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RE: The Progressive Case for Greatly Replacing the Welfare State with Unconditional Basic Income

in #basicincome7 years ago

So you didn't read the original article, and now you didn't read the article I wrote in response to your reply that directly addresses in great detail the uninformed point you made?

Seriously, start reading articles instead of just thinking you know everything based on urls and titles.

Read and think about what I wrote.

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So you let me read your entire article including its irrelevant parts to your quarrels about my claims and let me guess how it answers one of my claims instead of leaving nothing to doubt and answering shortly.

My guess is that you think basic income would enforce a lower rate of inflation and make my claim about governments devaluing entitlements by inflation.
Even if I guessed correctly, which I still wonder why should I guess what you mean, it only addresses only 1 of my claims.

The cases you provided in your article, Alaska and Kuwait, may have been affected by other factors and may be counteracted with a larger amount of cases that showcase the opposite of what you tried to showcase.
My claim is simpler: if a government or a central bank wants to enforce a higher rate of inflation it can.
In the cases you provided, the state of Alaska which is not even a sovereign and the state of Kuwait might have acted in additional ways which you did not mention in your article and these additional actions were the real reason to the reduction of inflation.

So is the lesson that UBI will curb inflation created by central banks and governments in order to devalue this same UBI?

Simply put, inflation is a multi-variable equation. By increasing money velocity for the bottom 60-80% through a tax and transfer of existing money from the top 20-40%, a range of effects will occur that all depend on other factors. To assume inflation across the board, especially to the point of eroding the entire value of the UBI is just about as dumb as saying if you jump really high, you can land on the Moon. Theoretically speaking, that's possible, but it's really really stupid.

Some prices will go up, some will go down. Some supply will not be able to be increased as much or as quickly as others. Some supply is infinite. More money in the hands of more consumers will drive the economy, creating more jobs, and also improving the price mechanism. Because of unconditional income, more people will also be able to engage in the sharing economy as prosumers, where money doesn't actually exchange hands at all.

There's a lot to think about with UBI. Don't think it's as simple as going, "Duh, more money equals higher prices equals pointless."

I did not mean that inflation will devalue UBI to 0 quickly or even slowly, just that even if by some surprise it will be sufficient initially, which I do not believe, since sufficient means discourage to work, it will be devalued as much as the government will see fit.
I am not against UBI, I just explained why it will not happen and where and when it will, it will not be sufficient.
I also maintain the belief that it will be inflationary, and already explained why despite reading your article, not that it was even a part of my claim originally, because I thought it was too obvious to mention, and even if it is inflationary, it is still not sufficient to rule against, so I still wonder why you brought your other article from medium.

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