[snidane]

Number one thing UBI does is to provide options.

No longer you'll hear employers say "if you don't like it here, go somewhere else", when the 'else' part is another abusive company like that, going homeless or committing suicide. Under UBI the option of laying flat and not dying is a valid option. As a result, either a lot of people go laying flat, or working conditions improve, because smart employers will want to attract this huge dormant working force.

The number one thing UBI doesn't handle well is rent inflation. You hand out $1000 dollars per person monthly, expect rents to go up by about $1000 monthly as landlords realise there is all this extra disposable income in peoples' hand right now.

However, this is just an exaggerated effect of monopolies sucking out all aggregate disposable income out of economy that is already happening. Monopolies by definition don't have price down pressures, so they always price expand to capture anything people might have extra. Since landlording is the biggest aggregate monopoly in the world, landlords capture any disposable workers' income. No matter if they get a raise from their boss, the landlord always takes it away.

The only solution is an antimonopoly measure that actually works. Anti-trust bureaus always end up corrupt and can't be relied on. Systematic rule based antimonopoly taxes seem to be the only current viable option. One such being the famous land value tax (LVT), which captures extra pricing on rents - enabling workers to actually keep their hardly earned income raises.

Since UBI won't work without curbing monopoly price expansion, and landlords' rents are the biggest aggregate monopoly out there, there won't be any UBI without LVT.

[bryanlarsen]

I contend that UBI will lower rents. The US has tons of unused housing stock, it's just that it's not where the people are.

If UBI happens and looks secure, fewer people will be willing to spend $3500 a month for rent in San Francisco and move to places like Springfield MO where rent is $500 a month.

[easytiger]

So your solution to the inherent inexorable failure of the concept of UBI is to simply modify the economic fabric of every country on earth? Do you think that sounds like a viable plan?

[snidane]

Fortunately, getting LVT effective is just a change of a rate how much you charge for exclusive land use. The legal framework is already set up for it in many countries, so no exchtra change needed, let alone changing the 'economic fabric'. Land based taxes were used as the primary tax mechanisn in the past, going back to ancient times, for their simplicity.

The point with LVT and UBI is that you need LVT to make UBI not blow up. But once you have LVT in place you'd realise there is actually no need for UBI, because the original underlying problem - worker's disposable income being sucked away by monopolies - is suddenly gone. Under LVT the government sucks away the money from landlords, not landlords sucking it away from workers. The government can then decide to give it back to people (originally called a citizens' dividend) or reinvest into infrastructure.

[NovemberWhiskey]

Uh-huh. Or as they say in New England: "you can't get there from here".

[jonhohle]

And we get to thank our benevolent government for being so kind as to grant us temporary use of their lands to toil for their benefit. Is progress monetary theory moving towards feudalism as a solution to capitalism?

[411111111111111]

So you’d prefer thank our benevolent landlords for being so kind as to grant us temporary use of their lands to toil for their benefit.

Your argument makes no sense, regardless wherever the proposed solution would work

[jonhohle]

No, I was saying the idea of using solely LVT to fund the government is exactly what feudalism was. Unless you were in the ruling class, things didn’t go too well. Why would it work now when our public servants already lord their limited power over the populous? I’d rather have a monopolist who is theoretically bound by the same rules and laws as I am own the land than an entity with an army or a monopoly on violence.

[easytiger]

> * So you’d prefer thank our benevolent landlords for being so kind as to grant us temporary use of their lands to toil for their benefit.*

In many countries you know you can buy property?