[Peace-discuss] Another "Be careful what you wish for"

[Szoke, Ron]

This is what concerns me about proposals for a guaranteed Universal Basic Income (UBI), which sounds like something I would in principle support:  ~~ Ron

(( Looking specifically at the question of whether Friedman’s proposal would actually improve the conditions of the poor, Hyman A. Minsky, himself a renowned and highly regarded economist, wrote the “The Macroeconomics of a Negative Income Tax.” Minsky looks at the outcome of a “social dividend,” which “transfers to every person alive, rich or poor, working or unemployed, young or old, a designated money income by right.” Minsky conclusively shows that such a program would “be inflationary even if budgets are balanced” and that the “rise in prices will erode the real value of benefits to the poor … and may impose unintended real costs upon families with modest incomes.”  This means that any improved spending power afforded to citizens through an instrument such as UBI will be completely absorbed by higher prices for necessities.  ))



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