Saying the US embraces "capitalism" doesn't really make sense. What does that word really mean? The economy is proclaimed as a free market, but it is absolutely riddled with taxes, regulations, and crony privileges for corporate interest. Some say this, and not laissez-faire, is what they mean by capitalism, but conflation and confusion abound when it comes to economic discussions.
Where does the wealth for UBI come from? Governments produce nothing. It can only tax people who are productive, or create units of currency out of thin air. The inflation we are facing now is largely a consequence of COVID response money supply and credit expansion inflation we were told would be nonexistent or transitory four years ago.
Cryptocurrency is a threat to the monetary system of government, so they demand power to regulate and monitor our efforts to create a market alternative to their monopoly money. Meanwhile, central banks are trying to figure out how to create their own digital currencies so they can surveil us more and ensure they get every penny in extortion revenue possible. It's not for serving our needs.
Income tax was sold to Americans as a way to get the "1%" of 1913 to "pay their fair share," and the Social Security ponzi scheme was a guaranteed income for old age. Neither worked as advertised. A UBI would be different how?
Good points, everything true. We have done nothing more than jump from utopia after utopia over the centuries, all invented by the same old control freaks of always. Why not try now a different utopia invented and controlled by the people for the people just for a change?
If the prospect of Universal Basic Income were ever to be entertained, the Federal government would have to start taxing all these mega-churches. When you think of it, those institutions have ridden on the tax-free gravy train for way too long. It's egregious that televangelist Kenneth Copeland gets to fly around in an expensive airplane while people in the Appalachian mountains are starving to death.
Do Copeland's jets cause starvation? The economy is not a zero-sum game, and much as I hate seeing grifters profit, people choose to give him money. That cannot be said for government. Everything it has must be expropriated by force, threat of force, or fraud.
UBI is not an economically sound concept. It's a sales pitch to buy support for the political class from gullible people. A central planner taking wealth from the market of voluntary exchanges, filtering it through a bureaucracy, inflating the supply, and then circulating a portion back into the economy through favored interests does not generate wealth, it just redistributes it, distorting the market and privileging the politically-connected in the process.
They offer UBI in Saudi Arabia. Of course, Saudi Arabia has a wealth of financial resources from their oil and gas industry, and their monarchy has the legal ability to compel the oil and gas industry to pour money into their economy.
Do Kenneth Copeland's jets cause starvation? The answer to that question falls somewhat within a gray area. Some nations do tax religious institutions, and those nations have more tax revenue that they can use to benefit their economy. I see what you're saying about the ills of remolding our economy to be fueled by artificial means. However, the elephant in the room here is that our Federal government and the likes cannot keep addressing the problems with our economy and joblessness and homelessness with the same policies and expect different results.
Saudi Arabia does not offer UBI. They have a state-monopolized petroleum industry. Assuming it works as you say, this is still not proof UBI works. That political monopoly entrenches a political class, but at least there is actual industrial production of a market good, and not just money printing, behind such a scheme. It isn't sustainable, though. Even if the Saudis weren't deeply corrupt, there is still the economic calculation problem. We saw what happened when Venezuela relied on state oil monopoly. It was a miracle of socialist success, until it collapsed that is.
Saudi Arabia has what is called a Citizen's Account Program, which is similar to UBI. It seems to work okay in their culture.
I agree with you that Saudi Arabia has never been free from corruption, but they do appear to keep their poverty down to a minimal. When I was living in Los Angeles, California in the 1990s, I toured a museum of Saudi Arabian culture; and I learned that one of the highlights of their society is that all of their college education is free. For decades they haven't had the collective poverty that you see in India.
Nevertheless, I see what you mean about the dangers of a nation printing money blindly. Also, I realize that even if UBI could work well in one nation, it might not work at all in another nation inasmuch as every nation has a different situation than the other. A very bad mistake on Joe Biden's part was cancelling the Keystone XL Pipeline, which killed a number of jobs.