There is a terrific scene in the movie Titanic where some rich asshole tries to buy his way onto one of the lifeboats ahead of women and children and the person he is trying to bribe shoves the money back at the rich guy and says that money won't do him any good at the bottom of the ocean.
He is about to die and he knows it. Money has no power to sway him at that point in time, under those circumstances. It's irrelevant.
Money is a wonderful invention but I think many of the people who are fans of UBI are people who fundamentally think poor people have problems that are easily solved by just cutting them a check. That simply isn't reality for a long list of reasons starting with the fact that the solutions ordinary people need simply don't exist or are in very short supply.
Critically, there is a nationwide shortage of affordable housing in the US. There is also a very limited amount of housing suitable to living a full life without a car and those two subsets tend to not overlap, so there is an even smaller pool of affordable housing where you can readily access all the amenities you need for a full life without a car.
UBI can't solve poverty in the world as we know it in part because of the above facts. If there are no cheap homes available where a car is genuinely optional, the amount of money they want to give out as UBI simply cannot provide the basics.
Those basics need to be created first and I think discussion of UBI makes it less likely they will be. Whether we implement UBI or not, we have to build enough housing of the right kind so that small households (1-3 people) are capable of making their lives work on a budget.
If we build a sufficient supply of small, affordably priced homes in walkable neighborhoods where a car is genuinely optional, most people can come up with enough money to make their lives work. At that point, you can potentially make your life work as a single person with a part-time, minimum-wage job.
But if you pass out UBI checks and don't also build enough of the right kind of housing, all you do is fuel inflation and the abusive expectation that poor people must move out of the big cities if they can't afford it. It will foster a climate where The Haves will most likely take the position "We cut you a check. Quit your bitching!" and the fact that there simply isn't affordable housing available will fall on deaf ears.
It's mostly falling on deaf ears already, even without a UBI.
UBI or no UBI, we need to solve the housing crisis. That won't be solved by money per se. It will be solved by building enough housing of the right kind.
UBI is almost irrelevant. If we get the fundamentals right, most people will be able to make their lives work, with or without UBI. If we don't, many people will not be able to make their lives work, with or without UBI.
One of those fundamentals is correcting the deficiencies in our housing supply. This needs to happen nationwide.
I am not for UBI but I'm also not actually against it either. What I am against is people who act like poverty can be solved by cutting a fairly small check to poor people and looking no further .
That doesn't work. We've built a world where that doesn't solve it and we need to build something else, whether or not we also cut people a check as part of the package deal for solving our current issues.
He is about to die and he knows it. Money has no power to sway him at that point in time, under those circumstances. It's irrelevant.
Money is a wonderful invention but I think many of the people who are fans of UBI are people who fundamentally think poor people have problems that are easily solved by just cutting them a check. That simply isn't reality for a long list of reasons starting with the fact that the solutions ordinary people need simply don't exist or are in very short supply.
Critically, there is a nationwide shortage of affordable housing in the US. There is also a very limited amount of housing suitable to living a full life without a car and those two subsets tend to not overlap, so there is an even smaller pool of affordable housing where you can readily access all the amenities you need for a full life without a car.
UBI can't solve poverty in the world as we know it in part because of the above facts. If there are no cheap homes available where a car is genuinely optional, the amount of money they want to give out as UBI simply cannot provide the basics.
Those basics need to be created first and I think discussion of UBI makes it less likely they will be. Whether we implement UBI or not, we have to build enough housing of the right kind so that small households (1-3 people) are capable of making their lives work on a budget.
If we build a sufficient supply of small, affordably priced homes in walkable neighborhoods where a car is genuinely optional, most people can come up with enough money to make their lives work. At that point, you can potentially make your life work as a single person with a part-time, minimum-wage job.
But if you pass out UBI checks and don't also build enough of the right kind of housing, all you do is fuel inflation and the abusive expectation that poor people must move out of the big cities if they can't afford it. It will foster a climate where The Haves will most likely take the position "We cut you a check. Quit your bitching!" and the fact that there simply isn't affordable housing available will fall on deaf ears.
It's mostly falling on deaf ears already, even without a UBI.
UBI or no UBI, we need to solve the housing crisis. That won't be solved by money per se. It will be solved by building enough housing of the right kind.
UBI is almost irrelevant. If we get the fundamentals right, most people will be able to make their lives work, with or without UBI. If we don't, many people will not be able to make their lives work, with or without UBI.
One of those fundamentals is correcting the deficiencies in our housing supply. This needs to happen nationwide.
I am not for UBI but I'm also not actually against it either. What I am against is people who act like poverty can be solved by cutting a fairly small check to poor people and looking no further .
That doesn't work. We've built a world where that doesn't solve it and we need to build something else, whether or not we also cut people a check as part of the package deal for solving our current issues.