A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

Re:A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing by WWKong on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @03:29PM (#11623508)

In other words, utilities and commodities will always hover around cost price due to market forces and hence the poor will be able to afford the basics. There might be other non essentials that might become more expensive to absorb the extra money in the market, but we would have mostly likely solved a bigger problem. Makes sense. I still worry about housing.

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Re:A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing by habosa on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @03:44PM (#11623606)

Housing is interesting because it's one of the few things we buy that is priced mostly around our ability to pay for it rather than the value of what we are buying. That's why in SF it seems that housing prices rise in lock step with wages in the dominant industry (tech).

So while it's very likely that the cost of housing will increase in this situation, again I think people will still be better off overall. People will have increased purchasing power for non-housing goods and still pay the same percentage of their income for housing, even if that is now a percentage of a larger number.

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Re:A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing by dragonwriter on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @02:56PM (#11630733)

> Housing is interesting because it's one of the few things we buy that is priced mostly around our ability to pay for it rather than the value of what we are buying.

No, its not. Real estate -- including housing -- is very much driven by value, and for most real estate -- and definitely housing -- and key component of value is location.

> That's why in SF it seems that housing prices rise in lock step with wages in the dominant industry (tech).

Convenience to work of a given pay is a key component of the value of housing; its not priced according to what the buyer can pay, its priced according to value, and the buyers are the ones who can pay that value.

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Re:A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing by WWKong on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @02:54PM (#11630717)

Also education cost spiked because of easy availability of student loans. Could there be many more products/areas like this?

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Re:A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing by dragonwriter on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @03:01PM (#11630775)

> Also education cost spiked because of easy availability of student loans. Could there be many more products/areas like this?

Anything that isn't provided by a freely competitive market can be like this in the long term, and anything where the supply side can't quickly respond to demand-side changes can be like it in the short term.

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