The Times piece has been getting savaged, and that's fine, just fine, and proper, but the takeaway from Hamilton Nolan is that he is not the biggest dipshit on the planet or anything, but it often seems like he's never thought about shit like this before. That's odd, considering what he does for a living. UBI should and would replace most social welfare and social insurance programs, as it would be the most efficient way to deliver money to the poorest citizens and into the economy, as long as we have proper universal healthcare and a living wage in place. There's no reason for Social Security if you get your UBI for life--not that a program such as Social Security couldn't exist along with UBI, but it must not be necessary. If you need your SS and your UBI to retire, then the UBI is not sufficient. Plus the UBI should certainly be universal. That way it is an incentive to work, as the folks who are working shit jobs and have UBI are doing a shit ton better than the ones deciding to scrape by on the UBI cuz they're unrecognized geniuses or addicts or just fuckin' lazy. At higher and higher incomes, the UBI would be reabsorbed into the treasury by marginal tax rates, so we could have UBI for everyone and get most of it back pretty easily from the obscenely wealthy who won't even notice.
I think Nolan is on the right side of this, but he's gotta get out and about a bit more to get a wider and deeper understanding of issues like UBI. Till then, he's gonna look stooge when this sorta shit comes up.
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