1) That's a major benefit already of BI: people actually have more financial means to develop a safety cushion.
> just flat-out blows all their money
1) They'll do that anyway if they have an addiction or some sort of character flaw. There exist underground economies for the benefits (obviously at a lesser cash equivalent) to enable them to convert benefits to what they really want.
2) If it's endemic, the current high-danger interventions such as substance abuse homes, child protective services are usually invoked.
The basic response to the general question you're asking that is usually given is private charity. And it's not so much because of some conservative political agenda, but because you're talking about edge cases, and there is no feasible system anyone's suggested to get people "emergency cash" without bureaucratic delays. BI (or negative income tax, I prefer) is not a perfect system. You should be asking whether it would be superior for the people by in large who most need it than the current byzantine, perversely incentivized, and corruption-prone systems.
1) That's a major benefit already of BI: people actually have more financial means to develop a safety cushion.
> just flat-out blows all their money
1) They'll do that anyway if they have an addiction or some sort of character flaw. There exist underground economies for the benefits (obviously at a lesser cash equivalent) to enable them to convert benefits to what they really want.
2) If it's endemic, the current high-danger interventions such as substance abuse homes, child protective services are usually invoked.
The basic response to the general question you're asking that is usually given is private charity. And it's not so much because of some conservative political agenda, but because you're talking about edge cases, and there is no feasible system anyone's suggested to get people "emergency cash" without bureaucratic delays. BI (or negative income tax, I prefer) is not a perfect system. You should be asking whether it would be superior for the people by in large who most need it than the current byzantine, perversely incentivized, and corruption-prone systems.