That puzzled my brain as well, however it comes straight from the horse's mouth
https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2018/data-on-display/military-civilian-compare.htm

Of course the US military is not just active in the states, there are bases all over the world employing people and the US has many overseas territories as well.

This is a comparison of civilians (143m) and active military (1.3m). It does not state that 142m are employed by the military. You can tell that's what they mean because of this quote:

"In 2017, civilian workers outnumbered military personnel nearly 110 to 1."

Ah, my bad, I read it wrong. That makes a lot more sense! So how many people do actually receive a pay check from the US military.

From what I can find there are 1.3m active duty military, 0.8m in reserve, and 0.7m civilians employed by the military. 

https://www.governing.com/archive/military-civilian-active-duty-employee-workforce-numbers-by-state.html

I had to do the math myself for civilians in excel real quick using the data by state but the article mentions the other two numbers. 

I have been working in Finance Planning and Accounting for around 20 years for big multinational companies, and I have an MBA in Finance and Controllership. I am also an avid reader of economics articles. So I can say I know a thing or two about it.

I stand by my statement, leftists, especially the far left ones, are the flat earthers of economics. It doesnt matter if the truth is right in front of them, they will find a way to dismiss it. Hell, left wing people in Latin America still believe that the freezing of prices by the government works. Left wing people from all over the world still think the government can just print money magically and give it to the people in the form of all benefits you can imagine and absolutely no consequence will come from that.

And when the consequence comes, instead of looking back and admitting the error, they will blame someone else or double down on the error.

I really, really wish we could see some country implement UBI for all it's citizens in the format the comments here are requesting, it would be really interesting to watch.

Oh and another thing, actually common sense do apply for economics. The same can be said about looking at history to understand what works and what do not.

I think it's more a case of the minimum wage increase above the inflation for several years in a row during Lula/Dilma governments. Also I believe the average amount being paid is much higher than only 4% of the minimum wage.

Also Bolsa Familia is not a true UBI program, there are several rules for people to make part of it and only 14 million families receive the amount. Even when it was created and was more relevant it was just a little bit of help for poor families to buy some food and make sure the kids could stay in school, as the amount was never enough pay for your rent for example. 

It is just a % of the minimum wage, and the minimum wage in Brazil itself is already a sad joke.

It's a combination of both. If I'm not mistaken the average is about 16% (170 BRL), most poor income of families in Brazil have 4 people

But I made I mistake, when the benefinit started the limit person per family was 3, the calculus was different, it was 24% of minimum wage (by the time) + only 7% per person who were either child, teenager, pregnant or nursing mother. Hence the limit you could get was 95 BRL, roughly 45% of the minimum wage instead of 80% I thought 

However the accumulated inflation for the last 18 years is 294%, hence the threshold of Bolsa Familia should be 375 BRL (around 38% of minimum wage)

And you are totally right, even 375 BRL for a 5 people family would be already far bellow anything necessary to make a living, 70% of beficiary families have at least one person with a regular paid job 

Yes but this is the point, Bolsa Familia should be just some help for really poor families to at least have some food, or help with the main expenses. As you correctly pointed out most families receiving the benefit already have people in the workforce or already receive some kind of benefit. If you were to give people a wage to give them some decent living then the cost per family would be 5x-10x more the current amount which is something the government has no money from. It would have to cut from other places or print/borrow the money. What Brazil needs is a constant period of economic growth with high employment so people actually don't have to depend on government benefits. Easier said than done though...

Simple things like "do not spend more than your income", "if you go in debt make sure your debt is low and can be repaid", "if you go in debt make sure most of it is related to capital investments that can generate income in the future", "do not create more than required monetary inflation as it tax the poor and creates inequality" should be common sense for everyone. 

Just because some nuts think the earth is flat does not mean they should be taken serious or their "common sense view" of the shape of the universe should be taken into account. It is simply wrong. Yet a lot of people still defends it. 

I would argue that this is an inaccurate interpretation of left wing economics. 

Generally, left wing economics advocates for the redistribution of wealth, not the printing of additional money. The goal is generally to encourage the flow of money from the rich to the poor, either through direct intervention such as taxation funding welfare, or indirectly by supporting the rights of workers.