News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every A... by champagneben on Monday March 16, 2020 @12:41PM (#22594252)
One of the interesting questions would be how much a basic income would affect people's willingness to work, and we would not be getting that out of this experiment. In fact, I can't imagine anything useful we'd be getting out of that experiment, except for its effects in similar very dramatic circumstances.
Re:One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every A... by fao_ on Monday March 16, 2020 @02:53PM (#22596097)
> I can't imagine anything useful we'd be getting out of that experiment

I uhhhh. People's ability to work and live is important. That's what we get out of it. People not starving or living in poverty is, surprisingly enough, pretty important to the economy and the ability to sell luxury goods. Regarding 'useful data':

https://www.inverse.com/article/53466-basic-income-canada-s-...

And articles from the institute that performed the study:

https://www.basicincomecanada.org/nearly_half_of_basic_incom...

https://www.basicincomecanada.org/ontario_government_defends...

Re:One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every A... by 6510 on Monday March 16, 2020 @09:19PM (#22600441)
How would the data from any experiment reach you? (there have been lots of experiments) And not to offend you but what point is there in informing people?

I would like to see an 1 euro/month basic income. Then we get a good idea what it costs to distribute. Then we should gradually increase it by an equally insignificant amount so that we can gradually observe who should but doesn't get it and how much fraud we have to deal with.

With 100 euro extra we can at least silence the folk who for the last 100 years barricaded the discussion by saying they would continue to work themselves but others... others will do this and that. Popular variations: Wimmen will stop obeying their husband. Men will use the extra money to buy alcohol. Kids wont seek jobs. etc

I think Keynes 15 hour work week provides a good hint. Wealthy people actually work more.

I think the silver bullet basic income is silly for other reasons. Our economic model is to optimize for wealth extraction. Give people 50, 500 or 1000 extra and rent will go up by exactly the same amount.

I'd still be willing to pay for the distribution experiment.

But does it actually matter what I think?

Re:One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every A... by leggomylibro on Monday March 16, 2020 @12:54PM (#22594455)
Still a useful data point. It would be nice to add this sort of action to the same toolbox which already contains quantitative easing.