If they're willing to go trillions into debt for this 'recovery', why not just give everyone a guaranteed basic income of 1000 dollars a month, that comes to about 3.5 trillion. In teturn, scrap welfare and minimum wage and bailouts to banks, and you might have a thriving economy where everyone chooses how to spend their time.
How many hackers would love to have a steady and certain $1,000/mo! I could live on that for sure. And I'd be so bored I would invent, I would innovate, I would improve the world around me in lots of ways that may not be profitable, but would really make life better for a lot of people.
I've suggested this in the past, usually with the proviso that nobody would be willing to actually do this.
The underlying philosophy is that it is the job of the government to guarantee sufficient resources to survive. By giving it to everyone you make everyone benefit which makes everyone want to keep it. (The same principle that makes Social Security impossible to get rid of.) But once government has taken that step, then there is no need for separate welfare programs, there is no reason for a job to provide a living wage (hence the removal of minimum wage), and there are not artificial barriers where a single mom on welfare has incentives to not work.
Another crazy idea I have is to fix the student loan programs so that parents are expected to have living costs that a reasonable for some time in this century (currently they are appropriate for the 1960s) but then only make students at universities whose average tuition is in the bottom 75% eligible to receive any kind of government financial aid. This would provide a downwards pressure on tuition to stop tuition from rising substantially faster than inflation, as it has done for the last few decades.
They way to fix tuition fees is simply to stop providing government guaranteed loans, most students nowadays don't get a financial return on their investment (and many pass the bill to the taxpayer by defaulting).
The problem with that is that you've just massively increased the economic barriers for poor people who want to go to college.
My proposal provides a very clear incentive to universities to not jack up tuition while continuing to provide reasonable educational access to people whose families are not in the top x% of the population.
By eliminating loans, most universities would be drastically cut their fees. Good poor students could get scholarships and bursaries which is already the case.
Colleges are bogus insitutions, they have been since the advent of the book, radio, television, and especially now with internet.
Where'd you get 3.5 trillion from? I calculated only $2.6 trillion for a year of it; I used a population size of about 218 million adults. Still, it sounds a lot better than a trillion dollars to the banks.
Edit: Ah, looks like a population of about 300 million gives 3.6 trillion.
It only taks about 250,000 dollars in the bank earning 4 per cent to retire at 1000 a month. Your average doctor could retire after 2 years, yet they continue to work.
The type of people who would quit for just 1000 a month at say age 20-50 are mostly on welfare already.
The people who earn 1000 a month today are probably not creating much societal wealth anyway (creating exportable goods or new technology).
Comments
If they're willing to go trillions into debt for this 'recovery', why not just give everyone a guaranteed basic income of 1000 dollars a month, that comes to about 3.5 trillion. In teturn, scrap welfare and minimum wage and bailouts to banks, and you might have a thriving economy where everyone chooses how to spend their time.
Works for me. Phase it out gradually at higher incomes and require that a portion go to a health savings account and you have "The Plan" by Charles Murray: https://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/qa200603270732....
How many hackers would love to have a steady and certain $1,000/mo! I could live on that for sure. And I'd be so bored I would invent, I would innovate, I would improve the world around me in lots of ways that may not be profitable, but would really make life better for a lot of people.
I've suggested this in the past, usually with the proviso that nobody would be willing to actually do this.
The underlying philosophy is that it is the job of the government to guarantee sufficient resources to survive. By giving it to everyone you make everyone benefit which makes everyone want to keep it. (The same principle that makes Social Security impossible to get rid of.) But once government has taken that step, then there is no need for separate welfare programs, there is no reason for a job to provide a living wage (hence the removal of minimum wage), and there are not artificial barriers where a single mom on welfare has incentives to not work.
Another crazy idea I have is to fix the student loan programs so that parents are expected to have living costs that a reasonable for some time in this century (currently they are appropriate for the 1960s) but then only make students at universities whose average tuition is in the bottom 75% eligible to receive any kind of government financial aid. This would provide a downwards pressure on tuition to stop tuition from rising substantially faster than inflation, as it has done for the last few decades.
sigh If only I ran the country...
Guaranteed income has been tried and worked in some places in the world and was seriously considered by Nixon.
They way to fix tuition fees is simply to stop providing government guaranteed loans, most students nowadays don't get a financial return on their investment (and many pass the bill to the taxpayer by defaulting).
The problem with that is that you've just massively increased the economic barriers for poor people who want to go to college.
My proposal provides a very clear incentive to universities to not jack up tuition while continuing to provide reasonable educational access to people whose families are not in the top x% of the population.
By eliminating loans, most universities would be drastically cut their fees. Good poor students could get scholarships and bursaries which is already the case.
Colleges are bogus insitutions, they have been since the advent of the book, radio, television, and especially now with internet.
Where'd you get 3.5 trillion from? I calculated only $2.6 trillion for a year of it; I used a population size of about 218 million adults. Still, it sounds a lot better than a trillion dollars to the banks.
Edit: Ah, looks like a population of about 300 million gives 3.6 trillion.
That would disincentivize work.
That's right wing crock.
It only taks about 250,000 dollars in the bank earning 4 per cent to retire at 1000 a month. Your average doctor could retire after 2 years, yet they continue to work.
The type of people who would quit for just 1000 a month at say age 20-50 are mostly on welfare already.
The people who earn 1000 a month today are probably not creating much societal wealth anyway (creating exportable goods or new technology).