Hello, I’m not that informed about UBI, but here is my arguement:

Everyone gets some sort of income, but wouldn’t companies just subside the income by raising their prices? Also, do you believe capatilism can co-exist with UBI?

  • vin@lemmynsfw.com
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    9 days ago

    No, I don’t support UBI, but I support UBS - Universal basic services. Food, housing, water, education, etc should be free at a basic level. Basic level for housing for example will be ‘Housing First’ concept in Finland.

    • weew@lemmy.ca
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      9 days ago

      I’d be in favor of both. Universal services and some income.

      A little bit of basic income would allow some flexibility just in case there’s something that UBS doesn’t cover on an individual level.

      UBI that’s big enough to cover housing, food, clothing, education, etc would almost certainly get abused and exploited in every way possible to not be used on housing, food, clothing, and education…

    • Alex@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Those basic services all have a cost associated with them… that’s why people support UBI to cover those basic services…

      • Acters@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Why are you under the impression that UBS will not pay for those services?

        The US Post service is the biggest UBS that most Americans pay with taxes. Those who can’t afford or can’t make money to pay taxes or otherwise still benefit from it as “free”

        You seem to think it doesn’t exist or will not work. Yet it does. Libraries exist, public transportation exists. People needs can be met.

      • vin@lemmynsfw.com
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        9 days ago

        When I say it should be free, it means that there is no cost to be paid by individual

    • Acters@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      I agree, and I think the best service we have but is being overshadowed by Amazon is the US Post service. It really needs a push to modernize.

      I also think instead of UBI, anything that is a basic need will be taxed based on a progressive schedule instead of a flat percentage. That way if they try to make it more expensive then it will be taxed too much to be viable. We need to combat this inflation and make it so that a lower priced item is more profitable!

      • vin@lemmynsfw.com
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        9 days ago

        Trying to distort the market so that lower priced items are more profitable is quite challenging to do without unintended consequences. A progressive consumption tax would definitely be a worthy experiment

        • Acters@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          Only concept/idea that offers this benefit rn is just having a healthy competitive market that sees companies not form into a monolopy or structured in a way that allows for each one to set prices to higher amounts because everyone else is doing it. looking at how Intel is struggling rn to stay relevant and they are entering the GPU market with some very competitive mid range options that outperform Nvidia and AMD on common consumer tasks, while still offering their own blend of AI cores for new tasks that we will likely start having in the coming future. All this and Intel is offering these mid-range cards at 60% of the cost to the closest competition. While I enjoy seeing this, I am annoyed this is the only way we can see prices lower. We really need to come together as a community and push prices to more reasonable levels.

          Inflation is insane right now and it is mainly what is annoying me the most about people thinking UBI would even help prevent it from being irrelevant once companies realize they can just charge more for the same identical/marginally improved product. I see the floor for prices steadily increase and UBI will just cause it to rise up to the point that the UBI benefit is worthless as the purchasing power is decreased to the point of a single dollar being worth less than what a penny used to be.