3 ms·

Paying off debt is good. Once it's paid off, that money will probably go to goods and services (if you say the poor will save it instead, they weren't that poo

by DougN7 10y ago

Paying off debt is good. Once it's paid off, that money will probably go to goods and services (if you say the poor will save it instead, they weren't that poor to begin with). So your scenario of paying off debt for one year just pushes the inevitable out one year. And that one time price change will cancel out the benefit of the UBI. It has to, otherwise companies are not getting the most profit they can (they won't do that), or we magically have unending goods and services. Supply and demand can't be overcome in a market economy of scare resources. Raising the minimum wage eventually has a similar effect. Ask yourself why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 any more (it surely was sometime in the past 200 years). The obvious answer is inflation. But why? Why did prices increase over time? What economic pressure caused that?

jganetsk 10y ago
Few things wrong in your post: > So your scenario of paying off debt for one year just pushes the inevitable out one year. There is enough debt out there that the poor can spend many years paying it off. > Raising the minimum wage eventually has a similar effect. Ask yourself why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 any more (it surely was sometime in the past 200 years). The obvious answer is inflation. But why? Why did prices increase over time? What economic pressure caused that? Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz wrote A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, where they made the claim "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" [1] Thus, the reason why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 anymore is because of the expansion of money supply, not because of raising minimum wage. The article suggests financing basic income through tax revenues -- and even doing so without raising the deficit. It is not suggesting expanding money supply. Milton Friedman himself even supported the kind of basic income described in the article, which he called a "negative income tax" [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetarism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_security.2C_welfare_programs.2C_and_negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_securit...

by DougN7 10y ago

jganetsk 10y ago

Few things wrong in your post: > So your scenario of paying off debt for one year just pushes the inevitable out one year. There is enough debt out there that the poor can spend many years paying it off. > Raising the minimum wage eventually has a similar effect. Ask yourself why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 any more (it surely was sometime in the past 200 years). The obvious answer is inflation. But why? Why did prices increase over time? What economic pressure caused that? Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz wrote A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, where they made the claim "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" [1] Thus, the reason why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 anymore is because of the expansion of money supply, not because of raising minimum wage. The article suggests financing basic income through tax revenues -- and even doing so without raising the deficit. It is not suggesting expanding money supply. Milton Friedman himself even supported the kind of basic income described in the article, which he called a "negative income tax" [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetarism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_security.2C_welfare_programs.2C_and_negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_securit...