> but then other things, like rent, food, etc. will all just magically get more expensive.
Why?
Why?
Are the buildings x% better to live in?
Are the landlords providing x% better services?
No. The people who work there are producing x% more capital, therefore landlords take that x% and call it “cost of living.” This is not a new phenomenon in any regard, and UBI proponents must answer for it.
If their solution is rent control, then rent control is a solution even without UBI. Which of course it’s not a real solution, because then you’re distorting the price of housing and not going to get your construction/maintenance needs met.
LVT is a tax scheme that lets the market set prices for what it’s worth to live in an area (land rent/ground rent), then recoups that as a tax upon the people who claim special privilege to decide what to do with that land.
For many people, rent + other compulsory costs do exceed or exactly meet income. That’s precisely the problem.
“UBI lets all the poor people leave” is not convincing at all.
Do you dispute that?
The mechanisms are the same, though. Amazon putting HQ2 in a city causes rent to go up (higher productivity).
A coal mine developing a new, more efficient train to move coal around will also cause rent to go up (higher productivity).
2. That's a really naive sense of economic productivity. Here is a thought experiment.
A) Let's shut down all of Amazon HQ1.
B) Let's shut down the dams that provide 86% of Seattle greater area's electricity.
Which one of these entities is ACTUALLY responsible for that "productivity" then? And I bet you rents in Seattle without electricity would drop far greater proportionally than they do out by the dams. Rent follows incomes, not productivity.
The value proposition for service workers in high-COL cities like SF is probably already bad. How would UBI make it worse? At least it'd be easier to move away from those areas. Maybe cities would have to pay serivce workers more to make sure they stay.
Companies can go ahead and pay more to keep them. You know what happens then? Prices go up more.
Where is all this capital flowing to? Landlords. Who didn’t pay for UBI, didn’t build the infrastructure, didn’t employ those people.
So, the simple argument that UBI will not increase minimum rents by 2k a month overnight with no improvement in living conditions: landlords will have to compete to get the UBI out of individuals hands. Right now, the lowest income housing isn’t in competition for individuals, it’s competing for government approval and integration. If everyone individually has 2k a month to spend, they have the luxury of shopping around.
Yes, see retired social security recipients as an example. But you won’t find these folk renting in SF on a social security check.
SF’s desire for (inexpensive) service workers is a separate matter.
I suspect you’re used to thinking of an information economy where supply is effectively unlimited and “best services command top dollar” is the principal factor in pricing.
There is a problem with limited supply of units, yes, but in reality the majority of cost of living comes from the second type of payment: the fee for the ground rent. The ground is in fixed supply.
With perfect development policy, prices would still go up, ground rent would continue to be seized by people who had nothing to do with its generated value.
The schools, employers, and natural appeal of SF makes its ground rent high. Landlords did none of that.
Draconian zoning laws dramatically restricting supply?
I love idiots screeching about big tech creating to much demand. Seriously? Too much demand is a bad thing? Hardly! How about reversing the crap zoning laws and NIMBY attitudes so supply can rise up to meet demand?
The SF housing crises was caused by a bunch of selfish people declaring through policy (zoning laws) that they have theirs and don't want where they are to change to accommodate others.
And this is supposed to be an enlightened leftist utopia? Talk is cheap until it can affect you personally is the real lesson of San Fransisco housing politics - playing out rather dramatically. Blaming landlords is laughable. San Fransisco has an embarrassment of jobs brought by the high tech companies in the bay area and instead of embracing them (by letting more housing be constructed) they resent them and blame everyone but the real root cause - severely restricted supply.
People in power, i.e. those with money, don't like giving up money or potential profit. Without protections in place, prices will simply rise or adjust and people will stop worrying about unemployment. In the end, it just puts a different label on things, creating another category for poor people, and I doubt it actually improves anyone's lives. This is because the problems aren't necessarily all at the bottom. The majority of the source of problems are at the top of the socioeconomic ladder.