Universal Basic Income, Basic Income, Free Money? All terms we are going to hear a lot more of in the coming decade.
I have been writing for a while about the apparent decoupling of traditional market/social indicators from “ground truth”. In other words, our historical models and understandings/metrics do not seem to have the same correlations with reality as they once did.
The rise of inequality and particularly the phenomenon of “jobless growth” and the variations between corporate growth and wages growth, suggests new public policy responses should, at the very least, be considered.
As none other than Morgan Stanley suggested recently:
Inequality matters for market participants. It affects consumption, investment, and, at some levels, catalyzes growth, by acting as an incentive
The Wall Street Journal [re]considers the brave new world of socio-economic policy development and the rise of the notion of a Universal Basic Income.
This is not new, but the challenges in modern [richer]-economies produce a persistent, if not convincing pre-condition for such a discussion.
Most recently [January 2017] Finland has begun public trials.
