburger whenever they want it?
And yes quite a few people want to be artists or musicians and can't. They should be able to try but also at some point we need a mechanism for them to realize they may need to try a different career path if it's not working out and they aren't creating value.
With UBI, you're just making a subset of the population pay for everyone else. Sometimes that tradeoff makes sense - food stamps - but when you end up just increasing inflation and hurting those who it's meant to benefit then it seems like tail chasing.
If you were out in the middle of the woods self-sufficient except for some bartering with your friends, you would still have to pay property taxes and your barter transactions would be subject to taxation, which you would have to pay with Federal Reserve Notes or the government could come and take your stuff and imprison you.
Before the income tax (1911) you could live in the countryside and you wouldn't even have to think about the federal government, just your state and local governments, unless you were importing things. People didn't even used to elect senators, that was the state government's job.
Instead of big banks getting bailed out over and over again, before the federal reserve, you'd just call up the local rich guy, like Rockefeller who would bail out your company out of his personal bank account. People didn't need the banks to survive to move things along. These days, if there was no income tax, and the fed, you'd probably just call up some fabulously wealthy venture capitalist every time you needed some money. The low taxes on venture capital QSBS and carried interest have led to this phenomenon to some extent.
And sometimes humans can even borrow money from robots, if they're really nice to them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17353666
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik
“Five cents, please,” his front door said when he tried to open it. One thing, anyhow, hadn’t changed. The toll door had an innate stubbornness to it; probably it would hold out after everything else. After everything except it had long since reverted, perhaps in the whole city … if not the whole world.
He paid the door a nickel, hurried down the hall to the moving ramp which he had used only minutes ago.
[…]
“I don’t have any more nickels,” G. G. said. “I can’t get out.”
Glancing at Joe, then at G. G., Pat said, “Have one of mine.” She tossed G. G. a coin, which he caught, an expression of bewilderment on his face. The bewilderment then, by degrees, changed to aggrieved sullenness.
“You sure shot me down,” he said as he deposited the nickel in the door’s slot. “Both of you,” he muttered as the door closed after him. “I discovered her. This is really a cutthroat business, when —“ His voice faded out as the door clamped shut. There was, then, silence.
[…]
“I’ll go get my test equipment from the car,” Joe said, starting towards the door.
“Five cents, please,”
“Pay the door,” Hoe said to G. G. Ashwood.
[...]
“Can I borrow a couple of poscreds from you?” Joe said. “So I can eat breakfast?”
“Mr. Hammond warned me that you would try to borrow money from me. He informed me that he already provided you with sufficient funds to pay for your hotel room, plus a round of drinks, as well as —“
“Al based his estimate on the assumption that I would rent a more modest room than this."