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I thought about this many years ago. It occurred to me that it could be put under the purview of the Federal Reserve Bank. Each citizen would become a stock hol

I thought about this many years ago. It occurred to me that it could be put under the purview of the Federal Reserve Bank. Each citizen would become a stock holder of the Fed, owning one non-transferable share. Each stock would pay a monthly dividend and hence a basic income for all. Few people know that right now there are already share holders in the Federal Reserve. They get paid 6% on their money guaranteed by law. Hence the Fed has incentive to keep inflation below this threshold. Lets use this as a template for every citizen. If a "basic income" was pegged to a 20hr part-time job at minimum wage, that would be approx $6000/yr. That amount is 6% of $100,000. So if the Government invested $100,000 per citizen in the Fed, that would cover it. With 200,000,000 million adults that comes to a total of $20 trillion. Now we can use another clever idea... the Treasury can just print two $10 trillion dollar coins, pay the Fed with it and issue each stock in the name of every citizen (based on SS). And the matter is all but done. This transaction is essentially the same as the current issuance of Federal bonds. So it is a simple precedence to follow. (Note, as the minimum wage gets raised, the Government adds additional funds, about $1 billion for every quarter raise.)

bmelton 13y ago
Fantastically informative post. I learned. As a slight addition, by eliminating only cost-based social programs like welfare, SNAP, etc., it would free up enough in spending to pay each adult citizen in the US approximately $12k per year, and probably more, because the administration costs should be less for one program vs. the many. That amount could be added to the kitty as well. I'm still on the fence as to whether or not we should have a basic income. I vastly prefer it to the deeply flawed social programs in place, and I suspect that any implementation we'd get from our government would be deeply flawed as well, or either progressive/regressive/broken in some way, but I don't know if I'm on board with the actual idea of it -- that said, it's very, very compelling, and your approach seems rational, Constitutionally valid, and practically, very workable.
- iForgetMyPW 13y ago
  Printing $20 trillion and issuing stock with neither resource (gold, silver, any rare or precious material) backing it will cause immediate devaluation of the existing currency and rapid inflation. Issuing $20 trillion in stock with no service or commodity backing it will cause a rapid drop in the value of the stock, as there will be no demand for the stock. If you use the $20t in stock to back the $20t in new currency, you're looking at a very rapid collapse in the economy. If you do this in the US, which is still currently the base for the global economy, you're talking about tanking everything. Once, or if, China or the EU trading zone become a more stable alternative foundation, it might not cause as much damage, but you're still looking at a sudden upheaval with this plan. The alternative, of course, is to use the /people/ as the commodity or precious resource underpinning the 20 trillion dollars, but then we're talking about legitimate slavery. No, thank you. I'm open to alternative ideas on how to back the investment and guaranteed income. I just see a hole in your current plan, that perhaps you've already thought about and covered.

bmelton 13y ago

Fantastically informative post. I learned. As a slight addition, by eliminating only cost-based social programs like welfare, SNAP, etc., it would free up enough in spending to pay each adult citizen in the US approximately $12k per year, and probably more, because the administration costs should be less for one program vs. the many. That amount could be added to the kitty as well. I'm still on the fence as to whether or not we should have a basic income. I vastly prefer it to the deeply flawed social programs in place, and I suspect that any implementation we'd get from our government would be deeply flawed as well, or either progressive/regressive/broken in some way, but I don't know if I'm on board with the actual idea of it -- that said, it's very, very compelling, and your approach seems rational, Constitutionally valid, and practically, very workable.

iForgetMyPW 13y ago
Printing $20 trillion and issuing stock with neither resource (gold, silver, any rare or precious material) backing it will cause immediate devaluation of the existing currency and rapid inflation. Issuing $20 trillion in stock with no service or commodity backing it will cause a rapid drop in the value of the stock, as there will be no demand for the stock. If you use the $20t in stock to back the $20t in new currency, you're looking at a very rapid collapse in the economy. If you do this in the US, which is still currently the base for the global economy, you're talking about tanking everything. Once, or if, China or the EU trading zone become a more stable alternative foundation, it might not cause as much damage, but you're still looking at a sudden upheaval with this plan. The alternative, of course, is to use the /people/ as the commodity or precious resource underpinning the 20 trillion dollars, but then we're talking about legitimate slavery. No, thank you. I'm open to alternative ideas on how to back the investment and guaranteed income. I just see a hole in your current plan, that perhaps you've already thought about and covered.