Yang 2020. Let's put humanity first. It's time for Universal Basic Income.

[PETRUS]

15. Take your fingers out of your ears.

I've pointed out that the government already makes categorically identical payments. Think of things like TANF or disability. The only meaningful distinction here is scale - a difference in degree, not kind. So yes, one can run this idea through existing models, and people have been doing just that.

There's a broader, more sophisticated point to be made about Federal spending in general (involving what money is, where it comes from, and how it works) that applies, if you have the patience for it. If you're interested, you could start here.

My criticisms of economics come from extensive research (both in school and on my own) and are shared by many highly credentialed people in the field. It's not that I don't think it offers useful tools, but it has faults - the models are not reality, have baked in biases, and don't (can't) take everything into account. The more one studies economics, the more apparent its flaws (as generally practiced). Within the last month, I read a text by an Oxford University-trained economist outlining a number of the discipline's shortcomings. It's not just me.