Are we talking about the same kind if inflation.

A rise in the general level of prices where a unit of currency buys less than it did in prior periods.

Increased demand, like when you give poor people more money, causes inflation. Poor people almost always spend all the money they get. Even when supply can keep up with demand, the added demand opens the window for producers to increase prices.

Devaluing one’s currency can cause inflation. Pumping money into the economy like QE or Government Deficit spending devalues one’s currency, this raises prices, especially on imports.

If you borrow to pay for UBI is causes inflation. If you print Money (QE, increase the FED’s balance sheet) it causes inflation. If you implement VAT to pay for UBI it causes inflation because the VAT is additive to prices so the price of most things with a VAT is increased by a large percentage of the VAT.

If UBI positions workers to demand higher wages that will cause inflation, higher wages leads to higher prices.

The only way UBI does not cause inflation is it cost neutral. No more expensive than the programs it replaces. So there are UBI schemes that might not cause inflation but they don’t do much good.

I think we should implement UBI but we should be prepared to deal with the knock on effects some of which will be harmful to the middle class that is already being stressed.

It could be that my belief that the VAT is unpopular is because of the kind of Brits, Aussies and Kiwis with whom I have conversed. They lament that the products I can buy here in the U.S. cost so much more in their country.