It occurred to the lion kingdom that universal basic income makes sense in 1 case: if you're already printing $70 billion/month to buy government bonds. In this case, they might as well split the $70 billion evenly, give everyone $175 every month & charge everyone another $2100 in taxes on April 15.

It feels kind of like life support for the fed to now have to indefinitely print $70 billion/month to fund the government, after a failed attempt to make the government fund itself for just a year, but the white house decreed thou shalt restart quantitative easing all year & the bank of Powell finally capitulated in September.

The only difference from universal basic income is the fed currently gives the $70 billion to primary dealers who then buy stocks. Putting the money into stocks supposedly gives traders leverage to borrow more, increasing the amount of government bonds they can buy above the $70 billion alone.

If they want more leverage & quantitative easing is mandatory, they should just base a $70 billion universal income on it, let the free market allocate how it's spent & rely on the government's giant sucking power to suck it all up.