who will also continue to make profit on the labor the lower class does to afford anything above basic necessities
If someone can afford basic necessities, they aren’t going to choose to work three jobs at minimum wage where they are treated badly, forcing an improvement in pay/conditions to find any workers. As for setting prices arbitrarily, that isn’t actually possible except where a monopoly is held, the idea that supply and demand influences price is not a myth. Having money and the choice of how to spend it does actually give you additional agency and leverage, and UBI would serve as a form of redistribution if it is funded by taxes of some kind.
Except that landlords are coming together to set prices so that they can all set them high. I don’t remember what the group is called, but someone was discussing it a while back. Doesn’t have to be a monopoly if they’re conspiring, which is what is happening with so many consumer goods and services.
I’ve seen that stuff but it’s too much to assume that this kind of coordination is the controlling factor in housing prices, or most other prices. You do need a monopoly because there’s too much incentive for defecting from the conspiracy if the fixed price is too far away from what the market price would be. I think housing is expensive mainly because of supply being suppressed and wealth inequality, and UBI would begin to address the latter.
How do you explain cereal being $8 a box, when it was $5 pre-COVID or the million other products that now cost more? There are recordings of board meetings that were leaked of board members admitting that they inflated prices or unnecessarily kept prices inflated because they knew people would pay it.
Why could that not have an explanation that is primarily about economic forces? They printed a ton of money around when Covid happened, and the distribution of wealth shifted significantly. I can buy that businesses could be eking out a little more efficiency by coordinating, but not that we are in a secret command economy and economics is basically all fake.
How do you figure you can increase the number of dollars in circulation, while shrinking the economy, and not have each dollar be worth less wealth as a result?
because the value of money isn’t tied to the amount in existence, never has, even the rare metal backed gang is just extrapolating the value axiom by one
If someone can afford basic necessities, they aren’t going to choose to work three jobs at minimum wage where they are treated badly, forcing an improvement in pay/conditions to find any workers. As for setting prices arbitrarily, that isn’t actually possible except where a monopoly is held, the idea that supply and demand influences price is not a myth. Having money and the choice of how to spend it does actually give you additional agency and leverage, and UBI would serve as a form of redistribution if it is funded by taxes of some kind.
Except that landlords are coming together to set prices so that they can all set them high. I don’t remember what the group is called, but someone was discussing it a while back. Doesn’t have to be a monopoly if they’re conspiring, which is what is happening with so many consumer goods and services.
I’ve seen that stuff but it’s too much to assume that this kind of coordination is the controlling factor in housing prices, or most other prices. You do need a monopoly because there’s too much incentive for defecting from the conspiracy if the fixed price is too far away from what the market price would be. I think housing is expensive mainly because of supply being suppressed and wealth inequality, and UBI would begin to address the latter.
How do you explain cereal being $8 a box, when it was $5 pre-COVID or the million other products that now cost more? There are recordings of board meetings that were leaked of board members admitting that they inflated prices or unnecessarily kept prices inflated because they knew people would pay it.
Why could that not have an explanation that is primarily about economic forces? They printed a ton of money around when Covid happened, and the distribution of wealth shifted significantly. I can buy that businesses could be eking out a little more efficiency by coordinating, but not that we are in a secret command economy and economics is basically all fake.
the “printing of money” has fuck all to do with inflation, and mainly comes from pop-economics that is stuck somewhere around mercantilism.
Corporation simply realized that they are playing the prisoner’s dilemma with prices, and are now going for the “optimal solution”
How do you figure you can increase the number of dollars in circulation, while shrinking the economy, and not have each dollar be worth less wealth as a result?
because the value of money isn’t tied to the amount in existence, never has, even the rare metal backed gang is just extrapolating the value axiom by one