The Dark Side Of UBI

Hey Universally Basic Jessies

As The world economy continues to struggle under the austerity measures that governments have placed on us we've seen that monetary policy in the form it takes now only benefits the asset class holders and the funnel to trickle down continues to get smaller. Wealth has been centralised on levels both nominal and percentage-wise that we've not seen for thousands of years.

The gross levels of wealth disparity are pushing many people below the poverty line, and the more people are robbed of their wealth, the angrier and more disillusioned they become.

To UBI or not to UBI that is the question

Governments now have a choice to make, do we continue the current policies and hope that it eventually evens out and people get used to their new levels of poverty or do we buy their silence.

I understand why UBI has become a popular quick fix for the social and economic issues we have, no one wants to suffer, no one wants to work hard, no one wants to make the tough choices, and UBI seems like the silver bullet we have not tried. If the world can print trillions in various currencies and not end up like Zimbabwe, why not UBI right?

Buying your silence

A free and healthy society requires discourse, freedom of speech and the ability to voice your discontent for government and the way they operate. Having UBI means governments now have control over what you say and do, if you speak out, you get cut off, so who in their right mind is going to risk their meal ticket and bite the hand that feeds them?

They can now force your compliance if you try to speak out and buy your silence each month with a newly minted deposit in your account.

Increasing your dependency

The more people dependant on the government to survive, the more freedoms we lose. The fewer people with agency means all they can do is consume and consume what the government tells them to consume. It allows them to program you, buy this, listen to that, watch this and is a way to continue indoctrination via a simple paycheque.

Funneling currency

UBI may not be cash or cash equivalents but programmable money, they could imply negative interest rates or time limits on capital allocation, forcing you to spend it. They could limit what you can spend it on.

Companies could then lobby to force people to let's say spend 10% at fast food stores to get a discount for UBI'ers and drive constant business without having to compete.

UBI allows central planners, even more, control over where the money goes and who gets to hold it at the end of the day.

Rewarding laziness

This is probably the most popular of the reasons people speak out against UBI, and I get that the argument goes both ways. For some, it will be a lifeline to help them get some breathing space and allow them to find work without having to worry about expenses too much.

However, for many they will never want to work, why get an entry-level job and learn skills when it pays less than UBI, so you'll never acquire job skills meaning you never move up the ladder.

How many people on social grants actually use that as a springboard vs others who use it as their only means of income and how does that weigh down the economy. Is there more people breaking away and adding to their only income or more only relying on it to live, this is what you'll need to figure out, but governments won't care either way, as long as voters turn up to vote.

Reducing productivity and supply

If fewer people are willing to work and produce goods and services that means less supply in the wider economy. As supply shrinks but money supply continues to increase with UBI id starts to see competition for goods increase and prices will skyrocket.

This means UBI needs to get bigger to keep up with inflation and so begins a deadly downward spiral towards hyperinflation.

Capital flight

If people who are getting money for nothing have the luxury not to have to spend it, why wouldn't they invest it somewhere else? We've seen how many people bought Bitcoin and stocks from their stimulus cheques so this would only see more purchasing power leave the ecosystem, making the UBI money less effective over time.

Additionally, those who do work for a living may feel that they shouldn't be paid in a currency that others get for doing nothing. They may want to insist on being paid in Bitcoin, gold, silver, stock options and more.

A move like this would really put the breaks on the effectiveness of UBI since the purchasing power of the currency relies on those who work for it to provide the value.

Where do you stand on UBI

If governments and their citizens want a UBI and have reviewed the pros and cons and feel it's still worth it, by all means, they should go ahead. However, making such a drastic change to the economic policy and money supply should be considered deeply not only for what it can do in the short term but the medium term too.

For those who have nothing, they have nothing to lose, but they will have a ceiling on what they have to gain, and that trade-off seems worth it, but for those who have earned and worked for their capital, they may feel differently.

If UBI does come to a nation near you, it may be time to consider that you are living in even less borrowed time before your currency implodes. It may be time to either funnel your capital into something that is not debased by UBI or move to a country where it doesn't exist.

Personally, I'd rather get paid in Dogecoin before I accept a UBI.

Have your say

What do you good people of HIVE think?

So have at it my Jessies! If you don't have something to comment, comment "I am a Jessie."

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