Summary
Elon Musk has called homelessness a “lie” and “propaganda,” claiming advocacy groups profit from maintaining high homelessness rates.
Partnering with Donald Trump, Musk is pushing for drastic federal budget cuts targeting programs for vulnerable populations, including food stamps and healthcare.
Trump’s plan includes forcing unhoused individuals into treatment or institutionalization.
Critics argue these approaches criminalize homelessness while ignoring root causes like lack of affordable housing.
Homelessness in the U.S. has reached record levels, with 650,000 people affected in 2023, prompting calls for evidence-based solutions over punitive measures.
Homelessness couldn’t possibly be the result of late stage capitalism though, right?
It’s a result of any stage of capitalism
Excellent point.
Yeah, during the communist era in my country all the homeless were locked up in prisons.
At least that gave them shelter, capitalism can’t even do that.
Pretty sure that’s what their shooting for here as well
Artificial Scarcity
It’s also interesting to think about the level of artificial unemployment. In theory everyone could work… and a lot less hours, and we would have no scarcity.
We would never do it but I have a theory that we could set aside 20T (less than 1 year of GDP) and it would be enough money to build everyone in the U.S. a house and provide free housing for everyone in America, without ever touching the initial investment, and setting aside 3% to assure if we keep inflation below 3% a year if would cover housing indefinitely. That’s based off the 2.5 people per household average, and building a new house every 30 years at a base price of $250,000. Which at mass production, would be the equivalent of a much more costly house. Could repurpose what we have to house people until everyone got moved in over a generation.
What that does is free up ~$1400-$1900 dollars a month for the average household, and instead of having to stash money in savings over the worries of losing a job and becoming homeless (which stunts the economy), it incentivises people to go eat at a restaurant more often, have a kid they were worried about having, buy nicer things. All of which is spending money and boosting the economy. More kids… Less/near 0 homeless… and booming economy that will offset the original investment. Stress levels down, happiness levels up… which should also mean health issues should decrease.
Who knows…
(That’s over 2T a year being added back into the economy, also we don’t have to build all new, refurbish/keep older homes that people want works as well, figure out solutions that have less impact on the environment, and can plan more walkable, heathier towns when building them)
GDP is not taxed revenue or availability of funds.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the monetary value of all finished goods and services produced within a country during a specific period. (I used gen AI for this paragraph).
According to the CBO, they expect to collect $4.864 trillion in taxes in 2025 (source: https://www.cbo.gov/topics/taxes ).
Unless you are going to forcibly steal assets from companies (which would lead to amass exodus from the US economy and cause a massive depression) you’d never get 20 trillion.
This idea is a nice thought, but impossible and not how the economy works.
Very nice idea, but that’s assuming the 1% give a fuck about helping people and not having an army of slaves to make everything they want. Why does money have to be involved in feeding or housing human beings?