Hacker News Reader

The whole point of these unintended consequences are easily corrected by allowing penalty free (for the basic income at least) defaults. Just like the student loan issue would be solved overnight by allowing defaults, basic incomes would never have a problem in the first place with them.

View on HN

So in addition to $12,000 a year from the government, someone could borrow from lenders and never pay it back?

If they could find a lender stupid enough to lend to them on those terms, then sure why not?

No, because almost nobody would be lending money to people who have nothing to secure the loan beside their basic income.

Which would be a good thing because those people can not afford the credit anyway

Really not following this line of reasoning.

Essentially the base line for credit would be raised to the level of basic income. Right now, if you have zero assets and no income, you can file for bankruptcy and discharge your obligations. Hence, nobody in their right mind lends money to such people. In this new situation, the basic income would be the "new zero" - you could file for bankruptcy if all you had was a basic income, and hence few people would loan you money if you were in that situation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com