Housing: UBI lets you move somewhere cheap, eliminating the leverage that landlords hold, letting housing prices go down.

Food: Foods are commodities, meaning that the price is the marginal cost. The price of a bushel of rice is set by the buyer, not the seller.

You've learned nothing the past two years

I didn't learn that food prices go up during a global drought because I knew that already.

> landlord and food companies just raise the prices

Which is exactly what has happened (in the US at least) as people received mini-UBI called "stimulus checks" and their bosses got PPP "loans" (that didn't need to be paid back)

Exactly. You can't determine a baseline UBI amount without knowing the baseline cost of food and rent. And I'm perfectly ok with rent control. Housing is a basic necessity, after all -- at least in humane societies.

They can only do that if they collude, which is illegal. On the other hand, if food and rent are paid for mostly with UBI money, and supply was more elastic than demand, then prices would surely increase.

Did they collude to raise rents 10% this year?

People will bid up apartments because they have more money.

Ya, isn’t that what supply not keeping up with demand (in the form of money that can be applied to said demand). Everyone can’t afford to rent an apartment f there isn’t enough apartments to rent. People will use their buying power to prevent being the ones left without, while landlords will benefit from bidding wars by being able to raise prices. That works in Seattle or austin even if it doesn’t work in Detroit or Shreveport.

Good point. Inflation will make UBI kind of pointless.

Not if it is indexed to inflation...eventually a steady state will be reached.

I can't imagine this not happening; it's a certainty.