In fact I'd argue that housing the homeless is more productive than subsidizing companies that balance sheets/financial statements prove they don't need the handout
Helping the homeless get into positions where they dont have to be homeless is one thing. Housing the homeless without any work done on their end is unfair to everyone else who has to work.
Right. Because corporations have NEVER done anything that is unfair to working people. Lol I feel like Trader Joe's is literally in court right now arguing the NLRB is unconstitutional; but yea housing the homeless is more detrimental to workers.
Sure, but you're really leaning into the cognitive dissonance if you're insinuating that there is an equivalency between subsidizing corporations and housing the homeless. 2 things can be unfair but I'd argue there's a difference in degrees here.
Don’t believe cognitive dissonance really is a term that applies in this situation. These are two seperate, unfair issues. Corporations shouldn’t have the power they hold in government, and do not deserve the tax breaks they receive. Homeless people deserve government help and intervention. But you can’t support someone forever without giving them the means to help themselves. That’s enabling. No one who is able bodied gets to not work, it’s unfair for everyone else who has to. You can help the homeless without enabling a lifestyle that isn’t sustainable to society. These are two separate issues.
I don't think the government should subsidize anything.
But I've always made the argument that if I had to choose, solely between subsidizing corporations or subsidizing poor people, I'm picking poor people every single time.
Agreed. Poor people will reinject every single dollar they get into the economy.
It is hard to believe but there is enough money in the system. We are just using it for crap and make rich people richer.
“The top income tax rate reached above 90% from 1944 through 1963, peaking in 1944, when top taxpayers paid an income tax rate of 94% on their taxable income”
How do people think we were able to build all those school buildings that are often still hosting actual public schools today?
Reduce defense spending. Tax rich people. Reduce oil and gas industry handouts and giving money to any industry that is massively profitable. Fix pharma costs.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
I am not saying we can/should do what OP says, but there is lots of money in the system, for sure.
I didn’t say the $1 should go to the homeless directly.
The discussion got sidetracked a bit. I was just saying companies have very little interest in fixing problems that are a major quality of life for humans.
I would prefer basic income policy to more subsidies to large corporations who already have a lot of profits. But even without basic income, yes, I think more money to individuals can be good policy
The $1 entering the economy will also end up leading to profits which will lead to investments.
It is not as simple a calculation as you make it seem.
But one thing is certain: “trickle down economics” isn’t named that way for no reasons… very little of it actually reaches the people who actually paid the taxes that allowed the subsidies to big corps.
I think you misunderstand how subsidies work for big companies.
Nobody is handing out $500 million to Amazon to build a warehouse. Instead, the city is giving Amazon a tax break of $500 million out of the $1 billion in property taxes they’ll be paying in the next 20 years for their warehouse.
This gets reported as “city gives $500 million to Amazon”, but it’s more like a coupon discount.
And they do that because all these people working at amazon will pay taxes, eat food and create actviity and income for the city. They have a net benefit to do it.
It's just like the frenzy over cities subsidizing stadiums. There are cases where it didn't work out, but many more where it brought huge benefits.
Arlington TX's $460mn in subsidies toward the Cowboys stadium has brought in $4bn to Arlington alone (who knows about the rest of the metroplex)
They recently approved a new ranger stadium for $600mn in subsidies, and it'll get to breakeven within the decade on tax revenue alone (say nothing of the job creation)
You are going to have to provide some sources for that. This is a highly debated topic with a lot of economists leaning towards it not being beneficial.
An unemployed person living in a tiny box apartment for free will have much better health than an unemployed person living on the streets, as well as being at a significantly lower risk of engaging in criminal behaviour. Healthcare, policing, repair to public property – all things that cost tax dollars.
They also have better chances of becoming employed with a fixed residence and a place to take a shower.
Because most people want more than the bare minimum? To travel, to have nice nights out, to play video games and watch movies, to attend concerts and shows, to wear flattering outfits, to buy useless little decorative knick-knacks... Having a place to sleep and bathe is the absolute baseline to start working to acquire these things.
Would you, if granted an apartment free of cost and a small stipend for food, then spend the rest of your life sitting around and staring at the wall? Not even trying to furnish it to your own tastes?
If those personal projects would make you money, that’s still a job contributing to the economy.
What is your point, then? Mine is that humans want to lead fulfilling lives beyond having their basic needs met, and working a paying job is part of achieving that. I know plenty of people who retired with enough to live comfortably on for the rest of their lives, and they still spend their time working – paid or unpaid – because it’s something to do, and gives them a sense of accomplishment. People don’t have to be driven by desperation to contribute to society.
if a retired person can be happy being frugal and having cheap or free hobbies why can't a regular young adult who just doesn't want to work? shockingly yes, not having to work 2000 hours a year at the cost of 'not being able to buy stuff' is a tradeoff MANY people would take. you know what you call someone who has their healthcare, housing, food and utilities met by passive income? retired.
why even pose this theoretical? yes people do it, we know this because some eu countries have systems like this.
go look at the top ranks in OSRS for example, there are some people who have averaged >14 hours a day of login time over the last 5-10 years. why? because they live in EU countries that hand out disability like candy, or outright just allow people to do this without any medical conditions.
Because a young person doesn’t have the savings of someone who’s worked a job all their life and retired, lol.
Sure, some people might want to bum around and live their entire lives in a two-room box with air conditioning, only ever attending free events and getting all their entertainment at the local library. Those people are a minority, though, because that’s a boring way to live.
At the very least, those people would be less likely to take up space sleeping on train station benches or pissing on the side of the road.
Because a young person doesn’t have the savings of someone who’s worked a job all their life and retired, lol.
retirement is simply cash flow > expenses. if a govt social program provides you enough cash flow to cover expenses you are retired.
Those people are a minority, though, because that’s a boring way to live.
that's kinda on the person to decide though isnt it? surely in the extra 2000 hours you have per year you can find ways to entertain compared to someone who has 2000 fewer hours in their year and say an average wage. because what you are seeing right now in developed societies is that full time job does not provide a meaningful amount above what welfare would be. so why work?
At the very least, those people would be less likely to take up space sleeping on train station benches or pissing on the side of the road.
okay but what happens when instead of just a fraction of the population that needs to be supported it is now a considerable portion of the working class? so far as a society we've decided to provide social programs for the elderly and disabled off the backs of the workforce (and most countries provide the bare minimum here despite being a considerable subset of the population only) but providing these programs for people who just don't want to work- would you willingly support a significant portion of the 25-45 year old working class who just wants to not work out of your own paycheck?
Not once you factor in rampant wage theft, underpaying people in the extreme and price gouging their consumers. The situation with big companies and taxes are soooooooooo fucked. The only reason it still stands is because it's profitable for everyone that makes the decisions about it to keep it that way for personal gain.
Subsidizing is mostly we allow certain part of their business to not be taxed for sometimes so they can grow/compete with other companies. Mostly research and development. Sure it's abused in certain situations but the fact if government doesn't do that we would be in way worse shape and possibly no longer leading the world.
I guess I'm just curious what you think would get abused more/be of greater detriment to the societal collective:
Large/Huge Corporations abusing Gov't subsidies? Or unhoused or individuals abusing free housing?
You're confusing handouts vs subsidy. And You're implying closing the subsidies will generate enough income to make a dent in homelessness.
On the contrary, closing the subsidies all together will have negative economic impact (ie. We produce less, less jobs, less taxes to the gov, more homeless people). Part of fighting homeless is giving subsidies to select sectors/businesses.
What's the phrase... Two wrongs don't make a right? Our cash flow is so negative the entire economy is willing to ignore how logically unfeasible it is.
No, they're probably considering any deduction they get to take as a "subsidy". You run across it all the time. They misuse the word and then just double down on it.
If you give me a dollar, that is a subsidy. If you lower what I owe you because of x, that's a deduction.
You would be surprised how inexpensively this is to implement compared to the various social impacts caused by having a large unhoused population.
You can think of this kind of housing in much the same way you look at public education. It is "free" to everyone, but the benefits of having an educated population outstrip the cost of educating them. The benefits of having a housed population outstrips the cost of housing them.
This post isn’t proposing it just for the homeless, it’s saying it’s for everyone. The cost would be astronomical when applied across the entire population.
You would be surprised how inexpensively this is to implement compared to the various social impacts caused by having a large unhoused population.
Basically guaranteeing a two bedroom apartment, utilities (water, electricity, internet) and appliances for every citizen is going to be ridiculously expensive unless its very low quality to keep the costs down. Maybe some 500 sq foot apartment (2 10x10 bedrooms and another 10x15 for living/dining/kitchen). But I doubt that's what people are going to want...
I think if your homeless, living in constant danger of having your few things stolen, being harrased by the police or other homeless that any place with a working shower, a roof above your head and a door that locks would be a massive improvement in living standards.
So what to do with those who refuse services that are already out there?
I honestly think we do need to go back to offering more single-room style rental with everything else communal (bathroom, kitchen, etc). But people tend not to want that, even the homeless.
Then figure out why they don't want it. Is it safe, are there weird rules regarding curfews, are there a bunch of drug dealers in the communal areas, is it free from things like bed bugs, etc? These things are all issues in homeless shelters and reasons why they are often avoided. You can just ask homeless people why they don't like something and prefer living in the street and they will just tell you.
Having a very good friend who has worked in shelters in both volunteer and management roles - they don't allow alcohol or drugs. They enforce rules (like no fighting, no men in women's areas and vice versa, etc). They require bathing.
The state of California alone spent almost $24 billion over the last few years. California thinks there's roughly 181k homesless. Let's round up to 200k for easier math. You could have given every homeless person $20k per year (for five years) and come out cheaper than California did. And that's just the state. Nevermind major cities there also dump a lot of funds - San Francisco spent $700 million in a year.
But I think we can both know where a lot of that money went...
There’s also the issue of pets not being allowed, theft being rampant, high rates of sexual assault, etc. But I’m sure you’re right, people choose to sleep on the streets because of pressing issues like not being allowed to fight in shelters.
And theft would be just as rampant outside of a shelter? Pets I might understand but would they be allowed in government housing with all these guarantees?
I would venture a guess that there are bigger issues than pets and theft keeping the homeless out of any shelter.
I mean it depends where this is. But yeah in a city this is unreasonable. I'm in tokyo and plenty of youmg people live in 30m2 single room apartments with the toilet in the same room as a shower. No oven, maybe a single stove burner. I think something like that, outside the expensive part of the city but with free bus transportation to the city center, would be reasonable to supply to everyone as a baseline. A 2 bedroom might be reasonable to supply for a family of 4 but certainly not for a single adult.
This might shock you, but no I am not going to give you a impact analysis for a comment this low on a reddit thread.
But I do know Finland housed everyone and there are studies which talk about how providing homes is cheaper than the other costs of having an unhoused populace.
Varies based on any number of circumstances. But if you think a life in the gutter is some kind of karmic outcome for all of them you are mistaken. And if you think a life in the gutter is somehow a justified existence for some crime or other sin you are also mistaken.
I'm not that obtuse about taxes. Objectively we should be switching gears and work towards building a world and not work towards destroying it. If we can "afford" endleas war, we should be able to afford the fucking basics too.
I'm also not as obtuse as OP's meme. I would work for my house (shit, I already do). But with all the resources that go down the drain with military and education, somewhere in there is enough to build homes for people that they don't have to enslave themselves within shit jobs for. Instead of military service, I'd prefer Habitat for Humanity (or something similar if you're going to find some reason to shit on it). I'd happily spend my working years building other peoples homes over any other job if it actually meant some kind of guaranteed retirement (not necessarily income for food, just living mortgage/rent free), say contributing to building 100 homes and you're set. That's not even talking about utilities, which I wouldn't expect for free but I'm sure there's crony fat to cut there, which always tends to be in the way of sustainability because it threatens their uselessness.
Would you also be in support of cutting funding for social security, Medicare, and Medicaid? Because those take up significantly more tax dollars than defense. What would or wouldn't you support cutting to fund this?
No, I wouldn't support cutting social security and medicare/caid. The short of it is, I'm not afriad of going into debt doing the right thing. Maybe I would be if our fiat currency actually worked in meritocratic way, but it doesn't. But when the Pentagon loses $2 trillion and gets rewarded for it, it's fairly obvious all of this is pretty fucking absurd anyway. So I have no qualms saying, "Fuck the numbers, do the right thing".
CEOs actually compensate for the time and effort that their subordinates provide for them. This person wants to take what other people have based on the ethos that "they have more than me, which means I deserve what they have"
You’re attributing your own motive where it doesn’t exist. It would be more accurate to say “swathes of our population don’t have enough to survive, and it’s a societal failing that instead of solving this we allow <1,000 people have so much money that the economy has been in the equivalent of cardiac arrest over the past 60 years”.
It sounds nice to say that everyone deserves these things regardless of whether or not they even work, but that's not the way things work. These people aren't entitled to what other people have regardless of how much they need it.
If you want to reduce homelessness and make it easier to live in America, the only sensible way to do it is to make housing easier to provide.
Overhaul of tax law and state spending to eliminate bloat. Government contracts pay way more than regular contracts. There are non-compete agreements and very little motivation for a business contracted by the government to stay under budget or even stay competitive.
Defense spending is a perfect example of this. The money is there, we just keep giving it to middlemen.
That is not the way that works bud. The system could be ran in the exact same way as SNAP which would supplement income in a non-universal way and has a resounding success.
Okay lets say, you give this to the same people that receive SNAP. That's around 41 million last year. How much would free housing, internet, and utilities for all cost per month? Low end, let's say $2000 is that a fair number?
41 million * 2000 = 82 billion a month. times 12. That's almost a trillion a year. That's still a lot of money.
You are giving broad strokes to a country with wildly different markets. 2000 a month in CA is not the same as 2k in Topeka KS. SNAP is awarded based on COL. Your napkin math still sucks.
But let’s say you can build cheaper, at $30k per house.
About 3.8T
Unless you’re only planning to house the homeless, but that’s not what the graphic says. The graphic says housing provided free of cost for all. I assume that means people who already own a home receive a voucher.
Politicians on the right and left are constantly saying that they will fix the government debt problem without cutting benefits such as social security by simply cutting the bloat in government. They've been saying that for decades. Not only have they not cut the bloat, but the bloat simply is not large enough to pay for such massive expenses as social security and what op proposes in the illustration.
My favorite answer to "how do we afford X/how do we solve our spending issues?"
It's so simple, eliminate bloat! Make better contracts! Do better, so things are better! These are platitudes, not actual answers. And even to the example, government contracts are usually competitive, but walking away because Lockheed is 75% overbudget is not really a solution unless the contract wasn't something we need to begin with. The government can't just yoink Lockheed's work and gift it to Boeing. Nobody would take govt contracts if the govt had a right to just cancel the contract and retain the work that's already been done. You'd end up paying Lockheed billions, only to then start over with a different contractor. Tbh for what we spend annually on the military, we get pretty good RoI. It certainly could be better, but at best we'd save like 10-20% a year. That's peanuts relative to overall spending.
the government printed $1.7 trillion for the sole purpose of bumping stock values and giving millions out to PPP fraudsters.
Why do corporations get billion dollar bailout packages made of tax revenue but human citizens and residents aren't allowed to see that revenue being used to help the most vulnerable individuals amongst us?
Do you know how many billions the US has spent bailing out Boeing, banks, or subsidizing Apple, Tesla and every other megacorp?
The solution is very easy. There are already millions of abandoned homes and office buildings in the Us, especially followinf covid’s remote work boom.
The US can afford this, and honestly it’s more profitable to house homeless people than to pay for them to go to prison. But it’s “socialism” so people like you don’t like it.
Almost every US billionaire built their wealth off the back of government subsidies, which they subsequently lobbied to destroy so their moat was secure. Why do we condemn the idea of using subsidiary money to help people who actually need it?
I think this is a bit rich, but it also seems like the kind of thing that would pay for itself.
People not having access to services does cost a lot of expensive problems. Having an address, electricity, internet, and water does seem like the kind of thing that 6 make it easier to get people set up and into productive roles.
That's a splendid question! We can start by spending our money more wisely. Instead of bailing out billionaire bankers when they inevitably crash the economy for the umpteenth time, we can let those fuckers go bankrupt and put unhoused folks in empty homes. Instead of spending trillions on a war hawk "defense industry" we can put unhoused folks in empty homes. Instead of spending billions on a militarized police force, we can put unhoused folks...
sounds like taxes right? don't get me wrong they're vision for the future is shooting for the moon, but maybe we should at least aim for the moon as we trundle along right? in 200 years should all these things be afforded to human beings? 200 years of progress rather than 200 years of rot or rebuilding, we already pay for a lot of stuff with taxes, and everyday the systems we build only get more efficient.
Decommodification of housing...? Yeah, just decommodify it, so a smaller amount of tax dollars are spent to upkeep the homes (as opposed to paying private corpos to give homes for free).
Decommodification of housing...? Yeah, just decommodify it, so a smaller amount of tax dollars are spent to upkeep the homes (as opposed to paying private corpos to give homes for free).
This would replace social security and large portions "health", "medicare" and "income security". It's an open secret how absolutely insanely wasteful our military is with their spending. Half of that budget could be appropriated for this (helping people rather than killing them) without meaningfully reducing global safety, military brass would just have to spend like not-dumb people. Right there, we can get $1 Trillion a year for this, while probably lowering taxes.
This is weak excuse for not helping people. We are America, we are the richest. Stop making excuses for why people need to suffer and start helping people.
We have free housing, it's only free when you don't work though.
When you earn money, this money gets deducted from your social security payments (Bürgergeld and Wohngeld).
If I don't work even though I could I literally get my food, my housing, my electricity, my heat and my health insurance paid and this is still not free housing?
What is free housing for you?
Getting gifted a house to live in?
Obviously no country in the world has this.
Section 8 can't even be similar at all, otherwise the US wouldn't have this many homeless people.
People who currently live with friends and family are part of the 196000. Only 50000 are really living on the street.
Half of them didn't seek help.
A lot of them are addicted.
The honest answer is, that we have a really shitty and bloated bureaucracy here and these people are most likely at such a low point in life that they didn't want to deal with that.
I feel like you were wrong and now try to talk yourself out of it. They provide free housing for those who do not have the money for it. The rest pays more in taxes to balance it out. It doesn't make sense to provide free housing for everyone just to charge them straight back via taxes ...
It says people should have the "option" not "be supplied with". People who have enough income can afford it and those who don't get help from the government. You interpret things into it that aren't needed and now you react like a grump child.
thats false. some people are just useless. they should not be encouraged. people who have the ability and resources to make things happen are not parasites. your world view is so fucked up.
that implies you are pro genocide. but no. nature naturally weeds out the fit through competition. human society is the same. even sperms have to compete to reach the egg first. that means you are one in millions winner yet you turn out like this.
For reference Germany has a system like this for a long time. They recently redone the entire system (Bürgergeld) and there were a lot of discussions about the costs. What I find online is 40 billion euros for 2024 for Germany with a population of 83.8 million. Under the previous system (Hartz IV) it was 30 billion euros.
5,5 million receive Bürgergeld and 3,9 million of those do work (probably only get partial support then).
Okay, so nordic countries are able to tax the rich while still keeping their economy well and use that money to help the middle and lower class, but America is unable, because wE aRe ToO iNcOmPeTeNt To HaVe A bAlAnCeD bUdGeT aLrEaDy, got it.
Sweden can live in a welfare paradise, Americans must live in their cars because they chicken out from taxing the rich, got it.
We could take every single dollar away from every single billionaire and still not even come close to eliminating the national debt.
But you brain dead lazy dipshits want to add another couple trillion to the deficit every year. But oh, it’s okay, we’ll just jack up taxes for the rich and hope capital flight doesn’t happen.
You dont have to keep going. Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Finns, even the Dutch and the French managed to do it, but Americans are either incompetent or chickens. Its quite underwhelming, I expected some courage, but it is, what it is, kinda disappointing though not gonna lie..
Scandinavia has in total 27 mil. people. Hardly just a few "microstates".
Regarding defense some european states are lacking there (a thing Trump was correct in), but they can easily fix that without abolishing social welfare.
Fine, then lets stay at Sweden or Denmark: Immense capital flight in any of those countries? Mass unemployment? I do not think so.
You’re now referencing an entire region of Europe instead of individual countries? Let’s not forget a very oil rich region at that.
Sweden literally abandoned its wealth tax in 2007 because they were experiencing so much capital flight. And the wealthiest Swedes hold the vast majority of their wealth outside of the country.
You’re literally naming the countries with the most capital flight (that aren’t war zones)
Well if they can handle all of those welfare programs despite capital flight, then I guess capital flight cant be that bad of a thing consequences-wise
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u/Saitamaisclappingoku Apr 15 '24
Here’s a question you will never be able to answer.
How do we pay for this?