Pay People for Being Alive
This fall, a truck dumped eight million coins outside
the Parliament building in Bern, one for every Swiss citizen. It was a publicity
stunt for advocates of an audacious social policy that just might become reality
in the tiny, rich country. Along with the coins, activists delivered 125,000
signatures — enough to trigger a Swiss public referendum, this time on providing
a monthly income to every citizen, no strings attached. Every month, every STwiss
person would receive a check from the government, no matter how rich or poor,
how hardworking or lazy, how old or young. Poverty would disappear. Economists,
needless to say, are sharply divided on what would reappear in its place — and
whether such a basic-income scheme might have some appeal for other, less
socialist countries too.
Well the problem of the world is lack of demand is not lack of supply. That means there is overcapacity in almost everything. Deflation is the word. What to do? QE is a very clumsy tool because it helps the rich people (who own shares) to much vs the working class. This proposal would be considered foolish some years ago but today i think it's a possibility (My Colleague Rui Martins Santos has proposed in the past a monthly check to people above 60, no strings attached)
However i don't think we should do it and the reason is the environment. If we give incentive to consume more stuff, people will build even more stuff and we will have to keep doing it. Mother earth can not stand so much resource depletion. I think the way for the world is to live with less, to throw less food away, to forbid private cars in the center of a city, to ride bicycles, etc.....We need to cause less impact on the planet and we can't subsidized even more consumption.
Share story
0 comentários: