[linuxftw]

> UBI is meant to cover the very basics, like a food and varying amounts of housing (depending on the local housing market). For some, it operates as a dividend that helps make ends meet on top of their regular work, especially in high cost areas.

This merely will keep wages low (what currently is happening) by subsidizing poor pay. Many cities have subsidized housing (and/or rent control). The net effect is these people can 'afford' to live in areas while making lower pay. Without subsidized housing, employers would literally have to pay more or rents would have to go down; there wouldn't be anyone able to sustain the rents.

The big difference is, with subsidized housing, society has created a captive poverty tier.

[danans]

> Many cities have subsidized housing (and/or rent control). The net effect is these people can 'afford' to live in areas while making lower pay.

Many wealthy people who live in rent-controlled or property-tax capped housing benefited handsomely from the huge tax break passed by the previous Congress. Some of them have normal income but large inherited wealthbheld in securities like stocks, which also appreciated due to the corporate cuts. They can afford to live in places their income couldn't otherwise support. Your logic applies equally to that situation. You will always find people who you can argue unfairly benefit from a redistribution scheme.

At least with subsidized housing the program is government administered so it can be accounted for when considering UBI.

UBI doesn't erase the reality that some people got a better deal in housing, or life, but for a huge number of people who are scraping by, it helps put a floor under them.

[linuxftw]

Anyone that is a net payer of taxes benefits from a tax cut.

> You will always find people who you can argue unfairly benefit from a redistribution scheme.

A redistribution scheme is inherently unfair.

> At least with subsidized housing the program is government administered so it can be accounted for when considering UBI.

Subsidized housing creates artificial housing demand, raising rents. Without subsidized housing, wages would need to raise in order for people to live in a given location or rents would need to fail. Failing rents make rental units less profitable, thus more people would be able to purchase homes and get out off the rent treadmill entirely.

Solving the affordable housing problem cannot be achieved by subsidizing low wages and high rents.

[asark]

>> You will always find people who you can argue unfairly benefit from a redistribution scheme.

> A redistribution scheme is inherently unfair.

I would love to see what a strong defense of this looks like, that doesn't wind up having all kinds of weird and probably unintended implications. I can't think of one. Best I can do is to define terms such that it becomes tautological.

[danans]

> A redistribution scheme is inherently unfair.

All systems of tax, benefits, and even property rights are redistribution schemes, including the recent tax cut, which was a redistribution upwards in the income/wealth scale. Redistribution is always relative to the previous state of societal wealth and resource distribution. There is no set point of "fairness".

> Subsidized housing creates artificial housing demand

What exactly is "artificial housing demand"? The need for primary housing for poorer people (as fulfilled by subsidized housing) is anything but artificial. You can't fake needing a roof over your head. The only place you can see anything like "artificial" housing demand is at the high end in demand for second homes, investment real estate, and vacation properties.

> Solving the affordable housing problem cannot be achieved by subsidizing low wages and high rents.

Agreed. It can only be solved by building more housing. But the purpose of UBI isn't to solve the affordable housing problem. Society can walk and chew gum at the same time by also building more housing where people want to live, which seems like an equally high a political and economic hurdle as UBI.

UBI could in some cases, however, give some people the means to move away from high housing cost areas to areas where UBI goes a longer way towards providing housing for them. Many people are stuck in high-housing cost areas because that's the only place that job opportunities exist. This is not just true for professional workers, but also for blue collar and lower income workers who are even less able to afford housing in expensive metropolises.

[linuxftw]

> including the recent tax cut, which was a redistribution upwards in the income/wealth scale.

The net result of a tax cut, even if applied unevenly, would be less redistribution, by definition, not more.

> What exactly is "artificial housing demand"?

Supply and demand. Everyone obviously can't afford to pay $1 million in rent per month, thus market rents are substantially lower. Government intervention is creating artificial demand at a higher price point than would otherwise be sustainable.

> Agreed. It can only be solved by building more housing.

Why would a city build more housing when the wealthy control the poor with subsidized housing. They always have a steady stream of income thanks to welfare.

> UBI could in some cases, however, give some people the means to move away from high housing cost areas to areas where UBI goes a longer way towards providing housing for them.

The market has an answer for this. It's just going to raise prices in those more desirable areas.

[danans]

> The net result of a tax cut, even if applied unevenly, would be less redistribution, by definition, not more.

You are leaving out what follows tax cuts, which is the cutting of government services to the poor. That's where the upward redistribution would in the near term. That might have happened if the political winds were blowing in a different direction this past November.

For now, those disproportionate tax cuts for the wealthy are being paid for with record national debt, which will be borne by the non wealthy of a future generation.

Yours is the same logic that lauded the tax cut for giving a secretary a $1.50/week after tax pay increase, a boast which was then retracted in apparent shame:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/us/politics/paul-ryan-twe...

> The market has an answer for this. It's just going to raise prices in those more desirable areas.

As will tax cuts.