Opinion of basic income?

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A good idea, although not a silver bullet.

(I laugh at people who seriously thought the Swiss would vote for it though)

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As a strategy for decreasing poverty it blows accepted stuff like the minimum wage and workfare out the window though.

Telling people what they can spend their money on (your second point) even if it given to them is just another tactic of hating the poor for no reason. Yes, drugs are a concern as is ensuring children, if any, are nourished, but if they prefer a Play Station to food, you can't really stop them. Nor should you tell them what is best for them.

Children do muddy it up, but yes, a food card can coexist with it.

And this. Irt children Brazil does it best, by linking Bolsa Familia with school attendance. not that it didn't stop conservatives there crying that the poor would just spend all the money drinking.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

As a strategy for decreasing poverty it blows accepted stuff like the minimum wage and workfare out the window though.

Telling people what they can spend their money on (your second point) even if it given to them is just another tactic of hating the poor for no reason. Yes, drugs are a concern as is ensuring children, if any, are nourished, but if they prefer a Play Station to food, you can't really stop them. Nor should you tell them what is best for them.

Children do muddy it up, but yes, a food card can coexist with it.

And this. Irt children Brazil does it best, by linking Bolsa Familia with school attendance. not that it didn't stop conservatives there crying that the poor would just spend all the money drinking.

Uh, how is giving poor and middle-class people generous welfare benefits "hating the poor?"  I'm totally against the conservative strategy of demonizing poor people as low character individuals who got there because of their own inferiority, as they almost always get into poverty due to at least some factors beyond their control and such demonization shows a profound ignorance of reality and lack of empathy.

But does the state not have an obligation to use its laws to encourage people to make wholesome decisions that benefit society?  Ultimately, people can do what they want with their lives, but the state shouldn't be subsidizing decisions that are bad for society, and should be subsidizing decisions that are good for society.

I also think that you can recognize that human beings are frail, behave in predictable ways, engage in irrational short-term thinking, and often have little self-control... without castigating them or looking down on them for it.

Because existing strategies don't help. existing benefit systems perversely discourage useful work and further education, and encourage worthless mini jobs that don't benefit society as a whole. Perhaps the Bi isn't the best way to solve this issue (perhaps a negative income tax is better), but the existing way benefits are set-up is they are only given to some arbitrary group of despondents, and as soon as you dare leave under your own will, the government immediately punishes you for it.