UBI question

[Excuse me]

During the COVID-19 I have seen a lot more talk about UBI and I have started to wonder it as well (I support it). But one thing doesn't get talked much far as I see, is how can government act against rent seekers?

If somebody has building full of low income renters, they have to rent cheap, since people don't have money. But if I know they are going to get X-amount of UBI each month, why don't I just set higher rent?

I mean, I can see that once people will get UBI they aren't tied to certain neighborhoods and landlords, since there is guaranteed check for you every month, so you can actually move. But I'm not optimistic that any business would let money on the table, so rents will probably continue go up year by year.

Could/should goverment have ability to enforce some kind of rent control at large and what would they base on it?

Same thing seems to apply in US when we talk about medicare for all. There is too much price gouging going on in US markets that seems like impossible idea for government actually pay for all the drugs.

 

[Sunster]

rent caps

 

[mAcOdIn]

Well three things:

One, the price of some things likely would change a bit.
Second, the UBI, presumably would not go directly to your landlord but to you first, so they'll be fighting for tenants just like any other time.
Third, rent will always go up unless we have more stock, period. I mean, you could freeze rent through legal action, but, housing's a finite resource, only so much you can do besides building more units to keep pricing down.

 

[Excuse me]

Well two things:

One, the price of some things likely would change a bit.
Second, the UBI, presumably would not go directly to your landlord but to you first, so they'll be fighting for tenants just like any other time.
Third, rent will always go up unless we have more stock, period. I mean, you could freeze rent through legal action, but, housing's a finite resource only so much you can do besides building more units to keep pricing down.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, UBI wouldn't go directly to landlord but they know there is potentially more money, so they can evict you easily because somebody who is willing to give more from the extra UBI money would eventually move in.

And it's true that rent will always go up. But in case of UBI I can ask ridiculous sums even from shit apartments since government is paying. Even from cities/areas that are not gaining more population.

 

[Bleu]

regarding rents, you don't need full ubi to have the same problem.
In my country there is a special help given to people that is supposed to help poor people and mostly students to pay for rents.
Great idea.
But slowly, this caused the rents to go up, following the raise of the aforementioned help, because owners knew this part of the rent was assured and logical things logically happen.
So after decades, you have a system where public money, that was supposed to help poor people, instead go directly from the public pocket to the landlords' pockets, raising the prices for renting for everyone.
Seeing that, you'd say, we have to stop this insanity and remove this system, the rents would adapt and either go down a little or stop increasing.
But you can't, because it would take years for that effect to happen, and in the meantime, the poorest people and students it was designed for would be totally fucked if you stopped giving this money.

 

[onadesertedisland]

Unfettered capitalism is the fundamental problem. We're all fucking serfs. Our healthcare is maybe has half assed provided by our jobs so we stay tethered to shitty employment. Our wage becomes our standard of living so we don't stray. Our lives, the singularly most precious thing we own becomes property of someone sitting back and collecting the rewards of our labor. We fret about losing our jobs in a pandemic more than losing our one life because this way of living has been brainwashed into our consciousness and the only way.

You are more than a job. You are more than a vector for someone else's happiness.

 

[Excuse me]

regarding rents, you don't need full ubi to have the same problem.
In my country there is a special help given to people that is supposed to help poor people and mostly students to pay for rents.
Great idea.

But slowly, this caused the rents to go up, following the raise of the aforementioned help, because owners knew this part of the rent was assured and logical things logically happen.
So after decades, you have a system where public money, that was supposed to help poor people, instead go directly from the public pocket to the landlords' pockets, raising the prices for renting for everyone.
Seeing that, you'd say, we have to stop this insanity and remove this system, the rents would adapt and either go down a little or stop increasing.
But you can't, because it would take years for that effect to happen, and in the meantime, the poorest people and students it was designed for would be totally fucked if you stop giving this money.

Click to shrink...

This is actually one of the reasons why I made this thread. I know people who work but have to get social security to make ends meet. Rent can eat up easily 60% of your monthly income and that is fucked up.

This is mainly big city problem but I would see same pattern in smaller cities as well once UBI goes live.

 

[Fallout-NL]

Unfettered capitalism is the fundamental problem. We're all fucking serfs. Our healthcare is maybe has half assed provided by our jobs so we stay tethered to shitty employment. Our wage becomes our standard of living so we don't stray. Our lives, the singularly most precious thing we own becomes property of someone sitting back and collecting the rewards of our labor. We fret about losing our jobs in a pandemic more than losing our one life because this way of living has been brainwashed into our consciousness and the only way.

You are more than a job. You are more than a vector for someone else's happiness.

Click to shrink...

.

UBI is a good start, but really it's mostly a bandaid for a much bigger problem.

 

[B-Dubs]

Part of the issue is that there just isn't enough housing in general in a lot of places, especially big cities. That naturally drives prices up. So long as that remains an issue, you can't really fix housing.

 

[Tomasoares]

UBI wouldn't be a direct influence, but it might indeed raise demand for specific areas and therefore make the price raise.
This is fixed by increasing offer, which could be more housing, accessible public transportation to further areas, etc.

 

[oofouchugh]

Costs of necessities strictly controlled by the government.

 

[julia crawford]

Man, landlords just make everything worse. Trying to think of a good thing but there just isn't one.

 

[Ephonk]

I don't know the situation in the US, but how it's handled here is that the governement has social housing plots in different parts of every city that they lease to different target demographics (based on age, income, families). Every city needs a certain % of these housing plots before they can expand/start new constructions to keep this in balance. These also aren't crappy houses, but often nice decent homes that are well isolated, so they also serve a green purpose.

This takes pressure off the private market and helps in stabilizing prices. Long term these projects also make profit (although that's not the primary aim). They are run like companies but with the governement as shareholder so everything gets reinvested.

It has it's own issues, mostly that some peolpe who really need it still go on waiting lists that take too long, and that there's an overhead cost by too much administration, but in general it's a good way imo.

 

[mAcOdIn]

Yeah, UBI wouldn't go directly to landlord but they know there is potentially more money, so they can evict you easily because somebody who is willing to give more from the extra UBI money would eventually move in.

And it's true that rent will always go up. But in case of UBI I can ask ridiculous sums even from shit apartments since government is paying. Even from cities/areas that are not gaining more population.

Click to shrink...

Well, on a basic level whenever a people, whether just a city or a country, get more money the price of things goes up somewhat. So I'm not disagreeing. A UBI without more units may even exacerbate the housing problem because now you have people working crap jobs that previously had to have a roommate or keep living with their parents now entering the market now feeling financially stable enough to live on their own.

In short I wouldn't say a UBI is meant to address housing in any significant manner, that has to be it's own thing and the only thing that can address housing is supply.

 

[Goldenroad]

Man, landlords just make everything worse. Trying to think of a good thing but there just isn't one.

Click to shrink...

They provide people without the ability/capital/desire to afford to buy or build a home, to have a place to live. That's kind of a big one.

 

[Kernel]

UBI will just force all sorts of other cuts like EI or disability benefits since everyone gets money now, no need for those programs.

The fact that people like Musk or Zuckerberg support makes me think it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Since everyone gets UBI, will they abolish minimum wage etc. too?

 

[Midramble]

They provide people without the ability/capital/desire to afford to buy or build a home, to have a place to live. That's kind of a big one.

Click to shrink...

Those three friction points are exacerbated by land lords as well. That said there is a large difference between someone renting out an in law and someone buying up 50 units to retire early. Both suck though if they fight against additional housing supply.

 

[mAcOdIn]

UBI will just force all sorts of other cuts like EI or disability benefits since everyone gets money now, no need for those programs.

The fact that people like Musk or Zuckerberg support makes me think it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Since everyone gets UBI, will they abolish minimum wage etc. too?

Click to shrink...

I don't think a UBI should really be used to cut other programs, which is why I didn't support Yang, whether it could be used to eliminate the minimum wage, if the UBI is high enough, probably. Hypothetically speaking, if with automation there were so few jobs that the UBI was the average wage off the bat and any work a person did was purely spending money then the minimum wage is kind of redundant and you'd be using the UBI to make a person's labor cheap enough to compete with machines more or less. But no-one is talking about a UBI high enough for that.

But yes, you gotta watch out for people who would want to cut social programs.

 

[TreeMePls]

UBI will just force all sorts of other cuts like EI or disability benefits since everyone gets money now, no need for those programs.

The fact that people like Musk or Zuckerberg support makes me think it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Since everyone gets UBI, will they abolish minimum wage etc. too?

Click to shrink...

Depends on if the UBI allows a person to live independently of working or if UBI would be used only as a supplement to min wage. I've always figured if its the former then employers would need to still pay a decent wage since people arent forced to take a job to live anymore and their time would be theirs alone to allocate to whatever they want.

 

[Deleted member 6582]

UBI is insufficient for safety nets because it does not deal with availability. It's why I support it but it's a stop-gap to what I call (since I don't know any other term for) Universal Basic Lifestyle. Basically, we need to define what a basic lifestyle is, the poverty line doesn't make sense because it doesn't enumerate what people should be expected to have, just what it might cost and this will vary greatly in time and geography. We should basically be able to list off the minimum level of things like food, water, shelter, banking, transportation communication etc and then simply distribute them with no monetary transaction and require them for all citizens. This reconciles many types of concerns like adequate access to healthy food, clean drinking water, housing or anything else that simple monetary payments cannot grant access to.