But will there be increased demand? For the basics - food, shelter - the demand is pretty much proportional to population. With more money around and same demand, will competition on commodities be enough to keep the prices where they were? My naïve expectation is that they'll in fact rise, and tie up most of the UBI.

So folks will spend their money on other things. I just don't get it - how does "people have money" lead to "I know how they will spend it, and it will be on housing and food"?

In a competitive market (I can go to any grocery store I like) the prices are not set to what people have to pay but on what the other stores are selling for.

The offerings may depend on that - more caviar if folks have more spendable income. But that's called Standard of Living, and if it goes up well that's the whole purpose of UBI

> I just don't get it - how does "people have money" lead to "I know how they will spend it, and it will be on housing and food"?

It was more of "people have more money" -> "are able to pay more" -> "prices will raise to what market full of slightly richer people can bear". But I'm not arguing that, just asking about it. I don't have enough economic understanding to make predictions here.

Its easy to choose one strand of economics and sketch together a story. I call it 'playing dot-to-dot'. But economics has many strands, all in play at the same time. Its not just here; folks post such sketches all the time.

Competition determines prices. Folks can spend money on lots of things. People can share an apartment if they are too expensive, which would drive the price down, and spend their money on other things. More money in circulation means more lending thus more development, which increases housing supply. And on and on.