The issue with universal basic income is that it will basically cause serious inflation in rental housing and consumer discretionary retail in first tier cities

The issue with universal basic income is that it will basically cause serious inflation in rental housing and consumer discretionary retail in first tier cities (NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, etc.) as well as time wasting online entertainment. It will be a massive windfall for owners of these assets and be counter productive. Instead of universal basic income, a more optimal approach would be to start with: - Universal Basic Healthcare - Universal Basic Food Vouchers (based on median cost of food excluding first tier cities) - Universal Basic Housing Vouchers (based on median rent excluding first tier land constrained cities) - Universal Basic Continuing Online Education (i.e. something like Wikepedia, Coursera) Automation/Robotics/AI can and will drive the prices down for all of the above (with universal healthcare and housing in a first tier land constrained cities being the exceptions). SamA, YC, Amazon, Silicon Valley and Wall Street can aggressively compete to solve these societal problems with maximum efficiency and distribution capability. New universal services can be added as Automation/AI/Robotics drives costs down.