Higher taxes for anyone earning over $100k
Higher cost of living, and lower quality of life for anyone earning below $60k
Politicians and corporations earn billions in profits on UBI distribution fees, and incentive spending/automatic deposit programs (contribute your UBI directly to health insurance and it’s tax exempt!)
Not a failure. Society working as intended.
> [...] lower quality of life [...]
Agreed, that would be a failure, if it were to happen. How on earth could "giving people money" lead to a lower quality of life for them?
> Politicians and corporations earn billions in profits on UBI distribution fees
As opposed to the much higher fees accrued by the more-complex means-tested programs today?
Money has been completely manufactured in financial markets already and doesn't seem to be screwing us over too badly. I hardly think UBI paid from taxing the largest economic surpluses and wealth in the history of the world will have a significant impact on inflation.
Any inflationary impact would happen if you print the money supply to pay UBI rather than using existing dollars in the supply.
You're also completely writing off the additional surpluses that people receiving UBI could provide if they're confident they can get by on a daily basis and also ensure they stayed healthy and working rather than spiraling any time one or two things go sideways.
But anyway, I'm not too worried about inflation mainly because of the points you raised, but I am worried about resource constrained markets like housing. If nothing is done to stop this, and I don't know how, I'm sure they'll just raise the prices to completely cancel out any UBI you'll pass around. It's not just housing either, but that's an obvious one.
I see it as exactly the opposite - culture, ethics, behavior differences etc are downstream of financial inequality. When people are financially insecure it becomes much harder to tolerate disagreement, and much easier to blame [insert whatever populist notion of enemy]. I think it would be easier to engage with people with opposing ideas, not seeing them as an existential threat, if you are not worried about housing, income or health insurance.
Cultural polarization is a deflection mechanism (both in the subconscious psychological sense as well as a politcal/propaganda technique) meant to mask the real deeper structural inequalities. It's the lie we tell ourselves and the powers that be tell us to prevent to change the direction of the "wealth redistribution" we've been witnessing for 20+ years.
Prices will increase more than the UBI money you give them.
You saw what happened during COVID pandemic and UBI stimulus checks?
High cost of living today is precisely because of UBI.
What I can definitely tell you is that the people that currently can't even afford basic things are somehow causing higher cost of living. The economy is not jacked up right now because we gave people laughably small amounts like a thousand dollars. The real problem is people like Sergei Brin spending 57 million dollars to fight a one-time 5% tax.