Indulge me for the coming delusion, but if we ignore who this is, forget all the reasons we know that we can’t trust him, and allow ourselves just a few moments to hope that we could live in such a world.
A world where manual labor is no longer needed, where people can just exist as large mammals are meant to exist. Robots will handle it all and we can just do as we please… and the robots are going to be plentiful because once enough of the process of making a robot becomes automated, the cost of it will go to zero. But to get there it is going to require a ton of money… these robots are going to be way too expensive for people to actually buy them, so investors and governments will help out. The investors will eventually lose everything, but that will put us on the way to having everything we need to be created through completely automated systems.
Of course, there will still be jobs for those who really want them - or more likely, who want them and are good at them - or even more likely, who knows the right people… but if we can get our basic needs taken care of it night not fully end poverty but it would be a step in the right direction.
But, alas… It’s Musk saying it so it’s only to further enrich himself and won’t actually happen.
If you’re talking world wide you could give everyone on earth that is currently in poverty about $1200. That’s enough to help a great deal in poor countries, but it would be very temporary. If you’re talking just the USA, you’d be giving everyone in poverty $30k. That would certainly keep people out of poverty for a while. But under capitalism where people have to work many would be back in poverty in a year. Cash infusion would only work if it was permanent like a UBI.
Even if you spent that money to build free housing all over the country, it wouldn’t be enough to end poverty, though that would probably be the best use of the money. Just flood the market with housing availability and living gets way cheaper.
You could eliminate a bunch of systemic issues with a trillion dollars that would amount to essentially ending many of the effects of poverty for most people in poverty I would think.
Things like food insecurity, shelter, etc.
You’re right that just spending a trillion dollars as a one off grant to everyone in poverty wouldn’t do much, though. It’d need to be used strategically.
It’s the covid checks versus the infrastructure bill lmao. Should we give everyone $1200 or like build roads that everyone uses. Clearly one has long term economic impacts and one has short term economic impacts.
Same with how you acquire the money. Raising annual taxes vs civil forfeiture. All this shit is just a distraction from turning the tax system upside down and not relying on the poor/middle class to fund profits for the .01%
I mean yes if we as individuals go out and spend said money immediately on food it’s not going to last long. But if a village put their $1200 together to build critical infrastructure they could make life much better with their share. It’s like a government spending program or something!