I was in favor of this until I lived in the south.

People stay on welfare for their entire lives. I never understood it until now. It would have to have some stipulations.

I'm sure we'd see a lot of broke daygaming white dudes in california.

Quote: (10-20-2014 10:33 PM)jake1720 Wrote:  

I was in favor of this until I lived in the south.

People stay on welfare for their entire lives. I never understood it until now. It would have to have some stipulations.

That problem is one of the premises of BI. Those welfare people can't start working because they'll lose their benefits, and entry level work pays less than what they leach.

With BI, even getting a low paying part time job is a big leg up.

In the current system, they're incentivized to stay on welfare/disability.

In sum: guaranteed basic income is a complete pipe dream until a state shows it can institute it while rolling back all other forms of welfare.

It remains to be seen whether that is possible. Thus, the whole discussion is likely mental masturbation.

And just like anti-racism and -sexism efforts, when GBI fails to deliver a Marxist nirvana fast enough and inequality persists, more welfare will be imposed. Those who demand equality are quite literally insatiable in their desire for it. Human nature does not permit reaching that point which will satisfy them.

Also, it seems GBI would need to be countered by a limitation of the franchise. Eg, if you get more than you give to the government in taxes, you cannot vote.

Quote: (10-20-2014 10:31 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

Technological change has always increased total number of jobs. I don't see why it'd be different this time. Granted, the jobs may be totally different.

I won't dispute that, I'm a tech-optimist. The future will be much, much better, especially if boring, dirty, dumb work (or work parts) will be left to computerized systems. However, the question is: will robotics & automation's job 'destruction' go as fast as some claim? There's compelling evidence this is the case. If so, lots of people won't be re-educated quickly enough into different, fitting jobs.

There's always a time lag between reallignment of old and new job career (pre/post-automation/robotics), historically that time frame will seem trivial, but for our generation it may be 1/3 of your worklife/career, ~20 years.

Quote: (10-20-2014 10:51 PM)DarkTriad Wrote:  

Quote: (10-20-2014 10:33 PM)jake1720 Wrote:  

I was in favor of this until I lived in the south.

People stay on welfare for their entire lives. I never understood it until now. It would have to have some stipulations.

That problem is one of the premises of BI. Those welfare people can't start working because they'll lose their benefits, and entry level work pays less than what they leach.

With BI, even getting a low paying part time job is a big leg up.

In the current system, they're incentivized to stay on welfare/disability.

Exactly. That's the best part of GBI. People are deservedly skeptical because the welfare state leaves such a bad taste in the mouth (muffdiving-a-corpse bad taste).

I don't think most people will end up quitting their jobs. To live like a surfer slacker gets old really fast. Most guys just want to achieve something in their life: a GBI won't prevent that, it will enable them. I know dozens of guys who stay in their shit job, because it's too risky to go back after you failed as an entrepreneur. Labour markets are very unflexible -- I'll admit this is more a Euro thing, but for us across the pond, it's a big thing we have to deal with.

A GBI would promote entrepreneurs, inventors, artists/creative professionals to experiment with their talents & passions. I'm also low on tears re lowly motivated people dropping out of work. For all the things I dislike about office life, it's unmotivated, lazy, silly colleagues who pretend work is like a gulag they're judged to until retirement who bug me the most. Their negativity is a drag on anything. I'd be glad to see them gone.

As others already mentioned, it would be worth trying if and only if it was accompanied by immediate elimination of all other welfare state programs and agencies.

Unfortunately, leftist would be the most ardent opponents of such a proposal. The welfare state is one of the most powerful tools of left wing authoritarianism and few people understand how much more important the authoritarianism aspect is to these people than the societal welfare aspect.

The easiest way to do this would be to piggyback onto the highly efficient ( FAR more so the Private Enterprise Health Insurance Company I worked for that skimmed 30% for stockholders)
Social Security system.

Jejeune "free marketers" too young to be even two steps away from stories of the great depression might be surprised that SS is over 99% efficient, and has been increasing in efficiency over the last 20 years as they have the computer systems in place and adding participants is pretty easy at this point. And there are no stockholders screaming at management to skim skim skim and divert proceeds to them. Why do you think Wall Street had a boner the size of Manhattan at the prospect of diverting that into "private savings accounts" when Bush II was in office?

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3261

That's right, over 99% of the money companies and workers pay INTO SS COMES BACK OUT IN CHECKS to participants.

From Librul Rachel Maddow's website ( all lefties are wrong.)
"Meanwhile, the Census Bureau stated in its recent report that Social Security was keeping millions of people out of poverty: "In 2010, the number of people aged 65 and older in poverty would be higher by almost 14 million if Social Security payments were excluded from money income, quintupling the number of elderly people in poverty."

Wait, I thought gubmint is bad an inefficient? Well, then you were wrong. You've got to come up with a more convoluted argument why SS is bad. We await with bated breath how you would "fix" this.

Those against the horror of SS might want to explain what they would do to euthanize the elderly population that would suddenly slip into poverty if SS was discontinued.

I'm sure Wall Street would take care of them.

There's something both humorous and tragic about a slave who sings his owner's praises as the owner beats the life out of him. Who doesn't even know who his owner is.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3261

Quote: (10-21-2014 05:21 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  

As others already mentioned, it would be worth trying if and only if it was accompanied by immediate elimination of all other welfare state programs and agencies.

An interesting and creative idea-- there is the minor problem that it would quintuple the poverty rate among the elderly if you count social security.

Quote: (10-21-2014 05:32 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

The easiest way to do this would be to piggyback onto the highly efficient ( FAR more so the Private Enterprise Health Insurance Company I worked for that skimmed 30% for stockholders)
Social Security system.

A GBI would eliminate poverty, for the simple reason that it's a universal unconditional dividend given to every citizen to pay for very basic costs (housing, food, heat).

The welfare state creates poverty because its disincentives keep people from taking a job, they get cut back as soon as they do. Sadly, that's just one of the disadvantages of the welfare state. The real bad thing about the welfare state is the industry surrounding it, which employs millions of people who are dependent for their income in people being dependent on the(ir) system.

A GBI would completely abolish this. Nobody would feel bad, because these people would A) get a GBI also and B) get a job/work in a more productive sector.

Quote: (10-21-2014 05:10 AM)Maciano Wrote:  

Quote: (10-20-2014 10:51 PM)DarkTriad Wrote:  

Quote: (10-20-2014 10:33 PM)jake1720 Wrote:  

I was in favor of this until I lived in the south.

People stay on welfare for their entire lives. I never understood it until now. It would have to have some stipulations.

That problem is one of the premises of BI. Those welfare people can't start working because they'll lose their benefits, and entry level work pays less than what they leach.

With BI, even getting a low paying part time job is a big leg up.

In the current system, they're incentivized to stay on welfare/disability.

Exactly. That's the best part of GBI. People are deservedly skeptical because the welfare state leaves such a bad taste in the mouth (muffdiving-a-corpse bad taste).

I don't think most people will end up quitting their jobs. To live like a surfer slacker gets old really fast. Most guys just want to achieve something in their life: a GBI won't prevent that, it will enable them. I know dozens of guys who stay in their shit job, because it's too risky to go back after you failed as an entrepreneur. Labour markets are very unflexible -- I'll admit this is more a Euro thing, but for us across the pond, it's a big thing we have to deal with.

A GBI would promote entrepreneurs, inventors, artists/creative professionals to experiment with their talents & passions. I'm also low on tears re lowly motivated people dropping out of work. For all the things I dislike about office life, it's unmotivated, lazy, silly colleagues who pretend work is like a gulag they're judged to until retirement who bug me the most. Their negativity is a drag on anything. I'd be glad to see them gone.

This is what I seriously consider. The removal of basic stress to go after what you want. I wonder how many great people that would otherwise change the world are saddled by student loans at this moment working for 40k/yr.

Single room and food is all the basics I really need. That's all humans really need to be happy.

Quote: (10-21-2014 05:45 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

Quote: (10-21-2014 05:21 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  

As others already mentioned, it would be worth trying if and only if it was accompanied by immediate elimination of all other welfare state programs and agencies.

An interesting and creative idea-- there is the minor problem that it would quintuple the poverty rate among the elderly if you count social security.

And that's exactly the type of argument leftists would make in order to try to keep their current welfare state programs while creating this new program. Of course, they would have to create a new massive and inefficient government bureaucracy in order to administer the program.

If there's any generation that deserves to have their welfare benefits cut immediately, it's the AARP demographic. They are the reason social security and state pension plans around the country are severely overextended. They are the reason those of us who are still of working age are implicitly in trillions of dollars of debt. Fuck em.

Don't come here spreading government propaganda about social security. It's a shit program that should be eliminated. If you're a young worker with a decent income, you'd get a better rate of return if you took all your social security "contributions" each month, went to the casino, and bet it all on black.

Want to learn more about why social security sucks balls and should be eliminated? Go here:

http://www.cato.org/research/social-security

Quote: (10-19-2014 01:23 PM)Maciano Wrote:  

job-destruction as a consequence of automation & robotics is going so fast, it's hard to stop.

The Luddite argument seems to be one of those that simply will not die, not matter how easy refuted it is. In fact everyone I've talked to just takes it for granted that 'robots destroy jobs'. 99% of people believe 100% of the wrong thing.

If mechanization, which has been ongoing for more than 200 years, caused unemployment, none of us would have jobs.

Quote: (10-21-2014 05:32 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

Jejeune "free marketers" too young to be even two steps away from stories of the great depression might be surprised that SS is over 99% efficient

...

You've got to come up with a more convoluted argument why SS is bad. We await with bated breath how you would "fix" this.

Those against the horror of SS might want to explain what they would do to euthanize the elderly population that would suddenly slip into poverty if SS was discontinued.

Another invincible myth: the Great Depression was caused by the free market, not by the actions of the Federal reserve, and was 'gotten out of' by FDR, rather than dragging on as a result of insane government interventions.
Burn farm produce to fight deflation is insane? Hell no! I'm FDR, the 'best president we ever had'!

SS, the Ponzi scheme, is all very good so long as there are suckers at the bottom of the deck paying those who got in early. Japan will testify, this is all very doable so long as there are more young people than old people - when in fact the trend is the opposite.

Much easier to starve people to death if they are made certain that they will be provided for, then find those provisions evaporate suddenly, than if they were uncertain and took their own precautions.

Quote: (10-24-2014 04:10 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  

Quote: (10-19-2014 01:23 PM)Maciano Wrote:  

job-destruction as a consequence of automation & robotics is going so fast, it's hard to stop.

The Luddite argument seems to be one of those that simply will not die, not matter how easy refuted it is. In fact everyone I've talked to just takes it for granted that 'robots destroy jobs'. 99% of people believe 100% of the wrong thing.

A luddite argument would be to want to prevent the rise of robots because people want to stay employed in their old jobs. I'm making the reverse argument. I embrace robotics/automation, want to accelerate this process. However, I'm persuaded by Tyler Cowen & Erik Brynjolfsson there's a time-lag before job creation will surpass job destruction. It's reasonable to imagine people to start doing other things to make money/create value to society, but there might also be a significant amount of people who will find it hard to cope.

Tyler Cowen mentions the horse as a good example. After cars became mainstream, the demand for horses plummeted to never recover. Even getting a horse for free will not convince someone to take a horse, because horses don't offer anything of value (besides teen girls riding them for leisure) to our nowadays economy. Cowen argues there are plenty of people in our economy for whom this also holds true: you wouldn't hire them, even if their labor was for free (zero marginal product workers); they simply don't add anything of value, they're a cost.

Quote: (10-24-2014 07:10 AM)Maciano Wrote:  

Cowen argues there are plenty of people in our economy for whom this also holds true: you wouldn't hire them, even if their labor was for free (zero marginal product workers); they simply don't add anything of value, they're a cost.

Ok, so they are essentially useless.

Am I supposed to find great sympathy for adult people who are useless?

They can always do service work like billions of people around the world. That is what poor people with no skills and little intelligence do, but they feel too good for that?

The days off middle class union jobs for half hour workdays are gone and good riddance. Perhaps the middle class really is an aberration in the grand scheme of things, based mostly on shortage of able bodies after WW2.

Not as a fixed standard of living, the poor in the west still have a very high standard of living, but as a working class, perhaps the plebs will go back to being plebs and the 1-10-89% society will continue as it always has.

Or the plebs could get off their lazy asses and use their - in Europe - very generous benefits to learn marketable skills instead of bitching.

Quote: (10-21-2014 05:32 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

The easiest way to do this would be to piggyback onto the highly efficient ( FAR more so the Private Enterprise Health Insurance Company I worked for that skimmed 30% for stockholders)
Social Security system.

Jejeune "free marketers" too young to be even two steps away from stories of the great depression might be surprised that SS is over 99% efficient, and has been increasing in efficiency over the last 20 years as they have the computer systems in place and adding participants is pretty easy at this point. And there are no stockholders screaming at management to skim skim skim and divert proceeds to them. Why do you think Wall Street had a boner the size of Manhattan at the prospect of diverting that into "private savings accounts" when Bush II was in office?

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3261

That's right, over 99% of the money companies and workers pay INTO SS COMES BACK OUT IN CHECKS to participants.

From Librul Rachel Maddow's website ( all lefties are wrong.)
"Meanwhile, the Census Bureau stated in its recent report that Social Security was keeping millions of people out of poverty: "In 2010, the number of people aged 65 and older in poverty would be higher by almost 14 million if Social Security payments were excluded from money income, quintupling the number of elderly people in poverty."

Wait, I thought gubmint is bad an inefficient? Well, then you were wrong. You've got to come up with a more convoluted argument why SS is bad. We await with bated breath how you would "fix" this.

Those against the horror of SS might want to explain what they would do to euthanize the elderly population that would suddenly slip into poverty if SS was discontinued.

I'm sure Wall Street would take care of them.

There's something both humorous and tragic about a slave who sings his owner's praises as the owner beats the life out of him. Who doesn't even know who his owner is.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3261

Exactly....SS is a successful program. The biggest problem(same as pension funds) is that the gov't doesn't actually use it as a trust fund like it was suppose to be. They spend the money just like regular taxes so then it isn't there.

The program isn't the problem, it is gov't spending that is the issue.

Medicare is a different situation but the whole countries medical/health costs are overpriced and Obama made it worst buy giving insurance companies more income/members.

About the topic..I don't care what they do in Switzerland because I am AMERICAN BABY!

But a basic guaranteed income for everyone is BS. That means basically a large % of the population can sponge off the rest. Heck every lazy forum member who wants to live in Thailand can get paid to do so lol.

IMHO Min wage is basically the same thing but at least you have to work for it.

Also consider that even increases in min wage often are BS because prices increase as well and employment decreases.

Quote:Quote:

If there's any generation that deserves to have their welfare benefits cut immediately, it's the AARP demographic. They are the reason social security and state pension plans around the country are severely overextended. They are the reason those of us who are still of working age are implicitly in trillions of dollars of debt. Fuck em.

Don't come here spreading government propaganda about social security. It's a shit program that should be eliminated. If you're a young worker with a decent income, you'd get a better rate of return if you took all your social security "contributions" each month, went to the casino, and bet it all on black.

Wrong..NO ONE DESERVES anything cut that they been promised and paid into for. Plenty of other places to cut. Military cuts or welfare(those who don't earn it) come to mind.

As for you article..true, But unrealistic. It is propaganda lol(investment firms would love that) All one has to see is how people blew there money in the crash. Not everyone is meant to be an investor.

Sure I am coming on my second million due to my skills but most don't have it.

Social security or annuities are still best for those who can't invest or who can't afford to suffer market setbacks( those close to retirement).

The trillions in debt isn't due to SS lol. Go do some more research. Actually young people voted for Obama and his democrats..that is where the debt came from.

The few trillion Bush made with his wars would have been paid off by now if the crash never came. THE CRASH came about mostly because of policies made by democrats(ex. Clinton).

Seriously..there are much more places your tax dollars go that don't help Americans nor is an entitlement Americans pay into that you can/should be whining about(Ukraine, NATO, FDA payoffs, etc).

Heck I don't like welfare but I don't complain about it so much after seeing how low a % of GNP it actually is. Plus food stamps at least get spent in the country so there is an economic stimulus involved.

How much of the 8k dollar toilet seats that the military spent on during Reagan era goes back to the people? lol

PS--I know the millennial'S are the most likely to bitch about SS, etc. But I just read an article that shows them to be the most frivolous spenders in creation. They all need Iphones, dAta plans and flats creen tvs when they 1st came out(and nothing to even watch on it).

Sure baby boomers did the same thing but in their defense there was less to buy back then and they more likely spent on items(homes) that have actual future value.

Point is they are NOT savers..and are kidding themselves if they think they are going to fund their own retirement based on their own skills. Facts on the ground show otherwise.

Funny thing is that this topic is spoken by EVERY generation. At a certain age ones attitude changes.

Quote: (10-24-2014 10:52 AM)jimukr104 Wrote:  

Wrong..NO ONE DESERVES anything cut that they been promised and paid into for. Plenty of other places to cut. Military cuts or welfare(those who don't earn it) come to mind.

Fuck that noise. No one deserves to steal my money. You want to pay for the generation that squandered its SS, go ahead. You have no right to promise them my money.

Quote: (10-24-2014 10:21 AM)berserk Wrote:  

Quote: (10-24-2014 07:10 AM)Maciano Wrote:  

Cowen argues there are plenty of people in our economy for whom this also holds true: you wouldn't hire them, even if their labor was for free (zero marginal product workers); they simply don't add anything of value, they're a cost.

Ok, so they are essentially useless.

Am I supposed to find great sympathy for adult people who are useless?

They can always do service work like billions of people around the world. That is what poor people with no skills and little intelligence do, but they feel too good for that?

The days off middle class union jobs for half hour workdays are gone and good riddance. Perhaps the middle class really is an aberration in the grand scheme of things, based mostly on shortage of able bodies after WW2.

Not as a fixed standard of living, the poor in the west still have a very high standard of living, but as a working class, perhaps the plebs will go back to being plebs and the 1-10-89% society will continue as it always has.

Or the plebs could get off their lazy asses and use their - in Europe - very generous benefits to learn marketable skills instead of bitching.

I'm far from a socialist, but emotional rants like this rub me the wrong way. There are plenty of scenarios where you & I would become useless to hire overnight; what if you'd get MS or some innovation makes your skills redundant? You must not ever have entertained the idea.

Another main idea behind GBI is exactly that the link work-income would become less direct. "Get of your lazy asses!" is a response which stems from the welfare state, where a minority of productive people pay for everyone else -- including the freeriders. A GBI would help the plebs a lot more to learn new marketable skills than the welfare state, because they'd have plenty of time to do it, no poverty trap & it would be an universal system where everyone profits/pays equally. There wouldn't be a need to get annoyed by (real) losers/freeriders anymore.

Also, long term, as society gets richer & more advanced the costs of a GBI would be LESS than the welfare state, precisely because it's so much less complicated -- no externality costs which drive up costs & irritance. Charles Murray's book "In Our Hands" argues this quite well.

The proper implementation of a GBI would not be as a wealth redistribution program in the vein of Social Security (meaning existing money is taken out of a tax pool and distributed), but rather as monetary creation program that distributes new money (purchasing power) to citizens. This is an important distinction and one that is lost on most people. Zelcorpion's post on the first page talks about this and I advise people go back and read it carefully. Basically, a proper GBI would require a total overhaul of our banking and debt-based monetary system. Instead of being borrowed into existence, new money would simply be issued by the government directly into the hands of citizens where it could be spent as purchasing power to consume the goods produced by the economy. The system could be designed so that the amount of purchasing power created matches the amount of goods and services being produced, hence no inflation. This is fairly arcane financial and monetary territory, but that's the basic idea. The point I'm making is that it's more complicated than simply taxing a working man's earnings to give to some layabout. An ideal GBI doesn't take money from anyone's pocket. It is not a redistribution scheme. It is an entirely different means of injecting purchasing power into the economy.

Quote: (10-25-2014 08:34 AM)scorpion Wrote:  

The proper implementation of a GBI would not be as a wealth redistribution program in the vein of Social Security (meaning existing money is taken out of a tax pool and distributed), but rather as monetary creation program that distributes new money (purchasing power) to citizens. This is an important distinction and one that is lost on most people. Zelcorpion's post on the first page talks about this and I advise people go back and read it carefully. Basically, a proper GBI would require a total overhaul of our banking and debt-based monetary system. Instead of being borrowed into existence, new money would simply be issued by the government directly into the hands of citizens where it could be spent as purchasing power to consume the goods produced by the economy. The system could be designed so that the amount of purchasing power created matches the amount of goods and services being produced, hence no inflation. This is fairly arcane financial and monetary territory, but that's the basic idea. The point I'm making is that it's more complicated than simply taxing a working man's earnings to give to some layabout. An ideal GBI doesn't take money from anyone's pocket. It is not a redistribution scheme. It is an entirely different means of injecting purchasing power into the economy.

If the Government prints money and gives it to the poor, how is it not redistribution?

Let's say you work hard every day and I don't work at all, just smoke weed and sleep with chicks all day. The the Government prints a bunch of money and gives it to me so that I can make ends meet. Even if you make more money being employed, I can now compete against you to acquire goods and services using the money I didn't earn. Your rent will be higher because I will want to live in the same neighborhood (even if my apartment is smaller). Your prices for other services and goods will be higher because I will be spending my money on them too and drive the prices up.

Even if the government prints money to give it to me, it still taxes you. Money is fungible which means the budget is just like a bucket with water coming and out. You can't say that your taxes will not be used to pay me, just the printed money that appears out of nowhere.

Demurrage would lead to assets skyrocketing in value in relation to money. People who want to "hoard" cash (i.e. smart, future-oriented people) will always find a way to do it. Ants will always find a way to profit from their foresight and delayed gratification at the grasshopper's expense.

I might point out why GBI is never going to happen.

Welfare does not exist through sympathy. Welfare exists as a constitutional result. It is part of the democratic political system.

GBI will never happen precisely because it cannot be used to gain votes. Politicians would have removed their ability to play their political games with the votes of various groups. The welfare structure follows demographic voting power, not differences in sympathy.

Quote: (10-25-2014 09:35 AM)Brodiaga Wrote:  

If the Government prints money and gives it to the poor, how is it not redistribution?

Basically, because the money did not previously exist. Rather than being loaned into existence at interest (the current system), the money would be created simply by its appearance in the person's bank account.

Also, the money would not be given to the poor. It would be given to everyone. Another term for a GBI is a national dividend. Just like owning shares of a private company that pays dividends, a national dividend would be each citizen's individual share of the productive capacity of the national economy.

Does this sound socialistic? Yes. Am I endorsing it? Not really. But a GBI/national dividend is simply an economic necessity once the economy becomes advanced/automated past a certain point. There are definitely concerns about such a system, but when human labor becomes obsolete we find ourselves in totally uncharted economic territory. Human labor is literally the foundation of our understanding of economic activity, so if we reach the point where human labor is made largely unnecessary by technological advancement we shouldn't be surprised that the rules of economics change drastically, nor should we be surprised if the new rules seem counter intuitive given our previous understanding and assumptions (i.e. that human labor is the most important economic input and thus should be tied to purchasing power).

Quote: (10-25-2014 09:57 AM)Peregrine Wrote:  

Demurrage would lead to assets skyrocketing in value in relation to money. People who want to "hoard" cash (i.e. smart, future-oriented people) will always find a way to do it. Ants will always find a way to profit from their foresight and delayed gratification at the grasshopper's expense.

Jeez - this has been done before and not ALL MONEY would be subject to demurrage - just the one given for free by the State.

And no - it is INFINITELY better to issue money debt free and hand it out (and then tax some back in addition to tariffs), than to borrow it at compound interest. This makes no sense at all for countries. Most countries could live just via that and some tariffs - probably sales tax could be scrapped as well as all income taxes of course.

As far as competition to minimum wage is concerned - yes that would be a point, but it is already now. Increased automation and increase of minimum wage would take care of it. Let the dishwasher be paid 3x as much - who cares?

And if you think that small and medium business would not be able to compete - wrong - the increased disposable income would balloon spending. The very same restaurant having to pay the dishwasher triple, would be making way more money too.

Yes - real estate would have to be tackled, but that is best done via JAK-bank style (Sweden since the fucking 1970s) or WIR (Swiss) banking, where anyone - even the basic income recipient can get real estate credit interest free. Since there is no interest on it, you don't have to worry about paying back 500.000$ for a 200.000$ home (300.000$ being compound interest). You can pay it back in 50 years if you are young enough. If you have basic income, you will be living in your tiny box (because you can't pay back more under sound financial rules), but it will be your tiny box and practically free.

The economy would be booming just as it did in Woergl 1932 - there were a few other examples. Part of the success of Switzerland and Bavaria is based on added injection of local interest-free currencies which provided billions of $ in liquidity for the local economies. Some people built their whole houses and business via interest-free credit. And you cannot really call the Swiss and the founding places of BMW socialist. It just gave more - way more - people and small businesses access to cheap (or free) capital. There would be way more millionaires and a greater middle class - the billionaires would be poorer though (and in the end less powerful - which is a reason, why such a system will not come about).

But frankly - all of these are fantasy musings. I can also bet that almost all of you who are for a different system, would allow local zones and US counties or States to experiment with interest free demurrage-money. If it works, then it could be copied. Of course top economists know that it is superior, which is why the real applications - WHICH HAVE BEEN DONE IN REAL LIFE (THESE ARE NOT JUST SOME CRAZY THEORIES) - ARE NOT TAUGHT AT UNIVERSITIES. They are not even taught in countries where they happened.

And yes - full brunt libertarian systems have been tested too - the Weimar Republic before Hitler was such a system. Gold standards have been in place during the Great Depression. It is just so easy to control the narrative. Free markets are a myth - they are controlled by capital and by natural restraints of knowledge etc.. Capitalism is not the system of free & liberal markets - it is the system of the rule of capital over all! If you control the money flow and can lend at interest, over generations you will own or control pretty much everything. This is just Monopoly Game 101. And we are at the end stages as of now.

What is so deplorable sometimes is that despite available information, so many people persist in their viewpoints. Myself - I have studied economics in a country which decades before had experimented with interest free money. There was not a peep of info on that subject - not a fucking word as if they would want to stamp out even the notion of it! I was later on a neoliberal and then even a libertarian in my economic viewpoints. BUT as soon as I accessed the credible information regarding interest free money, demurrage, interest free basic real estate credit - then it became quickly clear to me, that neoliberal, libertarian & socialist systems are just like the Republicans or Democrats - fake options for the population, so that they feel "involved" and believe that they matter. Politburo candidate Obama or politburo candidate Romney - which will it be? What economic system do you want today - current one, Libertarianism, Socialism?

But what we won't get is one which would truly liberate the majority of the population and usher in a new age of prosperity.

delete

TEDx talk by Rutger Bregman on GBI: http://youtu.be/aIL_Y9g7Tg0

Charles Murray at CATO on GBI/neg income tax: http://youtu.be/skDgS5nEY6c

Philippe van Parijs on GBI: http://youtu.be/pPTGBJSNdFA

Humans need not Apply (automation): http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU

Erik Brynjolfsson vs Robert gordon on innovation: http://youtu.be/ofWK5WglgiI

Tyler Cowen on the Great Stagnation:http://youtu.be/_93CXTt2K7c

Tyler Cowen on 'average is over': https://itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/econ...=168717984

Good background on GBI & growing interest in it.