[lowkey]

> What is the problem with the government providing subsistence incomes indexed to inflation ..

There is nothing wrong with the idea except it does not exist. Show me a country where governments provide subsistence income indexed to the official inflation rate, let alone the real rate of inflation. Show me a gov that allows minimum wage to increase at anything approaching inflation. Or show me a traditional bank account that will allow them to save at a rate that keeps up with inflation - It doesn’t exist.

> and letting wealtholders fortunes get inflated away?

and show me a wealtholder who’s fortune is held in cash instead of scarce assets so as to be inflated away - doesn’t exist.

> How does deflation, which proportionally rewards holders of currency, help those with a fixed income more than inflationary handouts?

Watch the bottom 70% of El Salvador’s citizens over the next decade for a real world example. They now get a decentralized savings account denominated in a currency growing at 200% y/y instead of one that is constantly being debased (USD printed 50% of all dollars ever created during the pandemic) - except for crypto no bank account will ever again pay enough interest to keep up with inflation.