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The thing I worry about Universal Income, which the Alaska situation seems to be, is that there will be a bifurcation of people who need the UI and spend it eve
by frankbreetz 5y ago
The thing I worry about Universal Income, which the Alaska situation seems to be, is that there will be a bifurcation of people who need the UI and spend it every month and the people who put it into an investment. I guess if the checks keep coming it is not an issue, but if there is an event where the UI has to stop there will be a lot of pain. I think some sort of forced savings, that is only able to drawn upon at a certain age or for certain catastrophes is required. I guess you can only prevent people from being stupid so much, but what sometimes seems stupid is just people doing what the have to, to survive.
I think the sovereign wealth funds have a lot of the same problems the social security has. Politicians will borrow against it and never pay it back. From what I have heard some middle eastern countries had a sovereign wealth fund that was mismanaged, I guess if you have a competent government it is fine, but you don't always get to decide that.
Overall, I agree with you that both of these are a good way to distribute society's prosperity to the people.
- bhupy 5y agoTotally agree that the devil is in the implementation details which can make or break the idea as a whole. One potential way to mitigate these risks is to have the fund be set up with a strict breakdown, say, 20% of the dividends can go into a pot that the government can use for discretionary spending, and 80% goes to the people equally divided as a dividend, and the only way to change this percentage is with a 2/3s majority. The percentage split and the consensus threshold are certainly debatable.