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One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

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Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#111

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

jawns wrote: post #78
maximente wrote: post #57

i just don't see how UBI survives a highly polarized, segregated society pumped out by the US media. imagine the headlines by Fox News as soon as they find 4 people living together playing video games all day. or smoking pot. or etc. in a weird way it dangerously exposes people as, according to "the economy", particularly not valuable. the framing will go: these people are literally doing nothing and we're supporting…

This is not my opinion, but I think there are many people out there who would be happy for those four people to live together off UBI and play video games and smoke pot all day and literally do nothing to contribute to society. Why? Because it contains them. Otherwise, where would they be? If they have little interest in holding down a job, they're probably out committing crimes, or sitting in jail for those crimes.…

Any form of entertainment is going to feel empty eventually and then you're right back at square one.

A universal jobs program makes more sense as a form of containment; it needn't even be particularly onerous.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#112

Post by vishaalk »

missedthecue wrote: post #109

I think this is silly. The idea behind this is to induce demand, but there isn't a lack of demand due to lack of purchasing power. People aren't spending because they aren't leaving the house. (which, in the case of a pandemic, is a thing to be encouraged) I sincerely doubt that giving everyone a thousand bucks will save the restaurants and bars and movie theaters and retailers and cruise ships and hotels and airline…

People lost their jobs and therefore their income, so there was a material loss in demand.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#113

Post by Fargren »

KMnO4 wrote: post #74
tjr225 wrote: post #3

Am I way out of band or does that seem like a comically small amount of money for the average American? I live in an extremely low COL area and live well within my current means. Assuming my work dries up and I don't have any savings, 3k$ would buy me two months tops. Just to give you an idea of how cheaply I live: Mortgage is ~800$/mo, Car is a paid off 2006 Toyota Highlander, Student loan minimums of ~400$/mo, My w…

> And I am VERY lucky to have a bunch of cashed packed away. Luck may not be the only factor. It sounds like you live responsibly/frugally as well, and reaping the benefit from it now.

I'm in a similar situation as the OP, and have heard that argument used for me. I don't like it. In order to live frugally and responsibly, I was lucky to have the upbringing that taught me to do it, and to not have anyone depend on me so that I could focus on getting to this point. I was lucky to live in a relatively wealthy country during a relatively stable time.

I made a couple of good decisions, and put in some effort, sure. But a lot of people work harder than me and make harder decisions every day, and they are doing a lot worse than me. What separates me from those people? Luck, mostly.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#115

Post by strunz »

maliker wrote: post #90

There was a $300/person tax rebate during the 2008 recession in the USA. So it's not that far fetched an idea. I wonder how these kind of direct-to-consumer payments compare with traditional monetary policy (cutting interest rates, securities purchases) in terms of impacts.

Wasn;t it determined that no one actually spent that money and just paid of debt instead?

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#116

Post by AnthonyMouse »

TheFiend7 wrote: post #76

The whole idea of UBI is honestly pretty idiotic. Any form of UBI should 1000% be in the form of benefits, goods, housing, or other physical goods. I'd much rather have tax cuts to reduce money lost through the middle man, as the middle man always wants a cut. Meaning you'd lose far more money to the process than if you were to just reduce taxes.

> Any form of UBI should 1000% be in the form of benefits, goods, housing, or other physical goods.

We've tried this and it's a dumpster fire. The government builds low income housing which is 100% people in poverty and it turns into a slum. The government subsidizes home loans and student loans and it raises the cost of housing and education. The government subsidizes food and then restaurant workers who already have access to food can't use the money to fix their car or whatever it is they really need right now.

People know what they need better than bureaucrats do. If you give them money and they need food, they buy food. If you give them money and they need transportation, they buy transportation. If you give them food and they need transportation, you messed up, which is what consistently happens in practice when you don't give them money.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#118

Post by vearwhershuh »

clairity wrote: post #59
vearwhershuh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously there is a level that makes sense and a level that does not. Using the big-bank/government debt-system to manage our money supply is no more or less free market than a citizens dividend, it just ensures that the wealthy get first dibs on the new money and then the rest of us pay interest on it. Steve Keen's idea for a modern debt jubilee is more important for the long term growth of the economy: http://www.…

this angle of where to inject money into the system is the only potentially reasonable argument i've heard for UBI so far (but doesn't address its many other adverse consequences). without much consideration by us commoners, we've come to accept that money must be injected into the economy through large financial institutions that gatekeep and rentseek. money is literally the intermediary for trading the fruits of la…

I agree. The best thing would be a modern debt jubilee, coupled with direct payment for public labor with debt-free money from the government. This was implemented by a certain unmentionable and won him the widespread adulation of his country despite his other rather significant faults.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#119

Post by xyzzyz »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #94
xyzzyz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Direct, debt free issuance of a citizens dividend to every US citizen. Coupled with a wind-down of the debt bubble. There are three ways to make it possible: 1) issue government debt to pay for it 2) increase taxes to cover it 3) print money to cover it. Number 3) will cause significant inflation, so it will effectively be paid for by tax on cash savings. High inflation is really bad, it’s a terrible idea. 1) has t…

You act like these are wild approaches. But during this this current term we've already done #1 via the 1Trillion tax cuts to mostly the wealthy. Those (many of us on here) who won't use it for goods and services, but instead to further prop up your asset bubble of choice. Ie not improve the economy much, but make the appearance of improvement via higher asset pricess. Then we've done #3 via re-introducing QE via the…

> You act like these are wild approaches. But during this this current term we've already done #1 via the 1Trillion tax cuts to mostly the wealthy.

$4T a year, required to pay for monthly basic income of $1k to all Americans is much wilder than $1T of tax not collected over 10 years, yes. The former number is 40 times larger than the latter.

> Then we've done #3 via re-introducing QE via the fed.

No, we've done only small part of 3) via QE. QE over its history had bought around $4T of assets, which is a far cry from what's required to pay every American $12k/year. QE also doesn't directly "print money", and so Fed buying $4T of assets has much smaller inflationary impact than actually printing $4T and giving it to the government or people.

What I want is for people to be honest about how much basic income actually costs, and where will that money actually come from. Quite simply, you cannot double federal government spending overnight by some clever accounting trick or increasing taxes on "the wealthy": there aren't nearly enough wealthy people to cover that.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#120

Post by corebit »

Fargren wrote: post #113
KMnO4 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I am VERY lucky to have a bunch of cashed packed away. Luck may not be the only factor. It sounds like you live responsibly/frugally as well, and reaping the benefit from it now.

I'm in a similar situation as the OP, and have heard that argument used for me. I don't like it. In order to live frugally and responsibly, I was lucky to have the upbringing that taught me to do it, and to not have anyone depend on me so that I could focus on getting to this point. I was lucky to live in a relatively wealthy country during a relatively stable time. I made a couple of good decisions, and put in some…

What you call luck is actually a set of economic signals that has incentivized good behavior and teaching good behavior.

If your Ferrari-renting, living above their means counterparts are bailed out while your frugal living means are not rewarded, then you are incentivized to live above your means when things return to normal.

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