News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Basic income is just the beginning as Finland looks to citizen-driven governance. Parent comment

Re:Basic income is just the beginning as Finland looks to ci... by inopinatus on Sunday October 01, 2017 @12:51AM (#15376450)
If you look up "Quantitative Easing" you'll see that making trillions from thin air is exactly what the world's central banks do. But instead of giving it to people, they buy securities from banks, who are, as a result, the primary beneficiaries. QE-scale market activities aside, this general method is also standard monetary policy and the means by which new money is created.

Seen in that light, BI provides the opportunity for a whole new economic policy lever, by channeling new money to people rather than banks.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Basic income is just the beginning as Finland looks to ci... by rsync on Sunday October 01, 2017 @12:30PM (#15378535)
"If you look up "Quantitative Easing" you'll see that making trillions from thin air is exactly what the world's central banks do. But instead of giving it to people, they buy securities from banks, who are, as a result, the primary beneficiaries."

This is not an apples-to-apples comparison since QE (so far) has been "sterilized" so as not to increase the money supply in the same way as you are suggesting BI would:

"Also, the Federal Reserve has mostly "sterilized" its bond purchases by paying interest to banks for reserve deposits. This removes money from circulation previously added by the Fed's bond purchases. The net effect is to raise bond prices, lowering borrowing rates for mortgages and other loans, without an inflationary increase in the money supply"[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Basic income is just the beginning as Finland looks to ci... by inopinatus on Sunday October 01, 2017 @07:05PM (#15380423)
Yes, the useful message here is that we can indeed inject trillions into economies without overheating them, if the right conditions and structures are used.

They will be different for BI, naturally.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Basic income is just the beginning as Finland looks to ci... by kobeya on Sunday October 01, 2017 @01:25AM (#15376537)
A lot of economists are freaked out about the effect quantitative easing might have on our economy going forward. But even the highest, recklessly dangerous levels of QE3, that only amounted to about $1,500/yr for each US citizen. BI people are advocating for 10x that, for the smallest proposals under consideration.

It's not the mechanism, it's the scale of it.

[ Parent | on HN ]