If I am a lending shark, I will lend more predatorily to people under a UBI regime, even if that income is protected. It changes the risk management calculations towards “they now have more ways to figure out a way to pay before going bankrupt” and “after bankruptcy pool of money I can extract is higher.” Again, maybe you’ve technically protected UBI, but I can surely garnish wages in either case, pressuring them to give me as much as they can. People can miraculously make money appear when you squeeze them, and now I know there’s more there to squeeze them for in every case.
People with protected savings often raid that. I will count on the “raid the IRA” effect, but with people for whom that money wasn’t earned, and they don’t culturally have the tendency to want to protect it. And anyway, you can only file bankruptcy once in seven years, and I can get more blood in the interim. In essence, I’ll redo all my risk management calculations on how far I press this because now you have two choices, you’re either going to be dirt poor—nothing but UBI and quit your job and live in the gutter, or else you’re going to “magically make some money happen” to get me off your back.
My guess is this dynamic screws over people just above the poorest, and deep into the middle.
Look, I personally find all that distasteful. I won’t even buy Altria stock. But I expect a flourishing of those businesses in a UBI regime, and they will prey upon many who UBI is trying to help. That and the increased inflation, I think the middle poor and the lower middle classes will get really screwed by the whole thing in the end. Basically the people who work and struggle, whom UBI most wishes to help.
Kind of adjacent: Add in investment scams targeting the undereducated, and lots of toys to decorate trailers. I would expect Sony, Nintendo, etc stock to go up (GME, LOL), and Altria as well due to the additional pot sales. The “Video games and drugs” class will expand fast, because UBI will not likely be enough to do anything actuallyinteresting.
I think it’s a step that has to happen and will happen. The writing is probably on the wall that we’re going to enter a very redistributive regime in the USA. But I am not optimistic about it until we’re at near Star Trek levels of Universal Wealth.
If I am a lending shark, I will lend more predatorily to people under a UBI regime, even if that income is protected. It changes the risk management calculations towards “they now have more ways to figure out a way to pay before going bankrupt” and “after bankruptcy pool of money I can extract is higher.” Again, maybe you’ve technically protected UBI, but I can surely garnish wages in either case, pressuring them to give me as much as they can. People can miraculously make money appear when you squeeze them, and now I know there’s more there to squeeze them for in every case.
People with protected savings often raid that. I will count on the “raid the IRA” effect, but with people for whom that money wasn’t earned, and they don’t culturally have the tendency to want to protect it. And anyway, you can only file bankruptcy once in seven years, and I can get more blood in the interim. In essence, I’ll redo all my risk management calculations on how far I press this because now you have two choices, you’re either going to be dirt poor—nothing but UBI and quit your job and live in the gutter, or else you’re going to “magically make some money happen” to get me off your back.
My guess is this dynamic screws over people just above the poorest, and deep into the middle.
Look, I personally find all that distasteful. I won’t even buy Altria stock. But I expect a flourishing of those businesses in a UBI regime, and they will prey upon many who UBI is trying to help. That and the increased inflation, I think the middle poor and the lower middle classes will get really screwed by the whole thing in the end. Basically the people who work and struggle, whom UBI most wishes to help.
Kind of adjacent: Add in investment scams targeting the undereducated, and lots of toys to decorate trailers. I would expect Sony, Nintendo, etc stock to go up (GME, LOL), and Altria as well due to the additional pot sales. The “Video games and drugs” class will expand fast, because UBI will not likely be enough to do anything actually interesting.
I think it’s a step that has to happen and will happen. The writing is probably on the wall that we’re going to enter a very redistributive regime in the USA. But I am not optimistic about it until we’re at near Star Trek levels of Universal Wealth.