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chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
No, because having money is power. The more money you have, the more leverage you have, in general. This argument comes up a lot and I think it’s mostly coming from a widespread attitude of learned helplessness about money. Especially a UBI that is funded by some form of redistribution would mean a lasting shift in wealth inequality that could not be undone just because some businesses would like it to be.
nandeEbisu@lemmy.world 8 months ago
In areas that have housing shortages you probably would see a rise in rent as the market of people looking to buy nicer places increases quickly but actually increasing the housing stock in desirable areas takes some time.
I think in the long run it would be a net positive and also would need to be paired with some measure of regulation around arbitrary increases in rent for landlords.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I think it would rise some, but not enough to absorb the whole UBI, because not everyone is looking to throw all of their money at living in the most fancy place they can, most people I think would prefer to do something else with most of their money. To me at least ‘niceness’ doesn’t matter that much if the living space is functional.
Also takes political will to overcome protectionist policies preventing new construction and preventing denser housing. My ideal combination of policies would be UBI plus reforms and subsidies to increase the housing supply and intentionally crash the housing market by doing so. As for direct price controls, I don’t think the economy works in a way that it could ever be effective beyond the very short term and a majority of economists tend to agree.