And then there's also the whole 'universal' part.

But what about it requires to be at the federal level? Is there a base number of participants that are required? Does that mean smaller governments can't have UBI? Or, is the idea just so big we can't be bothered to get into the technicalities of it all?

  > Is there a base number of participants that are required?

You need a group of people with diversified income/wealth. The wealthier contribute more than they get from UBI, the poorer contribute less (if any) than they get from UBI.

I like it mainly for the idea of replacing welfare with a much simpler system. But it will never happen in America, land of absurd tax code complexity. And certainly not with a name like Universal Basic Income. It would have to be called something else to avoid triggering people.

Sort of.

> If you have a homogenous group, all with the same income/wealth, then UBI would do nothing.

True. In this scenario, demand is already as elastic as it's going to get. It would basically be impossible for the economy to be operating below full productive capacity. A basic income would either cause inflation or indirectly cause people's incomes do decrease by the same amount in some other way (e.g. taxes or monetary tightening).

> You need a group of people with diversified income/wealth.

Yes. In this case, basic income would actually benefit us because it can increase quantities demanded at current prices thereby incentivizing producers to produce more stuff for people.

> The wealthier contribute more than they get from UBI, the poorer contribute less (if any) than they get from UBI.

Hmm. Not really. I'm going to push back on you here a little bit. The value of a UBI does not come from people "contributing" to it. It comes from the capacity of the economy to produce more stuff in response to the additional spending.

I think you're talking about taxation here. But I don't think it's useful to think of basic income as being funded by taxes. The amount you tax does not have any direct effect on how much basic income you can afford to provide.

> But it will never happen in America, land of absurd tax code complexity. And certainly not with a name like Universal Basic Income. It would have to be called something else to avoid triggering people.

Yup. At least politically, taxes and government spending are hopelessly intertwined. But it doesn't have to be this way. And there's nothing stopping a startup from offering a basic income. I'm skeptical that Circles is the start up to do it, but I fully believe that it can be done.

No. Universal just means everyone gets it. In fact, the word "universal" is redundant in the term "universal basic income" because "basic income" is already an income that everybody receives. It forms a base upon which you can build further income.

Some people believe that basic income should replace existing welfare programs, but it doesn't have to. After we implement a high enough basic income, we certainly might discover that we don't need some of these other welfare programs anymore. But in my opinion, there's not really any reason to shut them down ahead of time.

> But what about it requires to be at the federal level?

It's hard to implement a basic income if you don't issue your own currency. Currency is issued at the federal level, so that makes it a natural choice.

If you tried to implement it at the local level, you'd probably have to raise taxes or something... or create some kind of local or alternative currency. It's not impossible, but it's certainly less efficient.

> Does that mean smaller governments can't have UBI?

In a way, yeah. You've got to have a stable currency in which to pay the basic income. The smaller the government, the harder it is to maintain a currency. Furthermore, the amount of the basic income is constrained by the productive capacity of the economy. There's a limit to how much spending the productive economy can absorb. So if your country has a very resource-rich economy, you might be able to get away with a higher basic income.

But it's a continuum. The most efficient basic income is probably a worldwide basic income. Since the United States controls the world's reserve currency, they could probably pay everyone in the world a basic income in dollars without causing inflation or anything. But a country like Mexico couldn't do something similar.