French government's dominant role in economic activity has suddenly found new favor at home and grudging respect abroad

TO BE NOTED: From the WaPo:

"France's Oft-Derided Largess Insulates Many From Slump

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 25, 2009

MENTON, France -- In recent years, Jean Beaufranqui and his wife have spent most of their time in Menton, enjoying the sunshine and gentle Mediterranean breezes that have made this little town into a retirement haven, France's version of Miami Beach.

And now, even as the world reels from its most painful economic crisis since the 1930s, Beaufranqui's thoughts have turned not to budget cuts but to buying an apartment here and settling in full time. As a retiree -- he stopped working almost 19 years ago, at the standard age of 60 -- the former metallurgist has sailed smoothly through the economic storm as the French government regularly deposited his monthly pension payments.

"Not really," he responded when asked whether the financial crisis had affected his standard of living, a question that seemed to interest him less than the petanque bowling tournament he was watching from a park bench beside the beach.

For Beaufranqui and millions of other French people dependent on tax-financed largess, this country's cozy social protections, vast numbers of bureaucrats and unhesitating government intervention have proved to be a shelter from want in these hard economic times.

Denounced for decades as a millstone preventing growth and competitiveness, particularly by free-market advocates in the United States, the French government's dominant role in economic activity has suddenly found new favor at home and grudging respect abroad.

The crisis has landed hard in France, just as it has elsewhere. European Union specialists estimated last week that the number of unemployed is likely to rise to more than 3 million by next year as factories close. But the French economy is expected to shrink by just 3 percent, markedly less than in Britain or Italy, largely because of the country's traditionally high level of government spending, they added.

More significant in human terms, broad sectors of the population -- bureaucrats, retirees, teachers and the millions of others whose livelihood depends directly or indirectly on public outlays -- find themselves surrounded by a government cushion. The effects are easy to see: As the crisis grew and began to obsess French officialdom in Paris, for instance, Alpine ski resorts reported full bookings for the winter and spring seasons.

Perhaps nowhere has the buffer effect been more evident than in Menton, a Riviera town where a third of the population is retired and the largest employers -- City Hall, the hospital and a municipal casino just off the beach -- are government-run. Mayor Jean-Claude Guibal, who also represents Menton in the National Assembly, said the city has suffered no large layoffs in the economic crisis for the simple reason that it has no factories to lose; service jobs catering to retired people have endured.

"The retired people constitute an element of stability," Guibal said in an interview in City Hall, at the top of a square sloping toward the sea, shaded by palm trees and ringed by cafe terraces under stucco arcades.

The crisis has been felt here, of course. Fabrice Massiere, a cheese merchant at the Menton Market, said his business was off sharply because the number of visitors has declined. Guibal said income from the casino and tax revenue on real estate transactions have sunk, forcing him to raise property taxes for the first time in 13 years. But the heavy dependence on government subsidies or official salaries, he added, has put an economic fence around a large part of the Menton region's 66,000 inhabitants.

"This makes us less sensitive to the fluctuations of the world economy," said Guibal, who described himself as a free-market advocate and a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's pro-business coalition.

Sarkozy, a free-market champion who was elected in 2007 on a pledge to help France "work more and earn more," has insisted the crisis will not deter him from trying to reduce the government's involvement in the economy. A senior aide, Henri Guaino, said in a television interview this month, for instance, that Sarkozy will continue to replace only half of the bureaucrats who retire from ministries and other government agencies.

"The French model has its advantages," Guaino said, "but we must not go too far in the opposite direction either."

Beaufranqui no longer has to worry about it, but Prime Minister François Fillon has begun ruminating publicly about the possibility of raising the standard retirement age, perhaps by a year, to 61, to soften the system's impact on the government deficit. The deficit in France's version of Social Security alone is likely to reach $12 billion by the end of the year, pushed up by a drop in salary deductions due to the crisis, officials at the Finance Ministry estimated.

Nicolas Véron, a French economic analyst at the Brussels-based Bruegel research foundation, said a crucial point will come when the crisis begins to ease and growth resumes, which European officials predict could happen next year. What seems now to be an advantage protecting many French people from harm, he cautioned, could turn out then to be what free-market promoters argue that it is -- a shackle on economic activity.

"It could hurt us then more than it is helping us now," he said.

In the meantime, Sarkozy's government has pocketed the benefits over the last nine months of crisis. The more than 5 million people employed directly or indirectly by the government may be a drag on the economy in normal times, specialists said. But as the crisis grinds along, they represent a stable pool of workers who have secure jobs and whose incomes continue to pulse through the economy.

Economists estimate that nearly a third of France's economy derives in some way from government-provided social protections, the highest proportion in the world, ahead of even such social-protection icons as Sweden and the Netherlands. In all, they estimated, French government outlays in salaries and other benefits amount to as much as $100 billion a year.

That sum, three times the government's economic stimulus plan announced early this year, helps explain why Sarkozy resisted President Obama's call for more stimulus spending at the London economic summit in March.

Sarkozy, who describes himself as a friend of the United States but is never one to shy from the spotlight, has taken credit for much of what the Group of 20 summit accomplished in London, calling decisions taken there a fulfillment of his own promise to "refound capitalism."

In remarks to members of Parliament leaked to the press, Sarkozy reportedly said Obama's lack of experience had proved to be a handicap for taking bold steps, and the French president cast himself in the role of experienced statesman ready to show the way -- the French way.

It is also the way of Josephine Baguerre, an 85-year-old widow who spends 10 months a year in Menton. Baguerre was taking in the sun one recent weekday during a rest stop on her way back from the market.

An Alsatian whose husband was a miner, she said her plans for the day included cooking lunch, taking a siesta and perhaps enjoying a cut-rate dinner at the subsidized miners' retirement home just up the hill from her rented apartment. The mine's retirement system also allows her to live rent-free in a company-provided home back in Alsace, she said. Her pension payments cover the rent on a Menton apartment and allow her to travel back and forth as the spirit moves her.

"Otherwise, I could never manage it," she said, heading off with her bag of groceries."

My candidate for that role, of course, is income security for all.

TO BE NOTED: From Income Security For All:

"More on populism

As billions more of our taxpayer dollars go to bailing out Wall Street and “the economy,” as more Americans lose their homes to foreclosure or hang on to homes that are worth less than their mortgages, as unemployment continues to rise ….

Three recent articles discuss the need for or likelihood of some type of populist uprising. All are by university professors, writing for general readers.

The most substantive, here, was a New York Times opinion piece. It’s by Sudhir Venkatesh, a professor of sociology at Columbia University and the author of Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets.

Here’s something from Gary Olson, chairman of the political science department at Moravian College in Bethlehem. It was published in the Lehigh Valley Times and circulated widely on the web through CommonDreams.org.

Third is by Elizabeth Sanders, a professor of government at Cornell University. It was published by In These Times.
Three serious articles that I saw within just three days. Seems like a trend.

Why aren’t Americans even more angry? What will it to take to arouse, provoke, inspire, motivate people to act?

My answer: A clear compelling statement of an alternative to our current system.

My candidate for that role, of course, is income security for all.

Steven Shafarman

Tags: populism"

this recession will lead people to acknowledge that this can be answered in the affirmative. (Hint: citizens’ basic income).

From Stumbling And Mumbling:

"Unemployment: what to do?

In light of today’s terrible unemployment numbers (pdf)- a 138,400 rise in the claimant count in February alone - this new paper (pdf) by David Bell and David Blanchflower is especially important.
They remind us that unemployment is very costly. It reduces well-being even among those who keep their jobs, increases crime and stress and reduces life expectancy. And among young workers it has a scarring effect; being unemployed when young increases one’s chances of being unemployed when older. This is an especial problem because unemployment is disproportionately concentrated among the young; today’s figures show that 18-24 year-olds account for 30.6 per cent of all the unemployed.
So, what can be done? Bell and Blanchflower are sceptical about active labour market programmes - policies aimed at “helping” the jobless into work. These are of limited use in good times, and are likely to be less useful in bad ones.
Instead, they have a number of ideas. One is a massive fiscal stimulus; £87bn, if we follow the US’s lead, they estimate.
Other ideas they have are: to encourage 18-24 year-olds into training schemes; tax breaks to encourage firms to hire youngsters; encouraging work-sharing, via the tax credit system; and raising the education leaving age to 18.
However, they recognize that these policies are mere palliatives. They won’t stop unemployment rising, probably to over 3 million by year-end.
And there’s the point. As Michal Kalecki pointed out, unemployment is “an integral part of the normal capitalist system.” It’s just fantasy to believe you can have capitalism (or perhaps any form of market economy) without unemployment.
For me, the question is: to what extent is it possible to increase ways of pooling risk - reducing the pain of unemployment - without dampening incentives?
My hope - which is not strongly held - is that this recession will lead people to acknowledge that this can be answered in the affirmative. (Hint: citizens’ basic income).

March 18, 2009 | Permalink"

Me:
I'm assuming that this is a form of Guaranteed Income, as in the plans of Milton Friedman and Charles Murray. If so, then I agree completely.

Posted by: Don the libertarian Democrat | March 18, 2009 at 03:23 PM

"We won't let people starve, so why not fund a basic income, however miserly"

Interfluidity on some kind of fevered roll of insight:

"Expand transfers, not credit

I have a little secret. Please don't tell anyone. I am glad that the banks, for all the hundreds of billions of dollars we are giving them, are not lending. That is not because I want banks to improve the quality of their balance sheets. On the contrary, I don't want banks at all, at least not banks anything like what we've had( AGREED ). I don't want to "use all of our resources to preserve the strength of our banking institutions". Since we have already bought and paid for our nation's banking institutions, we are within our rights to, um, transition them to a different business model. Let's do that.( LIKE WHAT? )

But credit is the lifeblood of a capitalist economy, right? I keep hearing that line. It's a dumb line.

Credit, also known as debt, is one of several arrangements by which a party with the power to command resources but lacking aptitude or interest in managing a productive enterprise delegates wealth to another party who is capable of creating value but unable to command sufficient resources. You would be forgiven for not noticing, given how habitually we misuse credit, but supplying credit is really just a subspecies of the practice that used to be called "investing". There are a variety of other arrangements that serve the same economic function. Perhaps you have heard the terms like "common stock" and "cumulative preferred equity"? In fact, credit is to investing what heroin is to painkillers: Unusually appealing, in a certain way. Hard to kick once you're on it. Almost certain to, um, cause problems, eventually. Our overall goal ought not be to kickstart the credit economy, but to kick the habit and move towards financing arrangements that are more equity-like than debt-like. That's going to be hard to do, because historically, we've subsidized the hell out of debt financing, especially bank credit, and alternatives are underdeveloped. But with the exception of war, no still-practiced human institution provokes catastrophe as regularly or as grandly as the misuse( HERE'S THE KEY TERM ) of debt. We ought to phase out banks as we've known them since before Bagehot's time, and move to a regime of what are lately referred to as "narrow banks" (banks that lend only to the government that issues the currency of their deposits). We should encourage the development fine-grained equity markets and local-market investment funds to replace bank financing.

The rush to ramp up "consumer credit" is particularly dumb. Usually, financial investing involves funding wealth generating projects in exchange for a share of the anticipated wealth. Consumer credit funds current consumption in exchange for a share of, um, what exactly( SOCIAL STABILITY )?

In theory, there's a good answer: consumer credit funds current consumption in exchange for a share of anticipated future wealth that is believed to be endowed already. Economists talk about consumption smoothing, how it may be optimal for a consumer whose income is volatile to borrow during periods of low income and repay (or save) during periods of high income in order to maintain a constant standard of living. That's very well in models where consumers know the true distribution of their future income, where the spread between borrowing and lending interest rates is not very large, and where consumer preferences are time-consistent. In practice, none of these conditions hold even approximately. As we are learning, the future is a very uncertain place. Consumers, like Wall Street quants, may inadequately extrapolate the distribution of their future income from recent observations. They have no access to the true distribution. The interest rates consumers pay for unsecured credit (think credit card rates) are often several times what they receive on money they save. In the world as it is, consumers ought to borrow only to counter severe downward shocks to income, pay off borrowings quickly, and build buffers of precautionary savings, since the cost of dissaving is much less then the cost of borrowing. (You lose 4% interest on your CD, rather than paying 12% interest on your credit card.)( I CAN'T ARGUE WITH THIS. IT'S MY PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY. )

Some consumers behave this way, but very many do not, suggesting that consumers are myopic, overvaluing consumption today in a manner that they themselves will come to regret in the future. If consumers are myopic, if self-today has different preferences than self-tomorrow, then whether taking on credit is a good idea is beyond the comfort zone of positive economics. Credit availability creates winners (self-today) and losers (self-tomorrow), while interest payments reduce the size of the overall pie available to the time series of selves. In the way that economists suggest "free trade" to be good — winners, losers, gains overall — myopic consumers imply that the absense of a credit constraint is bad. Thank goodness the banks aren't lending!( TO WHOM? )

There are obvious wrinkles and objections — What about credit for cars, or home mortgages, or education? The analysis changes when the borrowing is exchanging one pre-existing long-term liability for another. (We are born short basic shelter, and, in much of America at least, short a cheap car as well.) Education can be viewed as an ordinary, wealth generating investment project that in theory could be equity rather than debt financed, but that might be too tricky in practice. It's not my intention to suggest that consumer credit is always bad( GOOD ), only to defend the commonplace notion that for many people and under many circumstances, even loans that will be never be defaulted can be positively harmful, and as a matter of policy we should not be exhorting( OF COURSE NOT ) banks to issue or consumers to accept credit.

But if we let consumer credit contract, and if investment demand is derived from consumption demand, doesn't that spell macroeconomic disaster? There is an alternative. It is called "transfers". What's good about credit from a simple Keynesian perspective isn't that loans get repaid tomorrow, but that they get spent today. If what consumers would do with funds would be better for the economy than what banks are doing with funds, we ought to stop the massive transfers of funds from buyers of government debt to banks, and transfer the funds directly to consumers. If you think that Americans consume too much, and that we need to grit our teeth and endure a "reduction in our standard of living", fine. I disagree, strongly, but at least you're consistent. Then the government shouldn't transfer to anyone, banks shouldn't be encouraged to lend, consumption, investment, and GDP should be allowed to fall until we find a new level. I think that's foolishly pessimistic, though. Americans may need to change the mix of our consumption, but overall I think our standard of living is not only supportable, but improvable, and that our goal should be to get the rest of the world to live as well as we do, rather than to reconcile ourselves with some pseudomoral poverty. The world is full of human want, which we should strive to meet by working to increase our capacity to produce. Problems arise when want and purchasing power are misaligned. We can improve that by redistributing some of the purchasing power from those with lesser to those with greater use for current consumption. If that sounds Commie to you, note that is precisely the function that consumer credit traditionally serves, just without all the residual claims, a large fraction of which will prove to be illusory (at least in real terms). That is, transfers are just a more honest way of doing precisely what a credit expansion does, except without the trauma that comes from learning that much of the money lent to fund current consumption will never be repaid.

I'm trying to come up with a reasonable opposing view, a case for pushing consumer credit but opposing transfers. Perhaps you can help, because I just can't do it. One might argue on philosophical grounds against coercive transfers, but coercive transfers are a precondition of restarting bank lending, and we've already made transfers to banks on such a scale that banning them now would be like robbing a jewelry store, then piously arguing future looters should be shot. One might argue that bank lending is "smarter" than public transfers would be, that the patterns of consumption and investment that result from private sector credit allocation will lead to superior productive capacity and more sustainable patterns of consumption than direct transfers. Given the awful quality of aggregate investment this decade and the volatility now faced by consumers who were recently credit flush but who under any reasonable lending standard must now be credit constrained, it is hard to be enthusiastic about the special wisdom of bank-mediated credit allocation.

Of course, once we start redistributing purchasing power, there's the thorny question of who gets what. I have an answer to that, it is my new mantra. Transfer flat. Cut checks to every adult in the economy of interest, regardless of whether they pay taxes or have a job. Flat transfers are easy to understand and they pass the smell test for "fair"( I POSTED ON SUCH A PROPOSAL EARLIER ). As an income source unrelated to work, flat transfers increase workers' bargaining power with employers by reducing the cost of refusing a raw deal. (Supplementary income is a better means of enhancing labor bargaining power than unionization, which serves the same purpose but may limit the flexibility and efficiency of production.) Finally, flat transfers align purchasing power in the economy with the problem that we want markets to solve — We want an economy that serves some people dramatically more than others, in order to preserve incentives to produce and excel. But we also want an economy that meets every person's basic needs, even those of people who are unable or unwilling to offer marketable goods or services. We won't let people starve, so why not fund a basic income( THAT'S MY VIEW ), however miserly, rather than relying on an inefficient social services bureaucracy or taxing the virtuous by relying on charity?( I PROPOSE A GUARANTEED INCOME )

Tax Pigou and progressive. Transfer flat. Encourage equity. Contain the banks.

Steve Randy Waldman — Saturday January 17, 2009 at 10:28pm "

I can't say I disagree. As you know, a guaranteed income with health care is my ultimate goal.

Libertarian progressivism distrusts big increases in government spending because that spending is likely to favor the privileged

From Economix. Doesn't this sound like a libertarian Democrat?:

"The Case for Small-Government Egalitarianism

By Edward L. Glaeser

Edward L. Glaeser is an economist at Harvard.

The stimulus debate badly needs the voices of that now-rare breed: Andrew Jackson’s intellectual descendant, the small-government egalitarian.( THE LIBERTARIAN DEMOCRAT )

Today, Franklin Roosevelt’s heirs — big-government liberals eager to right the wrongs of the world by expanding the size of the government — argue against small-government conservatives. The supposedly more progressive side wants the stimulus package to take the form of government spending, while their opponents want bigger tax cuts for businesses and more prosperous Americans.

The missing movement, small-government egalitarianism, would favor tax cuts, but only if they were aimed at ordinary Americans.( I AGREE TO AN EXTENT. THEY WOULD BE MY LARGEST CUTS, BUT CUTS FOR INVESTMENT MAKE SENSE. )

Libertarian progressivism distrusts big increases in government spending because that spending is likely to favor the privileged( THAT'S OUR SYSTEM, YES. ). Was the Interstate highway system such a boon for the urban poor? Has rebuilding New Orleans done much for the displaced and disadvantaged of that city? Small-government egalitarianism suggests that direct transfers of federal money to the less fortunate offer a surer path toward a fairer America.( THAT'S WHY I FAVOR A GUARANTEED INCOME. )

Political divisions have not always pitted big-government egalitarians against small-government conservatives.

At the start of the 19th century, the fans of big government, like Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay, saw public projects as a means of strengthening the nation rather than reducing inequities. Their policies, such as tariffs and canals, often enriched the prosperous more than the poor. Conversely, the post-Era of Good Feelings Democratic Party was built around Andrew Jackson’s small-government egalitarianism. Jackson’s fight against the prosperous Philadelphian Nicholas Biddle and the Second Bank of the United States epitomized his desire to reduce privilege by reducing the size of government.

In the 20th century, President Woodrow Wilson campaigned on a “New Freedom,” opposing Teddy Roosevelt’s big-government Progressivism. While Roosevelt wanted the government to manage monopolies, Wilson wanted trust-busting and less protectionism. Wilson perceptively noted the dangers of too much government: “If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don’t you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now?”

Current American political discourse labels people as either anti-government or pro-equality, but wanting to help the poor should not require the abandonment of sensible skepticism about expanding the size of the state. Many of my favorite causes, like fighting land use regulations that make it hard to build affordable housing, aid the poor by reducing the size of government. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I also argued that it would be far better to give generous checks to the poor hurt by the storm than to spend billions rebuilding the city, because those rebuilding efforts would inevitably help connected contractors more than ordinary people.( I AGREE ON BOTH POINTS )

Today, the New Deal’s heirs are vociferously arguing that more( I SAY SOME, BUT LESS. ) of the stimulus package needs to be spent on public works rather than tax cuts. The big-government skeptics point out that the government can’t spend hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure projects both wisely and quickly. Good infrastructure spending doesn’t happen on a dime, and applying a “use-it-or-lose-it” rule to speed up spending will lead to a lot of waste. The country could certainly invest more, in both human and physical capital, but that spending should follow the rule that benefits must exceed costs( THIS IS ESSENTIAL. ). Good investments need plenty of time to plan and implement, which pretty much rules them out as good fiscal stimulus. Moreover, since many of these projects will disproportionately benefit the prosperous, many of them can be financed with user charges( FINE ).

Yet skepticism about vast public works does not necessarily lead towards Alf Landon-like antipathy towards stimulus, or towards tax cuts for big businesses and the wealthy. A quite plausible alternative, which is partially present in the president-elect’s proposal, is for the fiscal stimulus to primarily take the form of payroll tax cuts for poor and middle-income Americans. Those are, after all, the people who are most likely to spend the money quickly.

Targeted tax aid for poorer Americans would be far more egalitarian than most kinds of infrastructure spending, such as broadband technology. Sensible infrastructure projects wouldn’t disproportionately employ the least-skilled Americans. Forgoing the payroll tax for households earning less than $75,000 a year is surer progressivism than bridge-building.

Economics has little say about how egalitarian society should be. That is a question for moral philosophers and the democratic process( POLITICAL ECONOMY ). However, economics does tell us to choose efficient means of redistribution, and cash transfers almost always involve less waste than the alternatives( I AGREE ). Reducing the payroll tax not only avoids the problems inherent in trying to spend infrastructure money quickly, but it can also directly target aid to the poor, who need help more and will spend the cash more quickly. Now that’s the kind of small-government egalitarianism that would have appealed to Andrew Jackson."

I disagree on two points:
1) I favor a sales tax cut over a payroll tax cut, but I do like the payroll sales tax cut over any other proposed option.
2) I favor tax cuts for investment. The primary problem we are currently fighting is the fear and aversion to risk, which such targeted tax cuts might help.

Otherwise, I'm in general agreement. Too bad he's never heard of a libertarian Democrat.

"At least three distinct groups are especially vulnerable, each quite differently "

Robert Reich with some nice thoughts:

"Holiday Thoughts about Three Especially Vulnerable Groups

I try to be optimistic ( GOOD LUCK ) -- especially this time of year when the days are short and cold, when almost everybody things everyone else is having a better time than they are, and now that we're in the worst economic downturn in almost anyone's memory. Yet I also try to be realistic about the effects of this Mini-Depression. At least three distinct groups are especially vulnerable, each quite differently:

1. The poor and near poor, with family incomes typically under $20,000 a year. Their connections to the labor force are tenuous at best, often involving part-time and temporary jobs. They're also the first to be let go during downturns. Not surprising, this recession is taking a toll, and about to take a larger one. Few in this group qualify for unemployment insurance, and an increasing number have exhausted the five-year maximum for temporary welfare assistance. To the extent they're getting by, they're moving in with relatives. The media have missed this story almost entirely. ( THEY SHOULD RECEIVE HELP. EVER HEARD OF A GUARANTEED INCOME? )

2. Middle and lower-middle class households whose breadwinners are within five years of being eligible for Social Security. Many are in danger of losing jobs and a large number are already working fewer hours. They're cutting back on all discretionary purchases. But their biggest problem is that both their savings and the value of their homes have shrunk dramatically, and probably won't bounce back before they planned to retire. Social Security will cover about 40 percent of their pre-retirement earnings. So many are now planning to work well beyond age 65. This will be a particular challenge for blue-collar workers whose earnings have depended largely on physical labor. Their bodies may not last. ( GOOD POINT )

3. Middle and lower-middle class retirees. Most are dependent on income from savings, which has declined sharply. They're cutting expenses where they can, but they're running out of resources. To the extent they can turn to their children for help, they are doing so. That means a large and growing cohort of middle-income people between the ages of 35 and 65 have begun subsidizing their parents, even though they and their immediate families are under financial stress. Here's another untold story. ( MOST OF US UNDERSTAND THIS )

Other Americans are in distress but these three groups are particularly worrisome, and in the years ahead it seems likely they'll be in worse shape than they are today. If this is to be avoided, these three groups will need distinct public policies crafted to their particular needs. More on this to come.

In the meantime, happy holidays."

The answer is a guaranteed income with health care, but I won't hold my breath for even a second. I'm not an optimist.

The Guaranteed Income And The Libertarian Democrat

One thing that distinguishes Libertarian Democrats from Liberal Democrats is the willingness to consider a guaranteed income. For instance, Charles Murray's book "In Our Hands" details a proposal for a guaranteed income. This simple transfer of income fulfills the need of alleviating poverty, while decreasing the problems associated with bureaucracy. It also is more conducive to liberty, as Murray explains.

So, I would like to posit the idea of a guaranteed income as a possible solution to poverty as indicative of being a Libertarian Democrat.