NOBEL Prize-winning Prof Joseph Stiglitz’s warning against a universal citizen’s income could apply equally to all the other universal benefits we receive from Government, especially those we receive here that he does not in New York ("Stigliz's fears over citizen's wage", The Herald, October 23). Should state pensions be means-tested rather than triple-locked, children of middle class parents kicked out of state-funded primary and secondary schools, and shiny new BMWs, Mercedes and Range Rovers barred from our public roads and their owners from public pavements?

Imagine the outcry if the state pension was administered like Universal Credit, with regular meetings to ensure that recipients are still old enough to qualify, and six weeks of no payments after your birthday each year while the paperwork was sorted out. Or simply not paid to anyone still spritely enough to drive a taxi or operate a supermarket checkout (while these jobs still exist), and National Insurance was only insurance against becoming infirm, not simply surviving to old age. But pensioners vote.

It is interesting to note his words – “our responsibility as a society is to make sure everyone who wants a job can get one. The underlying problems of lack of employment and lack of adequate pay … we need to address” – put the responsibility on employers to create enough well-paying jobs to support everyone with the help of wider society, rather than simply have society do it directly.

We are one of the richest countries in the world. Theresa May feels the need to defend capitalism against the populist policies of Corbynism, yet there should be no place for foodbanks in a successful capitalist society, people would have the freedom to choose food they want from shops. It is telling that Jobseekers Allowance is £73.10 per week for someone with no job to live on, but the personal allowance is now worth £88.46 a week for a higher rate taxpayer already earning more than £800 per week, having doubled during the years of austerity since the financial crisis.

The universality of a citizen’s income is its defining feature, ensuring that everyone has a stake in it. People will be able to start their own business, confident that they will not starve if it is not an instant success. Budding authors will be able to write fantastic stories about magical places without first needing to be an English professor at Oxford. More mundanely, those on zero hour contracts will still be able to survive if their employer gives them zero hours.

Alan Ritchie,

2/2 72 Waverley Street, Glasgow.

MUCH has been said recently about the citizen's income. Nicola Sturgeon's own researcher, Liz Hawkins, briefed her in March that it would cost £3.6 billion, others as much as £13bn, Joseph Stiglitz advises against it, the Tories are dead against it and most of the people who have heard of it either imagine it can keep them idle and happy so they love the idea or it will keep others idle and happy – so they hate the idea.

But two Scottish think tanks from ether end of the political spectrum, Common Weal and Reform Scotland, are in favour of the concept because it is an opportunity to radically reform the benefits system to make it fairer and encourage and smooth the process of people into work.

But few people either know or are prepared to admit that is it as a replacement for all relevant benefits, not a layer on top.

In fact Common Weal says the system would be cost neutral, and Reform Scotland says it will save £3.6bn off Scotland's £18bn share of the UK's £200bn annual benefits bill.

Ms Sturgeon wants to closely examine it because "it might turn out not to be the right answer ... it might not be feasible ... but it would be wrong to be close-minded". Putting aside my regrets that she wasn't so analytical and Sillars-like in regard to fracking, I hope she does look seriously at this.

A cynic would say that since she looks like leaving 374,000 higher income voters swinging in the wind, she can concentrate on stringing along the disadvantaged – and, of course– the Greens, but perhaps just once she will look at this in terms of what is right for the Scottish people and the public purse.

Allan Sutherland,

1 Willow Row, Stonehaven.

ALL the evidence is showing that the quick loan or rent to buy companies are, in the main, ripping off their customers. The Bank of England interest rate is 0.25 per cent and for savers the best we can achieve is between one and two per cent. Even tying up your money for five years in a bond it is almost impossible to get a rate better than 2.5 per cent. So why the big difference? Profit. These companies can borrow money at rates well below the rates they charge.

The poorest in society can be held to ransom when a key device such as a boiler or fridge breaks down and they have no immediate resources to pay for a repair or a replacement. This is the area where the predators in our financial markets seek to make money by over charging the poorest for an immediate loan or replacement.

If our present Prime Minister had really meant the words she uttered on the steps of 10 Downing Street then she would have outlawed this behaviour. Instead she is desperately trying to hold her party together through the total mess of Brexit.

Who cares about the poorest? Not the present UK Government. Just look at the Universal Credit fiasco. They only have to wait six weeks for a payment while the MPs have subsidised bars and restaurants. A society for all? I think not.

Dave Biggart,

Southcroft, Knockbuckle Road, Kilmacolm.