Give People Money: The book


Posted On: Wednesday - March 29th 2023 5:00PM MST
In Topics: 
  Humor  Economics  Books  Socialism/Communism

While writing the Gnu Gnomes of Zurich post last week, I tried to find that book called "Money" (With some sub-title likely) on-line, just to refer to it. I had no luck.. However, this is a screenshot of a title that was listed on the 3rd or so page of my search for "Money"*:



My first thought was "Oh, man! I didn't know the Babylon Bee published books, too." But no, this is no joke. I found that author Annie Lowrey means it.
Imagine if every month the government deposited $1,000 into your checking account, with nothing expected in return. It sounds crazy, but it has become one of the most influential and hotly debated policy ideas of our time. Futurists, radicals, libertarians, socialists, union representatives, feminists, conservatives, Bernie supporters, development economists, child-care workers, welfare recipients, and politicians from India to Finland to Canada to Mexico--all are talking about UBI.
For those 2 bolded categories, yeah, well they might be TALKING about it, but almost always with the use the word "retarded" somewhere in there. India, Finland, Canada, Munich, everybody's talkin' 'bout pop muzik** UBI.

Hmmmm, UBI? "Give People Money" sounds so stupid, it just might work!

Wait, though. Didn't this country have some pretty recent experience with a Proto-UBI. It went on for most of a year during the Kung Flu PanicFest, with the help of $4,000,000,000,000 or so nicely printed out by the FED. I don't think you'll find very many Americans, even Economists and book authors, who were very impressed by the results of the experiment. (That is, excepting those right in the midst of it, getting that $600 weekly for months at a time in Summer of '20, idling away the hours watching Netlix, reading Peak Stupidity, and occasionally going outside to help out in some peaceful protest or two.)

Yet, still, 3.86 STARS out of 5. And, she's got a sequel! How do you explain the readership?
About the author:

Annie Lowrey
2 books 49 followers

Annie Lowrey is a contributing editor for The Atlantic. A former writer for the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, and Slate, among other publications, she is a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. Lowrey lives in Washington, DC.
Ohhh, that explains it.



* The caption is from a 2nd search later on, for this post.

** Without the internet, I know only one guy who would have had a slight chance of being able to give me the name of the band for this music reference. The band was called M, and (Everybody's talkin' 'bout) Pop Muzik is from 1979.

Comments:
MBlanc46
Friday - March 31st 2023 11:17AM MST
PS Alarmist: There’s something to what you say about old vs contemporary billionaires. I’d say that the contemporary ones wish that the excess billions could become consumers. After all, they’ve invested a lot of their money in making things to sell to folks. They have to have folks to buy those things. But they are becoming aware that the resources of the world (including the capital to exploit other resources) aren’t sufficient to allow eight or ten million people to all have a lot of things. Hence, “you’ll own nothing and be happy”. I do wonder whether they actually believe that.
Moderator
Thursday - March 30th 2023 4:33PM MST
PS: "Give me money, that's what I want ..." Thanks.

Mr. Smith, I appreciate your offer, but I can't remember the author either. I may go through there again, and see if I can find it. It was partly a history of money and party an explanation of the characteristics of money, good and bad (money, that is).
The Alarmist
Thursday - March 30th 2023 2:47PM MST
PS

PPS: I’d say I subscribe to the Dewars Decimal System, but I actually prefer Greign 20-year, neat.
The Alarmist
Thursday - March 30th 2023 2:38PM MST
PS

@Mr Smith, this woman sounds like the clown economist who suggested in all seriousness that the US Treasury could order the minting of Trillion Dollar platinum coins that could be paid to the Fed to retire the national debt.

@Mr Blanc, the older class of Billionaires wanted to make consumers out of everyone; the newer class sees the billions as competitors for the limited resources of Earth, which is why they want to lock us down in Fifteen Minute cities while they then thin the herd with myriad mRNA poisons they mandate for our good.

@Mr Mod, wouldn’t the song “(Give me) Money” be the proper music source? The version by The Flying Lizards sounds like a winner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-P2qL3qkzk

Moderator
Thursday - March 30th 2023 2:08PM MST
PS: I don't know if that should eventually go in the Peak Stupidity library or not, Adam. Does the Dewey Decimal system cover that level of stupid? Seriously, though, thanks for this one too. I am glad got to give it a quick glance.

I agree with both yours and Alarmists' takes here on the problem with the UBI. This post was written under the assumption that you all already understand this and that people may have read my posts here under Liberty/Libertarianism or under the opposite Socialism/Communism. I will add one point which also gets to what Mr. Blanc has to say about the UBI. The incentive to not work and have no work ethic at all is a problem.

Now, that's not saying that I disagree with you, Mr. Blanc, on what looks to be the future for things, with the immigration, dysgenic Welfare State, and automation coming together for that "perfect storm" of unemployment. Is it a big plan? Maybe, maybe not. You are right about the "bad optics" of mass killing of much of the population or letting them starve.
MBlanc46
Thursday - March 30th 2023 10:38AM MST
PS This will happen. Unless the whole rotten edifice collapses before they get to it. There are billions of people in the world who are of no economic value to the people who control the economy. Those who control the economy would like those billions to be consumers, but, in order to be consumers, those billions would have to be of economic value. And them being of economic value would siphon of some of the trillions from those who control the economy. And that would never do. Those who control the economy would like those billions to just go away. But they don’t. One simple solution would be to just kill them. But that would be a bad look. Perhaps they’ll get to it at some point. But they’re not ready for that yet. They can’t just let them starve in the streets, either. Having billions of people starving in the streets would be about as bad a look as just killing them, maybe even worse. So just invent enough money to give them to keep them from starving in the streets until a more permanent solution can be devised. If there is, in fact, a permanent solution.
Adam Smith
Thursday - March 30th 2023 9:43AM MST
PS: Good afternoon, Mr. Moderator, Mr. Alarmist,

So, I tried to find a book titled "Money" the other day, but it's a bit tricky without a little more info. (Do you, by chance, remember the author's name?)

UBI, eh? Good thing there is an infinite amount of cash at the federal reserve...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO51DqYqVLw

More seriously... I suppose UBI could work if the "government" were productive and had a legitimate surplus and if there were fewer useless eaters. A kind of dividend for being a citizen, if you will.

Unfortunately, under current conditions, any sort of UBI would just get borrowed out of the aether creating more runaway inflation and adding to the overall insolvency of the ponzi scheme economy.

I haven't read Ms. Lowrey's book yet, but I did start thumbing through it. She uses $1000 a month as her UBI example payment. I wonder if she realizes that $12,000 a year for 330 million Americans is a little more than $4 Trillion annually. I also wonder where she thinks this "free money" is going to come from.

A quick google search tells me that the feral "government" collected $4.90 trillion in 2022. The primary source of revenue for the U.S. government in 2022 was Individual Income Taxes.

I don't know what kind of jewish money magic Ms. Lowrey would use to conjure up this UBI, but it seems to me that the numbers just don't add up.

I think the obvious solution is to eliminate the income tax and let the tax cattle keep what they earn. This wouldn't work out well for the useless tax eaters and the welfare baby mamas, but fuck 'em. Let them go do something productive for a change. By the sweat of your brow you will eat.

The Alarmist
Thursday - March 30th 2023 8:15AM MST
PS

The problem with simply giving money away is that you are not getting value for the value given. It ultimately becomes clear that we have a large number of useless eaters.

It’s OK for most of us who are doing the paying when the useless eaters are a handful of disabled or unable to care for themselves or need a little temporary help, but when it becomes a hard-core cohort of able-bodied (perhaps work-capable would be a better way to phrase that) who we are carrying, it becomes clear to some that these folks need to be encouraged to unlock some of their human capital to help pull the wagon.

I personally see no problem marching the erstwhile vid gamers who think they should get a UBI free ride out to the fields to feed their useless eater mouths, and those who refuse can have their heads skewered on stakes, à la Cambodia pour le encourager des autres. Same with the Dindus.
Peak Stupidity Book Club
Thursday - March 30th 2023 8:10AM MST
PS: Good Morning, Mr. Moderator,

Give People Money: How A Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, And Remake The World

By Annie Lowrey
Year: 2018

https://tinyurl.com/bddk247k

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