> the other thing is, without proper price controls (rent, basic food stuffs, transportation etc) business will look at it as a chance to jack up prices because

> the other thing is, without proper price controls (rent, basic food stuffs, transportation etc) business will look at it as a chance to jack up prices because "free money" I don't buy this argument. Businesses that do this would be leaving money on the table: namely the poor people that were outside of their total addressable market. Whereas before those folks would never have been able to provide revenue, with more cash in their pockets, they are now potential consumers. Increasing prices just maintains the same TAM for no real reason — you can make more revenue by serving the newly minted consumers. The only good/service for which this breaks down is housing, for which there is a true supply scarcity — but even that ceases to be true in a regime with proper zoning reform (like Japan).