TANSTAAFL.

As you may or may not know, depending on how much anarchist sci-fi literature you consume, "TANSTAAFL" is an acronym meaning "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." But while TANSTAAFL may have been popularized by Robert Heinlein in his 1996 classic, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, at base it's just a reformulation of the age-old historical wisdom that nothing advertised as "free" is ever really free. As anyone ever suckered into a high-pressure timeshare pitch on the basis of a "free weekend getaway" offer will know, there is always a hidden cost to any "free" item.

So when one particular "free lunch" idea is being pimped by a rogue's gallery of tyrants and billionaires—from Nobel Warmonger Barack Obama to rabid eugenicist Bill Gates to Facebook founder Mark Zucker-borg to serial scammer Elon Musk—you might want to ask yourself what the real cost of this manna from heaven is.

And which "free lunch" idea am I referring to, exactly? Why, universal basic income (UBI), of course.

For the few people reading this who've never heard of UBI, it refers to a program in which every* citizen receives a periodic payment from the government with no strings attached* (*more on these asterisks in a moment). The idea is promoted by organizations like the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) as a means of promoting "liberty and equality, efficiency and community, common ownership of the Earth and equal sharing in the benefits of technical progress, the flexibility of the labour market and the dignity of the poor, the fight against inhumane working conditions, against the desertification of the countryside and against interregional inequalities, the viability of cooperatives and the promotion of adult education, autonomy from bosses, husbands and bureaucrats."

In other words: Free lunch is served, everybody!

Although the idea of a UBI has been around for decades, it never really caught on until everyone began fearing that the rise of the robots and the automation of everything will leave masses of people unemployed and angry. Now it's the hottest discussion topic for technocrats and tyrants of all stripes, from the literal transhumanists of Futurism.com to the pampered plutocrats at the World Economic Forum. And as BIEN and their like-minded basic income proponents will tell you, it's not just an idea. Universal basic income programs are already being trialed all around the globe!

. . . Well, OK, not universal basic income. That's still not being trialed. But small-scale studies involving thousands of people are being done in Finland, Canada, Kenya, Brazil. A UBI-type program is now even being proposed in Chicago (with Obomber's blessing, of course).

But perhaps you are a tad incredulous that a government program to "unconditionally" rain helicopter money down on everyone will really solve poverty or end unemployment. If so, then give yourself a cookie. The proposal is a scam on every level, one being proposed by economic illiterates who truly believe they have found the secret to poverty eradication hiding out in plain sight. "Just give everybody free money!" Oh, of course! Why didn't I think of that?