Those seem incompatible to me.

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

  • Sekrayray@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    You can set the prices if they are well known at a federal level—look at the number of disparate vendors who charged exactly the price of a stimulus check for goods when they were being given in 2020.

    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      What goods were those? I am guessing the market price of those goods was already relatively close to that number. You can see a pattern like that sometimes with stock or crypto prices; when it passes across a nice round number, or a number with some significance like the price of another related stock, the price may seem to exist in relation to that number, sticking to or avoiding it. But crucially this is only as long as it is in the vicinity; there are other factors that have more influence over price and after the blip around the round number, the line moves on.

      The core mistake here I think is not recognizing that wealth is a form of power. Controlling a greater share of society’s wealth means more control in general, which is why companies are trying to do that to begin with. Redistributing wealth is anything but an empty gesture.

      • Sekrayray@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Mostly tech items like TV’s, but I saw it with some furniture, too.

        I just worry that UBI won’t do enough to redistribute wealth without concomitant systematic change. I honestly think those in economic power probably need a good degree of is stripped away for society to really move on and heal from rampant, unchecked capitalism.