Universal Basic Income already exists for the 1%

This article seems transparently fallacious to me, since the income generated for the 1% is due to investment capital. Investment capital, among a million other attributes that differentiate it vs a state backed UBI program, is exposed to risk. There isn&#x27;t just some pile of &quot;income&quot; sitting there we can harvest every year, the income the article talks about exists due to the exchange of capital. At the end of the year, some of those investments fail (for example, bonds default) and the income streams vanish.<p>The analogy to UBI completely fails. Honestly this is probably one of the most transparently dumb UBI articles I&#x27;ve seen posted on HN. (Disclaimer: I support the idea of UBI pending research outcomes.)

I&#x27;m in favor of trying UBI to see the impact, testing it properly.<p>I&#x27;m not a fan of this article however. While we are reasoning by analogy, It&#x27;s fairly well documented that most capital wealth does not survive past an initial generation or two. There&#x27;s something about creating the wealth&#x2F;passive income that creates a different behavior than being given it.<p>This article does nothing to discuss that. The analogy included feels like it&#x27;s just there to support a punchy headline.<p>This is why I&#x27;m more excited to see some real tests and results in various countries and communities.

While, overall, I enjoyed reading this post, I feel that this statement -<p>&gt; 1 in 10 dollars of income produced in this country is paid out to the richest 1% without them having to work for it.<p>is misleading. I think this type of attitude makes it more difficult to find common ground. Yes, that income is not produced through recent work, but it is produced as a bi-product of previous work.<p>The issue is that once a person accumulates enough wealth, the difficulty to generate value falls while the opportunities to do so rise.

<i>Don’t tax labor to give money out to UBI loafers. Instead, snag society’s capital income, which is already paid out to people without regard to whether they work, and pay it out to everyone.</i><p>Also known as nationalizing all investments.<p>I think the author may not quite have a grip on capitalism.

So, essentially, abolish property rights? Just have government seize the capital from people who currently own it, or rather, seize the proceeds of the capital which is effectively the same thing, because why would you bother owning the capital if you weren&#x27;t going to have access to the income it produces?<p>I&#x27;m all in favor of Universal Basic Income, but what happens when everyone who currently invests their money to produce this passive income decides to simply spend it instead since they wouldn&#x27;t get to use any return from their investments?

Seems like a total straw man argument.<p>I think very few are against the idea of free money for everybody because of the fear of moral decay if people aren&#x27;t working. I think the opponents are worried about where that money to fund UBI will come from.<p>Taking away people&#x27;s assets to be redistributed is obviously kind of a touchy subject.

UBI is a well intentioned but misdirected goal. Ask for minimum social infrastructure. Not money. Minimum social infrastructure that involves food, education and medicine safety to a good degree (without any hint of lavishness). We achieve that, we will solve arising problem meaningfully in my opinion.

Thinking about it, basic income would be better than increasing credit as a way to increase the money supply, but it is probably not particularly good either.

What &quot;universal&quot; in UBI means actually? If we pay to some of people then it&#x27;s not universal. No matter if it&#x27;s the top 1% or the poorest.

I didn&#x27;t realize investments were the same as being payed. It is a revelation that people who have enough money to live off of investments don&#x27;t have to fight to survive?

I have an idea. Can&#x27;t we make national lotteries pay out in UBI, and use the results for studies? That way, those lotteries at least serve a useful goal.

Society still benefits if those &quot;unearned&quot; dollars are spent domestically.