Should we have a Universal Basic Income? July 17, 2026

**Scott Phillips** (0:10)
Welcome to Motley Fool Money, the podcast that may not be universal, but is certainly very basic. I'm Scott Phillips from the Motley Fool, I'm the basic one. He's the universal one. He is Andrew Page, the man who invented strawman.com, who breathed life into its still body, animated it from nothing and proved that immaculate conception really is a thing. Mr. Page, how are you? Good, mate.

**Andrew Page** (0:31)
You got me chuckling with that one, because we do put the B in basic, don't we?

**Scott Phillips** (0:36)
And B in BS, that's a whole different conversation.

**Andrew Page** (0:37)
That's a whole other thing too, yes.

**Scott Phillips** (0:40)
Mate, this is another pre-recorded podcast, and I need to insert the usual joke.
I am somewhere towards heading home at this point, I suspect, as long as everything's gone well. And mate, we had a couple of questions over time, speaking of universal and basic, to talk about a universal basic income. Now, this is kind of, you know, at least in theory, an investing-based podcast, we still will do lots of that, and this kind of touched on that stuff as well. But it does also touch on kind of policy, right? And what I think you and I find regularly is you pull a bit of string, and it kind of, nothing to unravel, but it's all kind of linked, right? We've talked a lot of them recent weeks about the tax policies, for example, are in part of the budget. And this is kind of the other side of that. It is part of the functioning of, not new beyond necessarily, but these conversations are part of what creates the circumstances in which companies live, survive, thrive, hopefully.
So it's kind of, I'm definitely trying to link it back here, mate, as you can hear. But I think it is relevant, right? Policy settings are relevant. You and I have said lots of times, the best circumstances for a company to be existing within are those that create prosperous people and a prosperous economy and a prosperous country, because that's when people are going to spend, the companies are going to thrive for the most part. If you're in the dystopian stuff, maybe you can buy weapons makers or something, but for the rest of us, the economy, when the economy does well, companies tend to do well. And we can argue about what's cause and what's effect, but broadly speaking, we want to live in a country that has a, for our own sakes, frankly, selfishly. But even on behalf of the companies that we invest in, a thriving economy is pretty much, not pretty well-cut necessarily, but it's the best possible way to start, right?

**Andrew Page** (2:24)
Oh, it is. I mean, I actually, I bristle a little bit with all of that. Everything that you just said is 100% accurate, and it's always the talk about the economy, the economy, the economy. But it does, there's a part of me that there's an eye roll with that, because I feel as though we've forgotten what we actually mean by that. And what you mean by that, if I can put words in your mouth, is just like, we want a more comfortable life. Yeah. Let's get rid of the BS, that's who I am. I would like to have more stuff, and not for hedonistic reasons, although maybe.
But just because I like it is, for like the last, however many hundred thousand years, that has been what we have striven for.
We want to be able to acquire more things, live a comfortable life, or just even if you want to live like a monk, we want to provide for the basics with as little work as possible, because we're here for a finite amount of time. Life is precious. I want to spend it with my family and my friends, having great experiences. I don't want to spend it in a tiny cubicle, filling out a 2C slash 7, 8, 4, 9 B form. That is not living. Now, at the same time, let's be realistic. Sometimes forms have to be filled out. Sometimes stuff has to get done.
But it's about managing those two things. And so, yes, I've just got to jump on my hobby horse very quickly and say, yes, it is about the economy, but let's just be real on what it is not about trying to make GDP go up. Yes, it is not about all of these sort of vanity kind of new term metrics because it just sounds good. That's what it's all about.

**Scott Phillips** (4:02)
It's funny. I like it. We're getting off track, but that's what we do on this podcast. So we'll keep going.