Comment by ethbr1

Supply-side UBI (UBE?) is equally curious.

I.e. if we took the money (or a portion of it) that would be going to UBI and instead used it to directly buy the goods, for distribution, at scale.

Universal tertiary education (for the countries that don't have it), universal healthcare (for the US), universal food and shelter entitlements, etc.

I'll grant that some amount of direct income would be best, because of the flexibility it affords, but UBI in capitalist societies is a slippery slope for the reasons you mentioned (especially market price changes).

Why not instead focus on directly driving costs for basic goods so low (via volume) that we can make them effectively free?