<story><title>One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American</title><url>https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-recession-direct-payments-americans-ubi-c3393d14-33ad-47c2-a739-f2fec150b212.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xyzzyz</author><text>&amp;gt; Direct, debt free issuance of a citizens dividend to every US citizen. Coupled with a wind-down of the debt bubble.&lt;p&gt;There are three ways to make it possible: 1) issue government debt to pay for it 2) increase taxes to cover it 3) print money to cover it.&lt;p&gt;Number 3) will cause significant inflation, so it will effectively be paid for by tax on cash savings. High inflation is really bad, it’s a terrible idea.&lt;p&gt;1) has the problem of only working temporarily: you cannot indebt yourself indefinitely, at some point the service payments will become simply untenable.&lt;p&gt;2) is the only one practical, but the only way to make it work in practice is to increase taxes all across the population. In result, this will be $1000 monthly only for the very poor. For people around the median, this will balance out to zero or negative.&lt;p&gt;So, the only way this destroys debt bubble is by 1), inflation destroying cash debt. This is &lt;i&gt;terrible&lt;/i&gt;: businesses will not have access to debt to finance operations, mortgages will not be accessible for people without significant savings to buy houses, etc. All around, a terrible idea.</text></item><item><author>vearwhershuh</author><text>This is how we should manage the money supply, and it should be monthly.  Direct, debt free issuance of a citizens dividend to every US citizen.  Coupled with a wind-down of the debt bubble.  Maybe take Steve Keen&amp;#x27;s idea and require that a certain portion of the payment be used to extinguish any debts.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately whenever a president starts talking about this, he has a tendency to be shot.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BoiledCabbage</author><text>You act like these are wild approaches. But during this this current term we&amp;#x27;ve already done #1 via the 1Trillion tax cuts to mostly the wealthy. Those (many of us on here) who won&amp;#x27;t use it for goods and services, but instead to further prop up your asset bubble of choice. Ie not improve the economy much, but make the appearance of improvement via higher asset pricess.&lt;p&gt;Then we&amp;#x27;ve done #3 via re-introducing QE via the fed. Both back in September, and again last week, and why yet again just 30 mins ago. While we call them short term loans, they still haven&amp;#x27;t been paid back since the start of the GFC. And not only have we continued printing more via the Fed, when the fed finally tried to get some companies to pay them back a year ago the repo market siezed up last fall. The fact that there was a flood of Treasury Securities on the market to pay for item #1 (it increased supply by 50%) likely had a lot to do with it.&lt;p&gt;If you want the economy to function, then get money in the people who will spend it. What&amp;#x27;s the factor? For lower incomes every extra dollar they have, introduces 1.5x or 2x or something into the economy. And for every dollar given to middle-high and high incomes only 0.4x or less actually goes into the economy.&lt;p&gt;Propping up assets isn&amp;#x27;t a functioning economy.</text></comment>
<story><title>One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American</title><url>https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-recession-direct-payments-americans-ubi-c3393d14-33ad-47c2-a739-f2fec150b212.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xyzzyz</author><text>&amp;gt; Direct, debt free issuance of a citizens dividend to every US citizen. Coupled with a wind-down of the debt bubble.&lt;p&gt;There are three ways to make it possible: 1) issue government debt to pay for it 2) increase taxes to cover it 3) print money to cover it.&lt;p&gt;Number 3) will cause significant inflation, so it will effectively be paid for by tax on cash savings. High inflation is really bad, it’s a terrible idea.&lt;p&gt;1) has the problem of only working temporarily: you cannot indebt yourself indefinitely, at some point the service payments will become simply untenable.&lt;p&gt;2) is the only one practical, but the only way to make it work in practice is to increase taxes all across the population. In result, this will be $1000 monthly only for the very poor. For people around the median, this will balance out to zero or negative.&lt;p&gt;So, the only way this destroys debt bubble is by 1), inflation destroying cash debt. This is &lt;i&gt;terrible&lt;/i&gt;: businesses will not have access to debt to finance operations, mortgages will not be accessible for people without significant savings to buy houses, etc. All around, a terrible idea.</text></item><item><author>vearwhershuh</author><text>This is how we should manage the money supply, and it should be monthly.  Direct, debt free issuance of a citizens dividend to every US citizen.  Coupled with a wind-down of the debt bubble.  Maybe take Steve Keen&amp;#x27;s idea and require that a certain portion of the payment be used to extinguish any debts.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately whenever a president starts talking about this, he has a tendency to be shot.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>toomuchtodo</author><text>&amp;gt; There are three ways to make it possible: 1) issue government debt to pay for it 2) increase taxes to cover it 3) print money to cover it.&lt;p&gt;There is another way to do it without issuing debt, but while still controlling monetary policy.&lt;p&gt;1. Provision &amp;quot;dividend.federalreserve.gov&amp;quot; CRUD app (or just dividend.gov for convenience). Create &amp;quot;Fed&amp;quot; accounts, very similar to what you get with a Social Security Administration account at &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ssa.gov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ssa.gov&lt;/a&gt;. Accept routing and account numbers from citizens. Issue debit cards with no fees to the unbanked. Provide local service at Social Security offices.&lt;p&gt;2. The Fed slowly buys up income producing assets (equities, fixed income, etc), and distributes the gains monthly to everyone. Many central banks go on buying binges to support asset prices already (the Bank of Japan already owns a significant amount of the Nikkei [1]).&lt;p&gt;You will eventually arrive at a UBI supported by the economic productivity of your country. Alaska does something smaller with oil revenue already [2]. This also keeps with Fed mandates to maximize employment and keep inflation around their 2% target (inflation will never increase because of structural demographics, the shift to a service economy, the transition to EVs and renewables, etc).&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;asia.nikkei.com&amp;#x2F;Business&amp;#x2F;Markets&amp;#x2F;Bank-of-Japan-to-be-top-shareholder-of-Japan-stocks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;asia.nikkei.com&amp;#x2F;Business&amp;#x2F;Markets&amp;#x2F;Bank-of-Japan-to-be...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Alaska_Permanent_Fund&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Alaska_Permanent_Fund&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>