> There is no treatment for this sort of stupidity where people do damage to themselves and to everyone else because of a really bad judgment.
I'd argue there is; why do people steal stuff? Because it's easier and more profitable than jobs they can do. What's the solution? Meaningful employment for everyone. People generally don't steal if they earn a living wage that doesn't kill them. (some still would because they get a kick out of it though but there's therapy available for them if they want to change)
I do wonder; my naive expectation is that while it will solve "petty criminality out of need" it would do little to "pretty criminality out of boredom / for-fun".
And BI would be attacked for the latter - some ingrateful on-basic-income person committing vandalism for no financial benefit. It's the "workhouse"/"treadmill" argument - supposedly boredom breeds crime and people must be made to work, even pointless or below-poverty tasks, else the streets get taken over by criminals or worse.
Like tourists taking over the country.
Arguments acknowledging (and steering / manipulating) feelings weigh stronger here than economic facts, alas.
Right. Where I live, there is plenty of vandalism. Breaking public benches, defecating in public toilets outside the bowl, rampant littering when there are trash cans all over the place, etc.
There's no financial gain in that. Doing this won't get you healthcare (we've got socialized healthcare anyway, and it's pretty much free for "the poor"), won't help you eat. It's just stupid, antisocial people. How would giving them money help any of that?
UBI is not the panacea imo. We need UBS, and not the bank - universal basic services. Whether that's healthcare, education, unemployment, free transportation, food stamps for the needy, housing loans, more government jobs, etc.
UBI was an experiment carried out during COVID and all it did was elevate prices and push a lot of people into Robinhood, while elevating the debt crisis.
> UBI was an experiment carried out during COVID and all it did...
I would not put the one-time covid cheques on par with the various rigorous UBI and/or free housing experiments that have been run over the last 30 years
But the COVID cheques were the only ones done at a scale comparable enough to what a UBI programme would look like in the US, one that could inform government on what usage would look like.
Free housing is just another form of UBS that I was talking about.
Because it's easier and more profitable than jobs they can do. What's the solution? Meaningful employment for everyone. People generally don't steal if they earn a living wage that doesn't kill them.
You seem to believe that everyone wants to work. I don't think this is a given.
You also seem to believe that people who steal are just trying to make ends meet. Quite a lot of thiefs are addicts who steal to feed their drug habit. Given the cost of drugs in the street, unless they have really good jobs (and can keep them even when taking drugs), they will resort to stealing just to be able to buy their fix.
I'd argue there is; why do people steal stuff? Because it's easier and more profitable than jobs they can do. What's the solution? Meaningful employment for everyone. People generally don't steal if they earn a living wage that doesn't kill them. (some still would because they get a kick out of it though but there's therapy available for them if they want to change)