Outcast_Searcher wrote:
My concern is I'm not seeing credible workable solutions instead of the UBI. Just ignoring the problem is something we're good at, but leads to social disaster and then bankruptcy.
Yes, we have in the western hemisphere a perfect example of what happens if we do nothing; Brazil. Ever been there? I did about 50 trips there between 1989 and 2004. Got to know the culture very well, was invited into the homes and neighborhoods of my representatives I was managing and also spend time with my cousins and aunt who immigrated from Italy after WWII.
Perhaps my favorite country in Latin America, something about this giant melting pot and huge size and rich ethnic and racial heritage and irreverent humor and all the rest. Somehow like the USA but without all the uptight religious conservative hypocrisy. BUT the biggest price every Brazilian pays who lives in this country is the percentage of time and effort dedicated to personal security, neighborhoods sealed off, crime and robbery rampant, the upper middle class and wealthy living in prison like security ghettos, there is no respect to any piece of personal property that is not tied down, locked, secured and alarmed with triple military barb wire and broken off glass bottles lining the tops of stone walls... everywhere.
This is the future of the USA if we do nothing as OS states above. . Of course not for the 1% who will be able to afford the same security apparatus as their Brazilian 1% counterparts. But this will be the reality for the American middle class, that broad segment of the US population that already has been sacrificed to enable the 1% to reach astronomical wealth during the past 30 years. And now on top of that we want to target the programs that provide an imperfect safety net for the poor. OK, go right ahead.
As OS states it is easy to criticize any social safety net or welfare program. As inefficient and full of abuse as they are, as much as they do have the consequence of socializing and institutionalizing poverty, as much as all of that is true, go ahead and completely pull the rug out from under the poorest in the USA at the same time as we continue to erode the standard of living of the middle class as we have seen for the past 30 years and Brazil's reality is what we will end up having in the USA.....
Yep, so easy to criticize, not so easy to come up with viable solutions. if there are any.
I don't have any, just some observations here to try to broaden the perspective a bit.