half of America supports $2000/month payout for job loss from robots

[rcjordan]

There aren't any economist's opinions I respect more than Tyler Cowen's. Oddly, I've haven't had a whiff about any articles on universal income by him, so I wondered if he'd written on it.  Quick serp:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-27/my-second-thoughts-about-universal-basic-income

>except for the "almost" part.

I was being charitable.

[littleman]

What I mean is that there needs to be money taken out of the system to pay the basic income.  If they just print extra money, yes we're likely to have inflation, but if the basic income is payed by taxation then it is a closed loop and there will be no overall inflationary pressure.  

From the article you linked to:
>The money for a basic income guarantee would be already existing money circulated through the economic system. It would not be new money, just money shifted from one location to another. This means that the value of each dollar has not changed. The dollar itself has only changed hands.

That article actually goes through a lot of pains to say that inflation would not be a major concern.  I don't know if I agree with that, I think inflation needs to be in check, that's why it couldn't be a *universal* basic income, but just a supplement for those at the bottom.  That said, if we really are heading to a point where we have 20%+ unemployment I think a little inflation is much better than the alternative of rioting in the streets.

I still think it is too early for BI, it shouldn't be implemented until mass unemployment is a real issue.

[ergophobe]

Sorry... I missed that link.

In any case, this is basically similar to the extreme argument I was trying to make with respect to Bill Gates and the McDonald's worker

This would mean that if you are currently earning $20,000 per year, you'd not only get an extra $12,000 per year in basic income, but also $10,000 in higher wages. Your new yearly income would be $42,000 and groceries might end up costing you an extra 1.4 percent per month.

Like he says, very few people buy more milk because they have more money. But you are shifting money around a fair bit, so won't items that are discretionary and just beyond the limit of affordability for low-wage workers have to have an upward pressure? You've dramatically increased the number of people who can afford certain things.

[Mackin USA]

"just money shifted from one location to another."

That makes my HEAD HURT   

BUT I would not quite this far in the other direction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest#Social_Darwinists

[littleman]

Yeah, I'm familiar with social Darwinism.  I just do not know if the old paradimes will apply when labor's value approaches zero.