The alternative to affording it seems worse. And your figured are rather assumptive, ignoring critical implementation details like “UBI could be written as a tax credit” or so on. But, let’s take your numbers and scenario briefly anyways.
$4T per year is only 15% of GDP, right? 15% is the capital gains tax, and technically GDP is the measure of a country’s capital gained, so just apply the 15% capital gains tax to the country’s capital.
“But that’s a lot!” Yup.
“Is GDP growing enough?!” Not the way we treat workers today; the last time it was above 5% was, coincidentally, right when the wage/efficiency gap started widening.
“How do we make the math work then?” Good question. What figures make your approach work, given historical rates of GDP and growth pre-Reagan, post-Reagan, and in a theoretical world where pre-Reagan rates return once we stop abusing our workers?
I was just making the point that we have a lot of healing to do before we can presume to measure under UBI the contributions and growth and courage and strength of mind and will from the workers we’ve abused for forty years.
You’re making an argument that, I think (?), we can’t afford to allow 100% of our working age citizens to subsist on UBI. So tell us what figures you think would plausibly work in your own terms, so that we can see your complete viewpoint and argument. Is that $100/person/month or $1000? Are you accounting for GDP growth over ten years or not? What percentage of workers can we afford to carry on UBI for ten years? And so on.
Do the numbers work out better if you factor in an imaginary 50T reclaimed through taxation/levy/law from those who’ve accumulated it and transfer the entire sum directly into the UBI payout fund? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102709
It’s fine to try and use math to argue your point, but being sarcastically dismissive with simple algebra hasn’t given me enough to give your point consideration, as I’m still not even sure I understand it yet. I did my best and I hope the above is some use to others, but I’m not confident at all that I understood well enough to reply to you.