I found the presentation quite interesting and perhaps one day it may become
necessary, but I wonder how well the concept will work if applied across all of
a society? Does the fact that most of the citizens of the test countries do
not have this type of income matter? One might expect to see inflation come
into play if too much free money is added to the money supply of a nation.
Consider what would happen if everyone were given $1 million without
conditions. It would not take long before inflation to the price of basic
goods begins in earnest. Money is just a means of distributing goods and
services unless it leads to a modification to the behavior of the recipients so
that they produce more goods to be shared. This presentation suggests that
that effect might actually occur which would be an excellent result.
The pie needs to become larger unless it is understood that the rich must
further subsidize those at the other end of the scale. If automation causes
too much destruction to those that are barely making ends meet then something
must be done to bring back a degree of balance. Unconditional income might be
that agent of change.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: a.ashfield <a.ashfi...@verizon.net>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Tue, Dec 9, 2014 6:05 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:OT: what if everybody got free cash?
I have been writing about the coming high rate of permanent
unemployment that I expect. An unconditional income to everyone is one
the few ideas that shows promise. I was surprised to see that a large
experiment has actually been carried out in India and the results are
fascinating.
Whether that will apply to a more developed country remains to be
seen. Switzerland voted it down quite recently. I expect the major
difficulty here to try it would be the GOP, but logically that does not
make sense.
Thanks for linking the video.
Adrian Ashfield
