I agree, Jeff. Like global warming, technological unemployment is an issue that is here, conceivable, and must be dealt with. We can ameliorate its effects, or we can live with the consequences. It may be that these issues are beyond the human scope to correct, but I choose not to believe so.

Our economy is built on a paradigm of employment for wages and consumption of goods. Those constituent parts can be decoupled, at least to a certain extent. We already do so in many aspects of the overall economy: Retirement benefits, Social Security, unemployment compensation and welfare, as well as those who live on investment income. UBI would be an extension of those concepts. Personally, I would orchestrate it as a refundable tax credit. That way it can be phased out for those who do not need it, and it would require participation in the general economic scheme of the nation.

In many respects such a scheme would be nearly revenue neutral, since the dollars spent would recirculate throughout the economy, the Local Multiplier Effect. The only step missing is the actual employment for wage process.

A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich