The thought of giving money to prisoners brings up the discussion of crime itself. Why would someone go to the trouble of stealing from others if anything they need can be obtained for virtually nothing? Would the black market for drugs and other illegal substances that are banned from production by the robot army come at a very high price?
The entire concept of money becomes null in the distant future if nothing is rationed by it use. I suppose we need to limit our thinking to the near future while there is a shortage of goods and services in order to make sense of the free money concept. So, in the next decades to come, how do we establish a means to allow everyone to share in the great wealth of the country in a manner that smoothly changes with time? We certainly do not need many more recessions or other setbacks to our economy caused by shocks generated by unwise changes. I visualize an economic system as being unstable with time largely due to psychology of the citizens. Fortunately the system has not gone too far out of reasonable bounds before some form of correction has taken place. There is no guarantee that this state of affairs will continue into the future. If change comes at too fast of a rate, all hell might break loose, especially if disruption to the distribution of food takes place. Things would get really nasty in a hurry if the trucking industry were to come to a halt for some reason. Some of the recent stories coming out of the war torn regions are heartbreaking. It was sad hearing a young woman describing how grass tasted good after three days without food or good water. I suppose that I tend to be a bit conservative these days when change leads to uncertainty. I recall the idea that the devil you know might be better than the devil you might release upon us. We may find out how true that thought is once the FED releases the interest rates in the not too distant future. They have conducted a grand experiment over the last few years as money that was once being saved has found it way into the stock market and other investments seeking decent returns. Something unexpected will surly crop up once the controls are lifted. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Mon, Dec 15, 2014 5:57 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:OT: what if everybody got free cash? John Berry <berry.joh...@gmail.com> wrote: Give money to people in prison??? Why? They can't really spend it, unless they are then charged for their accommodation. They would be charged. They would have to pay taxes if their income is high enough. People in prison often have sources of income. I say, no means testing means no means testing. Granted, Social Security, which is the only present non-means tested program, is not paid to people in prison. See: http://www.ssa.gov/reentry/#a0=0 Instead it would just build up. Well, they could give it away to charity or to their families. But if it built up, that would be okay. Someone would inherit it if they die in prison. If not, the government would get it back. Heck, sounds like a saving scheme, just commit a crime to get into a white collar prison and when you get out you have a nice nest egg built up. Why not? Do you think it would be better for society to have ex-prisoners starve, or wander around homeless? Remember we are talking about a world with unlimited robot-supplied material wealth. Ex-cons will not be taking away resources that other people might have because they will be enough for everyone. There will be no reason to be jealous of them or to restrict their access, any more than we would today restrict their access to the Internet or public libraries. No, the money needs to be given to people who will pump it straight back into the economy, and people in need will spend it, prisoners aren't in need. Actually those who do not pump it back into the economy will also help because that will reduce resource consumption somewhat. Even if material goods are very cheap they would still cost something, so people who do not consume them would be doing the rest of us a favor. A miser leaves wealth for others to use. A problem arises when everyone saves and no one spends. - Jed
