I sincerely appreciate the thoughtful response, @buggedout. You make good points and the economic dynamics you point out are very real. I don't have a counter to the points you're making, but I would challenge you to reflect more on the fundamental dynamics of fiat currency and the impacts they produce in the modern economy.

I do want to make a distinction between UBI and BI. Where Universal Basic Income is a significant monthly outlay ($2,000/month), and a Basic Income is a scaling amount amount of guaranteed payments - which is what we have here on Hive.

There is an odd paradox in the finance world where that has given rise to the mantra of money is cheap. What does this mean? Well, with the right corporate structure, you can effectively access capital (cash) for free - see the zero/near-zero environment at global central banks. I believe there is a direct correlation to fiat currency and its lack of material asset backing that lends to the overvaluation of equities - creating market bubbles. How can we accurately price companies if the primary resource (fiat) we're using to determine market has no stable materiality. This dynamic explains why basic business fundamentals (profitability, revenue, assets, liabilities and growth potential) are largely secondary in the market. With gold no longer acting as the floor for our currency, we now have to factor in subjective dynamics to better understand currency prices - essentially requiring the USD to reflect the brand value of the United States.

Despite money being free to corporates, at the very same time, economic inequality is increasing at unprecedented rates. Could it be that this dynamic of cheap capital is the root cause of global inequity? I believe that the low growth economic environment is due to economic inequality. How do you expect individuals in the general public to reinvest their money in the economy and start businesses while more of their free cash flow is going towards basic needs. Despite unprecedented technological advancement, leading to the creation of modern marvels like the internet and mobile phones, general income has not kept pace with inflation over the past 30 years. This dynamic is a result of governance decisions made by executives and their boards, who mostly recognize employees as secondary to shareholders - which is known as stakeholder primacy. Most businesses exist to support the distribution of products and services, but the principle priority for any publicly traded company (the biggest companies) is returning value to shareholders - which has little relation to ensuring value for stakeholders.

At the end of the day, economic outlays (government welfare) are going to happen - be it to organizations or individuals, it can't be just one or the other, but there has to be a careful balance. While I do agree that there are potentially significant risks in the creation of a UBI program, I think inaction has a significantly worse outcome. Corporate welfare, cheap money, has been in existence for a while, and the intermediaries (banks) that stand in the way of individuals receiving the same benefits will have to face this reality - as this was the promise of Decentralized Finance.

A consistent UBI, distributed monthly, will create an economically attractive financial signal, allowing governments and economic research institutions view of a financial "heartbeart" - with which they can better understand and predict economic movements on a month basis. It effectively restores the "floor" of the economy by ensuring that economic activity shouldn't go below a certain percentage of monthly outlays.

As it relates to HIVE, I am in agreement with both you and @ctime that the existence of SBI creates the potential of more low quality content receiving a payment, but with the existence of curation teams, I trust that the upvote/downvote system will continue to function the way it is intended, ensuring that quality posts remains at the top. It's counter-intuitive for me to want to support spam, and I obviously want a healthy content ecosystem.

Also, congratulations, you're the first to receive one of the SBI sponsorships! You're welcome to downvote yourself if you feel consistent payments are unfair.

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