Had a conversation with a co-worker today about the rumor of Oregon giving all the homeless $1,000 a month as UBI.
I asked him how they’re planning to pay for it and he didn’t know but told me that everyone should be getting UBI.
I asked where the money would come from and he told me that “the government can just make more money”.
When I said that would fuck up our economy and pointed out the old stories of Russians using wheel barrows of worthless money to buy food I was told “it doesn’t matter if an Apple costs $1 or $100 as long as people are getting paid enough to buy the Apple”
And when the reality of a dynamic economy and market system asserts itself on his UBI money making the purchase power of the UBI go to zero, then he will exclaim with fist raised in anger that those evil capitalists keep raising the price for excess windfall profits.
He will respond with approval to the politician who decries the evil capitalists who are stealing from the UBI earners by pricing goods beyond the UBI disbursement amounts.
And when the politician demands that there be price controls and price ceilings on specific goods, your co-worker will again raise his fist in anger as the goods in the marketplace will disappear and only empty shelves will remain.
Finally after multiple iterations of additional UBI disbursement and price controls and production controls and further shortages, your co-worker will raise his fist slightly in the air from the ground where he lays broken and dying of starvation. Too weak to speak as he draws his final breath, his thoughts cursing those capitalists who caused his demise by their own greed.
Sadly his untimely end will not be only for himself, but just one such ending out of millions of fellow citizens, both UBI supporters and those against, all finding the same ultimate fate befall them as the politician whom lives in relative luxury and safety in government COG protection during the crisis.