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A comment on Y Combinator Learns Basic Income Is Not So Basic After All. Parent comment

Re:Y Combinator Learns Basic Income Is Not So Basic After All by dragonwriter on Monday August 27, 2018 @01:13PM (#17852772)
> No, UBI only works if you institute price controls, or if there is a mass migration to rural areas, Otherwise, it just sparks an inflationary spiral.

There is good reason to think that a tax-supported UBI at any level would, in fact, lead to price inflation for goods disproportionately in demand at the low end of the income scale, such that the net benefit of a UBI to the lowest-income recipients would be less than would be expected by consideration of the nominal benefit and pre-policy price levels, sure.

The idea that it would just spark an inflationary spiral, OTOH, something that needs some support.

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Re:Y Combinator Learns Basic Income Is Not So Basic After All by _rpd on Monday August 27, 2018 @01:47PM (#17852987)
> The idea that it would just spark an inflationary spiral, OTOH, something that needs some support.

Fair point. My assumption is that any political movement that institutes UBI in the first place would add automatic indexing to CPI either in the initial bill or soon after the first inflationary surge. Even if (miraculously) resisted at the federal level, the pressure to automatically index in urban areas would be overwhelming and even a few major cities with local indexing laws would still spark the inflationary spiral.

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Re:Y Combinator Learns Basic Income Is Not So Basic After All by dllthomas on Monday August 27, 2018 @02:07PM (#17853122)
Yeah, the BI level should be pegged to targeted inflation, not observed or expected inflation.
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Re:Y Combinator Learns Basic Income Is Not So Basic After All by dragonwriter on Monday August 27, 2018 @02:34PM (#17853288)
No, IMO, the BI level should be pegged to revenue from a dedicated source (or dedicated share of a general source) divided by recipients, with a reserve that is released under a pre-set formula to avoid or mitigate reductions in short term revenue/beneficiary downturns.
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Re:Y Combinator Learns Basic Income Is Not So Basic After All by dllthomas on Thursday August 30, 2018 @01:54PM (#17878962)
Right, I recall you having said that before, and I guess I never thought too deep about it :-P

I'm gonna go with "maybe" - there are a whole lot of details there and there may well be good plans in that space.

I'd like to get back to this when I have a bit more bandwidth.

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