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.
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.