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RE: The Blockchain and UBI: Now Everyone Can Share In Abundance: It Truly Is The Path Out Of Slavery
While I don't take argument with your premise, I would like to highlight one reason why UBI will fail. Inflation.
Bringing up the bottom raises the spending and in turn supply/demand comes into play.
While you very well could actually be right in that crypto could provide the infrastructure needed, the rest of the markets would have to be way ahead already.
Now for nations that have a hard time establishing an economy, crypto absolutely provides all the necessary means to building and maintaining a level of growth.
Resteemed!
You are under the presumption that inflation is still or will be a part of the equation going forward...
The Fed went on an easing spree never before seen in history and yet they are still struggling to get to 2% and cannot understand it. Do you know why that is? Because they look at things like economists instead taking the view of technology.
Technology is deflationary and more of the world economy is going that direction. Worldwide we are over 4% of the global economy operates under the laws of IT (processing, software, and storage) which are extremely deflationary with advanced societies being even higher.
As we move forward, downward pricing pressures are going to be seen all over the place. Blockchain will reduce the costs of transactions. 3D printing will bring down the costs of goods including homes. Autonomous vehicles will reduce the costs of transportation and shipping. Robotics and AI are going to crush the medical establishment (and expense). Thus, when I look out into the possibilities of the future, I dont see how inflation is going to even be mentioned around the world. Considering central banks are still easing to the tune of $200B a month around the globe and still inflation is in control, at what point do we see an onset? $500B? A trillion? At some point, technology is taking things down quicker than the banks can inflate (if we arent there yet).
Also, crypto inflation actually helps the UBI concept since they tend to have a more inflation early on which diminishes after a number of years. This will help motivate people not to hoard them but pass them along. Of course, this could be negated if the value of the coin increases faster than the built in expansion of the supply take place.
Very interesting comment...thanks.
You're still not accounting for greed and basic capitalism. Something has to force failing ideas and products down. If they are already monopolized and without any forseeable competition, it will not matter. I doubt a group of shareholders are just going to say, "yea, alright, were making more so lets drop our prices." This was the theory behind trickle-down economics.
Now, however, perhaps I'm not taking into consideration a complete new way of doing things OR the effect it may have on many other not yet existing industries and services. BUT, that doesn't stand in the face of things like power, water, internet, fuels etc.
I just watched a video about how pharmaceuticals purposefully create so much waste (two examples were: making eye drops bigger than what the human eye can hold and cancer drugs being changed to single-use vials instead of multi-use, so the vast majority of patients are only using like half the vial per dose, and the rest gets tossed, but they are charged for the whole vial). All of this is imaginary cost. A micro drop was tested and studied but the pharma company who paid for the study won't use it because they'd lose half their possible income. The cancer drugs USED to come in multi dose vials. Etc.
The total coat of all this medical waste cost more than the US military's budget. Hundreds of trillions of dollars. For nothing.
Pass laws that prohibit such practices, and that seriously drives down the cost of healthcare.
That may sound rather statist, but, if we accept that statism is dying and labor for dollars for survival is dying, any steps we are taking now, such as anti-waste laws and UBIs are REALLY just transitional measures. As tech really takes over so many industries, the pace of which is growing exponentially, eventually the model itself is going to die: capitalism. And I don't think its replacement idea even exists yet, because it's so pervasive right now. But when everyone has food farmed by robots (already happens!) and advanced 3D printers and internet and solar and all of these other difficult-to-monetize services? Why do we imagine the social structure would be at all the same?
It's not a simple calculation of saying "more currency = inflation". There's a number of factors that go into inflation, and they need to be acknowledged before making any predictions. One important thing to take note of is "technological deflation". That is, technology is making products cheaper and cheaper. So we actually need a certain level of inflation to counteract that.
Didn't Milton Friedman say inflation was always a monetary phenomena? It seems a ubi would only be a major cause of inflation if the government printed it. If it is paid for via taxes, or somehow voluntarily it should not cause much inflation it seems. As long as the there is a concurrent proportional increase in utility with an increase in money supply there should be no inflation.