Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

If people are paying a significant portion of their salaries, one-third or even half, towards rent, does it truly make sense to implement UBI? In my opinion, the answer is no. Instead, we should focus on establishing a Universal Basic Land: https://mertbulan.com/2025/03/02/we-need-universal-basic-lan...

I really wish people would learn to keep emotion out of this topic. There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?". Not: "Does this feel like the best use of our tax dollars?".

Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system,etc.. and how many new tax paying consumers it produces. Is it a reliable investment on people or is it a poor gamble? I've been hearing about this since before the 2016 election, there should be ample data on this, instead of speculation. And I have no problem with cities/states re-attempting and retrying new approaches to UBI.

That said, are there any studies or experiments out there where instead of a blind UBI, people are put in a labor pool of some sort where they get guaranteed income but if they're able-bodied they must make themselves available to perform jobs for the state or clients of the state? I'm thinking this should be the alternative to things like prison labor. Again, take the emotion and speculation out of it, what do we have left?

I'm interested in this as a faster intervention than QE. $10 given to a low income family will likely be spent that week. $10 of QE will just sit on somebodies balance sheet.

Understanding BI as a tool of monetary policy seems to remove the ideologically charged view we see when it is considered as part of the welfare state

The issue with the current system is it gives a lot of money and power to banks, and finance.

The issue with the proposed system, is that debt is actually a good thing for normal people. For example if you are young, productive, and come from a poor background, then you might buy a house with a mortgage. If debt is more expensive, then you are less likely -- and older people (and rich kids) are more likely -- to be able to afford these houses.

You might say that the current system is unfair, because wealthy people won't need loans and can put their money to work exploiting poor people. But in a system where we redistribute wealth this way, the impact is harshest on the poorest people. The things that are limited in supply and high in demand will immediately go up in price. The things they wish they could buy, and plan long-term, will become unattainable. And I've not even gotten onto how this would affect productivity.

Everyone is focused on how the rich are getting richer. This is inevitable in liberal societies. The goal should instead be to stop the poor getting poorer, and I'm going to need some serious convincing that handing people a CBI, instead of providing debt, is going to actually benefit and not hurt them and the whole economy.

> UBI is first introduced at any arbitrarily low amount higher than $0. The fiscal authority then gradually increases the payout until the maximum-sustainable level of UBI spending is discovered

> Notably, since this policy is proposed to be 'funded' by a monetary policy contraction, it in theory requires no tax or consolidation of existing government programs to implement; nor does it necessarily imply a net increase in the overall money supply.'

What happen if this CBI maximum happen to be a very low amount? Too low to be an ‘income’, for example 10$.

I’m saying that because there has been periods where monetary policies have already been very tight [0] (recently following the subprime crash). According to my understanding of the paper, in the periods there would be no leeway to fund this CBI.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1470953/monthy-fed-funds...

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