Zebco Fuckface wrote:

Senor Barborito wrote:


Beyond that - TANGENTyou know I heard the weirdest idea the other day and still haven't figured out what the hell is wrong with it, like that tricky question on the crossword puzzle. Proposal goes - whatever the current mean income of America (IIRC $25,000), give that to every citizen every year in biweekly installments. Result? Prices double. People who had NOTHING now can afford food, shelter, clothing. People who had an average salary haven't lost or gained anything. People who made a million a year had their incomes halved because now they make $1,025,000 which is equivalent to $512,500 'old' dollars.

I've yet to figure out a major problem with this idea (outside of the moral outrage I'm sure it instills in you) - any reasons as to why this would lead to economic collapse? Zebco, maybe a little help here?

Prices wouldn't change; inflation is just the ratio of money supply to production.

It's just a rephrased form of the "guaranteed income" idea that floated around in the 1970s (Nixon flirted with it.) I'm not too sure what to think of it, but it does look like the disincentives to work would just be atrocious. Maybe if there was an attached work requirement.

Oh yeah, and it doesn't seem especially fair to the middle class, either, for the same reasons people complaining "you can't expect welfare mothers to work" while plenty of lower middle class singlee mom work in diners is so galling.