The only way that UBI can work is if you have a very strong labour market with high levels of flexibility. This is one of the tricky things about economic poli

The only way that UBI can work is if you have a very strong labour market with high levels of flexibility. This is one of the tricky things about economic policy. If you are proposing UBI, you are likely to be the worst person possible to implement it. All the proponents see are upsides without the deep understanding of the downsides. A country which manages this well is Denmark. They have high levels of union membership, they have a true contributory unemployment insurance scheme that functions like UBI but they are also very savvy about capitalism/markets, and have one of the most flexible labour markets in the world (one of the few places on par with the US, maybe even ahead of). They understand that capitalism is the way you pay for all this stuff, it is the solution, not the problem. Very few political systems can make this leap. The same applies to the discussion around restarting. Lots of countries went hard on the lockdown rhetoric...and now, it is pretty hard to roll back. It is very concerning though. I don't think this is going to be some huge decade long disaster, things will get better. But there is a real possibility that a lot of supply gets destroyed in the meantime as the middle-class cocoons themselves at home out of fear.