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Re:The Fall of the American Worker by 300bps on Thursday July 04, 2013 @03:31PM (#5992117)
>a universal income of $10k/year per person for every citizen 21 and over...I find myself liking the idea more and more

The $10,000 would increase demand by $10,000. What mechanism would then increase supply? How much would that mechanism increase supply?

I fail to see any such supply-increasing mechanism. If I'm right about that, then that $10,000 would be eaten by inflation literally instantly.

Money is a store of productivity. It cannot be a universal policy of an economy to give out money for no productivity exchange without consequences.

Re:The Fall of the American Worker by anigbrowl on Thursday July 04, 2013 @10:17PM (#5993201)
You're wrong about that, because you're assuming that all the inflation would targeted to the exact same $10k of increased spending power.

Say there's 250m people in the US over 21, give each of them $10k and you're talking $2.5 trillion/year. Say, the economy as a whole is about $15 trillion/year (it's a bit higher, but I'm approximating), so at most you'd be looking at inflation of 16.6%. You're assuming that the first $10,000 of goods and services would be inflated by 100%, but this isn't true, nor is the first $10k of goods and services the same for everyone.

Obviously I'm giving you a very abridged answer, but I encourage you to look into Milton Friedman's writings on the concept of Basic Income - not a person you could accuse of economic illiteracy, even if you didn't agree with all or many of his views.

Re:The Fall of the American Worker by bvk on Thursday July 04, 2013 @08:44PM (#5993045)
If we assume that $10,000 for every person would instantly cause exactly that much inflation (which I don't think is a settled question), then the net effect would be a transfer of wealth from people with more than the average amount of money to those with less than the average amount of money.

I don't think we can dismiss that out of hand. It seems like a pretty bog-standard social welfare program.

Re:The Fall of the American Worker by tocomment on Friday July 05, 2013 @08:15AM (#5994523)
Taxes would be paying for it, so it wouldn't increase demand at all.
Re:The Fall of the American Worker by Daniel_Newby on Thursday July 04, 2013 @08:13PM (#5992970)
> What mechanism would then increase supply?

Robotics. In my lifetime, most basic productivity will be fully automated. Robotic factories will make self-driving tractors that cultivate fields of genetically engineered crops.

Labor is already obsolete. The majority of Americans of traditional working age (13+) already live on handouts. This trend will accelerate in the next 20 years. It is a huge question of how to handle the below average people who are both unnecessary and not well suited to the life of ibtellectual pursuits.

In Peter F. Hamilton's sci-fi novels, he posits that each person will receive an EMA, an energy-mass allocation to use or trade as they see fit. With the boundless resources of the universe brought to your doorstep, we need a better method of resource allocation than the minimum wage.

Re:The Fall of the American Worker by munin on Thursday July 04, 2013 @10:54PM (#5993273)
> handle the below average people who are both unnecessary and not well suited to the life of ibtellectual pursuits.

indeed