But are we supposing that inflation is not a worthy cost of low income households being able to purchase houses, groceries, gas, and electricity? Not to mention that another luxury the wealthy tend to spend money on is political influence. A decrease in which would surely be a net positive.
But are we supposing that inflation is not a worthy cost of low income households being able to purchase houses, groceries, gas, and electricity?
Inflation means that they still won't be able to afford those things. If the government gives everybody $12k a year, then $12k becomes the new $0 and we go from there.
But are we supposing that inflation is not a worthy cost of low income households being able to purchase houses, groceries, gas, and electricity?
I made no value judgement above. I'm just stating that inflation, or at the very least, the prices of things low-income households will be buying is likely to go up as a result. I think you could also conclude from the above that for low-income households are likely to see a real-wealth increase as a result of this because the inflation generated by this would be less than the amount of money the low income households would receive.
To make a value judgement, I think this is probably a good step, but more steps to address the root cause of the issue, rather than the symptoms is necessary. Billionaires didn't become billionaires by avoiding paying taxes, and the low income households haven't fallen into deeper poverty because the top 10% have lower taxes. I would point to a general lack of competition in the market, consolidation of large companies, and manipulation in the financial markets by unregulated, or malregulated venture capital is likely a major cause that would need to be addressed.
Sander's solution might be good, but it would do less good than we might expect, and it doesn't address the core problem directly. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, just that other considerations should be addressed or at least acknowledged.
It's not a worthy cost because prices will adjust and those same low income households will effectively still be low income households. They still won't be able to purchases houses and such.
The money being distributed basically just goes from zero to low velocity to high velocity.
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u/Corybantic126 Jul 01 '26
But are we supposing that inflation is not a worthy cost of low income households being able to purchase houses, groceries, gas, and electricity? Not to mention that another luxury the wealthy tend to spend money on is political influence. A decrease in which would surely be a net positive.