
Tiny Indian state proposes world’s biggest experiment with guaranteed income - Ankaios
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/01/17/tiny-indian-state-proposes-worlds-biggest-experiment-with-guaranteed-income/
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docker_up
I think it might help some people like artists, writers, etc, but in the long
run, I think it will just create inflation, and in the US it will create
higher home prices.

Any time more money is injected into an area, it creates inflation. For
example, when women started to enter the work force starting in the 70/80s, it
lead to a dramatic rise in prices. Of course, I'm not saying that women
entering the workforce is bad, I'm saying that when households effectively
started doubling their income, it didn't result in more saved money, it
resulted in higher house prices.

The same goes with the income tax deduction for mortgage interest. The idea is
that more money would go back to the mortgage payer, however, all it did is
factor into the calculus of buying homes, so people could funnel that
"savings" into a higher mortgage payment.

If the US decided to give everyone $1000/month for free, I'm pretty sure that
would just make the house prices higher by the equivalent amount.

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lotsofpulp
I would need to see data before I believe that women entering the workforce
resulted in higher home prices in a significant way. I have no proof, but I
guess it allowed women to more accurately value themselves in the market,
therefore helping them pair up with other high income men, and causing home
prices to go up where dual high income households tend to congregate. But on
the other end of the spectrum, women may have displaced men and caused pay for
men to go down, thus total household income would not have risen as much. Even
more, men and women on the lower end of income scale are less likely to marry,
therefore would have even less purchasing power when (or if) buying a home.

[https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/marriage-is-
fo...](https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/marriage-is-for-rich-
people/)

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alexpotato
> have no proof, but I guess it allowed women to more accurately value
> themselves in the market, therefore helping them pair up with other high
> income men, and causing home prices to go up where dual high income
> households tend to congregate.

This makes sense to me. Even more so if we make the assumption that it's
easier to be a married couple making $200K combined (e.g. 125K and 75K) vs one
member of the marriage making $200K.

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tdeck
Nitpicking a minor detail since this is a common misconception:

> Most recently, it became the country’s first organic state, eliminating the
> use of pesticides and fertilizers.

"Organic" does not mean "eliminating the use of pesticides and fertilizers".
You can still use /organic/ pesticides and fertilizers, some of which (e.g.
copper salts) can pose risks to health and/or the environment.

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vorg
When a UBI experiment runs for only a limited-time or can be ended abruptly by
a new government (e.g. Finland's just-finished 2-year trial run, Ontario's
2017 project ending abruptly after a year, or Stockton's proposed 18-month
trial), the data it provides is of no value whatsoever when determining the
viability of a permanent scheme.

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akshayB
One of things I am super interested in is how the outcome of this experiment
is measured. How do people end-up using this money, how local economy is
impacted and does this address any issues like poverty/education.

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zozbot123
As I understand it, some small Indian tribes already have something very much
like guaranteed income for their members, funded from casino profits.
Anecdotally, the outcomes seem to mildly positive - worth noting, but not
_that_ dramatic; the social issues in Indian country are quite simply huge,
and it's not _quite_ clear that even a guaranteed income is enough to make a
dent. I'm not aware of any formal academic paper analyzing these outcomes,
however.

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gamblor956
Different kind of "Indian".

Indian tribes = Native American / First Nations tribe in US/Canada. Derived
from misunderstanding by the stupidest explorer that ever lived, Christopher
Columbus.

Indian = from India, a country in Asia. An Indian state in the country of
India is the topic of this article.

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anm89
Am I just missing it or does it not say how much they are giving per person?

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notahacker
Reading between the lines, it sounds like it's going to be mainly
redistributing income from hydro-power generation sold to the rest of the
country, which makes it sound similar to things like the Alaska Permanent Fund
(i.e. a dividend paid from exceptional resource revenues which is below local
subsistence levels rather than a taxpayer-funded redistribution programme)

Some Indian sources (which also don't seem to have a figure_ suggest they're
also proposing top up the fund by cutting other subsidy programmes, so it'd
also be interesting to see the _net_ impact on different sections of society
if it happens

