Lots of people talk about Universal Basic Income and there are many debates with many points for and against UBI. Instead of going for the pros and cons or discussion whether we should or shouldn't have UBI, I'm going to deconstruct and analyze what the hell his thing actually is.

There is No Such Thing As UBI

There is no such thin as minimum wage. It used to be a very small amount and after the whole fiasco with increasing prices, now people are fighting for $15 in USA and some countries already have even higher minimum wages. I can assure you that these "Minimum" is going to be going up ad infinitum.

But there is a thing called a Sustainable Basic Income. We can discuss whether a person need be able to have a mobile phone o not. But there can be no debate that a person need fresh air, clean water, nutritious meals, few cloths and a place to sleep to live a good life. A person who has these things covered can move on to do great things.

Time For A Restaurant Analogy

Have you seen any restaurant charge you for water, hand wash, paper serviettes, bathroom facilities etc? Why do you think they do this? Isn't this bad for the bottom line of t restaurant? Finally I have to ask you is this sustainable?.

The truth is that it has been sustainable with everything mentioned above plus bigger extras like free wi-fi and kid's playhouses. This sustainability is created by 2 primary factors.

The Economic Factor

Modern society lives in a state of abundance created by a multitude of factors. Things like water is super abundant and when the supply is huge, the price is low. These features/extras given by the restaurant makes up only a fraction of their operation costs. Even the free wi-fi works as sort of a marketing strategy. The convenience for the customers is great and it makes them more likely to spend more bringing more revenue. So the restaurant is actually gaining through these extra features instead of the whole thing being sort of a charity.

The Human(/User) Factor

People don't go around filling up bottles after bottles of water and nobody is collecting hand wash to take home. Non-customers are not allowed to loiter and use wi-fi etc. These things are not given massive value by people. Nobody is really stealing plants from your home garden, or steal decorative rocks because people don't place much value in them in the first place. If you had some expensive Bonsai or low grade gems, they will be stolen pretty soon.

Miniature Footprint SBI

This has been tried and it works. https://soundac.io gives about 9.7 XSD for each account that sign up and Steemit,Inc gives 0.5 STEEM and a 14.5 STEEM delegation for new accounts. It helps to bring new people on board while having a minimal impact. If a similar system can be implimented in the real world, it can actually work. This on the other hand, DOESN'T:

Just imagine you cut every single subsidy program and every other "Help The Poor" plans which are nothing but economic suicide and you could easily give every adult in USA $10,000 check each month instead of funneling it through an inefficient bureaucratic system. Just imagine the impact of that. That kind of money will rank you at ~65th place in the world in terms of GDP Per Capita. That's more than enough Basic Income when you are doing better than 2/3 of the countries on the planet.

I'm not saying that we should do this. That's just a less worse option. But even a change like above can have a real positive impact. Countries like Singapore and Macau have given people free money as part of a budget surplus. I should also mention that these countries don't have minimum wage laws and they were practically ghettos just half a century ago and tend to have pretty much no natural resources or wealth.

An Eye Opening Must Watch Video on Wealth and Charity

The video was shared by @martin.mikes and I urge you to watch it to the end. Just look at what those 21 street kids accomplished in just 3 years going from some thugs to respectable productive citizens of the world. What did they have to flip sides and change themselves? They had a little push and a solid foundation. This is what a UBI should create. UBI should never be charity. This is what charity look like:

If you want to see some real helping in action, start with https://fundition.io and give some projects some upvotes. You won't loose a penny. But you'll be helping someone. Check out @treeplanter and help save the environment while getting a service for yourself. Helping someone should have liberating the person as objective. Helping someone to keep them dependent on you through traditional scheme, government regulation or unsustainable Universal Basic Income is slavery with a more civilized front that also kind of look cool.