Re:Did Finland’s basic income experiment work? [video]
by misja111 on Sunday February 03, 2019 @09:43AM
(#19069778)
OP did not write that rents would go up until l00% of people's income. IMO what he meant was that certain flats that used to be priced at the level that everyone could afford them, would go up in price when everyone's income would increase because of basic income: and they would keep going up until they reached the same equilibrium that they used to be in beforehand.
Of course this would not just apply to rents but to all scarce commodities.
I think OP has a valid point; similar things happened after the influx of high income tech workers in SF, or for instance in some European countries after governments gave tax advantages to house owners.
Re:Did Finland’s basic income experiment work? [video]
by meruru on Sunday February 03, 2019 @11:03AM
(#19070301)
Wouldn't UBI lead to a population decrease as the people living in poverty (for whatever reason) are the ones that reproduce the most? It sounds to me like housing costs should decrease in the long term as the supply becomes greater than the demand.
In this scenario, presumably all businesses raise their prices to the total UBI amount. But now people on UBI who could previously afford multiple goods and services no longer can, because each business demands the entirety of their UBI, participation in the economy is infeasible. Therefore, most of those businesses go under, being unable to actually sell anything and make a profit (bear in mind that this inflation also applies to business owners, and any costs of doing business as well.)
This won't happen for the reason renters don't ask for your income and simply demand 100% of your income as rent nowadays - economics isn't that simple. No one is going to buy a flat if they can't also afford utilities and food while living there.