3 ms·

Why not? Sounds like the start of UBI, which is increasingly becoming a popular idea.

• cudgy 4y ago
  And the start of a major inflationary move in the middle of an inflationary crisis. I’m not convinced that sending out such checks won’t largely result in the purchasing power of that money being instantly eroded by massive inflation.
  • tchaffee 4y ago
    > And the start of a major inflationary move in the middle of an inflationary crisis. Based on what evidence? The current inflation in the US was caused by both very high employment levels along with supply chain problems. Sending out unemployment checks went way down over the past few years. People need things like UBI far more when the economy is not booming. The opposite of inflation. In a recession what you want is for people to spend money. You want to get back to normal levels of inflation. > I’m not convinced At the end of the day you don't need to be convinced. What matters is if all the top economists in favor of UBI are actually right or not. As machines automate more and more of the boring work we need done, there is no rational reason that people shouldn't have more leisure time and have to work far fewer hours.
    • cudgy 4y ago
      Student loans provide some evidence whereby tuition rates increase as student loans flooded the college market. Another example is hyper-low interest rates (essentially increasing money supply), which are largely responsible for the inflation of housing which is a major portion of inflation for consumers. Therefore a better way to handle UBI (which I believe may be needed by the way) is to gradually phase it into the system to avoid shocks like giving everyone $10,000 all of a sudden. There would still be inflation, bit it would hopefully be less dramatic.