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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @antic OP 14 Jun \ parent \ on: Forget Universal Basic Income; Embrace Universal Basic Resources econ
you touch on a critical element of success: government shouldn't run UBR, it should just invest in it. Government already invests heavily in subsidies, but if it invested in technology advancements that make things cheaper, then eventually, the market could supply resources at a cheaper and cheaper rate until the resources can be paid for through S&P500 investment dividends.
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ultimately the government doesn't have to do anything as technology is already doing this, but as people are impatient, rather than calling for the government to step in and provide cash, there's a more compelling argument for smart investments. Maybe that's the ultimate TL;DR.
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Financial example: the US social security fund (about $3T) is in bonds, which fails to keep up with inflation and is heading toward insolvency. If that were in bitcoin, it would be hugely different, but if it were even in S&P500 or a whole stock market ETF, it would still be returning orders of magnitude higher returns and it wouldn't be insolvent. It would be cash positive and could be used to subsidize resources instead of giving dollars to recipients (or it could do both).
We could also fund energy as a primary target (building Nuclear, Fusion, Solar, whatever)--subsidize it all but give higher rates to the cheapest forms that have the biggest potential to return investment of higher energy yield per invested dollar (invest in the advancement of energy technology). In that way, we accelerate the price of all goods dropping to zero without having to explicity buy goods, build them, or hand-out fiat.
These are just methodology ideas. The core of my argument on UBI is that we should focus on making resources less expensive until they are free instead of trying to give away spending power, which should be an obvious losing proposition to anyone who has examined the basic market dynamics of free money.
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