Re:Enough with Basic Income
by brokencode on Sunday September 11, 2016 @10:25AM
(#12473495)
Competition will continue to keep prices down. Just because people have a new source of income, doesn't mean they that will become more likely to buy overpriced goods.
What will drive the commensurate increase in competition? If competition stays the same, inflation will simply drive prices up.
> Competition will continue to keep prices down
That's an incomplete statement, because it doesn't quantify the effect. Will the effect be zero, or will BI be priced-in (higher prices, lower present-value of BI)?
US college tuition and housing prices increased dramatically, because of decreased consumer price discrimination driven by low-barrier loans.
Unfortunately virtual scarcity will persist for some time. This is because the economic system isn't organized enough to distribute all resources fairly and efficiently. As jobs decline (due to increased automation and export), the old way of distributing resources fairly fails, and virtual scarcity will increase.
UBI seems like it can fill that gap but I worry that it's an overly simplistic solution. It seems like it can cause runaway inflation without a counter-balance. What prevents rent/food/gas prices from simply going up?