When talking to people who dislike UBI about UBI, they'll often say both that 'people need a purpose in life' and that 'nobody will work if they get free money'. - eviltoast

Those seem incompatible to me.

(UBI means Universal Basic Income, giving everyone a basic income, for free)

  • fidodo@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Prices are not set by how much money you are capable of spending, it’s set by supply and demand. The only time that’s not true is when a company is a monopoly and the good is something you can’t do without. Of course, a huge part of the problem is that we have way too many monopolies so yes, some companies will be able to raise their prices without pressure from competition, but you’d still be better off since not all companies are monopolies.

    • HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip
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      10 months ago

      The demand will rise though. Suddenly all everyone will have some extra income every month. The price of most modern consumer products is based on what the market will bare not what it costs to produce them.

      • fidodo@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        If you have companies competing with each other they will lower their prices down to what’s needed to sustain itself. Again the problem is that we have too many monopolies in our market which is why so many companies don’t have competition. The root cause for so many reasons why solutions are inefficient is due to monopolization and consolidation of wealth and that needs to be dealt with, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also do other things at the same time even if they aren’t as efficient as they could be.