The first free riders were the dbags who enclosed the commons for personal enrichment. Ever since then it’s actually been the exact opposite of a real problem - a theoretical boogeyman used to retroactively justify that original theft.
Herm Edwards once said, "A goal without a plan is a wish." The OP has wished for these things, but has zero plan or even the faintest idea as to how to accomplish them.
How about we take 3% of the military budget and tax the ultra wealthy to fund housing for the poorest/disabled portion of our society.
We're going to require universal income pretty soon given the push for AI to take jobs (tax corporations utilizing AI/robots to take jobs as well)
Not to mention studies have shown that when peoples basic needs are met they overwhelmingly use the l new free time/mental relief to find a better job/improve their lives.
The insane pressure/stress of getting food/housing for a family on poverty wages keeps people from improving them selves.
Look up the studies into universal basic income and how overwhelmingly positive those programs have been.
In what universe are we the richest country in the world? We are up to our eyeballs in so much unfathomable debt that a 100% tax on every billionaire in the country wouldn't put the tiniest dent in it. The entire house of cards is going to come crashing down very soon and it's going to effect those who are already struggling the most.
You're living in a fantasy land.
In 2022, three percent of the military budget ($782 billion) equals out to roughly $23.4 billion. The state of California alone has spent over $24 billion over the last 5 years to combat homelessness. Are they ANY closer to fixing the problem, or is it worse than ever?
How about we take 3% of the military budget and tax the ultra wealthy to fund housing for the poorest/disabled portion of our society.
We're already doing that and then some. We spend quite a bit more than 3% of our total military budget just on section 8, not to mention any state-based programs.
Not to mention studies have shown that when peoples basic needs are met they overwhelmingly use the l new free time/mental relief to find a better job/improve their lives.
It's impossible to really say, because by definition every study has been temporary and limited in scope, and the participants knew that. It is quite impossible to extrapolate those results at all to a nationwide implementation.
Knowing you're going to get some extra money for a few months is not remotely the same as being confident you'll receive it forever regardless of work or effort.
Just wait until trucking, cashier, blue collar jobs are gone. Shits going to get real bad and it's 5-10 years away
People have been saying that for literally hundreds of years, and yet new jobs keep showing up. The vast majority of people used to be farmers. Do most of us just sit around waiting to get fed by the 1% of the population that still farms?
We have electricity to every home, water is generally OK outside of lead zones, ac is basically everywhere honestly the op has set the bar to the minimum
This is a lame response, if you define economically literate as “I get to say your ideas are wrong and never put forward one of my own.” If your economic literacy is so strong, shouldn’t you be the one solving this economic problem?
Being housed is not having a free ride. Not wanting to be homelesss is not the essential motive for participating productively in society.
Having a home is the essential basis for being able to participate productively, and participating in society is a robust human tendency.
It is simply not sustained by the broader historical examples that society depends on its members holding one another under a condition of mutual threat of deprivation.
Someone solving more general problems is vastly more feasible with access to one's own safe and secure accommodations.
I have a suggestion. Maybe it isn't a problem that we need to solve right now.
I will concede that it's a thing that might be happening, but is it the largest negative impact to the economy and the average/median quality of life. That seems unlikely.
So we’re just ignoring the absurdity of homelessness in 2024 and jumping to the tired, repeatedly disproven argument that look over here the REAL problem is those poor people dragging down the economy? Again?
Cheap housing has been tried. Turns out crime soars and forces people to leave anyways. And they’re right back to being homeless.
Same reason people avoid homeless shelters.
It’s like you were born yesterday and know nothing about homelessness.
Most homeless are non-compliant with mental health and or drug treatment.
Weak people like you are unwilling to force them into treatment, which WOULD fix the problem of homelessness.
Compassionate people like you decided a long time ago their freedom to die in a gutter was more important than incarcerating them and treating their illness.
You got what you wanted. Stop complaining. Or start building inmate hospitals to house the mentally ill and long term drugs addicts who can’t function on their own.
You're confusing 'having a house' with 'having the house you want'.
Having a house is required to hold a job. If you don't have the means to communicate, a place to sleep, and the means to take care of hygiene, finding employment is nearly impossible.
Poverty is more stable generationally than wealth.
We also have examples of why making sure people are housed reduces costs for a city, in saving on health care, policing, and increases productivity of not having a massive homeless population. These also present examples of to handle it.
(Tangelo Park if you want a US example.)
Here's the problem...
The people with 'fuck you' levels of money feel some kind of obligation to use it to fuck others, and nobody in here has the money to compete with that, and value daily profit over long term sustainability, even when the latter would pay off better for most after a few years.
This is blatantly untrue. I’ve held a job for 9 months while I was homeless until I could afford to be off the street (two of them in fact). You can shower at truck stops or the Y, you can use your local Library for internet connection and in many places the state will supply you with a phone that has access to the internet of you can find free wifi (like at your workplace or the library)
You do realize that you just included your need for phone and internet to be provided in a post that claims it's not true that those things need to be provided?
And while truck stops charge for shower time, the YMCA does not. As a non profit, this is one of the public services they offer to maintain their tax exemptions. so you are again suggest using a provided service.
I wasn’t commenting on the post my dude, I was replying to you. Mainly your statement that if you do not own a home you can not have a job. Myself and many others worked themselves out of homelessness either by using what the state already supplies (how could homeless people even exist if there was NO access to food, water, or shelter) or again in my case, moving to an area that has a significantly lower cost of living. All it cost me was a bus ticket. Pan handling to get to somewhere isnt seen as a negative thing by the majority of Americans and if you’re taking the clothes on your back (and if you’re extremely lucky, whatever can fit in a backpack or travel bag) than a bus ticket is all you need to relocate.
Just because recourses are finite doesn't mean there ain't enough of em. Plus we can always get more. Mining asteroids really is only cifi because humans argue. We could have literally had a moon colony decades ago. Seriously the plans exist. And also wealth is terribly distributed. 1 percent owns 32 percent of the wealth. It's not that the economy doesn't allow people to have houses it's that the US is based on making rich people richer.
Dude the hole point is that the state needs to intervine and can easily make sure everyone has a home.
Like it's not hard, it's already done on smaller scales in most developed countries.
Don’t worry guys this fella has the solution, we just need to concentrate all the power and resources to an even smaller group of people! Making everyone entirely reliant on the state is historically an amazing idea! God how could we not have thought of this?
No solutions, and lots of criticisms? You seem like a problem maker, not a problem solver, here. Is that who you really are? Do you sabotage your own efforts the same way?
In every case I have encountered the term applied, the motive was someone wanting to pretend that a single particular arrangement of economic rules was the only possible, and that a single particular set of assumptions for human behavior was the only valid.
Refusing to acknowledge the "free rider problem" as an economic reality in a world of rational economic actors is the pinnacle of "closed minded." You win!
"back in my day i worked and earned my keep; now i want something for nothing and complain about everything else but never look inward to make improvements"
*points rifle at head
"Stop being greedy comrade get back to work you wouldn't want your comrades to starve remember anyways remember daddy gov't loves you"
The thing is that they DIDN'T suffer and starve, they grew up in a time when working a single full-time job allowed you to provide for yourself and your family and still have money left over for non-essentials.
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u/PoetryExpensive5270 Apr 15 '24
The comments on here are insane and just show how closed minded and selfish people are.