The welfare industry is a right-wing circus

[Idaho]

Happy 2014 all.

This is an interesting article that looks at examples of giving money directly to poor people as a model of social welfare. What strikes me is that it is the political right who, through the incessant scape goating of the poor, create the complex, expensive, oppressive and ultimately ineffective means-test and socially controlling welfare industry. We are lead to believe that the vast numbers of our poor are undeserving and idle, and don't deserve pennies, but that the few rich deserve to have the state geared to their needs.

London, May 2009. A small experiment involving thirteen homeless men takes off. They are street veterans. Some of them have been sleeping on the cold tiles of The Square Mile, the financial center of the world, for more than forty years. Their presence is far from cheap. Police, legal services, healthcare: the thirteen cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds. Every year.

That spring, a local charity takes a radical decision. The street veterans are to become the beneficiaries of an innovative social experiment. No more food stamps, food kitchen dinners or sporadic shelter stays for them. The men will get a drastic bailout, financed by taxpayers. They'll each receive 3,000 pounds, cash, with no strings attached. The men are free to decide what to spend it on; counseling services are completely optional. No requirements, no hard questions. The only question they have to answer is:

What do you think is good for you?

https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-w...50894-e44e2c00