The argument is that a house is an investment. I.e you sell it in the end. Investments aren’t included in the CPI.
I think that’s BS because investments increase in value due to inflation (and not just because of their inherent growth).
I get the difficulty of extracting the natural growth of the asset from the inflationary growth, but I also believe most of the 2008 monetary mass increase was shoveled into financial assets and this has to be considered.
That drops the U in UBI, most it’s merits, and creates a poverty gap.
UBI only makes sense when it’s universal. It makes most sense when it replaces other entitlement programs.
I don’t think UBI is necessarily doomed to an inflationary spiral, but the onus is on its proponents to prove otherwise.
Come up with a scheme that won’t become a bread and circus, and wont cause inflation, and I’m all for it!
But I’d rather just smash the machines (that’s ultimately what UBI aims to solve) and solve the automation problem by giving ppl the dignity [1] of work.
[1] my local grocer employees a few folks with Down syndrome at the cash register. They’re super slow, but otherwise good at their job. I love them. They value their job so much, and they have by far the best attitude. Their job gives them the dignity of knowing that they aren’t mere consumers, but also (in their limited way) contributors. That’s very powerful for the soul.
You’re right, of course, that if the UBI is giving any meaningful amount of money, then ceribus paribus, (massive) inflation is the result. It’s a basic argument too.
Of course you don’t have to keep the “ceribus paribus” condition, Although I’m skeptical any leader in the USA will break the ceribus paribus.
I don’t think OP argued to bail out the rich. They only argued that UBI doesn’t make sense.
Maybe UBI makes sense. Maybe it doesn’t. I’m on the fence, personally. But bailing out the way we did in 2008-2009, where CEOs and other saboteurs got massive bonuses instead of jail time, was highly immoral. Some of believe that that caused latent inflation.
Bailing out the rich has nothing to do with UBI.
I’ll welcome an UBI scheme that doesn’t wreck personal agency and responsibility. But the onus is on the proponents to prove that it isn’t a terminal civilization’s 21st century version of the Roman “bread and circus”
Btw, a great implicit UBI is to
- reduce the work week to 30 hours. Shares existing jobs with more people
- change the “part time” rules to discourage hiring “part time” employees to avoid benefits
- increase minimum pay. Yes, that too. But it has to be local government in a manner that makes sense to their local economy. Alternatively the federal imposed min. wage should depend on geography
- Bring back weekends to low wage earners (my wife’s entire family works at Walmart or similar places. I see how weekend instability wrecks their ability to enjoy being together). Either close on weekend, or have workers choose a week day they always get off. Mandate 50% overtime for work on weekends.
- Put a 15% tariffs on all goods (no exceptions!). This acts like a sales tax (counter cyclical to the economy. Big plus one) that isn’t as regressive as a sales tax since it encourages local jobs for cheap things and for fancy things the rich pay).
If I gift money to an extremely over leveraged banks to save them and, with puckered sphincters (they just saw the abyss), they hold onto it then we won’t “see inflation”. It’s there, but it’s latent inflation.
If I demolish wages by exporting jobs overseas, that will have a deflationary effect to counter the effect of inflation.
If I replace cocoa butter with food wax, I hide inflation.
If I don’t include price of housing in the CPI [1], I manipulate inflation.
Schiff’s theory is sound. But, like the GME debacle proved, it’s like shoring a doomed company. Can you stay solvent long enough to prove your point?
[1] I know and understand the argument why houses it arent included. I just reject the argument completely as flawed.
Sorry missed that.
Games: I wasn’t much of a gamer by then. But Age of empires worked well :D