A basic income could boost the US economy by $2.5 trillion

Re:A basic income could boost the US economy by $2.5 trillion by matthewmarkus on Monday November 27, 2017 @12:58PM (#15789402)

Wouldn't the most logical thing be for people to reinvest their BI in the illegal drug trade? It's not like there isn't precedent for that kind of thing happening elsewhere:

"And some projects aimed at reducing poaching by alleviating poverty have backfired, said Duffy. For example, one program in Ghana was intended to decrease poaching by paying a premium on crops, on the theory that hunter-poachers would focus instead on farming. They did for a period, but then used the money they’d earned to buy more sophisticated weapons that they used to shoot more lucrative species [1]."

Beyond that, everyone seems to ignore the inflationary nature of BI. What will happen to the economy in real, not nominal, terms?

[1] http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/22/zambia-poach...

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Re:A basic income could boost the US economy by $2.5 trillion by undersuit on Monday November 27, 2017 @01:24PM (#15789694)

Would that be bad? ChuckMcM was arguing that BI would allow someone to worry less about where they would sleep and when they would eat. That they use their money to get more money should be good. Your opposition seems to be based on implied immorality of drugs.

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Re:A basic income could boost the US economy by $2.5 trillion by matthewmarkus on Wednesday November 29, 2017 @07:54PM (#15812395)

My opposition is to funding both the DEA et al. and the dealers.

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