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Comment by XorNot | Hacker News Reader

> I'm not sold on UBI -- no one has managed to give a satisfactory answer for why it won't lead to persistent (even if minuscule) inflation everywhere.

Inflation is persistent - the Fed has an inflation target of 2%! Year over year, that's the inflation rate and they manipulate spending and money issuance to hit it.

If you are holding onto large amounts of cash and not getting a 2% return, you are losing money and that's intentional because the government wants you to either spend it or invest it.

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I should have been more clear on that, I should have written even more persistent inflation (than normal). I see UBI as just a add-more-inflation button.

Also side note isn't it great that the Fed, which is trying to get to full employment is now targeting an average inflation target of 2%? I know that it's more complicated than this (if we allow the dollar to become too weak or too strong there are serious consequences for other counties who rely on it as a reserve currency), but inflation disproportionately damages the working class. So the signal is basically we're going to get people into as many jobs as possible, even if we're devaluing that work with our actions.

I'm going to refer to Lyn Alden's guide here (https://www.lynalden.com/inflation/), but not all inflation damages the lower class.

In fact, the wealth gap was smallest (relatively) at the end of the 1940s and 1970s, both decades with the most inflation in the 20th century. It all depends on the power of labor vs capital. That's why capital has fought so much against unions - if you bring back unions, inflation can return and it can benefit the lower classes at the expense of the rich.

Thanks! Lyn Alden's a great source of information -- I'm familiar with her work.

That said, I don't see how any of what you've said points to a problem in my theory -- the power of labor vs capital has been heavily tilted in the favor of capital for a long time now, unions got essentially systematically busted a while ago. I assumed that would be obvious as context.

I assume that you're not suggesting the lower classes are immune to the coming variant of inflation?

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