UBI is implemented tomorrow. Every citizen gets $1000 per month.

Landlord now knows you have an extra $1000 that you never had before. Why wouldn’t the landlord raise prices?

Now you have an extra $1000 a month and instead of eating rice and beans for a few meals you go out to a restaurant. The restaurant owners know everyone is eating out more so why not raise prices and maximize shareholder profit as always. The restaurant/corporation is on TV saying, “well, demand increased and it is a simple Economic principle that prices had to increase. There’s nothing we can do about it”.

Your state/country has toll roads. The state needs money for its deficit. UBI is implemented and the state/country sees it as the perfect time to incrementally raise toll prices.

Next thing you know UBI is effectively gone because everything costs more and billionaires keep hitting higher and higher all time net worth records.

  • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    No, because you could choose to spend it elsewhere, and you might not even feel obligated to live at or work at where it’s most expensive anymore. The real problem with UBI are the way speculative investors (meme stocks, crypto, penny stocks, casinos, any gambling addiction, etc) would prey on the vulnerable people, and there’s a lot of ways to handle that but only if there is a will.

    But the real reason UBI won’t happen is because getting people to die is much cheaper than paying them to live so they have to pay even more for future generations. UBI can’t happen without proper future planning for entire societies. It works great in the short term and in test cases, as a lot of charitable ideas do until the predators come in.