Those seem incompatible to me.
(UBI means Universal Basic Income, giving everyone a basic income, for free)
I’ve always wanted UBI to be a thing but after a discussion with my brother I’m second guessing it. His argument is that corporations will just increase their prices and not much would change.
He suggested that instead, we use the money that we would use for UBI to guarantee that EVERYONE’S basic needs are met. Housing, food, healthcare, etc…
I know it’s easier said than done but I’m just worried that billionaires will fuck up UBI like they fuck up everything else.
The sad thing about UBI in places like the US is they further systematic change needs to happen prior to UBI being implemented.
If you have UBI added on to our current capitalist hellscape (since UBI rates will be publicly known) landlords and corporations will just hike prices to make life cost just as much as UBI—therefore forcing people to work for any scrap above that. So essentially UBI will be fed back into corporations/the elite, who will also continue to make profit on the labor the lower class does to afford anything above basic necessities.
who will also continue to make profit on the labor the lower class does to afford anything above basic necessities
If someone can afford basic necessities, they aren’t going to choose to work three jobs at minimum wage where they are treated badly, forcing an improvement in pay/conditions to find any workers. As for setting prices arbitrarily, that isn’t actually possible except where a monopoly is held, the idea that supply and demand influences price is not a myth. Having money and the choice of how to spend it does actually give you additional agency and leverage, and UBI would serve as a form of redistribution if it is funded by taxes of some kind.
Except that landlords are coming together to set prices so that they can all set them high. I don’t remember what the group is called, but someone was discussing it a while back. Doesn’t have to be a monopoly if they’re conspiring, which is what is happening with so many consumer goods and services.
I’ve seen that stuff but it’s too much to assume that this kind of coordination is the controlling factor in housing prices, or most other prices. You do need a monopoly because there’s too much incentive for defecting from the conspiracy if the fixed price is too far away from what the market price would be. I think housing is expensive mainly because of supply being suppressed and wealth inequality, and UBI would begin to address the latter.
the use of this software prevented landlords from courting would-be renters through the use of different discounts, said the lawsuit. For instance, landlords sometimes offer move-in deals or compete on prices but the use of Yardi’s algorithmic pricing tool disrupted that practice, claimed the attorneys …
Overall, the rate of rent growth has fallen back toward historical norms after nearly two years of historically high growth.
Like I mentioned in another comment, I can see how this kind of thing could make some difference in pricing by avoiding giving renters deals that wouldn’t have actually been necessary to secure a lease. That’s very far from being evidence that supply and demand doesn’t even apply and the market price is dictated by fiat, which is an absurd conspiracy theory that doesn’t follow at all from any of the articles being linked.
How do you explain cereal being $8 a box, when it was $5 pre-COVID or the million other products that now cost more? There are recordings of board meetings that were leaked of board members admitting that they inflated prices or unnecessarily kept prices inflated because they knew people would pay it.
Why could that not have an explanation that is primarily about economic forces? They printed a ton of money around when Covid happened, and the distribution of wealth shifted significantly. I can buy that businesses could be eking out a little more efficiency by coordinating, but not that we are in a secret command economy and economics is basically all fake.
the “printing of money” has fuck all to do with inflation, and mainly comes from pop-economics that is stuck somewhere around mercantilism.
Corporation simply realized that they are playing the prisoner’s dilemma with prices, and are now going for the “optimal solution”
How do you figure you can increase the number of dollars in circulation, while shrinking the economy, and not have each dollar be worth less wealth as a result?
My issue with it is that you haven’t run trials with people min-maxing how to squeeze people for their UBI checks. As a start, just raising rent until it eats all the UBI
As a start, just raising rent until it eats all the UBI
You can’t just arbitrarily raise the rent to whatever you like.
Yeah, I agree, we should abolish landlords
Landlords also have to comply with the law, which limits the height of the rent they can charge and the maximum yearly increase.
With the absurd increases of rent globally, record profits for landlords, and massive amount of empty properties have these laws worked?
If properties are seen as an investment, as they currently are, they must always increase in value at a greater rate than inflation. This means that, in order for investment properties to work, housing must always become more expensive. This increases rent and makes buying a home more impossible yearly. If they lower in price, then the investment fails. The cost of making housing accessible is the economy.
The issue isn’t simply increasing rent arbitrarily this is a marathon. They’ll raise rent at a higher rate than workers accrue money as they currently are. This makes housing unaffordable. UBI is a band-aid solution that doesn’t fix the root issue.
Even Adam Smith agreed landlordship was a poor idea in a capitalist market. Renters should accrue equity, or housing should become public.
This means that, in order for investment properties to work, housing must always become more expensive.
This is true of everything. For income to keep pace with inflation, it must always be increasing. In fact, to keep pace with inflation, prices must rise by the amount of inflation.
To clarify, in order for investment properties to work the value of a property must increase quicker than inflation in order to profit. Otherwise, you’re not investing, you’re simply retaining current buying power. This is true of all investments. You want your buying power to increase, not stagnate. This means that the cost of housing must increase at a higher rate than general inflation, and thus the cost of mortgage and rent must take up a larger portion of a persons salary otherwise the investors (landlords, investment property owners) will not profit.
Along with that income has not kept pace with inflation and hasn’t for more than 50 years. Both these issues have compounded to create the issue we see today. This is a closed system, and in order for one piece of the economy to be more profitable other pieces must decline. Otherwise, you are stagnating. Stagnation under capitalism is death.
I agree though that the prices of housing should be tied to inflation (or, better, to a percentage of average wage) but that would, necessarily, mean that the property does not accrue profit, it only sticks to inflation. This is not profitable, this is not an investment. This would, essentially, abolish landlords but in a much more economically violent way as their investment portfolio is now worthless (as an investment).
In other industries the cost of each product can decrease as efficiancy increases, and volume increased through incremental changes and diversification. This allows for profit to increase while the cost of goods matches inflation (or, like with computers, they get cheaper). Now, I’d argue this is unsustainable as eventually you’ll hit a wall where it’s not possible to decrease cost to manufacture, and you must now increase cost to purchase quicker than inflation, but there are ways to mitigate this and in it’s whole that is another conversation.
Apologies for novel, thank you for your kind argument though. You seem like a chill person
If your method of investing in housing is just buying and selling the same house, then yes it’s not going to work. That’s also a good thing because someone who just buys low and sells high isn’t producing any value.
But people can invest in properties by improving them before selling, and also by renting them out. And neither of those situations requires a housing market whose average price is outpacing inflation. In those situations, it’s the production of actual value that is the source of the profit.
Profiting from arbitrage requires a fucked up market, and a lack of information. Profiting from producing value just requires clear communication and competency. Two very different kinds of profit seeking.
You must live in VENEZUELA or some other SOCIAMIST HELLHOLE!
Americans have the freedom to literally arbitrarily raise the rent to whatever they like YEEEEEEHAW!
Okay let’s say I own a condo and I’m renting it out. I raise the rent to a million dollars a month.
What happens next?
Depends on the location but most likely demand will be zero.
So I don’t get my million dollars a month??
Studies in motivational theory have been around for years which generally agree that at a very basic level people need security first, not necessarily to motivate but to be in a position to be motivated. Repeatedly pay has been proven to be a poor motivator over time. By removing the basic insecurity that people face, you give them a chance to focus on actual motivating factors like job satisfaction, self-worth and realisation.
Absolutely. Security is the enemy of fear and capitalism. Fear as Frank Herbert put it, is the mind killer. If we have security, all of a sudden the horrendous business practices capitalism has been built on and motivated by. Sort of fall apart. Go to work in a soul crushing job, with a toxic environment, for too little pay? Why, when you could stay home and start your own business, maybe even become a better competitor. Or just wait for something better to come along.
Fear is the tool of the powerful. Whether it’s fear of some group they tell you to fear. Or fearing them directly. Without fear, many of the crises we seem to constantly be juggling. Would find themselves solved. Humanity has the ability to feed and house everyone. Right now. The reason we don’t is that the wealthy and powerful would lose wealth and power. And we can’t have that.
If security is the enemy of capitalism, how do you explain people who have their needs met, who still strive under capitalism?
People who have their needs met would strive regardless of capitalism. You need to show that they strive because of capitalism. The problem is, capitalism doesn’t meet the needs of a large amount of people. No matter how hard they strive. Nor should it be necessary for them to. Worse capitalism short changes them. And is very inefficient.
