Just as the various US fiscal packages over the past few years are about to do the same.
I consider UBI already tried on a mass scale at this point. There’s no intrinsic value to a dollar, handing them out en masse doesn’t enrich people
I consider UBI already tried on a mass scale at this point. There’s no intrinsic value to a dollar, handing them out en masse doesn’t enrich people
What we saw was rents going up first, real estate prices, and now inflation across the board.
it was a whole lot more than the stimulus checks.
And before anyone says, "he should pay them more"; no. If he payed more, he would have to take a paycut for himself because his prices would not be competitive. Especially in a rural community...
Well that would not do at all. A business owner choosing to profit less so that his business could continue operating and his workers got a market wage? Get out of here with that crazy talk!
Furthermore, why should a business owner profit less simply because able-bodied people were greedy and wanted free govt money over working a job? That is the real crazy talk.
Most small business owners make significantly less than the average software developers commenting on HN.
Over the last few years we've also seen many people organize in their workplace and push for better working conditions. One could argue that wouldn't have been possible without the stimulus efforts.
Monetary policy was used in place of where fiscal policy was warranted. But at the same time the fiscal excess was far too great over the past two years
The bubble has already been created at this point, no avoiding it now.
People that are making 6 figures are getting all kinds of free money, where people in the poverty range get squat...
The difference? the 6 figure person has college loans, and children, the single person with no kids working at walmart gets nothing,
Yes as I stated in my option, almost all COVID spending was highly corrupt, mismanages and ill-advised, that include the moronic PPP program where a good % of that money went to buy luxury and sports cars.
It seems from your comment that you have the mistaken belief that because I dont believe people making 6 figures should get loan forgiveness or increased child tax credits, that must mean I support giving business owners no strings attached money.
So if you would like to address my claims then I am all ears, but so far you have not done that
Specifically, the end of the page has a table that shows what % of people received those stimulus checks. According to this table, 75% of the first stimulus checks were issued to people making less than $100K while only 11% making over $100K received checks. For the second stimulus, 76% making less than $100K got checks (versus 10% making over $100K). Similar numbers apply for the third stimulus.
If you can find different evidence, please share. I would like to learn more...
After the pandemic distributing so much money to so many people, I think my initial thoughts were right. All we saw is inflation after 2 years of essentially UBI. I think it doesn’t work and we need a better idea.
That said, I still support Andrew Yang and the Forward Party.
Whatever happened during pandemic was nowhere near UBI. For one, it was not universal. Second, it was temporary and very volatile, not something one could plan around.
Citation needed. You read too much reddit.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/business/startup-business... https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072057249/new-business-appli...
I had also seen some articles (citation needed!) that part of the employee crunch low-wage businesses are feeling is due to employees in those jobs taking their covid-money+time and training/interviewing/applying for office jobs.
I don't think we have a measure on how many people got to pursue their hobbies (rather than 'farting around'), though I'm not sure it matters. UBI proponents don't think that all people will do something 'valuable' though, just that it will be a net positive.
The United States shouldn't even start with an approach like UBI. Universal health coverage should be the first. It's one of the basic tenets of civilization, not to mention that it costs literally half.
I would not expand the definition of basic to cover any cosmetic and or elective procedures. And also not to introduce definition creep.
It may come to be that like cars, all cars even the basic ones upgrade their Window hand-cranks to automatic. However, that should come from an economic feasibility point of view rather than 60% of voters/deciders say they want it.
I think it's cosmetic surgery or non-health-threatening treatments that would not be covered.
There's a question to be asked here though: would treatments such as laser eye surgery, where the condition being treated _already_ has an existing, cheaper treatment, be considered covered?
I mean, it's difficult to prove the counterfactual, but we had a pretty substantial economic meltdown that could have had a far more drastic effect on poverty rates, and which we recovered from very quickly.
One could argue that it caused inflation; one could also argue that the inflation we saw was the build-up of 15 years of monetary policy detonated by a crisis.
I kept looking for articles talking about the possibility of a crash, and it felt like the sentiment of the 2001 crash or so -- "it's not possible this time", "there's no way", etc. It felt like... insanity.
I think that combined with other market issues added to inflation. I am not a financial expert, but I do like the idea of UBI for a few reasons (and hopefully it's sound in practice). Theoretically I believe it's like a resistor on the upper explosive growth of exponential mega-scale capitalism, which sort of needs that end of the scale and buffs the early game for most of us little one-or-twosie groups that aren't megascaled like that.
We currently have a system where most people have unmet needs sure to lack of funds to meet them, while massive quantities of cash chase around investment drama rather than producing passive change in people's lives. We need to realign production for people, and we ultimately do that by being willing to give people money. It worked in the fifties, after all...
We need government programs that targets peoples needs not their wants. Money is used to meet wants not needs.
As a simple example a Stalinist food system in the US, with all the famines involved, would save lives for the first decade because people would start losing weight.
What you think people use to pay for their food, clothing, shelter, taxes and medical expenses? The barter system?