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Free Money! No Strings Attached!
As many of you already know, economics — well, anything to do with math, really — is not my strong suit. I admit that up front. And welfare is about economics, so the fact that I think welfare is a disaster (having seen its manifestations play out, in caucasian shades of alabaster, lily and grayish-tan here in one of the least racially-diverse states in the Union) doesn’t mean I know how to fix it.
Welfare! That fluorescing, metastasizing collection of expansive and expensive programs originally intended to mitigate or eliminate the immediate and long-term effects of poverty in America. Here, as in the inner city, welfare has succeeded in ensuring that the basic needs of vulnerable Americans are being met, but the cost — not just in monetary terms but in blighted human lives — is high. A program intended to serve as a safety net has instead become a trap in which families remain enmeshed for generations.
Simply put, welfare too often rewards misbehavior and punishes those who attempt to make good choices, such as seeking entry-level or entrepreneurial employment, marrying the parent of one’s children, or moving away from economically depressed areas to cities or states where there are more jobs.
One solution could be to simply eliminate all welfare programs — AFDC, Social Security, disability, Medicaid, Medicare, fuel assistance, what-have-you — and let people either sink or get a job and swim.
This draconian measure is unlikely to be undertaken, even by the most heartless conservative. Even if some might be able to tolerate the spectre of ragged, starving adults staggering through the slums, we can’t let their kids go unclothed and unfed.
But I came across an idea here on Ricochet that was completely new to me. It is called the Guaranteed Basic Income (hereafter to be referred to as GBS) and is proffered as a substitute for as many welfare programs as we can think of.
What would happen if we replaced welfare with a single, annual tax-exempt payment of $20,000 to every citizen over the age of eighteen, with no strings attached? (NOTE: I chose $20k for ease of math; member Barfly tells me that it should be an amount a frugal person could scrape by on.)
Let’s imagine a welfare recipient — we can call her Fanta — single, eighteen years old, and does not yet have either a boyfriend or a baby. She lives in an inner-city neighborhood blighted by drugs, poverty and — why not? — racism. Jobs are few and far between, and those that exist do not pay well enough to be attractive when compared with welfare.
Under the present system, Fanta’s most rational, self-interested economic choice would be to get pregnant and go on welfare ASAP. Plenty of her friends and relatives have already taken this course, and are living comparatively well, from Fanta’s point of view.
If she decides to emulate them, the implicit message Fanta will receive along with her first check is: “We are giving this to you because you are damaged, defective, and/or a victim of forces you can neither control nor resist. You are incapable of determining the direction of your own life.”
Lucky for Fanta, she’s come of age under the GBI system. On her eighteenth birthday, she receives a check for twenty grand. Implicit message? You are receiving this check because you are a full, equal, free adult citizen of the United States of America.
Immediate objection! Why give Fanta money for not working?
Because we do it anyway and are extremely unlikely to stop doing it.
The real question is: what is the least-bureaucratic and most freedom-promoting way to give Fanta money? At present, any government “support” that Fanta will receive is processed, evaluated, and monitored by layers of social workers, program managers and assorted bureaucrats paid to enforce the byzantine rules and regulations that are intended to control how Fanta spends her money and therefore how she spends her life.
Eliminate all of that. One decent computer program could probably handle making a yearly, direct-deposit of 20k in every citizen’s bank account, including Fanta’s.
What could Fanta do with the money? If she was inclined to write the great American novel, compose experimental music, volunteer for a political campaign, or sit around on the couch watching Netflix, Fanta could pinch her pennies and live on it.
If she lived in an expensive city, she could pool resources with a few friends and live New Girl-style. Or she could move to a state or city with a lower cost of living. $20k is enough to buy a car in which to drive to, say, South Dakota with enough left over to pay the first months’ rent and security deposit on a new apartment.
Or, she could get a job. Even a low-paying McJob could make a big difference in Fanta’s standard of living, while allowing her to gain basic job skills and start on a resume. If she falls in love with a young man — as young women tend to — that young man would come with something more than sex appeal: he’d have his own $20. Naturally, so would all of Fanta’s other suitors, so it might behove Mr. Right to get a job and earn so he could look even better by comparison.
If they got married, they’d have $40k between them. If they decide they want to have a baby, the GBI might be enough to allow Fanta or her husband to stay home and take care of it, or it could pay for childcare while both parents continued to work.
What if Fanta is a drug addict and sticks the whole shebang into her veins or up her nose? What if she takes her $20,000 to Vegas and blows the whole thing in a single wild weekend?
Answer: Fanta has a problem.
She can ask her relatives for help. She can go to the Salvation Army. Both the family and the Salvation Army are, of course, free to demand very specific behaviors in exchange for aid, ranging from budgeting lessons to attendance at church services. But Fanta will only have to humble herself for a year: on her next birthday, our wastrel will have another chance, with a new check for 20k direct-deposited into her account.
The budget-busting part of this is, of course, that all Americans get the check. I know that sounds crazy… but I’d like to get rid of the condescending “Nanny knows best” implication that comes with more targeted government aid, and emphasize independence, agency and freedom. Ideally, those of us who don’t “need” $20k could be encouraged to think of it as money to be donated to charities and causes we care about but that — arguably—the government shouldn’t really be funding. (Big Bird?)
Published in General
Remember this: The progressive project is and always has been a transfer of wealth, status, and power from those who work at objectively measurable pursuits to those who do not.
The obvious answer to the progs’ assault on our way of life is therefore to impoverish them. The prospect of hordes of minor welfare bureaucrats losing their jobs should appeal to every productive person. Let them scrape by on the national allowance – they can shop at Fanta’s family’s bodega.
Which is another question—if the “product” of the United States is freedom, the GI seems like an investment in freedom, whereas welfare-as-we-know-it (or even simply eliminating welfare without substituting anything else) seems like an investment in either status quo or misery.
And anything in between eliminating welfare always seems to involve a lot of additional “stuff” like training programs, and people to make sure that welfare recipients are actually working … I have a friend in Maine who is presently a state trooper, but he’s been offered a retirement job as part of a new team of investigators who are supposed to go around and make sure welfare recipients are actually doing their “work” thing. That just seems creepy, un-American and expensive?
BTW—I love “let them shop at Fanta’s family’s bodega!”
Is spending the money not doing something productive with it? That is, if Fanta decides her goal in life is to watch every episode of The Office five hundred times, doesn’t the money she must spend on rent, food, sweatpants, pj pants and flip-flops get out into the economy too?
Sure, but in that regard, it’s a wash with welfare generally. It’s an inefficient means of achieving spending: more than those $20k are taken out of the economy in order to put those $20k into the hands of the Fantas, due to the inefficiencies of that most inefficient of middlemen, the government.
Better to leave all that money in the private economy from the jump. That money then represents savings–which are both future retirement funds, for instance, or emergency funds, or… and loanable funds for current investment–which is future innovation and jobs. It also represents direct investment–those future innovation and jobs. It’s also current spending.
The money taken out of the economy to give to Fanta is only current spending. No savings, no investment, and so no innovation and no jobs.
Eric Hines
Would the 20 grand be adjusted to cost of living? 20 large doesn’t get you as much in Manhattan as it does in Mississippi. Love the idea. If we’re going to be in the business of wealth redistribution we might as well make it as efficient as possible. I believe Nixon advocated for a guaranteed income during his presidency.
Leave any further beneficence to the states and cities, and keep the Federal check to (arguendo) $20K. Whatever we do, keep the national component as simple as possible and let Federalism work.
Sure, but then couldn’t they move to Mississippi?
Probably not. Most have family where they are. Who will keep the kids? Who would cook Thanksgiving? A Meals on Wheels route has been my best teacher so far. I moved all over the place growing up. Some of the people I serve haven’t been out of the state.
Eric: The money taken out of the economy to give to Fanta is only current spending. No savings, no investment, and so no innovation and no jobs.
Yes—it’s straight-up wealth distribution fantasy. But it could be seen as investing in Fanta and—-especially— Mr. Fanta.
This seems pretty important. Maybe, though it’s not p.c. to say so, a little more important than investing in Fanta.
Mr. Fanta needs a shot at a plausible, middle-class identity. He needs a reason to turn his hat around, pull up his trousers, and think of himself as a productive worker and provider rather than a badass.
If Mr. Fanta has his 20 large, and is also pulling down another 12k at the car-wash, then he and Fanta could construct an actual, Leave It To Beaver sort of life. With Dad getting up and going to work every day and maybe Mom staying home with the kids and taking on-line courses in art history or accounting or whatever so when the kids are all in school, she can do something cool, interesting and at least a little lucrative as well?
AUMom Probably not. Most have family where they are. Who will keep the kids? Who would cook Thanksgiving? A Meals on Wheels route has been my best teacher so far. I moved all over the place growing up. Some of the people I serve haven’t been out of the state.
No, that’s true. But…tough. In other words, it would be up to them to decide whether they would rather spend more on housing but be close to family (and maybe share living quarters with them!) or have less expensive (or more spacious) housing and live farther away. This is true of my own kids, after all, who ponder the trade-offs between, on the one hand, the advantages of being close enough to Mom and Dad to be given dinner once a week and provided with at least occasional dog-sitting (and the potential, eventually, for babysitting) (I wish) and on the other, the excitement and opportunity provided by a big city far away. Why wouldn’t Fanta be able to do the same?
AUMom – there’s nothing preventing Manhattan from doing the same thing, over and above the national stipend. What I contest is the notion that it would be the Federal government’s place to try to account for cost-of-living or other disparities. The essence of Federalism is to devolve power to the most local appropriate level.
Kate, I haven’t read the whole post – will do so tomorrow while I’m waiting my turn in court – but I go the impression that you are talking about giving a lump sum instead of welfare?
We have an interesting case-study on that here in Yakima, where there was a settlement paid out (by the federal government, so, yes, taxpayers) to every member of a particular Indian tribe. Literally, a check made out for $17K to every member. The “suarez settlement,” I believe. I started having clients come into my office (court-appointed indigent defense, mind you) decked out head to toe in seahawks gear, pulling up in new cars. My wife told me about a client of hers (this is back when she was a case-carrying social worker and I was a public defender) where a mom came in demanding that the department pay for her utilities because it was cold and she couldn’t pay for heat. She had taken her Suarez check – AND the checks of her enrolled children, I believe there were 3 or 4 – over to the casinos in Tualup and blown all of it. Upwards of $100K in cash.
The problem with handing out money is that it would have to be with the understanding that this is ALL you get. But in 3 months, when everyone is hurting again and the democrats have real-life examples of real-life suffering, we’re back to square one. Recall how Democrats are always talking about border control AFTER we grant amnesty? A few decades later, they’ve forgotten those promises and are propping up some illegal-immigrant girl at presidential speeches talking about how we have to have amnesty again.
That is, unfortunately, the democrats’ game. They don’t want an actual solution to a problem. Their whole business is problems. If we solved problems, they would be out jobs. They are overseers of the mess, and it is in their best interest to see that mess drag on for all eternity.
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Ignore half of that. I just scrolled up and read the post; you’re talking about an annual check. Of course, my first instinct is to ask where the heck it would come from, but if you eliminate all of these programs and all bureaucrats employed by them, you’ve got more than enough money. Given that caveat, I think it’s a great idea.
I’m keeping my comment in tact, since I still think that Yakima is an interesting (if somewhat irrelevant) case-study.
I agree that from a baseline of “no transfers” it is best to leave the money in the private economy from the beginning.
That said, we don’t have that system now. We already pay the taxes that fund bureaucracies that are rewarded as their benefit rolls grow. Instead of straightforward, measurable and portable subsidies, we have layers of rules and regs that create welfare cliffs and people bound to their area to use them, all at a cost much greater than whatever dollar value these folks are receiving.
The greatest challenge to this idea is the reduction of minor functionaries in government unions that have spent millions ensuring they have lifetime benefits because they have “given their lives to public service”.
Ryan M:My wife told me about a client of hers (this is back when she was a case-carrying social worker and I was a public defender) where a mom came in demanding that the department pay for her utilities because it was cold and she couldn’t pay for heat. She had taken her Suarez check – AND the checks of her enrolled children, I believe there were 3 or 4 – over to the casinos in Tualup and blown all of it. Upwards of $100K in cash.
You’d definitely have to be sure everyone understood that this was all there was. One lump sum every year. And yes, I would expect that people would make some very stupid choices (think Rocky Balboa after his big win).
If I make a bad investment, or lose my job, my first line of defense isn’t the government, it’s my husband, and then our extended family. The same would presumably be true for Fanta if she spent her entire wad on Seahawks gear and cars—and because her adult family members would also have GI, there might be both resources available, and a sense of justified outrage that Fanta had blown what everyone else had managed to hold onto.
The fallback position would be private charities (e.g. the Salvation Army) who could and probably would demand that Fanta bone up on her money handling skills.
Would Fanta also be able to borrow money against the following year’s GI?
Your right, you don’t understand economics. If all these people were simply handed $20,000, what would that do to prices? They would go up. Then $20,000 wouldn’t be enough. So it would soon have to be to $30,000, then $40,000, etc.
What would happen to supply, it would go down, because many would stop working. Heck, my wife and I could survive on $40,000. So why get up every morning and go to work?
Then there is the cost. Where does the money come from? Assuming you are sending $20,000 checks to 400 million people, you are spending $ 8,000,000,000,000 annually. Even to Uncle Sam, that is a big number.
It seems to my untutored mind that it would be an easier sell politically than eliminating programs piecemeal, or adding in new requirements, if only because it’s simple and relatively easy to understand. (Especially if you keep the math at a level where even I can do the sums!)
It isn’t insulting, either in a “poor-little-victims” way, or a “work-or-starve-you-lazy-sluts” way, and it doesn’t punish people for things they can’t control (being born to poor parents) or reward people for a lack of control (more out-of-wedlock babies=more benefits).
The candidate that proposed this might get a lot of votes from people who otherwise wouldn’t dream of voting Republican. Some of this might come from ignorance and greed (20k sounds like a lot more money than 35g worth of vouchers, heating assistance, rent subsidies, childcare allowances and WIC) but also because of the interesting and imaginative vistas that would open up: I could buy a Cadillac! I could take my banjo-pickin’ talent to Nashville! I could get on a plane and fly to Paris!
The opposition would be stuck with variations on the “but what if Fanta doesn’t buy healthy food?” argument.
Easily countered with “who is policing your shopping cart, Hilary? Is there a reason you don’t think poor people, or inner-city African Americans or DownEast trailer trash should be allowed to make their own life choices without your help?”
Though this doesn’t bolster my economic credibility at all, I should underline that not only “these people” get 20g but so do you and your wife…!
I don’t actually get why 20g in a lump sum automatically raises prices, but 20g or more in various fiddley programs and things—or even 20g in workfare or the opening of a factory offering good jobs doesn’t?
It’s true that some people would simply not work at all. Some people don’t work at all now. One reason might indeed be sheer laziness.
Another is because, under the present system, if they earn money, their benefits are reduced accordingly.
I would be hoping that if they had enough money to cover a very basic, no-frills life, working would become more rather than less attractive. “If I work, I can have a better life” rather than “if I work, I have the same life, only with more effort.”
Yes—and the same minor functionaries presumably have a vested interest in opposing any change (other than expansion) to their fiefdoms. As long as there’s going to be fierce opposition, why not suggest blowing up the fiefdom altogether, not in the name of punishing “those people” but in the name of freedom, and the release of creative and entrepreneurial energy?
I’ve tried to do the math on this a couple times. I was never satisfied with the way it turned out. The reason is I was forcing myself to avoid the welfare cliff, and I wanted to do it in preferably one, but up to two tax brackets starting from the first dollar earned.
I also wanted to have the break even point be something like 50,000. That last part may have been the deal breaker. Even at $12,000 grant, and a 20% tax rate the break even point is $60,000. I don’t know if there’s enough money being made north of $60,000 to make the difference. So do we put a 35% tax bracket somewhere? Have a single tax bracket of 25-30%?
By the way, I think GBI is far far better than welfare. Studies show that people do way better if you just give them money than if you set them up in a program. There are charities in 3rd world countries set up this way.
A couple things we have to keep in mind. The poor in America aren’t poor by global standards. Just being able to live in this country makes you far better off than the vast majority of the rest of the world, but people feel it’s more important to fix things right in front of them even if people far away are doing much worse. So, we should consider if welfare is really necessary when just living in the land of opportunity is something so many other destitute people would give anything for.
We should consider if the poor are deserving, meaning is there something they could have done to prevent it. Many could have not gotten pregnant, or get married, or have saved money for hard times. The people who couldn’t have avoided their problems are the truly deserving and they should be the first to receive help. Most people in this country don’t qualify under that standard.
The inflationary pressure has already been mentioned and we also know that inflation is harder on lower income folks than on higher income folks, so that economic disruption is one argument against a one solution for every citizen approach.
On a personal, case by case basis though, another problem becomes clear immediately. Not many 18 year olds have sufficiently developed brains to plan for that kind of allocation. They are still dependent on parents to some degree or other. In fact, if Fanta hasn’t slowly accumulated the ability to earn and save, through work, experience and consequential mistakes, progressively increasing both skill and responsibility, she is being shortchanged the learning and maturation required to manage the income and become more productive. She is being shortchanged the development that produces improvement in her own circumstance and potential contribution to the economy as a whole. Lots of ill-equipped Fantas then drag down aggregate economic growth which hurts all, but as always, hurts lower income people the most.
I am afraid the whole program is just a massive wealth redistribution effort, and the economic effects that actually benefit anyone of short duration. I think what would happen is many(most) taxpayers with incomes above a fairly low threshold would see the benefit taxed away by a combination of direct taxes on income and benefits, indirect taxes in the form of increased costs for everything else one buys. When “free” money is injected into the system, it is taken from other places so to keep their economic return constant they over time, increase their prices since their costs have increased, and also a huge number of “rent seekers” will try to get a share of the money. Soon the cost of basic survival will increase to match (or exceed) the benefit received and the net gain to society will be a loss due to the administrative and social costs of giving people money.
I believe the only solution, long term, to poor people is to have real economic growth, so there are more resources for each person and their quality of life improves, trying to solve this with yet another government program won’t work, it will just move the chairs around, and select a slightly different set of winners and losers, with no net benefit.
We don’t need yet another government program however well intentioned, and if we get one, it won’t work the way we think or project it will. Get government out of the way, and let markets work to solve critical issues, there will always be poor, if one means the say 20% with the fewest resources, no matter if everyone had a guaranteed income of a million dollars, over time, that income would buy about what 15 thousand dollars a year does now, and the only way to improve that is to have real economic growth, never just another way for government to select winners and losers.
This is a terrible idea and I am surprised Ryan is supportive because the best counter example is Indian reservations. Enrolled members on the reservation do get payments on the order of a couple to a few thousand dollars doled out semiannually. It never fails that most blow their check on mostly frivolous items and then many must depend on welfare to make it to the next check. The indian reservations are pits of poverty and despair. This is not a result of them being native americans, people are lazy and will not work if they don’t have to. Unless you want the whole US to look like your typical rural Indian reservation, Appalachian mountain town, or inner city ghetto, than a GBI is a terrible idea.
Not if it replaces welfare. Is GBI more terrible than classic welfare? Would the Indian reservations be better if they were on welfare instead?
Just thinking out loud here, but a GBS would also have some interesting ramifications for the whole border/illegal immigrant issue. Two hypotheticals off the top of my head:
1) Assuming that the payments would only go to naturalized citizens, and would essentially replace the current welfare apparatus, would people be so eager to cross the border if they would have to have a child and wait until that child was 18 in order to “cash-in”? My gut thought would be it would increase the incentives to immigrate to the US via legitimate channels…
2) Likewise if the GBS made minimum wages more redundant would employers have any incentive to hire illegals under the table vs. naturalized citizens through legitimate channels?
This is such an interesting and far-reaching concept to speculate about, thanks for the food for thought Kate!
A couple of thoughts. First, why a lump sum payment? Why not monthly payments so that people can’t blow all of it at once? Then if they want to buy something big they have to save up their money. I might add that a problem with the current welfare system is that it actually takes some smarts to even get on some of these programs, which many who need them don’t have. Your plan would eliminate that problem.
Unfortunately giving this money to all citizens would mean that taxes would have to go way up for richer people to counterbalance the money they get, though I do like the idea of everyone having to pay taxes on the money. I will say, I don’t like the feel of it–here’s what you get for just being alive. There’s a blanket entitlement feel about that that really rubs me the wrong way.
Here’s an incident that gives me pause about all this though. My college student, who is just graduating and looking for a job, called me last week. He lives in a condo with 3 other guys (which we pay for) and likes it, but I told him that if he doesn’t get a job right away, he has to move out of the condo and come home. In other words, we aren’t going to pay his rent once he graduates. He called to argue that he can’t find somebody to take the lease for the 3 months left, so maybe we should keep paying his rent. My response: better get a job! I did not offer to pay the extra three months rent. Now he has great incentive to get a job. Even if he doesn’t get a job in his field, he has to get some sort of job. I want him to have that pressure. I would not like him to be getting government money so that he had no pressure. Of course, if he were getting government money from the age of 18, in our family that money would just go toward education and he would have had to use all of that money toward his education with a subsidy from us. BUT, I would NOT like him to have the choice of living the lazy but penurious life on the government dime now. I WANT him to feel significant pressure to get work and make something of his life. (He’s the youngest child and has been rather indulged all his life, but it is time for indulgence to stop!) I really dislike the idea of creating a nation of indulged children!
There seem to be a lot of people missing the “replace welfare” part of the OP.
Why is it better to keep feeding an entrenched bureaucracy in order to get money to the people? The Bureau of Indian Affairs is corrupt, so why funnel money through it? So a few thousand people can have a government job while the people they help languish?
I recall during the ACA debate people pointed out that it would be cheaper just to buy the uninsured coverage than create a new system. I view this proposal, in general, along the same lines. We already hand out dollars – and the odds of ending welfare in toto seem remote. Perhaps this is a way to distribute money more efficiently and honestly. I’m open to other suggestions, but many tend to go the way of the Tories in the UK arguing with Labour about who can run the nanny state better. We seem to lose that argument.
One other thought–you suggest that this might encourage marriage, Kate. I guess because men look like a better prospect if they have some income. I don’t think it would really have that effect though. The reasons poor people are not getting married even though doing so would greatly improve their lives and their children’s are very complicated and notoriously hard to change. It has to do with modeling in their homes and neighborhoods, the pervasive aura of sexual license in our society and just some very negative mores in general. I sadly don’t think this would move the needle at all on that front. We need a comprehensive plan to combat that, beginning with teaching in school over and over that the way to avoid poverty is to graduate from high school (at least) get a job, marry before having children and stay married to raise them. Instead, a person I know who is a school social worker got in trouble for suggesting plan of action to a student.
. Lots of ill-equipped Fantas then drag down aggregate economic growth which hurts all, but as always, hurts lower income people the most.
Maybe this is why I keep imagining those high school math classes, with kids practicing again and again: What do I do with 20g. and the freedom to spend it as I wish?
Zin MT: Enrolled members on the reservation do get payments on the order of a couple to a few thousand dollars doled out semiannually. It never fails that most blow their check on mostly frivolous items and then many must depend on welfare to make it to the next check.
We have reservations here, too, with similar problems. The idea is that once you’ve blown your check, it’s gone and there isn’t any more. The hope is that, having spent an impoverished and humiliating year sleeping on your Mom’s couch and eating at the Salvation Army soup kitchen, you’ll do better next time. Some people might do boom-and-bust their whole lives, I guess…But I come back to Mike’s question: Is GBI more terrible than classic welfare? Would the Indian reservations be better if they were on welfare instead?
Michael Brehm:
1) Assuming that the payments would only go to naturalized citizens, and would essentially replace the current welfare apparatus, would people be so eager to cross the border if they would have to have a child and wait until that child was 18 in order to “cash-in”? My gut thought would be it would increase the incentives to immigrate to the US via legitimate channels…
2) Likewise if the GBS made minimum wages more redundant would employers have any incentive to hire illegals under the table vs. naturalized citizens through legitimate channels?
I’d thought of #1, but not of #2—cool!
I agree, Merina—it is complicated. Maybe what we could say is that at least GBI doesn’t discourage marriage—or rather, it doesn’t discourage “teaming up into a family,” (whether or not they actually marry) the way the present system does.
I picture Fanta and her friends in their high school math class fantasizing (hey! Fanta-sizing—just noticed that) with their calculators… can’t you picture them totting up the cost of a nice wedding? They’ve watched Cinderella too, after all. The brutal reality has been that falling in love, getting married and having children, in that order (which is still presented to anyone with a tv set as the gold standard of lifestyles) is not a realistic option.
Incidentally—much sympathy on the youngest child “Get a job!” tough-love front (a whole other post could be about how hard a kick it sometimes takes to dislodge a young ‘un from the nest!) —and only the comment that even your son has the choice of indolence. He could go on welfare—that is, he’s probably a smart kid and could figure out how to play the system. But being on welfare isn’t fun. It’s not satisfying. It’s boring. Your kids and mine would go out of their skulls with nothing to do and no place to go.
Our present system is trapping young people in a place where the most effective way to alleviate boredom is not to get a job, but to have a baby, or a crisis, or a riot.
We need a comprehensive plan to combat that, beginning with teaching in school …that the way to avoid poverty is to graduate…get a job, marry before having children and stay married to raise them.
Agreed! And if we had a GBI system, plenty of solid instruction in basic financial planning. (Which, come to think of it, I could have used too!)
Say you are looking to buy a new bicycle. You shop around and compare prices. Then I hand you $20,000. Will you still be concerned about the price, or will you be willing to pay more than before you had the extra money? Most people would be willing to pay more. Since sellers are always adjusting prices to get the most they can, they will soon figure out they can charge more for their bikes and raise the price. Multiple this all over the country and you have inflation.
Why is it different than earning $20,000? Because to earn it you have to do something for someone else. That is what makes the market so beneficial. It motivates people to do for each other. If money is just given to people, then we would do less for others, and society would be worse off.