Posted on 12/20/2023 8:37:52 AM PST by fwdude
So, I have mixed emotions about this. True, probably 1/2 of recipients of this will blow the money on drugs, booze, smokes and other crap. The other half will actually benefit from it, in a good way.
Our country hates poor people, and wants them to stay poor, so that the rich can feed off them, and so that the Dems can get their vote. The old keep them barefoot and pregnant thingy.
Our minimum wage laws are a joke, and even worse because so many jobs are structured to be part-time, to avoid paying health insurance benefits. Our schools are a sham, and colleges far too expensive because of the student loan scam. Health insurance is pathetic, and we should have national health care like other countries. (I have not heard of any doctors starving to death in France, or Australia.)
Everything is rigged against the poor and middle classes. The unemployed pay taxes on unemployment, but not the welfare class on their benefits. And although our major companies screw Americans by outsourcing production to other countries, one could hardly blame them due to the crappy employees in this country. Plus, they have to meet their competition in the marketplace, so they must compete cheaply.
So, when the poor get a few bucks here and there, I can not get too angry about it.
In my personal experience, I’ve seen exactly this type of rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul mentality in action. A housekeeper of my family was in this class, and she would regularly take lavish gifts given to her by her employers and pawn them off. I once asked her where the nice television my sister-in-law’s mom gave her and she said it was in the pawn shop. Everything she received slipped through her fingers like that.
Not arguing in favor of a UBI, but there could be important lessons to learn from this data. Not that I have any faith those lessons would be implemented. But ask the questions such as what was it about this money that helped? Did it get people into housing that was otherwise unaffordable? Then there is a problem with housing affordability. Fix that. Did it get them medical care? Then there is a problem with medical care system. Fix that. Did it get them healthier meals? Then there is a problem with food subsidies. Fix that.
All you say is fine if we are talking about private contributions going to subsidize these “poor” people. But taxpayers have no responsibility to do this. That’s rank socialism.
And how do the elites "fix that," exactly? Price fixing?
Horrible solution.
I keep waiting for the IRS to tax the basic income.
Eventually “they” will run out of other peoples money to give away...
Wait until the 8 million “immigrants” the Biden gang brought in so far grows to 50 or 100 million, all receiving UBI or other free stuff. They have been selling food stamps for a long time. Now the number threatens to consume what’s left of this nation’s soul.
The original recipient of the card sells it at one fourth its value, and uses the cash to support their vices for a couple of days. The dealer sells the card to someone who takes life a little more seriously; they’ll pay half price. That’s not the person the study thinks, but that’s the use that gets tracked. Flawed study.
And another biggie, which group is conducting the alleged study?
The ed industry knows who to fund to get results that it wants (e.g., absolute nonsense such as sight-reading works better than phonics and fuzzy math is a miracle), psychological studies, same deceitful con.
Homeless people in Los Angeles will protest they only get $625.00 a month.
Cards like that are always for sale so the original holder can get cash for drugs.
No. Cut red tape on new construction, cut property taxes, cut permitting time, cut permitting fees, re-zone commercial for residential etc.
HIGHLY likely the recipients were cherry picked= No mental illness, no drug or alcohol addictions= extreme minority of the homeless.
If by cigarettes they mean e cigarettes, vape pens... then it was drugs. They fill those things with drugs now. Everywhere you go it smells of skunk.
The people who come up with ideas like “universal” basic income aren’t interested in people getting jobs and being independent. Quite the opposite.
The reason they want “universal” basic income is the same reason the folks who run county jails and prisons have commisaries, and encourage prisoners to use them. Modern countries cannot get away with depriving prisoners of food when they misbehave because that would be considered cruel and get bad PR.
So the food is kept deliberately bland and dull as possible but in large quantities to keep off criticism on human rights grounds. This creates in the prisoners an intense longing for condiments, favorite flavors and outside food, a longing that can be used to force certain behaviors desired by management, or to punish disobedience. The government uses the commissary system to dispense these highly desirable and otherwise unobtainable treats, and they prevent family from bringing anything else to relieve the boredom of the mind or palate. To get things to the prisoner, money has to go into the prisoner’s account, and can only be spent at the commissary, on the junk food and garbage that is allowed, that prisoners are craving because unflavored carbohydrates just aren’t cutting it month after month. Once prisoners have been made sugar and junk food addicts or are desperate for some other commissary item, they can be controlled by the threat of denying them access to the commissary. Most prisoners easily grasp that if the misbehave they will lose commissary privileges, and they behave. Anyone who doesn’t loses theirs and then they become the poster child warning everyone else about consequences. A few are vicious or conniving enough to get around the consequences by forcing or just sucking up or prostituting themselves to some other prisoner to get stuff for them, but the commissary treats work fo most.
Once there is a Universal Basic Income, almost everyone will be controlled by the fear of losing access to the universal “commissary”, just as today some people on disability refuse to take offered jobs, even those they are quite capable of doing though disabled, out of fear they will lose their free income. And then most people will vote accordingly, for anyone who promises to increase the amount they get and against anyone they are told will take any of it away.
It is all about creating a universal dependency system, so that everyone will get accustomed to the “treat” and kept in such poor and miserably bland, restrictive conditions, that the craving for it and fear of losing it becomes an obsession.
That’s a Karl Marx quote? I’m surprised how much communism is in our society and literature.
Those homeless people are reported to be spending $150 per month on rent. Where? Obviously, they’re not surviving on $750 per month.
According to article, those homeless spent 20% of $750 on rent, or $150. $150? In a homeless shelter maybe.
Un-apartmented?
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