I have never actually looked into Bitcoin much and assumed it was just a passing, bizarre fad. But it appears to be gaining a lot of traction with people who like to virtue signal and don’t understand economics.

Does that paragraph look a little bit silly to you? Why?

Let me help. It's because I claimed to know very little about something, right before immediately making a conclusion. I used Bitcoin instead of UBI because we both know extremely uninformed people are saying the same thing about bitcoin as you are about UBI. People who like bitcoin know nothing about economics, right?

Here's the deal. You know nothing about UBI. You think you do, but you don't. And when faced with any amount of evidence, you don't even care. You already know everything you need to know, just like someone who just heard about bitcoin already knows everything they need to know about bitcoin.

You don't even understand how UBI works. It's not annual monetary expansion. Some would prefer doing it that way, but they are in the minority. UBI is a tax and transfer policy. It is essentially Milton Friedman's negative income tax, but instead of a 40% clawback, everyone gets the same amount, and the clawback is done via ordinary taxes, though not necessarily income taxation.

Oh my gosh, you scream. All taxation is theft, you whine. But the thing is we have a system of taxation and we do it in some of the worst ways possible, through a collection of hundreds of programs. We do even more welfare for the middle class and the rich through the tax code. Bureacracy galore! Strings everywhere. We give people vouchers for food instead of cash to buy food, and decide what people can and can't buy. We give people vouchers for housing instead of cash for housing, and decide where they can live. And because we target everything we punish everyone for working because people who earn money no longer need help right? The effect of that is the same as applying tax rates of 80% and above on the working poor. Does that make sense to you?

Would you accept employment if it meant keeping 20 cents out of every dollar you earn at some fast food job? What about 10 cents? What about -10 cents? Negative? Yes, negative. Welfare programs can stack, such that accepting employment can leave someone worse off than by not working.

Basic income ends all of that. Because it is never taken away, all earned income leaves everyone better off. Want to earn $2000 per month? Find a job that pays $1000 per month after taxes. With a $1k UBI, you now have a total of $2k. With welfare, and accepting that same job, it's possible to end up with $1000 per month total. Do you understand??

Meanwhile, because everyone gets the basic income, it's like a new large tax credit. If you are earning $100k, you may need to pay $40k in taxes under UBI instead of $30k right now, but you'd get $12k in return so that really, you're paying $28k in taxes. That's a 28% tax rate on a six figure salary.

The result is that 8 out of 10 households would see a reduction in their income tax burdens with UBI.

At this point you should already understand that your inflation argument is bullshit, because this is about increased circulation of existing money supply, not money supply expansion. But I imagine you still have concerns about inflation anyway, because that's just what kind of feels right to you, so in that case, please read the following link to really get into that discussion by covering all the variables in that equation.

https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7

I don't really expect you to read that though, because why would you? That would be learning something about a subject you just only recently heard about but already an expert on, right? I mean I'm sure you already know that when Alaska started providing dividends to everyone in Alaska that their CPI growth actually slowed down instead of accelerated. In other words, the opposite of inflation happened in Alaska as a result of giving everyone more money.

Markets need money. Imagine an island of 10 people where only 1 person has money. Do you think the market is working for the other 9? Do you think the invisible hand is figuring out what to supply their demand with? No, because they are unable to express their demand.

As for your imaginary thinking involving automation, it is real and we already see what it's doing. We are replacing mid-skill jobs with machines and creating new low skill jobs for people. Productivity is going up but wages aren't. Incomes are going down. People are competing against each other in a race to the bottom where it's all about accepting less money and working longer hours in more jobs that have less benefits. Does that sound like a good idea to you?

Inequality is growing as machines replace human labor because owners of machines no longer have to pay as many people. But what happens when people are less able to buy what the machines are making? Well look around because it's already happening.

We have to figure out a way of increasing incomes for the bottom 80% who are being left behind by technological progress. We have the opportunity to replace the welfare system at the same time. Why would we not do that?

Countries around the world are testing it. Are you even interested in that? Do you care at all about experiments that help reveal reality as it actually works instead of how you think it works? I care. I care about what works. I care about what really is. Do you?

If no, then I think that's sad, and you may as well burn witches and use leeches to treat your headaches. If yes, then I think should spend some time actually researching the evidence.

You can start here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/wiki/index