- Has Universal Basic Income ever been trialled on the scale you propose? Archived Message
Posted by SueC
on April 27, 2020, 1:55 pm, in reply to "Re: Excellent indeed -- so why support the economically disastrous lockdowns?"
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I'll answer my own question - no, it hasn't. There have been relatively small scale pilots run in a variety of countries, beginning as early as the 1960's. The results have been mixed - UBI improves some things, worsens others and makes no difference to yet others. The key point, though, is that it simply hasn't been tested on the scale you and many others advocate. So, my question is this - why are you so sure there are going to be no serious adverse consequences of what you propose? Where will the money come from to enable all the support you envisage? From the government printing currency or from borrowing? Why are you so sure that simply printing currency will cause no problems? If the chosen route is borrowing by issuing gilts, how reasonable is it to saddle future generations with the burden of repaying these? It's a serious business to shut down a country's economy - when we're led by clownish inadequates, it's perhaps unwise to jump so uncritically on the bandwagon. |