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RE: This Post About Universal Basic Income May Shock You!
You could not fund a UBI with a land value tax. The total value of land in the US is 23 trillion. A UBI of $12,000 a year would cost 3 trillion dollars. That means it would take a 13% LVT to pay for it. A $200,000 house would now cost $26,086! That's over twice as much as the UBI itself! This would just hurt homeowners. Millionaires would just move into a smaller house. Not all millionaires want a mansion. Warren Buffet still lives in a $50,000 home!
Where did the figure of $12,000 come from? Here in Australia, the government could pay a UBI of $3-3.5K without needing to collect additional taxes, if they wanted to. Anything above that would require additional taxation.
I know that some people have dreams of a UBI of $30-40K, but the taxes required to achieve that would be astronomical. However, creating jobs for anyone who wants a job at that amount could be done without the need for additional taxation. I explained how in a video I posted a couple of days ago.
It's true that land prices get pushed down once LVT crosses a certain threshold. This would create an unfair situation for people who bought their home at an inflated price. The way to address this would be to have a modern debt jubilee (sometimes called QE for the People), which is like a bailout for the public. Everyone would receive a certain amount of money which they must use to pay off their debts first and they get to keep whatever's left over.
What the hell would a 3-3.5k UBI do? A UBI is meant to put people out of poverty. A $12000 a year UBI would be just enough to do that.
$12,000 wouldn't be enough to pull people out of poverty because that money would be gobbled up by higher economic rents (which is what my post was about).
Everyone has a different idea about how much a UBI should be. I've met people who said that it should be $40K because that would be enough for them to be able to quit their jobs. It's pie in the sky, as a quick calculation will show that the taxes would be infeasibly high.
Even if UBI money weren't sucked up by those with economic privileges, $3K is all we could afford.
If ending poverty is your goal, however, you really should look at that video I linked to.