Yeah, billionaires like UBI because they can pretend they care about the plebs, but in reality they know it will just cause inflation, which there stocks won’t be effected by, and push even more money into the stock market to protect against inflation, inflating there portfolio.
The plebs will then realize it’s not working and then be skeptical of any program designed to help the poor. UBI is a poison pill for the left.
No. That would be achievable through reallocation of funds, e.g. from tax revenue. If the quote is correct, that’s just increasing monetary mass, aka printing money. Which is Inflationary AF.
That being said, I find it hard to believe that a CEO in this day and age wouldn’t have at least this basic understanding of how the economy works. This being Musk, there’s no need to invent extra character flaws. The man has plenty to go around.
Its a cover. Saying populist ideas without any intention to support them or help them come about is just a way to hide his real actions under a veneer.
Well, the text says “you could actually get deflation because there will be so much abundance produced”. There is some reality where this is true, as increasing the monetary mass would do nothing if the economy (the amount of goods and services produces) increases proportionally. But I wouldn’t bet on a universal basic income increasing the country’s production.
Also, only the rich and upper-middle class would suffer from inflation. Poor people’s financial situation would still improve.
The printing money wouldn’t be enough. You’d also have to legislate what people are not allowed to do after the money printing begins (like rent hikes equal to the average household size * the ubi check).
The only way this makes sense, and I guarantee he’s not advocating for this, would be to print and distribute so much money to the lower and middle classes that the upper class wealth is diluted and inequality is reduced. But the havoc that would wreak outside of the US is something I can’t even speculate on.
The productive capacity of the accumulated capital owned by US billionaires exceeds $31k/person/year.
The “Net Worth” figure is deceptive, because it’s the exchange value and not the use value. Sitting on tens of millions of vacant real estate units, many of which are underwater on their purchase price, shows up as far less on an individual balance sheet than the material benefit of not being homeless accrues to a homeowner.
Minimum wage in many US cities is $15/hr which is $30k/year.
Even at federal minimum wage of $7.50, that means not just taxing Billionaires at 100% but taking everything will give you 2 years of UBI before there is no money.
So why did you inflate it to nearly 3x that amount while arguing about how it can’t work because it’s too expensive? $1000/month is still a lot of money for people.
Because baseline food and shelter is much more expensive in many cities where 80% of the population lives. That’s why minimum wage is $30k in major cities.
How is a guy who says too much was spent on food stamps and foreign aid going to like the budget to produce a livable UBI? It’s basically selling people a pipe dream to justify cutting current social services, and then we can colour us all shocked when UBI either never rolls out or is like $5 per person
I just looked over the interview. it was fucking WEIRD man. He’s kind advocating for a UBI? Basically he’s saying that AI is going to give us the whole Star Trek “post scarcity” future thing and like money is simultaneously going to be useless, but that how that could happen is the Treasury could just give people checks and inflation wouldn’t be an issue because the AI would be creating so much abundance. It’s genuinely hard to parse
We all hate Musk but isn’t Musk suggesting Universal Basic Income?
Yeah, billionaires like UBI because they can pretend they care about the plebs, but in reality they know it will just cause inflation, which there stocks won’t be effected by, and push even more money into the stock market to protect against inflation, inflating there portfolio.
The plebs will then realize it’s not working and then be skeptical of any program designed to help the poor. UBI is a poison pill for the left.
No. That would be achievable through reallocation of funds, e.g. from tax revenue. If the quote is correct, that’s just increasing monetary mass, aka printing money. Which is Inflationary AF.
That being said, I find it hard to believe that a CEO in this day and age wouldn’t have at least this basic understanding of how the economy works. This being Musk, there’s no need to invent extra character flaws. The man has plenty to go around.
Being a CEO is an actual disease that causes measurable cognitive decline. These are literally the dumbest fucks on the planet.
A cynical view is that he does understand and is just shitposting and muddying the water around UBI
I find that quite plausible.
Its a cover. Saying populist ideas without any intention to support them or help them come about is just a way to hide his real actions under a veneer.
Well, the text says “you could actually get deflation because there will be so much abundance produced”. There is some reality where this is true, as increasing the monetary mass would do nothing if the economy (the amount of goods and services produces) increases proportionally. But I wouldn’t bet on a universal basic income increasing the country’s production.
Also, only the rich and upper-middle class would suffer from inflation. Poor people’s financial situation would still improve.
The printing money wouldn’t be enough. You’d also have to legislate what people are not allowed to do after the money printing begins (like rent hikes equal to the average household size * the ubi check).
Which you already have to do, because there already is inflation. I don’t see how a UBI would change anything if the inflation stays the same.
The only way this makes sense, and I guarantee he’s not advocating for this, would be to print and distribute so much money to the lower and middle classes that the upper class wealth is diluted and inequality is reduced. But the havoc that would wreak outside of the US is something I can’t even speculate on.
But even that wouldn’t do a thing to them - their value isn’t stored in money, so any inflation would only hurt the people who’s value is.
How do you get UBI without issuing checks from the Treasury. There isn’t enough tax money that can be taken from Billionaires to sustain UBI.
Not just tax a percentage, but take every penny of every Billionaire in the US. Net worth of all US billionaires is 8.4 Trillion.
270 million US adults.
= 31k per person. Once.
That’s 31k one time. Then there is no money for next year.
The productive capacity of the accumulated capital owned by US billionaires exceeds $31k/person/year.
The “Net Worth” figure is deceptive, because it’s the exchange value and not the use value. Sitting on tens of millions of vacant real estate units, many of which are underwater on their purchase price, shows up as far less on an individual balance sheet than the material benefit of not being homeless accrues to a homeowner.
Nobody said it had to be over $2500/month?
Minimum wage in many US cities is $15/hr which is $30k/year.
Even at federal minimum wage of $7.50, that means not just taxing Billionaires at 100% but taking everything will give you 2 years of UBI before there is no money.
So? UBI isn’t a wage for work. It could be $300/month and that would still be a huge boon to struggling people.
The UBI baseline is supposed to be $12000 per year. The premise is it covers food and shelter.
So why did you inflate it to nearly 3x that amount while arguing about how it can’t work because it’s too expensive? $1000/month is still a lot of money for people.
Because baseline food and shelter is much more expensive in many cities where 80% of the population lives. That’s why minimum wage is $30k in major cities.
How is a guy who says too much was spent on food stamps and foreign aid going to like the budget to produce a livable UBI? It’s basically selling people a pipe dream to justify cutting current social services, and then we can colour us all shocked when UBI either never rolls out or is like $5 per person
I just looked over the interview. it was fucking WEIRD man. He’s kind advocating for a UBI? Basically he’s saying that AI is going to give us the whole Star Trek “post scarcity” future thing and like money is simultaneously going to be useless, but that how that could happen is the Treasury could just give people checks and inflation wouldn’t be an issue because the AI would be creating so much abundance. It’s genuinely hard to parse
It’s part of the grief, hyping AI and his robots while promising that he’s gonna give money after they replace the workforce. Guess what happens next?
Yeah, I remember what this fuck did to California’s high speed rail.