[devoply]

Not only that, but those people as you noticed don't even know what to do with the wealth. The best thing to do would be for the government to come in expropriate that wealth, and give it out as universal income to stimulate consumption. And then for the labor to unionize again so they can keep a fair share of that wealth. To keep the engine of the economy running... as right now it's stalling under their supposedly "efficient care". At the end does such a class even need to exist, I don't really think so. The world would shed a little tear if these sorts of people disappeared tomorrow.

[branchless]

Nope, hand out $1000 BI a month and rent will go up by that amount, leaving the very poor even worse off.

Why take from the rich to give to the poor when the way they get their money is flawed (in the main). Address the root cause: fiat issuance against land.

edit: I cannot reply to you as yet again the faux HN "you're a georgist submitting too fast" has come out so here is my reply:

Not that many jobs are going to disappear overnight in a step change. BI alone is totally flawed as a concept because it utterly fails to comprehend credit issuance against land as the driver of "money" creation and the effect that has on rents.

[dragonwriter]

> Nope, hand out $1000 BI a month and rent will go up by that amount, leaving the very poor even worse off.

If housing were monopolistic in supply, and completely inelastic in demand, that would be remotely plausible.

> Why take from the rich to give to the poor when the way they get their money is flawed (in the main).

Doesn't the "when" part of that answer the "why" part?

[dllthomas]

> If housing were monopolistic in supply, and completely inelastic in demand

Right, and we should bear in mind that housing competes not only against identical units in similar places but also longer commutes, alternative living arrangements, and leaving the area entirely.

[mpweiher]

> hand out $1000 BI a month and rent will go up by that amount

Evidence?

[bufordsharkley]

Bay Area rents have risen to match the ability of tech workers to pay. There's a general collusion of landlords, insofar as they target what other units are renting for in the neighborhood (which of course has nothing to do with marginal cost).

[mpweiher]

Does that really look comparable to you? After all, SV is one of the most desirable/sought after property markets in the world, with extremely limited supply and the tenants there generally not exactly candidates for BI.

Generalizing to all property markets, particularly ones not as supply-limited seems a stretch at best.

Furthermore, I see no evidence that SV landlords manage to soak up all the income of their tenants, not by a long shot, or where are all the fancy cars, motorcycles, planes, etc. coming from, never mind all the high tech gadgets?

[bufordsharkley]

> Generalizing to all property markets, particularly ones not as supply-limited seems a stretch at best.

Oh, absolutely. But so many of the cities in high demand are supply limited. I wouldn't expect this to hold in a Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, or a rust belt city.

[devoply]

If lots of jobs disappear we will no longer be having this conversation. As this conversation is dependent on the amount of discretionary income people have.