Your disaster response BI example is basically what the Reserves and National Guard did until about a decade or so ago. This was my experience in the USAR in the 90s. There have been a variety of (internal) doctrinal changes over the years which outsiders probably wouldn't understand, such that it certainly could not apply now. But, doctrine can change quickly.
One interesting issue is being in the Reserves meant a "basic income" which was wealthy for a kid, "about average" for a college student, and a rounding error once you get a real job. You probably need some kind of pay scale modifications, which inevitably results in considerable gaming of the system. "Well, as long as I don't graduate, I'll get an extra $500/month and I'm spending that on nicer rent so I'll take one class per semester for the remainder of my life" (I suppose there are worse unintended consequences)
Another problem is supply and demand. So you give young people $10K/yr. And everyone knows it. So colleges raise tuition $10K/yr because they have an obligation not to leave money on the table. And rents go up $10K/yr ditto reasoning. And sin taxes go up $10K/yr. And price of cars goes up $10K/yr. By the time you're done, the poor are more miserable than ever because they've only gained $10K but inflation has demanded an extra $50K/yr just to keep up with where they're at. I've seen this play out in govt sponsored day care cost sharing, govt sponsored housing (both welfare and nearby .mil bases), govt sponsored everything...
More money in the system will cause inflation, but given the free market it will be equally distributed around all income brackets so their will be net gains at the low end and net losses at the high end. Sure, your car manufacturer can raise their car prices, but their competitors won't. People might also upgrade a bit in their lifestyle because they can afford to...we don't drive around in one lakh cars for a reason! Universities might increase services to get more of the paid pie, but it's not lie they exist without competition either (moocs....).
Tangentially, but I'm always thrown by the Indian counting system for large numbers (lakh, crore, etc). Does anyone else use separators at other than the 10^3 used in the Arabic system? I know in Japanese/Chinese it is 10^4 in native language, but when they write numbers in Arabic form it tends to be in the 10^3 format.
"Sure, your car manufacturer can raise their car prices, but their competitors won't."
LOL see housing prices 2000-2007-ish
Or education price and medical prices in the USA for a couple generations. "Oh, you say your health/kids education is priceless, well guess what we're about to charge"
Free market. Housing prices didn't go up universally. Most people were insulated from health care costs by insurance. Education was still affordable, even if we couldn't put ourselves throu school like we did in the 90s.
> Education was still affordable, even if we couldn't put ourselves throu school like we did in the 90s.
Um. Education debt is now the single largest source of debt in the country, and it's rapidly expanding. A sector in which cumulative debt is consistently expanding is by definition "not affordable". In the last decade, prices at schools in my area have quintupled. I dare anyone to say that the value of the degree purchased has kept equivalent pace.
Who sets the interest rates, which set the house prices?
"Housing prices didn't go up universally."
Where?
The .gov sets the interest rate. The median joe6pack WILL live in the median joe6pack house. Therefore joe6pack's fixed (declining) income expendable on the mortgage, sets both joe6pack's payment and his standard of living.
Yeah, I was thinking of RC/NG, although I'd never force people do only have a choice of an armed force.
The market-distorting effects only happen if it's a high percentage of population (either overall, or in a specific area). Even things like the FB "$500/mo extra for rent if you live within a mile of the office in downtown PA" turned into "all rents go up $500/mo" once the density of FB employees in that area was high enough. (and it only has to be people renting at the margin; established residents were already in place filling most of the apartments.)
100 BI recipients per state wouldn't distort things much.
Once BI was universal, as long as some people made substantially more money than BI (and that making money in supplement to BI was considered good, in general), there would probably be enough market incentive to provide goods in the BI price range, or slightly augmented BI price range, to keep cheap food/housing/etc. cheap. After all, slumlords usually live in nice places themselves.
If it were universal, it would also replace the "game student loan recipients" (U of Phoenix...) with "game BI", but since BI is much more flexible, it's harder to game. It's just "there's a much greater demand for products in the $10-30k/yr income bracket", which should reduce prices (through competition, economy of scale, etc.) for goods with declining marginal cost to produce, like say cheap phones. Real estate would be interesting, but if you didn't need to work a $20k/yr job, you might live in an entirely different place on $20k/yr BI. The US is huge; it's only real estate within proximity to certain things which is inherently expensive.
"although I'd never force people do only have a choice of an armed force."
One of my cousins took a different path than myself and signed up for the Peace Corps in a township in South Africa in about late 80s/early 90s.
Going back a couple generations there was the CCC in the 1930s. Seeing as the 00s and 10s are turning into an echo of the 30s, a new CCC might be a good idea.
There is a pretty substantial difference between one weekend a month/two weeks per summer in the reserves and basically a full time jobs program, but with a couple regulation changes that could be fixed rather quickly. So rather than one year deployments in the PC and CCC we'd do weekend or half month deployments. I suppose the transportation industries would enjoy being selected as the winner in that situation.
This is a classic macro / micro problem from economics where some people just won't look macro. WRT "game student loan recipients" or rent/land anywhere in the nation, all it would do is drip an extra $10K/yr $20K/yr whatever worth of blood in the water for the piranhas to attack. If you think they wouldn't raise prices out of the goodness of their heart, well... And every industry is run by sociopaths because if they were not, they'd out compete and destroy the non-sociopaths.
If you want to change the existing power structures or change demographic trends, merely making rich wolves richer by giving them fatter sheep to shear isn't going to help.
One interesting issue is being in the Reserves meant a "basic income" which was wealthy for a kid, "about average" for a college student, and a rounding error once you get a real job. You probably need some kind of pay scale modifications, which inevitably results in considerable gaming of the system. "Well, as long as I don't graduate, I'll get an extra $500/month and I'm spending that on nicer rent so I'll take one class per semester for the remainder of my life" (I suppose there are worse unintended consequences)
Another problem is supply and demand. So you give young people $10K/yr. And everyone knows it. So colleges raise tuition $10K/yr because they have an obligation not to leave money on the table. And rents go up $10K/yr ditto reasoning. And sin taxes go up $10K/yr. And price of cars goes up $10K/yr. By the time you're done, the poor are more miserable than ever because they've only gained $10K but inflation has demanded an extra $50K/yr just to keep up with where they're at. I've seen this play out in govt sponsored day care cost sharing, govt sponsored housing (both welfare and nearby .mil bases), govt sponsored everything...