I actually agree with you, and I know for a fact that the planet (which includes human society) has a huge untapped potential for supporting many billions if ev

I actually agree with you, and I know for a fact that the planet (which includes human society) has a huge untapped potential for supporting many billions if everyone just allows things to work. Why cash? Why not a free apartment, free local transportation, free food, free doctor, and free TV. That would cover 90% of the people 100% of the time. The reason is that cash is fungible and will therefore flow more freely to the actual recipients of the handouts, which are merchants who price necessities according to what the market will bear. If anyone would like to debate that last assertion, I'd be interested in a counter-example where the price of essentials just kept on getting lower and lower. I'm not sure UBI is any different than all the prior plans to spend our way to prosperity. To learn the truth, we will have to ask our descendants when they are paying for all this. (Of course this assumes we don't bankrupt first.)