In Canada as well as your country we are experimenting with Universal Basic Income  [UBI]

A lot of people are blaming UBI for problems filling job openings

I find this whole thing to be very complex so you may not want to read my jumbled up thoughts. I would make an excellent Janet Yellen to speak for an hour and say nothing of any value.

 So here goes my thesis

There are probably several reasons for the lack of workers. It may be possible that the baby boomer generation has decided, for any number of reasons that now is the time to retire. Many may have worked past retirement but now  think staying home and collecting a pension looks the better alternative . Some are collecting more by not working than what the old job pays today. No matter there is a labor shortage

This begs the question of what will business do to fill the labor shortage

One problem is some business pay good wages but materials are in short supply to fill increased orders. These business will not expand until more material or supply becomes available which looks to be some time. Steel is one such material that is stopping expansion of order filling, and good paying jobs. Some of this is low skill but wages can be good as the cost is passed along to the consumer.  Buffett is doing this and finding the consumer is willing to pay the increased cost. People are paying more for used cars, thus increases in cost is not slowing demand to create a surplus

Another answer is to replace labor with capital [robots]

Now for the person who depends on UBI ,the danger is the UBI may not keep up to the increased consumer prices. If that person decides to look for work, depending on his/her skills, the job may be done by robots and the inflation factor becomes a problem with business that have increased costs passed along to the consumer, whose UBI is not purchasing the same goods and services.

As you have probably guessed I think we are in for inflation in the coming yrs. Powell says he welcomes some inflation and what we have today is {transitory"

Well I beg to disagree. I think too many things are coming down the pike, to expect short time inflation. Bear pointed this out in a post about the long term bond [I think it was the 30 yr but could be wrong about the yr of bond]. The bond market is looking at higher int rates which will only happen if inflation runs hot

Another thing that most may have missed is the world exporters want their currency to devalue in lock step with the USD. Nobody wants the USD to become worth less than the current level of pesos vs USD or Argentina currency vs USD. The exporting countries want the USD to have enough value to buy all those boat loads of containers the americian consumer is willing to buy

SO: this is my best guess about the future 

Capital will replace a lot of workers

UBI will not keep up to inflation

Wages will not keep up to inflation Many workers with debts will suddenly find re-fi int rates increasing making the typical house mortgage much more

If you own assets that keep paying dividends  equal to inflation  and/or have little to no debt, well and good, Other wise some with income not geared to inflation [which will be the largest % of the population] will slowly lose their living standard of today

Crypto or PM may be a hedge against inflation. I doubt anybody knows that answer, and if they prove correct, was it luck or good for sight to be on the right side of an asset??

Will stks keep their value. I think stks with cash flow equal to cost or value of the stk is the best place for the future of stks. Stks that are riding the buying momentum of new buyers will some day find there is no greater fool who wants to buy the stk..

It's a vicious circle but the Fed or Treasury will be borrowing huge amounts of money with money printed from thin air. Eventually int rates will have to increase, plus inflation will find the bulk of the population with lower living standards. This cost cutting by house hold budgets will serve to cool off inflation as the demand for goods and services will decrease. Then we enter a mini recession although at higher prices.

My best guess of the future and one can look back some yrs from now and see how well I did to predict the future and how many of my thoughts turned out good or bad.