this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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UBI is kind of cool but it has some massive flaws. For example: Landlords and groceries can just raise prices to bring the cost of living up and since there are no rent/price controls (because "that would be communism") we'll be right back to where we started. What you want is Universal Basic Services. Anything you need to live is free. Literally impossible for anyone to game that system and equally impossible for people to slip through the gaps, but it's also never going to happen because "that would be communism"
So yeah this is why capitalism has go to, because any attempt at actually making a just and fair society will be dismissed as "being communism"
Sigh. People make this braindead argument every single time this subject comes up. No they can't. Markets do not work that way. It's literally just a repackaged argument against minimum wage and it has been thoroughly debunked in that context.
Unless you live in a city with rent stabilization, yes landlords will do that. Groceries will likely not have that problem, because of other market conditions. The first to increase their rents will be luxury apartments. Once the Internet is done laughing their asses off about $5000 rent, other landlords will use realpage to gauge the market and increase in tandem. Landlords literally do not care if their property is occupied, because the money is in the land and we've commoditized housing.
Don't try to mischaracterize me. For UBI to work, we need national rent stabilization and significant efforts to build non-market housing across the nation. I'm not against UBI, but it can't just be added without other changes.
Then... it sounds like you are against UBI.
Saying we should do X and Y before we do Z, is functionally the same as opposing Z itself. Shit, that is how most polices are rejected.
"We can't send money overseas, we need to take care of our own first, or things will never get better"
"We can't increase funding for our own services, we need to find out how to optimize their spending first, or things will never get better"
"We can't impose extra regulations on services, we need to do that on the vendor/supplier level, or things will never get better"
"We can't impose extra regulations on vendors/suppliers, because most of them are overseas, we need to spend resources overseas to stop it at the source, or things will never get better"
On, and on, and on we go. Meanwhile, people starve. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
I never specified in either direction which should be done first. Ideally it would be an omnibus bill, but both should happen. The order doesn't matter to me. Don't pretend that ubi is a solution in and of itself.