well inflation is equivalent to a flat wealth tax that doesn't consider insoluble assets, and is entirely in the hands of the government that imposes the UBI.

"cause increased prices for consumer/essential goods" is what you meant (since buying power is moved to people who are reliant on buying them), but this is a one-time transition to a new equilibrium (so is mitigable by increasing the UBI to account for it), not a constant ever-looming devaluator.

True, but again, the other points are more damning.

We're talking about an increased federal budget in the hundreds of billions/trillions to support such a UBI. That will cause a massive increase in taxation on the people who can still find jobs.

To make matters worst, the government in 10-15 years will likely be spending ~25% of it's budget on interest payments alone. Hiking the federal budget up even more sounds like a hard sell.

I’m not saying it would be revenue neutral, but a UBI would (or should) eliminate a bunch of various other entitlements. Even social security should be relatively non controversial to get rid of.

You seem to think feeding the population is optional. The current form of government and personal asset accumulation is actually much more optional in the situation.

Look at Rome and what it had to do when the system shock of so many slaves disrupted labor. Wild that Roman patricians understood you have to...like...feed society, but modern right wing Americans don't.

As opposed to dead people because no one is hiring to pay people to participate in a market they've been evicted from?

I don’t understand why welfare is the answer. To me it seems we’ve super failed if that’s the case — just brings everyone down except a few ultra rich people.

If the promises of AGI pan out, there will be nothing a human will be able to do better than an AI. If humans can't contribute economically, what else could things look like?

UBI is not welfare. It is just a livable minimum wage, for everyone who works. For those who cannot work, it replaces welfare, but that is not it's primary purpose.

As a welfare replacement, it is much more efficient, since there is no effort spent determining who qualifies. People can spent their money however they want, rather than the patchwork of separate programs we have now.

It doesn't need to bring anyone down. It's just a different way of distributing what we already receive. For you ordinary workers, they will receive $X in a monthly check, and their salary can be reduced by $X (since the minimum wage can also be abolished).

That does mean that the desirability of some jobs will shift. Good. We have a bunch of very dirty jobs being done for minimum wage, even though demand is extremely high. I'd love to see the garbage men and chicken processors get more money for their dangerous work.

And if I get less for my cushy desk job, oh well. Especially since we seem to be putting all of the effort into replacing me, and none into the jobs that come with hazards to life and limb.

The annual minimum wage (at the federal level, not counting states with higher) is around $15k. There are about 267 million adults in the US.

That is double current federal and state welfare spending.

I'm dead tired right now so I'm sure I'm missing something, but considering that is far below the poverty threshold in any big city, I dont think we'll be solving anything by eliminating welfare in favor of UBI.

UBI is basically of no benefit to the upper middle class or wealthy, and it won't be enough for the poor who cannot work enough. It really only benefits the upper lower class and lower middle class the most.

That sounds right. But I think that's a reasonable goal.

It doesn't benefit the wealthy at all. They come off worse for it. (There are revenue-neutral versions but I don't think they suffice.) But I believe that they can afford it, and will find the result a healthier America that they won't want to abandon.

But surely you can see that if the main selling point of UBI is

"Everyone gets a livable minimum wage! Oh by the way if you had a cushy desk job, that's gone because Claude can do it, or you get paid peanuts to manage Claude instances if you're lucky. Don't worry though, you can still make big bucks by working as a garbage man or at a chicken processing plant"

and the alternative is

"Burn the data centers down"

then the 2nd option may have a bit more appeal?

A UBI is basically impossible to implement on a large scale without there being significant downsides. In what world does increasing the budget by a trillion dollars or more work out well?

We are about to crank the budget by a half trillion just for the Department of War. Nobody seems to think that's a threat.

Plenty of people do.

There is currently more than enough total production for people to live quite well.

If AIs simply replace people, the same total work gets done. It's just a matter of who gets the profits from it.

It won't be that simple, to be sure. Nonetheless we already produce far more than subsistence, and there's no reason why a UBI would change that. If it increases the price of some commodities because now everyone can buy them, I'm ok with that. It already horrifies me that some go hungry in the fattest nation in history.

If that were true, we wouldn’t see the inflation we do from more dollars chasing the same (or less) goods.

Even if it were true, you still have distribution. You can’t get goods across a nation, let alone the globe, without significant inputs.

Are you checking the local grocery store and extrapolating globally?

Inflation is more likely when the net number of dollars increases without a corresponding increase to production. Taxing earners at a higher rate doesn’t do this. Printing money at the central bank does.

If nearly everyone is already covering subsistence needs directly or via assistance (SNAP, food banks), why would UBI cause inflation? the only thing changing is who buys it