[notthegov]

In my experience, your characteristization of why people are poor is wrong and ignores the daily struggles the working poor faces. I agree that most people are flawed but that's because we are not taught in school how to deal with adversity or how to live life. People in general have poor critical and analytical thinking skills, and get trapped in a vicious cycle with no hope for a better life.

I grew up poor and my mother worked to get us into the middle class. As an adult, I have been poor and wealthy, and have good friends that are decent people but are trapped in a system of poverty, or a community of gangs and a cycle of jail. Life is incredibly hard and it's not as easy as saying that poor people have vices.

Last year, I'd buy breakfast for homeless friends on Hollywood Blvd. then go eat the free breakfast on the 28th floor of the Ritz-Carlton Residences. I lived there and I can assure you, wealthy people are as crazy, addicted and ignorant as any poor person. The amount of criminality and corruption within the 1%, and how the police and even retired high-level government officials protect them, is astonishing.

I wrote a previous comment on why I think if rich people were smarter then there'd be less poor people. We need a society with better systems where there's less friction and challenges for people to overcome. And for many reasons, I see Basic Income as one of those better systems.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11469080