[andarleen]

A transfer of wealth would indeed be an issue. But I am wondering, would UBI give more people the option to live outside large cities, given that the scarcity of income is no longer an issue? And as such the demand for rent would go down? Will try and comment less, because debate on HN gets heavily penalised unless it conforms to certain patterns. But yeah UBI and inflation / transfers of wealth are an interesting topic.

[luckylion]

Germany might be an example to look at this. We have welfare that's paid out wherever you live. It's conditional in so far that it's expected that you look for a job and aren't rich, but that's about it. It has a fixed money component (~400€/month) and covers rent (up to some amount that's set locally, depending on the local rent prices), utilities, health insurance etc directly.

Therefore, if you're okay with the amount of money you'd get, you'd probably be better off if you're not living in a large city, because, rent aside, city living is a bit more expensive. Also, considering that you're supposed to look for work, living in a city (where the jobs are, if they are anywhere) would increase the chances of you being expected to take a job, which you wouldn't have to in more rural areas.

People still move to the cities, even though the job market isn't promising for low-skill workers there either.

There are certainly many reasons, but some I believe to be involved: it's harder to get an apartment when you're on social benefits (even more so if not in the community you're currently living in), it's harder to live in a rural area if you don't have a car (which you'll likely not be able to buy while on benefits), few people have the means to move when money is tight.

[andarleen]

I have to read more on how this works in Germany, but the idea of UBI would be that everyone would get 400 eur. I know that is not possible right now without taxing individual income even more, and as such my view is we should come up with tech we can tax. I dont have the specific silver bullet for how it could work, but would it be possible to tax every robot that replaces a human worker? Or tax anything that 10x’s productivity in any field, but at a level where it still is very motivating for an investor to make that 10x investment by letting them keep 8x of the output?

[luckylion]

> Or tax anything that 10x’s productivity in any field, but at a level where it still is very motivating for an investor to make that 10x investment by letting them keep 8x of the output?

That'd only work on monopolies where the company would actually have a 1000% margin. For most things, you'll invest in some great new automation, but so will your competition. Now you've both increased productivity and if you try to cash in your 10x profits, your competitor will simply take 5x profits, massively undercut your prices and you'll be gone very soon. Productivity gains will typically lead to lower prices, that's why meat, milk etc is dirt cheap these days, if we still had food prices like in the 50ies but with today's productivity, any secret illuminati meetings of the 1% would see a lot more people arriving on tractors ;)