I agree with what you are saying, but this is just one suggested implementation of a socialist idea. It's not like socialism as a platform is 100% flawed just because communism, which I assume you are eluding to, as an implementation of extreme socialism is fucked up. In fact plenty of socialist ideas are implemented by the US government and work just fine. NB: I'm not referring to the now defunct Affordable Care Act although it was a great boon for many US citizens despite some flaws in it's implementation.

So while the idea of universal income sounds nice in theory I don't think we are responsible enough to handle it properly. I mean where I live the country will take care of you. A person who simply doesn't want to work won't end up on the street, but then again he or she won't have a great income or be free to live wherever they want. Don't get me wrong you won't be thrown into communal housing, but you can't rent a flat in the middle of the city centre because you want to either. For the people who hates this lack of control and/or wants something more than the basic amenities of life it's not an issue because they will strive to get out of this situation, but what about those who don't mind it? I can only imagine universal income will cause more people to become stagnant and happy with just getting by with what they have. In my experience this leads to a very unproductive for society. It's not like it will make people harmful to society it just means that they focus more on self realisation and self reward rather than things we can all benefit from. There are some Arab countries who have implemented universal income (although it's not exactly similar to what I assume Obama had in mind) and in my experience a lot of the people from these countries have some grand delusions about their own self worth compared to others. These nations are also somewhat backwards with a lot of almost segregated foreign workers who live and work in slave like conditions. I don't know what came first. The universal income or the weird sense of superiority and slave labour. Personally I would rather have more flexibility in terms of work hours. Where I live I earn more than I need to live comfortably even if I worked 80% of the time with the same hourly wage I currently have. I would much rather work 80%, even with the pay reduction, than have a society where I just receive benefits from the state. Because for me happiness is just as much the ability to pursue the things you want as the ability to buy the things you want. So if I could spend 1-2 hours each day exercising (i have a desk job btw) without this stealing time from my social life or spend a long weekend back with my parents now and then without having to work extra hours this would be far more valuable to me than money considering that I'm already getting by fine financially. I'm not sure if this is equally applicable to the US though.