Business wants a Universal Basic Income. Which party will give it to them?

[The Self]

At least here it's catching like the flu among the business owners I know, most of whom take their marching orders from people like Elon Musk.

I would have said that the Republicans were a shoe-in to write the bill that eventually becomes the UBI programme in America, on the basis that we prefer Republican-crafted policy generally when it comes to social programmes. But Trump has probably made this impossible.

That leaves the Democrats. The Sanders wing can't be allowed to actually draft the UBI, but its support base will be necessary to pass it all the same. Whichever Democrat can thread this particular needle will, I think, be the next President.

[The Self]

What a lazy way to deal with poverty.

We don't want it to deal with poverty. The point is to ensure steady margins during downturns, which are increasingly likely.

[The Self]

Our government couldn't possibly afford UBI unless they tax the living hell out of Musk and company. Something they probably wouldn't support.

Eventually the programme ought to be privatized. Ideally it would include a phase-out provision shifting it entirely into the private-sector, as a consciously designed charity. The purpose of government involvement would be only to legitimize it and to get it through the first few years.

[The Self]

What a lazy way to deal with poverty.

We don't want it to deal with poverty. The point is to ensure steady margins during downturns, which are increasingly likely.

Which is just as well achieved by a stimulus.

As 'shovel ready' showed, stimulus packages are not efficient, and nobody is going to die on that hill after the experience of the last one. The only reason stimulus packages are even necessary is because of institutional short-termism.

[The Self]

I was thinking more of stimulus Bush did, where everyone got a check.

Didn't work, and will be increasingly unpalatable in the coming years politically. A private UBI is the only surefire guarantee for stability during economic downturns.

We want it, and we mean to have it.