George was right. Productivity is accelerating towards infinity, and that value is being captured in land values and being allocated to rentiers rather than the population as a whole. Tax land value and distribute the proceeds.

I never entirely understood Georgism's focus on land value rather than capital in general.

Surely owning a factory is capturing the benefits of productivity just as much as owning the land it stands on?

Building a factory is a social contribution. More generally factories are (usually) subject to the normal laws of supply and demand: if they get too expensive, people can build more, if there are too many people can convert them into housing etc.

(if we have a fixed supply of factories e.g. because of zoning laws then it could become a case of economic rents. But the simple solution there is "don't do that then")

UBI probably, but funding it with newly printed money.

Another way to think of what I'm saying is this: there are billions of people out there in the world who want more stuff. There are lot of companies and workers who want sell those people more stuff. And there are enough resources out there to make all that stuff for them (energy for a long time was the big limiter). Obviously, there is an economic disconnect that is limiting people from getting the goods that they want and need. What's really happening is that poor people just don't have anything to trade with. The solution is to give them something to trade with.

We don't have to do a UBI. I think we would be fine if central banks did something like give the bottom 20% of income earners a one time payment of ~$20k.

This is called helicopter money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_money

It sucks because it is irreversible. This is unnecessary. Just have the government finance UBI. After all, people like Larry Summers, with his "secular stagnation" theory, are calling for a shift from monetary policy to fiscal policy. And I think UBI, as you say, would be a very effective fiscal policy tool.

I am not attacking your idea but am curious to know how is this not inflation for everyone else?

UBI goes to everyone and affects everyone. Who's the "everyone else"?

In other words, people who already have money would see that money devalued, perhaps very significantly and in excess of the new money they receive. I'm not terribly averse to the concept, but it would seem to be a redistribution of value that would significantly impact the wealthy. Which makes it tough to actually pull off, because they have a lot of resources to fight such a thing.

"And there are enough resources out there to make all that stuff for them "

Yes, there is.

Advanced economies are mostly service based.

Countries are poor because of lack of social organization.

Many poor countries have tons of resources (Africa).

Many rich countries (UK, Japan, Germany, Singapore) etc. - have none.

The UK had huge coal reserves and decent sized oil reserves - the former powered the Industrial Revolution and the latter kept the lights on during the 1980s.

Coal definitely was important for the industrialized revolution, but UK oil is not a hugely important ingredient today. They would be rich without it.