I thought that the article was rather well thought through until reaching this:
What if the way to achieve the strongest possible economy is to give every citizen more money to spend? For example, what if we gave every citizen of the United States $25,000 to spend? $25,000 sounds impossible the first time you hear it, but consider the possibility.
Putting aside the laugability of the idea of a capitalist government giving each person a years worth of middle income wage for a moment - it would be great if
There's a certain level at which inflation would occur, but that's only if there's scarcity at the supply end. The concern is radical oversupply/overcapacity and underemployment, caused by mass redundancy and automation. It's sort of a game-theory no-win situation where no company would benefit from hiring anyone (because they have automated most of their functions) and thus there's inadequate wealth to generate demand. It's quite plausible, and it may even be a bit of what we have now.
The only way it could have been poossible to hand out $25,000 without inflationthat would hurt our economy would be to give it as stock that could not be sold before for example ten years. That would give ordinary people with no experience with owning stocks insight into the difficaulties of beeing a stock owner.
But because many people would use the stocks as guaranti to take up new mortages the proposal is flawed anyway. On the the other side, from a Darwinistic angle the proposal sound insightful. The p
I think the idea is a negative income tax for the lowest bracket, not a one-time burst of money. It's an idea that has some fans among some conservatives, too.
The idea is that if large segments of the economy are completely automated, the smart thing to do is to make everybody part-owners of them.
After all, the entire state of Alaska has something comparable for its oil-wealth.
If there is oversupply and overcapacity, we can develop robots to consume the overflow, completing an economically sustainable cycle, though perhaps not environmental sustainable cycle.
Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others.
-- Berry Kercheval
Almost insightful.. (Score:4, Insightful)
What if the way to achieve the strongest possible economy is to give every citizen more money to spend? For example, what if we gave every citizen of the United States $25,000 to spend? $25,000 sounds impossible the first time you hear it, but consider the possibility.
Putting aside the laugability of the idea of a capitalist government giving each person a years worth of middle income wage for a moment - it would be great if
Re:Almost insightful.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Almost insightful.. (Score:-1, Flamebait)
Re:Almost insightful.. (Score:1)
But because many people would use the stocks as guaranti to take up new mortages the proposal is flawed anyway. On the the other side, from a Darwinistic angle the proposal sound insightful. The p
Re:Almost insightful.. (Score:2)
The idea is that if large segments of the economy are completely automated, the smart thing to do is to make everybody part-owners of them.
After all, the entire state of Alaska has something comparable for its oil-wealth.
Re:Almost insightful.. (Score:2)
The only way you're going to get that kind of inflation is if you just print out the money without any thought of devaluing the dollar.
Re:Almost insightful.. (Score:2)
Okay, so if everyone has a ton of disposable income, what are they going to do *but* spend it? (Save it? Right.)
That will make aggregate demand shoot through the roof. There's your scarcity of supply.
Re:Almost insightful.. (Score:2)
[*] one of the names for this idea.
Re:Almost insightful.. (Score:0)
If there is oversupply and overcapacity, we can develop robots to consume the overflow, completing an economically sustainable cycle, though perhaps not environmental sustainable cycle.