Hacker News Reader

Would you like to elaborate why the math doesn't work out? An article explaining your position would be nice, but I'd settle for some broad gestures.

View on HN

342,000,000 people in the US. Multiply by $10,000/yr.

Cost of UBI: 3,420,000,000,000

Where is $3.5 trillion going to come from?

From cancelling pointless military projects?

The entire defense budget is $874b.

As I remarked, the UBI math doesn't work.

UBI would be pure deficit spending which would basically double it. Our interest is already the #2 federal outlay at $1 trillion (defense is #5 last I heard) and we're already in fiscal dominance. So the end result is UBI would trigger much higher inflation which would make those UBI checks worthless.

From corporate profits, which should be rising from labor cost cutting? Ultimately if the pie is growing and accruing to a few organizations, then either we create new wealth transfer mechanisms (progressive tax codes being one such previous example) or become a feudal society, which will probably stagnate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com