> The money has to come out of the system somewhere.
Governments have the ability to print money out of thin air.
What I'd like to see is how UBI impacts inflation and economic growth.
Governments have the ability to print money out of thin air.
What I'd like to see is how UBI impacts inflation and economic growth.
Money by definition derives its value from its scarcity relative to the economy it is representing. There is no free lunch here.
Putting money in the hands of the largest number of people works well with production economies of scale. For the same total quantity of money, having it concentrated in a few hands means your society is incentivized to produce a few yachts and private jets, and too low on the quantity curve for economies of scale to make that production efficient. When that same money is distributed, the incentives are to produce large quantities of vacuum cleaners and washing machines, where mass production is very efficient, so total utility can be higher.
What is useful is thinking about money sources and money sinks. As long as the (source rate - sink rate) ≅ Δvalue of goods an services, inflation is checked.
"Printing money", paired with a comparable sink, is completely fine and a more useful tool than "never print money". The biggest roadblock we have when it comes to employing this tool is that our system of governance has different systems when it comes to monetary and fiscal policy that over-complicate its use.
Hyperinflation is one of the things that could happen, when you do it badly, I suppose, but there is a lot of ways to get hyperinflation, if you do things badly.