Not quite the same. A lot of “give money away” programs look the same. But the incentive design is important. This program is over 3 years and is monthly. This means a few things:
1) if you make a mistake a blow 1k on stupid things, you have a chance to learn next month
2) it is over a 3 year period, which allows the recipient to make decisions like try go to school to improve their overall productivity in society in the long run
When you do cash relief in lump sums and without any long term reliability, the above effects are diminished.
Assuming the Gen 1 lives to 100 and each Gen has 3 kids every 25 years, then at the end you have 120 mouths to feed.
100 years of 4% growth above inflation would be rough 50x so 500M. But that assumes no consumption over the 100 years. Either way the growth of people overcomes the growth of resources over time.
Re environmental costs, I have yet to hear anyone make an analysis of the environmental cost of the banking system or an equivalent; that is, how much to warm all the offices, the computers and servers, the transportation costs of cars & planes for all the employees.
Also, proof of stake will reduce 99% of the environmental cost.
When you do cash relief in lump sums and without any long term reliability, the above effects are diminished.