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Comment by prometheus76 | Hacker News Reader

To put a fine point on your point: if there are 10 foods that cost 1 each and 10 people who want 1 food each who also have 1 money each, that system is in balance. However, if you give everyone 2 moneys each, but still only have 10 foods, the person selling the foods is either going to raise the price to 2 moneys, or will run out quickly because now the 10 people want to buy 2 foods instead of one food. More demand on same supply: either price goes up or item is no longer available for all 10 people. It's artificial demand which leads to shortages and to black markets, where people buy and sell secretly and move the items to where they are in demand more quickly than the markets can respond.

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If everyone had the same amount of money, then yeah, we wouldn't need UBI. UBI is made for a world where we don't all have the same amount of money.

There's not 10 people with 1 money each, there's a ton of people, some of who have 1 money, while others have a billion money, and others have a couple hundred money, and some have 0 money and are at risk of starving.

Most of the people with a billion money don't have a billion money in a bank account. They own a company that some accountants say is worth a billion dollars, but there are a LOT of presuppositions built into that evaluation by those accountants. But that's a side point.

UBI causes inflation, which hurts the lower class the most. How is this a win? If everyone gets UBI, then the prices adjust and no one effectively gets UBI anymore. this is what happened to college tuitions in the US because of government grants and government-guaranteed student loans.

The people with a billion dollars have millions in cash on hand and can get millions more without significant problems by selling a bit of their stock. I think people overestimate the illiquidity of billionaires' assets. But yes, it's a side point, the exact amount does not matter.

Yes, if everyone gets UBI, some inflation will happen because more people have money. The assertion that the inflation will be so great that it will completely cancel out the benefit of UBI for the lower classes is a far stronger claim that I've seen dozens of times, but which I've never once seen anyone attempt to justify.

I'll stick with the inflation of college tuition as my argument against UBI. Ever since Pell grants, but most especially after federally-guaranteed student loans that could not be defaulted on (so essentially, UBI for students), college tuitions and college administrative overhead costs have skyrocketed.

> (so essentially, UBI for students)

Except that it isn't UBI for students. It's nothing even remotely similar to UBI. Those students still need to pay for housing and food and everything else. The loans students get aren't just free money in students pockets either. It's just "free money for schools" with extra steps and those schools are happy to take the money and pocket it.

Imagine if we really did just give every 18 year old kid hundreds of thousands of dollars in free money that would never need to be paid back. That'd be a terrible idea for a lot of reasons, but while schools would probably still benefit the most, they'd also have to compete with all the other things those kids could spend that money on and prices likely wouldn't be quite as bad.

Anyone receiving UBI would also need to pay for housing and food and everything else. The grant comes to the student and the student gives it to the school, and they don't have to pay it back (because it's a grant). The school can now afford to hire a bunch of "administrators" to justify raising the tuition. It's a perfect microcosm of what would happen in a UBI scenario.

> student loans that could not be defaulted on (so essentially, UBI for students)

It's the opposite of UBI—UBI you're given money that you don't have to pay back. Student loans that you can't default on is money that you can't get out of paying back.

College costs have skyrocketed because there are fewer colleges per people than there are foods or houses per people.

If housing in one place get too expensive you can move to a place with cheaper housing.

You can’t really do the same for colleges. Reputation is not something you can simply manufacture more of.

The comparison is not even remotely valid.

This is why my support for UBI is based on the amount of money given out. If you give out a very small amount then it's not going to a big problem. If you then use it to simplify the tax system, replace it with flat tax, and remove many welfare systems you have a much better system.

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