[AndrewUnmuted]

> How about a Guaranteed Minimum Income for every American

> Screw welfare, and its tenuous political existence. Support everyone and the government doesn't need to invent more regulations

A guaranteed minimum income will without question lead to higher prices on consumer goods, putting us in the same position as before.

The regulations will not stop under this model - they will simply change. Where regulation exists now to keep prices artificially high and interest rates artificially low, the regulation policy resulting from a minimum pre-tax income will be that of price controls and the rationing of goods.

[dragonwriter]

> A guaranteed minimum income will without question lead to higher prices on consumer goods

True.

> putting us in the same position as before.

False. It only puts us "in the same position as before" if prices of goods demanded increase by the same proportion as incomes of the persons demanding them for all goods, which isn't plausible in any redistributive scheme (which Basic Income and Guaranteed Minimum Income schemes are), since there is overlap in goods demanded in populations who see different proportional changes in income from the scheme.

In general, the most plausible result for the key target demographic (those at the bottom of the distribution) is that they will see more income as the result of the scheme but that the purchasing power will, while increased, be increased by less than the increase in nominal income would suggest because of price increases.

[bryanlarsen]

"A guaranteed minimum income will without question lead to higher prices on consumer goods"

Why? BI does not increase money supply, it takes from the rich and gives to the poor. An increase in the money supply is the only thing pretty much guaranteed to increase inflation.

BI will definitely have localized effects on prices. It may increase money velocity, which could cause inflation. However, that's not "without question", and almost definitely wouldn't "put us in the same position as before"

[AndrewUnmuted]

> An increase in the money supply is the only thing pretty much guaranteed to increase inflation.

An increase in the money supply _is_ inflation - the very definition of it.

> BI will definitely have localized effects on prices.

Yes, I said this in my OP. It will lead to increases in prices for consumer goods in particular, as opposed to other goods. If every consumer has $X,000 dollars to work with that they didn't have before, then demand for consumer goods is going to rise, leading to lower inventory and therefore, higher prices.

[bryanlarsen]

But without top-level inflation, there is going to be a definite cap on that effect.

And it's not every consumer that has $X,000 more. It's only the poor consumers. The middle class has their BI taxed back. And the poor are a very small portion of the economy.