Starting at the Bottom

I think UBI and an expansion of social benefits is the most logical way to make progress towards restoring cash flow overall, or at least make its reach into lower economic much deeper than it is now. There's actual proof in other countries that it works. But our current governmental makeup seems to be content with the current way things are. The promise of a democracy is that the government serves the people and I think society has lost sight of that. We allow too much to be done by those who we elect that is inconsistent to what would help the most and don't hold them accountable enough to fix it. UBI, for example, would be fought tooth and nail from happening simply for political points. There would be puritan reasoning stouted about why it's bad because it wasn't earned, just like any other social economic support. The funny thing is that we'd see an economic boom from UBI since it would make cash flow more rapidly by giving it to those who would spend it immediately. We collectively need to solve it but there are too many trying to find a way to work with the orphan-crushing-machine when we need to have a discourse on why this machine is here in the first place. The layoffs in the tech sector, which has been the poster child of the American dream promised is still alive and attainable, I think will rattle a class that has felt unaffected before. I cannot find the source, but there was a quote I saw a few months back that has stuck with me (paraphrasing:) "the pain of action will only be considered when the pain of inaction is greater." We're seeing pain reach more people, raising that bar for them to trigger action, and waking more people up that these problems affect everyone now and into the future. I think the core of the fantasy you had isn't accessible. There's too much that has been put in place by organizations that are making the problem worse to prevent it happening to them within the current system. If it was decided to redistribute property, the large entities that are collecting these exorbitant amount of assets that "price out" the ability for those without assets to participate in the market would simply leverage those assets in the courts to have that decision overturned. But, legislation to limit the total amount of property a single, private entity could own would force the sell of assets all at the same time and the market would theoretically make them available at a lower price (since supply would be great.) Same for national rules for rent control, preventing the exploitation of renters and allowing them to retain cash to be able to buy. There's a lot around rule setting and socialized assistance that could move the needle if the whole legislative part of our government was focused on the people. One last thing regarding the "illegal to not own a home" part of your fantasy is that, unfortunately, is the one part that may become reality. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments to essentially determine if homelessness can be made illegal, and they are leaning to agree that homelessness can be made against the law. Without any recourse to house them and making it easy for local governments to assess fines or imprison those who cannot afford to buy in markets that everyone is being priced out of.