• TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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    5 days ago

    I mean you could, but what would be the point if housing, healthcare, and food security were a right? UBI is just a bandage some billionaires advocate for just so they don’t have to pay for a working healthcare system

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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        4 days ago

        I meant if housing, healthcare, and food were guaranteed, what would be the point of UBI?

        Politicians currently advocating for UBI are doing so as a replacement for things like universal healthcare, not in conjunction with it.

          • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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            3 days ago

            And that would go back to my response… What would be the point?

            A basic income is supposed to cover basic necessities, if those are already covered what is the point other than driving inflation and driving down productivity?

            • agent_nycto@lemmy.world
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              24 hours ago

              It’s amazing to me how some people fight so hard against something that would benefit them. Like, if I offered to send you $500 a month no strings attached, would you really be against it?

              They have done a lot of studies and test runs with UBIs, they seem to work pretty well and most people use them to pay off debts, save up some, educate themselves and still work. Iirc employment actually went up and people were more productive because they didn’t have to worry as much. (Not that productivity should like, be a goal that magically makes something valid to exist and if it isn’t should be scrapped) You’ve probably seen a bunch of stuff online about it so I doubt I’d convince you of anything at this point.

              As for inflation, looks like people can price gouge their way to hyper inflation just fine without a ubi, so yeah, not sure why you’d be against a check every month.

              • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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                42 minutes ago

                It’s amazing to me how some people fight so hard against something that would benefit them. Like, if I offered to send you $500 a month no strings attached, would you really be against it?

                Because there are always strings attached… Just because you don’t know enough about macroeconomics to foresee any potential negative outcomes doesn’t mean there won’t be any.

                They have done a lot of studies and test runs with UBIs, they seem to work pretty well and most people use them to pay off debts, save up some, educate themselves and still work.

                And these studies are operating in our current economy, not one where basic needs have already been met. In the theoretical scenario where the government is insuring basic needs like housing, food, medical, and education are already being paid for, adding an additional UBI would just be an additional revenue burden.

                If we’re already raising taxes enough to guarantee the populations basic needs are taken care of, UBI would be that much harder to secure funding for.

                Iirc employment actually went up and people were more productive because they didn’t have to worry as much. (Not that productivity should like, be a goal that magically makes something valid to exist and if it isn’t should be scrapped)

                Again, this would already be a problem addressed by the just securing people’s basic needs.

                As for inflation, looks like people can price gouge their way to hyper inflation just fine without a ubi, so yeah, not sure why you’d be against a check every month.

                Yeah…you want to extrapolate that thought just a little more? Price gouging is only possible if people have the money to still pay for the items.

                One of the reasons why prices shot up during/after the pandemic is because of the covid checks. Don’t get me wrong, for the amount of people who were temporarily out of work we needed to increase the money supply. However, a natural response to an increase of money supply without an increase of production is inflation/price gouging. The demand isn’t being met by supply, this increases the price of the current supply to what the market is willing to pay. When you increase theoney supply, it increases what the market is willing to pay.

                You can’t just increase the money supply from thin air for nothing in return. Macroeconomics is a careful balance between spending, revenue, and productivity.