Freedom Dividend
Please consider the fiscal lunacy of the day: Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang is giving this New Hampshire mom $1,000 a month to show cash handouts work.
Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, 43, is running for election on a campaign that centers around the idea of universal basic income, or free cash payments. Specifically, Yang promises that if elected, every American citizen between the ages of 18 and 64 will receive $1,000 a month.
To demonstrate the potential benefit of distributing cash, Yang is personally funding a pilot for cash payments, which he calls the Freedom Dividend.
Jodie Fassi and her family were selected from “dozens of nominations.” Charles Fassi, 49, his wife Jodie, 47, and their daughter Janelle, 20, received their first $1,000 check from Yang at a New Year’s Eve party in New York City. Technically, “the pilot is just for one person, Jodie,” Yang tells CNBC Make It.
Fiscal Lunacy
I have no doubt that $12,000 a year would improve the lives of many. But let’s put this to the scale test.
US Population
2017 US Population Range by Age
The above chart from the Census Reporter which also lists the population for 2017 as 325,719,178.
Scaling Test
Andrew Yang’s proposal would cost in excess of $2.4 trillion a year.
Yang and countless more free money UBI proponents are economic illiterates.
None of these programs scale. Not a one.
Failed Tests
Without a doubt, you can give $1,000 a month to everyone in some some small town and watch that local economy grow. But that money has top come from somewhere.
Canada tried it one with much ballyhooed success. But everyone in the province had to pony up money for the benefits of residents in one town.
It was not a legitimate test, because it did not scale.
Hooray! Yang is giving Jodie Fassi $1,000 a month. I suggest he give everyone in the city $1,000 a month.
Inflation
Yang does not understand inflation. If the US gave away $2.4 trillion a year, guess what?
Unless you are a dim-witted UBI proponent, you know the answer. $12,000 a year would not go far. And pity those older than 64 who don’t get a dime.
UBI is complete nonsense.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The money just comes out of secret federal government slush funds. You are not allowed to find out where the money comes from. They can tell you what they want. Follow the links. That’s why government data is now bogus and why foreign governments are buying less Treasuries. The confidence is eroding around the economic revelations:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-18/taibbi-has-government-legalized-secret-defense-spending
That’s nothing. I’LL give everyone ONE MILLION DOLLARS per month (queue the Dr. Evil music). Don’t worry about funding it. We’ll float some 0% 1,000 year bonds and the Fed will buy em all up.
It would work if the $1,000 was taxed at 100%.
Many older people on Social Security get less than this so, HA Ha to them.
Also, can we make it $2,000 a month. LOL
This is reaching the level of treason where people are now purposely flushing whats left of the country down the toilet so that they can personally gain by being in office. I wonder how long until the killing of traitors begins? For every action there is a counter action. As Yang plans to give away free money I suspect there are groups that are organizing to put him and those like him down. Mish’s answer to everything bad that happens when con men and liars take over is “get out”, “run away”, “let them have it because they are willing to steal it from you in broad daylight”.
Not everyone thinks that running away is the right answer.
“Yang does not understand inflation.”
Does Yang not understand inflation, or is he just gaming the voters?
He does understand the voting patterns of the free sh*t army very well…
Cool idea, but $1k a month isn’t enough to live on. Let’s make it $5k a month. I think most people could get by with that without having to work. Now, that would lead to a problem, I suppose, because if no one was working, there would be no factories to make anything, nor stores to sell anything, nor any services. Oh well, that’s a minor problem, and would be solved when inflation rendered the $5k a month insignificant.
Since im 50 can we make it retroactive? LOL. Something tells me the next dem prez will have one national emergency after another starting with guns.
If you have no debt and own your home and automobile, aside from taxes and insurance you could probably live on $12K a year. But you’d better be happy with everything you already own and it had better not break either.
Liberals/progressives are against Trump’s Wall….because, ummmm, let me think about it…..oh yeah. It is wasteful spending. We have to stop this wasteful spending that won’t do anything…
$5 Billion for the wall. Shut down government. Fight it to the bitter end. Block and oppose everything until this wasteful spending is no longer in the budget.
$2.4 TRILLION in new spending? Yawn. Cool. Whatever dude.
These UBI guys are late to the party. As the millennial generation rolls in their 30’s, they’ll start being and thinking like what they will be: The ones who are paying the bills.
Too bad. So long as all talk of UBI includes what it replaces, it’s a good discussion. Otherwise it’s just a “the world owes me a living wage” talk.
Something like universal basic income is gonna happen in some form. You cant profess that “technology has the potential to displace many millions of jobs” — kiosks in McDonalds, long-haul trucks without drivers, drone deliveries, teachers and nurses unneeded due to tech replacement, and not realize that millions of unneeded, unemployed, starving people will continuously foment revolution on WHOEVER is in charge at the time, giving a whole new meaning to the term “unstable.” If we started thinking about this now instead of at the last minute, we can find a way to “tax the machines” to provide this large bulk of money. It’s gonna have to happen.
I always dismiss the people that compare the US to Venezuela. The comparison, currently, is laughable and wishful thinking on the part of those spouting it. If anything resembling this UBI scheme gets traction, we are on the express lane to Venezuela.
I’m a drug dealer and I approve of this idea of giving away lots of cash to deadbeats.
Hey. What’s the big deal? 2.4 trillion. Pffft. We already print half that, right? Just print the rest. In fact, why not get rid of all taxes and just print what’s needed? You want a simple tax system, you got it! (Trick question: That printing – who is that a tax on?)
Why are we discussing UBI when unemployment rate is at decades low?
Because the government unemployment rate is a farce. The true unemployment rate is closer to 10-12% when you include all the people not working who the government has eliminated from considering to be unemployed. And this rate will go up as automation steals more jobs.
Automation doesn’t “steal” jobs… nor does anything or anyone else…. tools make life easier and more productive,,, automation does the boring and tiring,,,
A combine automates the whole process repetitive process of picking corn, shucking and removing kernels from the cob…
I’ll take automation any day
How much of the 10-12% unemployment rate you claim is involuntary? Some people would rather collect UBI than putting in a day’s work. There are jobs paying $15/hr in Seattle but businesses have trouble filling those positions. Yet Seattle has a homelessness ‘crisis’.
“And pity those older than 64 who don’t get a dime.”
They get social security and medicare.
But eliminating any age demographic will change the economic equation for them, disadvantaging the eliminated age group against others receiving the money.
It HAS to be all or none to maintain economic parity because as I’ve said here and elsewhere on the web for years, if any group gets extra cash income suddenly, say like a raise to $15/hr, then the landlords and other service providers in the area with the new cash will raise their prices to absorb the extra cash. It’s an economic reality.
So in this case, those over 64 are going to see their rents and other costs go up but they won’t have the extra money that other groups have been given, so will be forced to move.
I know a guy that retired at 62,,, his SS was 500/mo….
Not everyone takes SS at 64.
If you cut that down to $500/month then the cost is down to $1.2T. If you eliminate all welfare, all housing assistance, heating assistance, Obama phones, earned income tax credit, Pell grants, college tax credits, and the thousands of other “pograms” and tax credits, I think 1.2T is a doable number.
“UBI is complete nonsense.”
Yup! But then you cannot expect that it is nonsense to stop a politician from embracing it. The smell tests are:
1, Can it get me votes and get me elected?
2. Can I skin the tax-payers and savers to fund it?
3. Is there a Peter around to rob from?
As long as it passes smell test, everything else be damned. Such loonies idea abound -look no further from the new entrant from New York.
We have to stop everyone from voting! Mass armed robbery (irs), Mass theft (fed) and Mass violent domination (regs) can’t survive without the Consent of the Governed.
Oops! This was a reply to Sechel that misplaced itself.
And it is always “Other People’s Money” that they are giving away.
NEVER their own.
We are about to enter (or most likely, have already entered) a Dark Age.
Prepare yourselves accordingly.
My dog Barkeley and my kitty Fluffy both fogged a mirror and qualified for loans in the 2008 fiasco. Maybe it’s time for UBI for them!
Andrew Yank (it out of everybody’s pockets).