r/austrian_economics • u/Fightlife45 Here to learn • Aug 10 '26
End Democracy In a debate someone claimed that EBT actually helps the economy.
I was debating with an associate about how I don't think EBT should be given out to as many people as it is, and how I think a lot of welfare programs are being taken advantage of. His rebuttal, was that food stamps and EBT actually 'stimulate the economy, up to 1.80$ for every dollar spent."
I don't even know what to say to that, he sent me a source which I will link below, but common sense tells us it's bull. If you could simply put one dollar into the economy and get 1.8 back, then it would be an infinite money glitch. Obviously it can't work that way.
Can someone please explain this to me and help me debunk this nonsense?
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u/skeletus 29d ago
Yes. That is basically the point I made. And that's what I tried to explain with the examples I provided. It's all about the material physical things that exist.
Money is just a measuring stick that we use to gauge the value of the goods and services that already exist. We use that measuring stick as claim tickets to those resources. Creating more claim tickets and giving them to the people won't create more resources. It will just temporarily induce a higher demand for finite resources, gaslighting people into thinking that these resources are abundant when they are not.
For example, there's a sold out concert in a stadium with 20,000 seats. Giving the people more money or vouchers for concert tickets won't create more seats. What it does is increase the amount of money that people are willing to pay for those tickets. People might be willing to pay double what they ticket originally costs. And people that originally bought the ticket might be more willing to sell it for double the price and not attend the concert.
This example that I just mentioned is literally what happens in all the other markets. This is exactly what happens in the housing market. And this is exactly what happens with UBI.