[epicureanideal]

GDP isn't the best measure though of the actual health of the economy. In the current situation maybe doing what you're suggesting would work, somewhat... but I could imagine situations where it wouldn't.

For example, Elon Musk is rich. If we just redistribute all his money to "people who still spend it" (the poor), we get a bunch of people buying slightly better cars instead of getting significantly better rocket technology. At that point it's less of a clear benefit.

[jaggederest]

Completely agree. I think my back of the envelope calculations were that paying for a reasonable UBI in the US would require a new flat income tax in the 12% range, a wealth tax in the 2% per annum range, or a land value tax in the 8% range. I don't think that any of those would be too huge a disincentive for Mr. Musk - most of his ventures seem to yield either -100% or +30% per annum.

[epicureanideal]

But adding another 12% on upper middle class workers such as myself would create a very large disincentive to work harder.