One issue: how do you disburse the income? What happens if someone blows it all on drugs, and then is out? We're sort of back where we started. Could we then just let the person starve or whatever, and say, "well you had your chance."? Push comes to shove, I don't think I could.
My solution: Government provided withdrawal systems (ATMs or something like that), that provide $27/day (to use your number). Most people who unwisely spent their $27 could manage to wait another day and then get food.
Problem: How do you pay for all this?
Solution: A low-percentage wealth (aka capital) tax. It's a redistribution of wealth, but if you outearn/outinvest the rate, then you can accumulate wealth. Could then do away with estate taxes. Ideally I'd cap the Basic Income Guarantee as a percentage of this wealth tax, evenly distributed, and not a fixed number. As the society gets richer/poorer so does the distribution.
Then, just add in single payer health insurance, and remove minimum wage, social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, and all sorts of other systems and we have my socialist/libertarian paradise. : )
However, I don't think your first solution solves your first problem. I don't have a good solution for it either, though.
I like your second solution, but I would prefer a progressive capital gains tax + a carbon tax. Basically you only get taxed on your wealth if you earn about a certain yearly amount.
"What happens if someone blows it all on drugs, and then is out? We're sort of back where we started."
If someone is persistently unable to meet their needs with access to a basic income, they need a different kind of help. Hopefully we could provide that help. We're not back where we started - we've learned things, and we've helped the others, and can now focus on solving this different problem.
> 3) Outlaw rent control. Now you have more abundant housing.
The biggest problem preventing more housing being built now isn't rent control, it's zoning usage and density laws. Most of the time low-density zoning is enforced for the benefit of existing house owners to artificially inflate the value of their properties. This (and Proposition 13, a law that's supposed to provide relief for property tax rate increases but ended up being a huge disincentive to sell real estate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%2819...) are the major factors keeping housing supply from increasing to meet market demand in California. Rent control is wrong, but it's not the biggest problem.
If there was no rent control, and all renters were feeling the pressure of the price increase, there would be significantly more political support for allowing more and denser construction.
Or higher rent prices would drive property values up, causing existing owners of real estate capital to deploy their capital to lobby for protectionist zoning. Which is what is mostly seems to be happening.
That system is ripe for abuse as well. You would have to outlaw a landlord from being to ask what their financial status is, doing credit checks, proof of employment. Otherwise homes for the homeless will have rents with disproportionate high rents for poor quality slum homes.
Also without rent control, you will suddenly find cities suddenly very empty of people able to do things like get you your coffee. And shipping them in every day from 100 miles away is a dystopian nightmare.
No... that's not really the effect of no rent control. In fact rent control is often the cause of excessive credit checks, proof of employment, etc. Maybe in the short run no rent control would make disproportionate high rents, but not in the long run. In fact it's the opposite. No rent control results in something like Hong Kong: abundant, extremely tiny apartments that people can afford. That may not be ideal, but it's certainly better than being homeless.
Luxury apartments are lucrative, sure, but if you can fit more rooms into a given space you can often make even more money. For example if you could have 1 apartment and charge $3000, or 2 apartments and charge $1700, the 2 apartments are a better deal.
The above plan will have the effect of landlords knowing how much those only on the minimum living allowance can pay. Combine that with the ability to still perform credit checks and it's ripe for abuse. If you have a guaranteed minimum income that is suffcient to qualify you for the apartment, you should probably be able to skip the credit check for it.
Citing Hong Kong struck me as odd. It's probably better being homeless in certain states. I think most people have seen the following, or similar, set of pictures about Hong Kong micro-apartments:
Real urban planning has low income housing distributed throughout the city. If not, the wage slaves have to be shipped in. Some form of rent control/social housing incentives have to be in place. Otherwise you get situations in the states where welfare mothers have to bus 3 hours each way to get to their minimum wage job.
1) Universal basic income. You get paid like $10,000 no matter what.
2) Eliminate minimum wage. Anyone is free to earn extra if they so desire.
3) Outlaw rent control. Now you have more abundant housing.
That wouldn't take care of all of it, but it would sure help.