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Re:Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI by AnthonyMouse on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @11:24AM (#21928691)
> You need to tax monopolies and not call it tax but a 'privilege fee'

Probably better to just get rid of the monopolies, e.g. by relaxing zoning restrictions on density so that housing supply can respond to demand.

Re:Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI by anovikov on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @11:32AM (#21928752)
But you need to destroy democracy in order to be able to do that? Isn't that a too high price to pay? Also it will mean leaving tens of millions of largely elderly or at least 55+ people, bankrupt and destitute, and having to deal with the problem of feeding like 50M+ elderly people, instead of the same amount of young people who now can't afford rents? Is that REALLY worth the trouble? See it's not some imaginary "world jewry" or someone like that who owns all the apartments, it's the same ordinary American people, just older ones. Why forcibly taking money from one large demographic to another - from one who can't really change things for themselves much anymore to those who can - by destroying democracy in the process - is supposed to change anything at all for the better? And how is it even basically 'fair'?

To me it feels both politically impossible, morally unjustifiable, and socially bullshit. "Get too many people very angry for no benefit at all".

Re:Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI by AnthonyMouse on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @11:51AM (#21928884)
No need for melodrama. People often sell a big house and buy a small house when they retire and then use the difference to live on, but reducing housing scarcity makes both costs go down. Which means the reduction in the difference (surplus) is less than the total reduction in the price of the housing, and is a net benefit to the country overall. Meanwhile housing costs have knock on effects for all other costs, so they go down too. Having lower costs is a major benefit for people on a fixed income.

Reducing housing costs helps the indigent elderly at least as much as it does the average person. Who it hurts is the affluent elderly who own a big mansion and would get whacked harder than usual by a reduction in its value, but I'm not sure why I'm supposed to have a lot of sympathy for rich people trying to profit from artificial scarcity.