Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathgod
And yet, there is something to be said about restricting how people can spend money that was given to them by the government. In the UBI thread, someone made an apt point about how some people would just spend an extra $1000/month on drugs if you gave them a $1000/month UBI. We can clamour all we want about how that's tone deaf or offensive to say, but it's simply a fact that some people buy drugs on the black market and would buy even more if they were given money to do so.
In this thread, someone made an apt point that a lot of people would use the stimulus money to simply put down a payment against their debts, and then that money would flow to a rich person's bank account, doing nothing for the economy.
And don't even get me started on those pay-to-win apps that get people addicted and end up extracting inordinate amounts of money from people who get hooked on them...
So simply giving people money with no strings attached does not seem like the best approach to dealing with the current situation (albeit it's far better than letting people fend for themselves during these troubled times, but still...)
Here's what I'm thinking could be done instead... how about issuing each adult a prepaid card with $2000 loaded onto it, but the card only works when paying in person at an approved business, and can only be used to pay for rent/mortgage payments or groceries.
|
What percentage of people do you think would use the extra money to buy drugs? 50%? 10%? Is anything above 0% too high and the spending needs to be monitored or controlled?
Sure. Give me $2k on a gift card. I’ll use that for my spending and use the $2k I have in my bank account for the “bad spending” instead of the other way around. Sure limited my spending.
I don’t get why the spending needs to be questioned or controlled at all. We trust these same people with drivers licenses, voting, etc. Should that be taken away too?