Greetings. I am a time traveler from a future where Andrew Yang became president in 2020. That said, I am not from 2020, I am from 2028, where Adam Schiff is currently the 63rd President of the United States and the world population is 900 million.

It all began with Universal Basic Income. It sounded like such a great idea, giving each person a thousand dollars a month so they could afford basic living expenses. So that's what we did.

To be honest, nobody could have known that 325 million people spending 12,000 a year would equal 4 trillion dollars. Pretty sure that kind of math was cut out of common core. And certainly nobody could predict that redistributing a fifth of the entire economy would have far reaching consequences.

Within the first month, a tenth of the labor force quit. Some were working class, but there were more than a few middle class people who had saved up almost enough money to retire and the UBI put them over the hill. So now we had the same number of mouths to feed and 6 million less hands to make the food. We had an immediate price spike.

By the second month, all the businesses that were paying for the UBI began to raise their prices. There were a few riots over shortages but the police force handled things pretty well. Not a big issue.

By the third month, we were able to secure additional imports to make up for the loss of domestic production. We accidentally flooded the foreign market with US dollars by buying up so much stuff. Our allies were not happy about the declining USD on the international market.

By the fourth month, our allies started dumping their USD and buying whatever goods would hold value against inflation. This drove up prices domestically and more than a few US counties suddenly found themselves unable to make pay their bills.

Several US counties had always been right on the edge of bankruptcy and suddenly the tax revenue they had collected in the previous quarter was worth a lot less. They needed to raise taxes but large numbers of people had stopped working. So they defaulted on their liabilities.

In just the first few months, we were hit by the triple whammy. Higher taxes, Smaller tax base, Less people making stuff. All hell broke loose when foreign holders of US dollars started to pulling out to hedge against inflation.

Six months in, the government had run out of money. The federal government had to bail out the counties using taxes that were collected in the previous tax period, which was now worth a lot less. Mind you, it wasn't exactly true. The government still had money, but it was all locked up. The discretionary liquid assets were spent and that was enough.

That was when China made it's move. Losing a tenth of our labor force only drove up prices by 7%. Raising taxes to pay for UBI only drove up prices by 10%. Recovering the taxes from losing our taxpayer base only drove up prices by 8%. Trade imbalances only drove up prices by 20%. Thus far, 45% inflation was technically not hyperinflation despite bankrupting large parts of the US by rendering the tax revenues worthless.

China decided it wanted to stop rolling over its inflation-adjusted US treasury investments. How in the hell were we supposed to pay back a trillion inflation adjusted dollars when the tax revenues we were collecting were now inflated by 45%?

By month seven, Police unions went on strike when their pensions dried up. We declared martial law because it was cheaper. A PFC makes a lot less than a police officer and they signed away their right to OT and holiday pay when they enlisted.

Within eight months, every major population center descended into chaos. Cities were now blacked out from people stealing copper wire. Zoo animals disappeared.

And that was when the starving mobs noticed one building still had lights on, still had guards, still had running water.

I'm sure the monkeys in the Center for Disease Control were delicious, and would have been completely edible if fully cooked. But there was a blackout and a fuel shortage, and we discovered about fifteen percent of the human race was resistant to Ebola.

If you are reading this, please heed my warning. It is important to remember that this was not real socialism. True socialism would have worked. Next time, we'll get it right.