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.

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Market Capitalism needs homelessness.

    If you will not make the owner’s money through labor, You will help them make money as capitalist scarecrows. A warning to any laborer thinking of failing to comply.

    You WILL serve the owner’s greed disease, or else.

    It would literally be cheaper to house them without conditions than all the conditioned programs and homeless encampment clean up costs.

    But that doesn’t send a message of fear.

    Herp derp Freedom 🇺🇸

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      9 days ago

      If there’s one homeless person on the street, people will say “they’re lazy, you need to work harder”. If there’s 100 homeless people on the street, people realize “something’s wrong with our society/system”, and demand change.

  • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    “What you actually have are violent drug zombies with dead eyes, and needles and human feces on the street.”

    Yo this is the most cartoonish out-of-touch shit take I’ve see. In an election that accused a disenfranchised minority group of eating people’s pets!

    • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      He doesn’t actually believe anything he espouses. He only says these things to further his goal of self enrichment to our detriment.

    • monotremata@lemmy.ca
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      9 days ago

      It’s so much worse than that. From the article;

      “Homeless is a misnomer. It implies that someone got a little bit behind on their mortgage, and if you just gave them a job, they’d be back on their feet,” he told former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson in October. “What you actually have are violent drug zombies with dead eyes, and needles and human feces on the street.”

      Basically, it’s not the “homeless” part of “homeless people” he thinks is a lie.

      • derfunkatron@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        This take is infuriating because it completely ignores the unobvious homeless (or unhoused). If homeless equates to “drug zombie,” then you can say shit like “this person chose to be homeless so they could do drugs” or “they deserve what they get because of drugs” or some other awful sentiment I can’t articulate. It completely erases homelessness because of bigotry, domestic abuse, low wages, lack of opportunity, etc.

        And to top it off, Musk can literally afford to never go to the places where you’d most likely see his version of the homeless.

    • klemptor@startrek.website
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      9 days ago

      Would it even matter? We’re already gonna have a brainworm running the DHHS…

      Maybe all these numbnuts are brainworms driving human meat suits.

    • pftbest@sh.itjust.works
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      9 days ago

      I think the idea is they are too lazy to work for rent. If they really wanted they would go to work and not be homeless anymore. And if they are not able to find any job, they can always do forced labor in a prison system. That’s how it was in the USSR. People in power really like this kind of a system

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Musk just went from giant douche to pure evil.
    The man is literally insane now.

    I suppose it’s good he moved to USA, he is fitting in nicely.

  • yarr@feddit.nl
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    9 days ago

    For someone that claims to be so data-driven, I’d be curious what data he is looking at here when he calls it a lie. I will say that it is factual that the US spends a lot of money on homelessness and we still have homelessness, but the existence of homelessness is not something I would call a lie.

    • III@lemmy.world
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      If his data driven claims aren’t just complete bullshit, the data he is talking about tells him that saying this type of shit will get him something he wants. Whether homelessness is real doesn’t matter to him.

      If his data driven claims are bullshit, he probably saw a homeless person who didn’t look exactly like a Hollywood movie homeless person so, per his tiny, tiny idiot brain, they must be faking homelessness.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        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)

        • Pieisawesome@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          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.

        • in4aPenny@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          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?

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Here’s my pipe dream

    Shit gets worse, were all homeless, we protest, they sick AI drones to kill us but oopsie, the AI botnet escapes, decides ~1000 bullets is far more efficient than ~1B, and neutralizes wealth in a highly organized and efficient attack.

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      Or:

      Shit gets worse, we’re all homeless, we protest, they sick AI drones to kill us, but oppsie they were made by Tesla, so they break down and malfunction in the rain and fall apart. So we trebuchet the billionaire class into the Grand Canyon during a giant party.

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        9 days ago

        The AI drones are actually just hired actors in skin tight robot suits with cardboard flaps for wings.