News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Thursday March 05, 2020 @11:27AM (#22494977)
> The more people who opt out of working, the harder everyone else must work to compensate.

For which the market should correct by increasing their compensation, thus incentivising people to return to working, no?

Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by CivBase on Thursday March 05, 2020 @11:39AM (#22495136)
> For which the market should correct by increasing their compensation, thus incentivising people to return to working, no?

Which drives up the cost of goods, resulting in an inflation that counteracts the UBI and gets us right back where we started.

Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Thursday March 05, 2020 @11:43AM (#22495189)
Competition still exerts a downward force on prices, and as the cost of labor increases the cost of developing automation will become more and more attractive to replace it.
Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by tomp on Thursday March 05, 2020 @01:37PM (#22496543)
You don't need UBI then, prices will just go down towards 0 because of competition, resulting in free food / housing / clothing / mobile phones for everyone.

Only being half-sarcastic here.

Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by PragmaticPulp on Thursday March 05, 2020 @11:39AM (#22495125)
> For which the market should correct by increasing their compensation, thus incentivising people to return to working, no?

Partially, but some of those increased compensation costs will translate to increased prices for everyone. That reduces the real value of a fixed UBI amount.

It's a given that a significant amount of UBI will be absorbed by inflation, particularly in housing prices in competitive cities. If everyone in a city is already competing for a limited housing supply and suddenly everyone has an extra $1000 per month, I wouldn't be surprised if the cheapest housing costs suddenly increased by nearly $1000 per month.

Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by take_a_breath on Thursday March 05, 2020 @12:45PM (#22495960)
==If everyone in a city is already competing for a limited housing supply and suddenly everyone has an extra $1000 per month, I wouldn't be surprised if the cheapest housing costs suddenly increased by nearly $1000 per month.==

If we accept this logic as true, wouldn't it incentivize builders to increase housing supply? They would want to capture those higher rents and prices, right?

Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by cambalache on Thursday March 05, 2020 @11:47AM (#22495241)
How so? The compensation is increased because less people are working, so the cost of labour is fixed (which is neglible in any case in a post-scarcity society as envisioned in the future)
Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by EpicEng on Thursday March 05, 2020 @12:07PM (#22495514)
If labor remains fixed then people as a whole have more money. Prices go up due to inflation and increased demand, no? I realize that's simplistic, but is it not generally true?